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Nephilim Jetfighter

2023-03-09T09:42:03Z

2601:1C0:5000:CFF0:3C54:264A:E1AF:BED0: /* Usage by other chapters */

[[File:Nephilim Jetfighters.jpg|right|250px|thumb|One of the few aerodynamic planes from the SPESS MEHREENS.]]
The '''Nephilim Jetfighter''' is an air superiority fighter useable by space marines. It is primarily flown by the [[Ravenwing]] company of the [[Dark Angels]] to allow their ground-bound battle-brothers to focus on <s>catching [[Fallen Angels]]</s> SHOWING THEIR DEVOTION TO THE EMPEROR without having to worry about getting attacked from the air. Other chapters are starting to acquire the plane however…which the dark angel suspect is due to the blueprint STC being given out by <s>the Fallen</s> the Dark Mechanicus.
The Jetfighter was added to the Dark Angels' [[Codex]] in [[6th edition (Warhammer 40,000)|6th edition]] to attempt to help set them apart from the other [[Space Marine Chapter|Chapters]] of [[Space Marines]] that get their own codices. The [[lore]] justification is that the Dark Angels had the Jetfighters for longer, but only recently found the [[STC]] pattern of a superior engine that made them practical to use.
Also what the [[Stormtalon]] ''should'' have looked like. With the [[Corvus Blackstar]] the Nephilim shares the distinction of being one of the few non [[Great Crusade]]/[[Horus Heresy]] era Astartes aircraft that doesn't look like a metal box with wings and engines stuck on it.

Nephilim Jetfighters pack a twin-linked set of [[heavy bolter]]s and six "blacksword" missiles (36" S7 AP3, named because of their black smoke trail -- which is a lot more sensible than the [[Blood Angels]]' [[Derp|"bloodstrike" missiles]]), with a choice of twin-linked [[lascannon]]s or an [[Avenger mega bolter]] in the nose. Not the most difficult of choices. Though, having twinlinked lascannons in place of the standard heavy bolters would make more sense given the mega bolter. Can help conserve ammo and soften particularly hard targets for the bolter to finish off.

<s>The jerkasses could at least give the Guard and the Navy the data for making damn blacksword missiles.</s> They have and it took them long enough. Screw the Mechanicus, they have enough toys to dickslap. Besides, if they got it no one would hear of it again for a few centuries, if ever. Additionally, the mere name of this vehicle is highly ironic, as '[[Nephilim]]' is commonly assumed to mean the [[Fallen Angels]] of Christian myth and [[Heresy|was the Calibanite name for Daemons]].

==Usage by other chapters==
The [[White Scars]] also utilize this jet fighter, and have obtained a different STC that has allowed them to make the fighter fly very fast (supposedly enough to keep up with [[Eldar]] [[jetbike|jetbikes]]).

The [[Raven Guard]], and [[Blood Ravens]], are also looking to acquire this fighter... Perhaps [[Kayvaan Shrike]] can buy his off of [[Gabriel Angelos|Angelos]] after they’ve stolen them.

And of course successor chapters of the Dark Angel Legion also use this pattern of aircraft.

==Dark Talon==
[[File:Dark_Talon.jpg|right|250px|thumb|{{Blam|FWOOOOOOM!}}]]
The older, edgier brother of the Nephilim jetfighter, the Dark Talon uses the exact same chassis as the Nephilim save for some sweet Gothic arches and religious symbols plastered on its tail. The main differences, however, are the Talon's guns. Instead of the Mega Bolter or Twin Lascannon, it rocks the nasty [[Rift Cannon]], a gun that literally rips a tear in the Warp within whatever it hits (see the FWOOM picture to the right). For some extra guns, it replaces the missiles with twin Hurricane Bolters to shred up infantry wherever it strafes. Speaking of strafing, the final and most infamous weapon of the Talon is its [[Grenades & Explosives#Stasis Bomb|Stasis Bomb]], a bomb that's dropped on enemy units, temporarily altering spacetime itself to freeze whatever it hits. <s> This is often used to capture [[Fallen Angels]] </s> DETAIN ENEMIES OF MANKIND to then be taken back up to [[The Rock]] for interrogation. Typically, a Dark Talon is accompanied by one or two Nephilim Jetfighters for protection against enemies, making sure they do maximum damage to whatever they fly over.

(7th Edition) It's basically a variant of the Nephilim, in the same way a Darkshroud is a variant of the Land Speeder (both are rocking the "Bolt a bunch of kickass masonry to the hulls" look). It's got a Rift Cannon (a STRENGTH 10 AP 2 BLAST), two Hurricane Bolters and a Stasis Bomb. It lost the '''Hover Strike''' special rule but it gets ''Strafing Run'' base.

All complaints about this thing are gone. It doesn't need to "Hover" any more, so it can drop a can of derp on a unit, then use the Rift Cannon to obliterate anything (it becomes a Vortex is you roll doubles for scatter) and it can shoot 12 BS5 re-rollable bolter shots to take out hordes. It's weapons may not exactly go hand in hand, it can come on, take out/debuff a unit for your Knights to take care of, then Rift Cannon the heck out of some termis or a vehicle. If your opponent has a couple large squads, the hurricane bolters will take care of them. It may not have any anti-air capabilities, but the Dark Talon got a huge buff in 7th.

(8th Edition) Whaddya know, 8th Edition swooping in to buff this nasty guy even more. The Rift Cannon is now a Heavy D3 Strength 10 AP -3 weapon. Its Rift vortex works way better, no longer rolling scatter doubles, but now if the cannon cause any wounds to the target you roll a D6 against the Rift Vortex chart (3+/4+/5+ scaling with remaining wounds) and if you make the roll it deals an additional D3 Mortal Wounds. Pretty nasty stuff. Also like other 8th edition vehicles it starts with a BS of 3+, scaling up to a 4+ or 5+ depending on remaining wounds.

(9th Edition) 9th Edition coming in once again to make this guy's life a whole lot easier. Rift Cannon now gains the new version of the Blast ability, meaning if it's dumping its shots into 6 or more guys for whatever reason it'll automatically have its 3 shots. The nicest addition to the Talon as well as the Nephilim is they gain the 9th Edition "Aircraft" rules, meaning they can fly off the board and enter into strategic reserves instead of just blowing up for "reasons." It can then scream BUENOS DIAS PENDEJOS as next turn it teleports in up to 9" away from enemy units before raining death on them.

==Tabletop Analysis==
The Nephilim and Dark Talon <s> are </s> were rather unpopular choices for a Space Marine army, but their weaknesses have kinda been blown out of proportion. They're not bad, they're just overpriced and [[overcosted]] for what they can bring. 7th edition gave them more buffs, so they certainly aren't bad, more in the realm of iffy.

Both flyers [[Butthurt|suffered the sin]] of being the second "true" flyers out of the gate in the 6th Edition: The Heldrake that preceded it was rapetastically awesome (until the 7th ed FAQ) showing that the design team were still trying to figure out how these newfangled rules work. It was only after "Death from the Skies" came out that pre-existing Storm-talons/ravens became proper flyers as opposed to fast skimmers and they '''already''' had enough firepower to get by in the 6th edition environment, they only really needed ''(and received)'' the "flyer" rule to be added to them.

Anyway, onto your army. For 170 pts you get a TL Heavy Bolter, six S7 AP3 missiles with Missile Lock, and an Avenger Mega Bolter. The only problem so far is this isn't the "real" AMB, it's a stripped-down AP4 version. For 5 points you can swap it for a TL Lascannon.

The Nephilim is great against skimmers and other light tanks, but an 175 point investment that can't kill AV14 and takes three or four turns to kill AV12 is just too iffy for most players. That's only [[Rage|25 points less]] than a [[Stormraven]] with the same lascannon + heavy bolter loadout. But the raven has far better missiles, +1 AV all round, ceramite plating, power of the machine spirit also has a transport capacity and can carry dreadnoughts

However, with the advent of the Death from the Skies supplement and the assignment of flyers into set roles, the Nephilim got a buff, mostly as a side effect when you compare it to what happened to other flyers:

Attack Flyers and Bombers no longer have access to the Skyfire rule by default, meaning the Nephilim has little to fear from more heavily armed Stormravens or Stormtalons. Despite being comparatively undergunned for a "Fighter", the ability to immobilise enemy vehicles makes it much more of a threat against its primary target ''(other Flyers)'' It also has more AV & HP than most other Fighters, matched only by the Stormfang Gunship, but the Nephilim is also FAR more maneuverable than the Wolf-interceptor, so does better in a dogfight and turns more easily on the tabletop.

Finally, despite the fact that Fighter craft are now primarily intended for use vs other Flyers, suffering -1 BS when shooting ground targets, the Nephilim keeps the ''Strafing Run'' rule so it gains +1 BS right back again. Meaning it hasn't lost much of its function against ground targets like all other Fighters did with the move into set roles. Whatever that means, because it's guns weren't exactly shattering worlds in the first place.

Now 8th edition: Firstly, it's hell of a lot easier to run this thing as most detachments have at least 2 Flyer slots, secondly, this thing turned from possibly one of the worst Flyers in the game to a really scary unit. Why? All of its weapons got an upgrade in some way; the Blacksword Missiles are now good against 2+ save stuff due to how AP works in this edition and they're no longer finite, the Avenger Mega Bolter went up to 10 shots at Strength 6 AP-1 essentially making it an Assault Cannon with 10 shots and the Twin Heavy Bolter and Twin Lascannon now gain double shots because of 8th edition again. This thing reunites Space Marines, Flyers and Dakka together. Cool.

===Dark Talon===
As for the Dark Talon, it's far harder to directly compare to any other flyer since nothing else performs a similar role. Dropping your opponent's Initiative and Weapon Skill by 3 is always hilarious, doubly so when you drop a Blind test on his snipers immediately afterwards, but for 160 points the fact it has only one bomb and the lack of AP wasn't doing it any favors. But that was 6th ed; this is 7th ed where it drops a '''S10 AP2 Blast''' that has a 1 in 6 chance of becoming a '''Destroyer Vortex'''. Fucking hell YES!

In 8th edition this was changed again but only because Blast templates no longer exist; it gets D3 shots, S:10 AP:-3 D:3, and anything that takes an unsaved wound has a 2 in 3 chance to suffer D3 additional ''mortal wounds''. Stasis bomb also got tweaked; once per game, pick an enemy unit you flew over, and roll a D6 for ''each'' model. On a 4+ that model takes a mortal wound. [[Rape|Sensing a pattern here.]] Then there's 24 Hurricane Bolter shots at rapid fire range. That is even more sexy than before.

==Gallery==
===Nephilim Jetfighter===
<gallery>
image:NephilimJetfighterProfile.jpg|<center>Front View</center>
image:NephilimJetfighterSideView.jpg|<center>Side View</center>
image:NephilimJetfighterBackView.jpg|<center>Back View</center>
image:PC120049.JPG|An Ultramarine Nephilim [[Counts As|Treated as]] a [[Stormtalon]] in this instance...ironic
</gallery>
=== Dark Talon ===

<gallery>
image:DarkTalonProfile.jpg|<center>Front View</center>
image:DarkTalonSideView.jpg|<center>Side View</center>
image:DarkTalonBackView.jpg|<center>Back View</center>
</gallery>

[[Category: Flyers]]

{{Dark Angels}}

{{40k-Imperial-Vehicles}}

[[Category:Dark Angels]]

Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War

2023-03-09T09:33:52Z

2601:1C0:5000:CFF0:3C54:264A:E1AF:BED0: /* Recommended Workshop Mods */

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[[File:Gladius-Relics of War.jpg|650px|thumb|center|Not pictured: the numerous [[Catachan]] Devils eating guardsmen like M&M's.]]
'''Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War''' (christ that's a mouthful) is a 4X Strategy game published by Slitherine, the same guys who published [[Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon]] and the [[Sanctus Reach]] video game, and made by Proxy Studios. Essentially, it plays like a glorified Civilization Warhammer mod, which isn't a bad thing as civilization practically nailed 4X games.
==Setting==
The resource rich and strategically important planet of ''Gladius Prime'' is under attack from [[Orks]], and the [[Space Marine]] [[Chapter]] ([[Games Workshop|no name ever given to the chapter]]), unable to defeat the greenskins by themselves, call the [[Imperial Guard]] for aid. As the guardsmen arrive, a [[warp]] storm hits the planet and screws everything for everyone. This allows [[Chaos]] to gain a foothold and drags a [[Tau]] flagship into the system for good measure. And as all this shit is going down, the [[Tyranid]] specimen held by the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] escaped from its containment, and then, from beneath the earth, [[Necron]]s awaken from their slumber. (Oh, and the [[Eldar]] are there too.) Now the various factions are fighting for the domination of the planet and/or for their own survival.

It also makes Gladius Prime [[Lamenters|one of the unluckiest planets in the entire setting]] as it is a [[Tomb World]] [[Wat|with an]] [[Infinity Circuit]] that managed to attract nearly every single faction of note and tons of usually-not-seen hostile lifeforms (especially at the same time) including [[Umbra|Umbras]], [[Vespid|Vespids]], [[Kroot Hound|Kroot Hounds]], [[Ambull|Ambulls]], [[Catachan|Catachan Devils]], [[Prospero|Psychneuein]] and '''''[[Enslavers]]''''' of all things. The original surviving [[Hive World]] population is pulled apart in a free-for-all between the many factions that might or might not have their best interests in mind, and the factions will also [[Grimdark|shoot at each other regardless of allegiance]] unless they are in the same team before the game starts, which leads to scenarios where [[Space Marines]] shoot at each other, the [[Astra Militarum]] [[Heresy|shoots at Space Marines]], [[Chaos]] [[Extra Heresy|allied with]] [[Tyranids]] to take down the [[T'au]] and more.
==Gameplay==
It plays out like the average 4X game, more specifically [[Civilization]], with a hex-based grid, a scramble for resources and units, founding new cities etc, but unlike other 4X games it has ZERO diplomacy. None. By default every faction is hostile to each other, including between the duplicates of the same faction. [[Grimdark|There is only war indeed]].

Every faction makes degree of use from 5 resources: '''Food''' (used for infantry and maintaining population), '''Ore''' (generally used by buildings, fortifications and vehicles), '''Energy''' (on average used for maintaining buildings and usually for making some units too), '''Influence''' (often used for some special faction-only abilities, heroes and items for heroes, each city tile has an upkeep of 1 influence) and '''Research''' (used for unlocking new technologies, and all factions make use of it). Certain factions have different resource needs such as the [[Tyranids]] only requiring Biomass and Influence.

Each faction starts off with an unit that can make a new city (the first one is free, and the [[Space Marines]] get to drop their only city anywhere instead of having an unit), and every city starts off with a building that can create additional buildings and an unique starting building that generates a wide variety of resources. The city is represented on the map by an HQ fortress with a lot of health and armour, but if it gets damaged every building suffers a penalty to their output equal to the percentage of health lost. One of the more unique features is the way production is handled, in which the production of various units is only done by their respective buildings, so it is possible to produce ground infantry and vehicles at the same time.

Cities have the following elements:
*'''Population:''' Possibly the greatest headache in your burgeoning cities is the rigid rate at which the city produces population, which is required for manning buildings, otherwise your entire city gets an output penalty that gets bigger the greater the difference between the demand for population and the actual population that is available, which can be handled by temporarily disabling some buildings to reduce demand. They require room to grow in, which can come from specialized population buildings available early on in the research tree or from certain buildings.
*'''Growth:''' What determines how many turns it takes for more population to grow. It can have its speed maximized by creating enough room for the population to grow in, or else the grow will slow down as it gets to the limit.
*'''Loyalty:''' The second greatest headache in your cities is keeping this value to a number that doesn't mess with your output too much. Loyalty demand is generated by population at a 1:1 rate and -6 from each additional city you have beyond the first, for all cities. Each point of loyalty below 0 causes a penalty of -2% to the city's output, down to -50% output (-25 loyalty), while each point of loyalty above 0% provides a +1% bonus to the city's output. It also has a specialized building that produces loyalty.

Each city requires '''city tiles''' to expand to, which can be built from the building menu, and are required for placing buildings on those tiles. Many tiles provide either a bonus or a penalty to the buildings when it comes to their output, such as grassy fields allowing food-producing buildings to generate extra food, or volcanic lands to generate extra ore for the buildings that extract ore but have a penalty for food.

Each faction also has access to the '''research system''', which is divided into 10 tiers and requires 2 technologies of the previous tier to unlock the next one. Each additional tech slightly increases the prices for all techs, and it can unlock anything from new units to new buildings to new passives and even abilities for units. Each faction has mostly-unique research that unlocks different things.

===Combat===

The game bases its unit stats around the [[Warhammer 40,000 8th edition|8th]] and [[Warhammer 40,000 9th edition|9th]] editions, with many mechanics imported from the core rules and reworked into the game, and the regular die-based system is replaced by numbers and percentages that are not affected by random chance, being instead an averaged value when compared to the dice.

All units have the following stats:

*'''Hitpoints:''' The total amount of health the unit has, distributed within the group size (amount of models) with an exception or two such as [[Scarab|Scarabs]] (which have multiple models but distribute the damage to all the models when taking damage). Units can recover 10% of their health per turn as long as they stand still, do not perform any action and do not take any damage. Restored hitpoints will also restore any models accordingly.

*'''Armour:''' Directly reduces damage taken by 8.3% which caps out at 10 armour (83.3% damage resistance, or 1/6 damage taken, but the armour value can be higher), it can be bypassed by armour penetration or weapons with certain traits such as ''Lance'' (limits the effective armour to a maximum of 8) or to a lesser extent ''Graviton'' (adds an extra amount of damage depending on how much armour an unit has, which will still be reduced by the armour but hits even harder if the attack has enough armour penetration). While several different sources of damage reduction can stack, it will never go above 83% damage resistance unless the unit is a hero, as heroes reduce all damage taken by a further 50%, which allows the maximum damage reduction to be 91.7%, or 1/12 damage taken. If the unit has an invulnerability damage reduction to apply against an attack the game will pick the greater damage reduction value between it and the armour's damage reduction, which means that if an unit has an effective 17% damage reduction from armour but 33% from invulnerability the game will pick the invulnerability damage reduction.

*'''Models:''' The amount of models in an unit determines the amount of weapons that are fired (marked by a multiplier next to the weapons), and as the unit loses health it also loses models which reduces the amount of weapons fired. It also determines the unit's vulnerability to weapons with a low number of attacks (as the amount of damage dealt to an unit is limited by how many attacks can affect models, and a weapon with 1 attack will never be able to destroy an entire unit in one turn as long as it has more than 1 model) and blast (attack is dealt to additional models, affected by accuracy) or template (same as blast but with 100% accuracy) effect attacks.

*'''Morale:''' Morale determines how susceptible an unit is to panicking. At 66% morale an unit will be ''Shaken'' (-17% accuracy and +17% damage taken), at 33% the unit will be ''Broken'' (-33% accuracy and +33% damage taken). Morale normally increases every turn but it is reduced by seeing models die (particularly powerful and expensive models such as heroes will often cause heavy morale damage to units nearby) and certain abilities that damage morale. Some factions such as the [[Space Marines]] are significantly tougher against morale reduction and are immune to morale-damaging abilities (And They Shall Know No Fear trait), while [[Tyranids]] are immune to morale damage of any kind as long as the unit is, or is near, a Synapse creature, otherwise it will lose morale by default.

*'''Action:''' Whether the unit can perform something during a turn. Attacking always consumes an action, with some exceptions (such as weapons in the form of abilities that are a free action) and also consumes movement (except for the [[Eldar]], whose infantry units can move after attacking). Methods to increase this value are extremely rare and every unit has only 1 action.

*'''Movement:''' The amount of tiles an unit can traverse each turn. It consumes all its movement points regardless of how many tiles the unit moved, but the unit can move again if its movement points are refreshed somehow. Some terrain features such as forests and rivers take more movement points to traverse.

*'''Level:''' Units gain experience whenever a nearby enemy unit dies, depending on the unit's "death experience". All units start at level 1 and for each level they gain +5% damage and hitpoints and +10% morale, up to level 10 (+45% damage and hitpoints, +90% morale). As the game progresses new units will be created with a higher initial level, depending on the game's speed. Heroes depend on this to unlock new abilities and increase the effectiveness of their abilities.

*'''Traits:''' Many elements and modifiers that serve to classify what an unit is (infantry, vehicle, monstrous creature, fortification etc.) and many of their special effects, such as having some invulnerability damage reduction, ignoring the enemy's ranged damage reduction, providing a buffing aura to nearby units, ignoring movement penalties over certain terrain features etc. Many effects can be temporary, such as additional ranged damage reduction when in an Outpost.

Weapons also have their own stats:
*'''Damage:''' The amount of damage a weapon does. [[Derp|Duh]].

*'''Attacks:''' The amount of times an unit attacks with the weapon.

*'''Armour Penetration:''' How much armour one hit with the weapon gets to ignore.

*'''Accuracy:''' It acts as a multiplier to the amount of attacks a weapon deals out, and it ranges from 1 (8.3% accuracy) to 12 (100% accuracy), but it can go higher than that in some circumstances while simply multiplying the attacks all the same.

*'''Range:''' From how far away you can attack with the weapon. Range 1 means that you can only attack adjacent units with it, while 2 means you can attack units that are 2 tiles away from your unit. Terrain features such as Forests and Imperial Ruins can end up limiting the effective range of the weapon when trying to fire past it, as well as the unit's actual sight over their target.

*'''Traits:''' In the same way that units have traits that define them, so do weapons. Some rather common ones include Rapid Fire (double the amount of attacks, effectively double damage dealt, against enemies at half the range, which is almost always seen with range 2 weapons but rounded down if it somehow ends up with range 3), Heavy (halves the weapon's accuracy when moving, which effectively halves its damage) and Blast (up to 2 other models in an unit are affected by the attack).

The total damage a weapon can do to an unit is essentially (Damage * (Attacks * Accuracy)) * enemy's applicable damage reductions, with a hard limit based on the amount of models in an unit compared to Attacks * Accuracy, so if your unit with 2 attacks and perfect accuracy gets its accuracy halved it won't kill an unit with 2 models no matter the damage. It also doesn't round up, so 1.9 attacks still won't kill 2 models in one hit. Weapons with a high amount of damage but low amount of attacks are better suited for low-model units such as various fortifications and HQs.

=The Factions=
Populating ''Gladius Prime'' are the many factions that got dragged into this shitshow one way or another, but they were all isolated by the [[Warp Storm|warp storms]] breaking out and many of their quests involve getting things back into control, with the [[Old Ones|Old Ones']] artifacts being involved most of the time.

==Base Game==
===[[Astra Militarum]]===
[[File:GladiusGuard.png|125px|right]]
After Gladius Prime was [[RAPE|double-teamed]] by both [[Orks]] and [[Tyranids]] the player character assumes the role of the commander of the reinforcements who arrived at Gladius but were trapped by the subsequent warp storms. They employ some of the weakest infantry units in the game but they are also some of the cheapest, allowing players to field large armies of disposable troops whose only limits are their upkeep. Provided that they survive the early game, they can snowball into one of the strongest factions around via the use of lots and lots of vehicles, such as [[Basilisks]] and eventually [[Baneblade|Baneblades]], their strongest unit. Their hero units, the '''[[Lord Commissar]]''' and the '''[[Tank Commander]]''', are focused on buffing nearby units except for the '''[[Primaris Psyker]]''' who is focused on slinging deadly abilities from a relatively small distance.
* The humble Guardsmen are initially extremely weak but can get some upgrades that significantly increases their effectiveness (at least compared to their fragility) such as access to [[Grenades & Explosives#Frag Grenade|Frag]] and [[Grenades & Explosives#Krak Grenade|Krak]] grenades (8 of them thrown at a time is going to hurt), or being able to heal 50% of their health every 10 turns.

===[[Necrons]]===
[[File:GladiusNecrons.png|125px|right]]
Awoken in the middle of the shenanigans happening on the surface, the proud lord of a Necrontyr dynasty tries to assume control of the situation under the initial belief that the [[Old Ones]] are still around. The Necrons are one of the easier races in the game as they do not require food, only require energy for what essentially amounts to reactivating their old equipment and [[Necrodermis|all of their units regenerate health over time]], which makes them significantly more difficult to kill. They can only colonize on tiles with a Necron Tomb on them, significantly limiting their strategic city deployment options, but thankfully they always spawn in the proximity of an outpost. One of their earliest research upgrades allows the infantry units to teleport to other cities and [[Monolith|Monoliths]] using influence, and eventually they are able to build [[Tesseract Vault|Tesseract Vaults]]. Their hero units, the '''[[Necron Lord]]''' and the '''[[Cryptek]]''', are generally focused on supporting nearby troops with extra durability, except for the [[Lokhust Lord|Destroyer Lord]] who is difficult to kill and makes nearby enemies more susceptible to damage.
* Their deadly [[Gauss#Necrons|gauss]] weapons scale in damage by 5% of the unit's hitpoints, up to +1.2 damage at 24 hitpoints while the [[tesla]] weaponry trades some usefulness against tougher units for extreme effectiveness against infantry via increased attacks and damage, but no armor penetration or health scaling.

===[[Orks]]===
[[File:GladiusOrks.png|125px|right]]
The mean green menace arrived on Gladius Prime months before the present time to loot it, doing what they do best.
Orks are a faction that relies on fighting for its economy, and all their units cost influence to maintain, with the benefit that every time they attack an enemy they gain influence, and every killed enemy grants the player some ore. They're rather prone to morale loss and they don't have a very strong late-game presence, but they have some of the more powerful hero units such as the '''[[Warboss]]''' who is one of the most threatening melee combat units in the game, the '''[[Painboy]]''' who can permanently augment other ork units with bonus damage and damage reduction, and the '''[[Weirdboy]]''' who can be used for surprise attacks via Da Jump. They also have a [[WAAAGH]] mechanic where all units deal more damage the bigger the influence stockpile, up to +25% attacks.
* Orks have a very good early game roster and in player vs player scenarios they can rush the opponent before the opponent can retaliate in time, but they are vulnerable to morale loss, especially if their hero units get sniped.

===[[Space Marines]]===
[[File:GladiusMarines.png|125px|right]]
Stranded on Gladius Prime, they're desperate to get things back under control. The Space Marines are the starter faction with a focus on elite and expensive units. They are limited to [[Fortress-Monastery|one city]] that can develop even further than any faction's city, and have access to global abilities that allow them to establish their presence anywhere on the map, including dropping [[Fortress of Redemption|Fortresses of Redemption]] that provide an ironclad control over adjacent outposts (and providing the bonus percentage output to the HQ). Instead of food and ore they use [[Dawn of War|Requisition]]. The '''[[Brother-Captain|Captain]]''' is a decent tough combatant that eventually gains access to free orbital strikes, while the '''[[Chaplain]]''' is THE most durable hero in the game and is focused on supporting nearby units as well as giving your city fat stacks of Loyalty. The '''[[Librarian]]''' is... just there.
* Space Marines are oriented towards defense rather than offense until they get more offensive tools such as [[Apothecaries]] (who are a game-changer for keeping your expensive elite units alive) and [[Drop Pods]].
* One of the [[Cheese|cheesier strategies]] in the game involves finding an enemy city (often by researching and using Orbital Scan) with only max range 2 weapons early on and dropping a Fortress of Redemption (with its range 3 gun) outside the attack range of the city, gradually diminishing its health while the opponent's units can barely damage the Fortress as anti-tank units are expensive and not easily available early on. The ensuing damage to the city economically cripples it as all its outputs are reduced in proportion to the damage the HQ took, and by the time the Fortress is destroyed the opponent has already been set back significantly. [[RAGE|It is not advisable to use it in multiplayer]].

==DLC==
===[[Tyranids]]===
[[File:GladiusTyranids.png|125px|right]]
The first DLC faction of the game, the Tyranids on Gladius Prime broke free from an [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] research laboratory and are wreaking havoc on the planet. Their whole gimmick is spamming cheap, disposable units while spreading like wildfire and rendering all the terrain they conquer into infertile bedrock, [[Derp|but since it's technically a terrain feature other factions can "clean" it to restore it back to normal]]. Tyranids only require Biomass (the combined resources of Food and Ore) and Influence. Any unit can be reclaimed by a building to give back some of their biomass as well as rush the ongoing production of that building at the cost of influence, and making cities is generally cheaper in exchange of the cities being smaller. Tyranid units do not suffer any morale penalties as long as they are within the range of a synapse creature, which makes them terrific opponents overall. The '''[[Tyranid_Warrior#Warrior_Prime|Tyranid Prime]]''' is a very deadly melee combatant that can turn well-armored enemies into mince-meat thanks to its level 6 ability to halve a target's armor, and also boosts nearby Tyranid Warriors, while the '''[[Tervigon]]''' is a living [[Termagaunt]] incubator that constantly produces cheap, disposable Termagaunts to act as cannon fodder, being essentially a walking production building that produces Termagaunts and boosts them. The '''[[Hive Tyrant]]''' is an aerial menace that eventually gives just enough loyalty to every single Tyranid city to negate the loyalty penalty for an extra city.

* You can use unit production buildings to aid in the production of other, more important units at a small influence fee, while also reclaiming the unit's costs.

===[[Chaos Space Marines]]===
[[File:GladiusChaosMarines.png|125px|right]]
The second DLC faction of the game, this particular [[warband]] got lost in the Warp and were dumped on Gladius Prime, which is seen as a deliberate act from the [[Chaos Gods]]. They start off with cultists that can be sacrificed to boost the population growth of a city, and the population of the city can be sacrificed to gain different bonus outputs. Some of their gimmicks rely on RNG being in their favor, as every time a Chaos unit kills another unit it has a chance to gain a boon (that has to be unlocked first) or transform into either a [[Chaos Spawn|thing that shouldn't be named]], an extremely fast melee bruiser with one of three abilities changing every turn, or a '''[[Daemon Prince]]''', a deadly hero unit with very deadly anti-infantry abilities. They have access to a lot of different boons ranging from extra attacks to bonus movement or bonus health but many can't overlap as they are from different Chaos Gods. A significant amount of their units are the Chaos version of their [[Space Marine]] counterparts, such as [[Obliterator|Obliterators]] being a rough equivalent of [[Devastator Squad|Devastators]]. The '''[[Chaos Lord]]''' is a tough combat hero who passively boosts the chances of nearby Chaos units to receive boons, and has a devastating finisher attack, while the '''[[Master of Possession]]''' is a support hero that can heals units at the cost of its own health, buff nearby Chaos units and eventually summon random [[Daemons]]. The '''[[Warpsmith]]''' is a pretty decent support for vehicles and can lower the ranged damage reduction of targeted tiles.
* Chaos Cultists are also city-builders, which allows Chaos Space Marines to have a strong early-game advantage by having a very early second city.

===[[T'au]]===
[[File:GladiusTau.png|125px|right]]
The third DLC faction of the game, they got lost during one of the Spheres of Expansion and landed on Gladius Prime. They are extremely versatile, having units that are fit for multiple situations, are good for setting up overwatch lines, and their cities get a loyalty boost for every unique building without a duplicate, which gives them a decent head-start early on. They can also recruit Kroot Hounds and Vespid Stingwings to their side, gain resources using Influence, and slightly reduce the amount of loyalty an enemy city has. Their hero units are the '''[[Fireblade]]''', who has some pretty decent infantry buffs and can eventually give every city loyalty (just like a Hive Tyrant!), the '''[[Ethereal]]''' who is extremely fragile but gives some really powerful boosts to nearby T'au units, eventually culminating in ''[[Cheese|an extra action for all nearby units]]'' and the '''[[Tau Commander|Commander]]''' who isn't anywhere near as fragile and can give specialized buffs to nearby T'au.
* It's important to keep the heroes safe, as the T'au units are fragile when it comes to morale and will lose most of it if their heroes die.
* Many T'au units are capable of making [[Tau Drones]], which are fragile and can draw overwatch fire. [[Cheese|The AI in particular is prone to focusing on the drones over all other units, making them very easy to win a war against the AI.]]

===[[Eldar|Craftworld Aeldari]]===
[[File:GladiusEldar.png|125px|right]]
The fourth DLC faction of the game, the Eldar are a mobile type of faction whose infantry units are [[Glass Cannon|glass cannons]], dealing some of the hardest hits in the game for units of their type at the cost of being fragile and short-ranged. Their city populations also grow slower. Almost all of their infantry units are capable of moving after attacking, which allows for stronger positioning options, and they gain extra speed. They also gain access to the [[Webway Gate|Webway Gates]] strewn across the map, which can be activated to allow Eldar units to immediately teleport to them at the cost of influence, but activating them is a risky gambit as nearby neutral units will often become hostile to it and try to destroy it. They can also be converted into cities afterwards, but they have poor defenses (only one [[D-Cannon]]) compared to other city HQs. Their hero units are the '''[[Autarch]]''', a combat-oriented hero that can eventually double the flat output of all resource tiles under control, the '''[[Spiritseer]]''', a support hero with multi-purpose abilities that benefit friendly units and harm enemy units, the '''[[Farseer|Farseer Skyrunner]]''', a combat support hero with a lot of mobility, and an '''[[Avatar of Khaine]]''', who is a monstrous juggernaut in melee that also buffs adjacent Eldar units. Oh, and they all deal bonus damage to Chaos units.
* Because many of their units are fragile it's important to explore using tougher units and then move the other units in.
* The Avatar of Khaine is available relatively early on at tier 4 but has a huge influence cost, so if you're feeling particularly safe you can save up some resources to make it.

===[[Adeptus Mechanicus]]===
[[File:GladiusMechanicus.png|125px|right]]
The fifth DLC faction of the game, the Adeptus Mechanicus employ tough and powerful units and has a varied amount of global powers such as boosting the outputs of all buildings on a tile, damaging any visible enemy unit on the map depending on how many units of a certain type there are, or give an advantage to certain types of units with a drawback. They gain an increased amount of output for every duplicate building on a tile (for those buildings) with an output loss for every diverse building on a tile. Their hero units are the '''[[Skitarii Marshal]]''', a hero that can give very strong damage buffs to allied units, the '''[[Tech-Priest Manipulus]]''', a support hero that can heal nearby units and stun enemies (making combat heroes like the Warboss and Tyranid Prime weep in the process [[Cheese|as it can start stunlocking at rank 3]]), and the '''[[Tech-Priest Dominus]]''', a combat hero in a faction that allows it to be buffed into doing [[Anal Circumference|insane amounts of damage in a turn]].
* Cybernetica Datasmiths can be used to convert [[Legio Cybernetica#Kastelan Class Battle-Automata|Kastelan Robots]] to your side a bit earlier than when you can make them and only for an influence cost, giving you a decent advantage early on, but the accompanying neutral Cybernetica Datasmiths should be eliminated before that or else they will reprogram it back.

===[[Adeptus Sororitas]]===
[[File:GladiusBattleSisters.png|125px|right]]
The sixth DLC faction of the game, the Adeptus Sororitas are a starter faction which focuses on moderately elite, reliable units that are boosted with their Acts of Faith and Sacred Rites to perform even better. They have many tricks to restoring morale or mitigating morale loss, and they have a number of powers, hero abilities and unit abilities to buff/debuff units to shift combats in their favour. They have a fair amount in common with Space Marines in their playstyle, using requisition as a resource, being dependent on a capital city, albeit they can found other cities which are limited to the initial surrounding hexes in size. Their hero units epitomize their buff-synergy design, they are the '''[[Canoness]]''' a frontline support hero that can strip ranged defences off a target, the '''[[Orders_Dialogous | Dialogus]]''' a backline support hero that can halve the cooldown on a units Acts of Faith ability, and '''[[Saint Celestine]]''' herself as a beatstick support hero thats capped at one.
* The Adeptus Sororitas are fairly forgiving in the early game compared to most factions thanks to their power armoured infantry, but their recurring theme is handing out support buffs like candy once the mid-game starts. Also like the tabletop the Trinity of Bolter, Melta & Flamer still defines them, which makes the faction as a whole short-ranged, with the exception of the Exorcist and Castigator. The former of which is a serious anti-vehicle workhorse for the Sisters.

=Under Construction=

*'''Imperial Guard:''' Lots of cheap guardsmen and other specialist infantry with low morale, compensated by long-range artillery, durable tanks with various upgrades, and aircraft. They can also build [[Imperial Bastion|Imperial Bastions]] and [[Void Shield Generator|Void Shield Generators]] to help hold chokepoints and can issue a variety of edicts to boost their cities output, either to speed up unit production of certain buildings or to increase the amount of certain resources or research that is produced for 10 turns. It's difficult to get a foothold at the start, but if they can survive the early game it'll be pure hell swimming through a sea of bastions and baneblades to get to their capital. Their strongest unit is obviously the [[baneblade]].
*'''Space Marines:''' Limited to only one city, their [[Fortress-Monastery]], but can build [[Fortress of Redemption|Fortresses of Redemption]] to gather resources outside the reach of the Fortress-monastery and they treat food and ore as the same resource named [[Dawn of War|Requisition]]. They've also got a single [[Battle Barge]] in orbit, from which they scan unexplored areas and deploy orbital strikes, and they can choose a chapter tactic that gives temporary buffs either to all or certain types of units. While simple on paper you can fuck yourself by putting your Fortress City in a bad spot and losing your deployed Fortresses of Redemption means you're losing defenses and resources at once. Having some of the best infantry in the game can only take you so far since if Space Marines start going into the negative on supplies it can snowball hard without other cities to fall back to. Their strongest unit is tied between the [[Land Raider]] and [[Stormraven Gunship]].
*'''Necrons:''' Necrons can only build their cities on top of Necron tombs and need energy to produce units and ore for upkeep and population growth. Influence can be used to repair units on the field, let infantry and heroes use Eternity Gates to teleport to cities or monoliths, and rush/speed up production of units. Tend to shred through armored units like butter and can stay in fights longer than most units. However their economy is so slow and Necron tombs aren't guaranteed to be near any valuable resources, let alone spawning anywhere safe. Hence why you need to rely on repairing your units in the field, as losing even basic units can cost a lot of time and money if you've been unlucky with where the tombs spawn. The [[Tesseract Vault]] is their strongest unit.
*'''Orks:''' Ork infantry deal more melee damage when attacking and lose less morale, at the cost of taking damage when losing morale. The units have a high regeneration rate, gain ore when they kill enemy units, and increase influence by doing damage, but have an influence upkeep with the units doing more damage with high influence and having lower damage with low influence. Their cities have a higher growth rate than others, and can build fungus fields that heal units. Can steamroll both economically and in terms of manpower in the early game since Boyz will basically pay for themselves. However, this naturally means if you lose your streak by getting curbstomped or just by not fighting anything for a while you're going to have a tough time competing with what later-tier units from other factions can put out. The [[Gargantuan Squiggoth]] is their strongest unit.
*'''Tyranids:''' Constantly makes new units. They consume biomass instead of ore and energy which allows them to make units. All tyranid units are disposable and can be recycled into biomass when they have outlived their usefulness. Most basic units slowly go feral when not in range of a synapse unit, and revert back to their original instincts which either weaken or kill them and eventually lose control all together. Even harder to get rolling than the Imperial Guard, but if you survive by mid-game you can start winning battles through attrition alone, and while they usually still remain squishy little things on the roster can survive Tyranids endgame units getting close. Tyranids can also make entire swathes of the map useless even after they've been killed off, so it's an almost paradoxical faction where people want to kill them off before they ruin half the map, but if you do your reward will usually just be a bunch of useless bedrock barring a few scant strategic resources. The Scythed [[Hierodule]] is their strongest unit.
*'''Chaos Space Marines:''' As per usual, a lot of how good they are comes down to luck. Cultists and Space Marines can turn into anything from Chaos Spawn to Daemon Princes, and performing rites will give you bonuses depending on what God you dedicate them to. They also have access to a "Boons of Chaos" system which are basically stat enhancing mutations that a chaos unit has a certain chance of getting after killing an enemy unit, each unit can gain one of every unique mutation which can range from increased health to increased movement speed. One can unlock access to more mutations through research in the tech tree. The [[Defiler]] is their strongest unit.
*'''Tau:''' Tau are probably the closest thing to a 'diplomatic' faction in the game, heavily relying on influence because of this. As in they can diplomatically hire neutral Kroot and Vespid units to fight for them, diplomatically insult other factions or even neutral units to hurt their feelings (morale) and put communist propaganda in their heads, and diplomatically just straight up buy resources instead of making them like everyone else. They can also spawn various types of support drones ranging from gun drones to shield drones as essentially free temporary units to support their troops, all while continuing the time-honored Tau tradition of shooting the shit out of everyone else and hoping they die before they can get close enough to hit you in melee. The [[KV128 Stormsurge Ballistic Suit]] is their strongest unit.
*'''Craftworld Aeldari/Eldar:''' Characterized by slippery but agile infantry that can move after shooting, slow population growth, and the ability to remote-capture neutral Webway-gates, with the caveats that they can only build cities on said gates, and that the aforementioned gates are continually being destroyed by neutrals, other players, or your own idle misclicks, their units are deadly against soft targets, but die like they're made of tinfoil and goodwill, their psyker heroes are versatile, with abilities that have inverted effects on friends or enemies, the [[Avatar of Khaine]] is their premier early beatstick available at tech-tier 4, and with correct support will level a city in maybe three turns. Their vehicles (with the exception of war walkers and wraithknights) are all fast skimmers which means you can quickly move them where you need them to be while being able to ignore all sorts of rough terrain. The fire prism is arguably the most versatile tank in the game as it can switch between three firing modes freely which means it can deal effectively with any conceivable target. Finally you can also travel/teleport between webway gates (whether they're activated or not) with ANY unit, but it costs a fair amount of influence to do so and consumes the unit's action point. With an ample amount of influence this means you are the most mobile faction in the game. The [[Scorpion]] super-heavy grav tank is their strongest unit.
*'''Adeptus Mechanicus:''' The new kids on the block, they have global powers that scale with the number of units of a certain type. They boost Skitarii units with Doctrine Imperiatives that boost one stat while reducing another, and then there are Canticles of the Omnissiah that scale with techpriest and robot units, which debuff and damage enemies. Skitarii units are irradiated and passively damage enemies who end their turn near them. Their builder unit, the Cybernetica Datasmith, can hijack control of the neutral Kastelan Battle robots which can lead to a midgame snowball for AdMech players. Lastly they have special "optimization" mechanics with their cities, buildings in a district gain buffs for every building of the same type in that district, and are debuffed for every building that is different, Ad Mech can also get an extra slot for buildings in some of their districts. This means you can dedicate one city almost entirely to producing one resource (like ore) and another city entirely to research if you so wish. The [[Imperial Knight|Knight Crusader]] is their strongest unit.
*'''Sisters of Battle:''' Coming soon! (13.12.2022)
*'''Neutral:''' The various hostiles and native creatures that attack everyone. Comprised of [[Kroot Hound]]s, [[ambull]]s, [[enslavers]], [[psychneuein]], rogue [[Cybernetica Datasmith]]s and [[Legio Cybernetica#Kastelan Class Battle-Automata|kastelans]], [[Genestealer Hybrids#Neophyte Hybrids|Neophyte Hybrids]] (Reinforcement Pack DLC), [[Vespid|Vespid Stingwings]] (Tau DLC), [[Umbra|Umbras]] (Eldar DLC), [[Lord of Skulls|Lords of Skulls]] (Acts as a special event boss mob), and motherfucking [[Catachan]] [[Anal Circumference|Devils]].

==Artefacts==
One of the features that sets Gladius apart from Civ. Artefacts are hovering, rhombus shaped relics believed to be creations of the now presumably extinct [[Old Ones (Warhammer)|Old Ones]]. Artefacts are scattered around Gladius Prime, and will give a certain boon or bonus to your faction/race and/or all units under your control. Artefact buffs stack on top of each other, so controlling artefacts is very important to your survival. It takes one action for one of your units to seize control of an artefact, but units won’t be able to capture them if there are units of the currently controlling faction next to the artefact. Artefacts can apply a number of different effects depending on their type, the ones currently in the vanilla game are as follows: increase the maximum hit points of all your units, give movement buffs, give loyalty buffs, increase sight radius, increase regeneration speed, or increase damage. It is also important to note that units may not occupy the same tile as an artefact! Enslavers can usually be found defending these ancient creations, so be wary and make sure you have the firepower to wipe them out.

==Recommended Workshop Mods==
*[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1918454158 Too Many Voices (TMV):] A highly popular and respected mod which aims to add original voices to every single unit currently featured in the game. This also includes voice announcements for when a tech tree upgrade has been fully researched and quest line dialogue. The voices are generally of high-quality since they're done by professional voice actors, such as George_VA who has notably done voice work for various DoW mods. This is considered by many to be THE must-have mod as it enhances the immersion of the game and makes each unit feel more alive.
*[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1851306078 Gladius+:] A popular mod that rescales everything (including units, terrain, and World UI) to tabletop proportions. This means tanks are bigger, infantry are smaller, and the terrain looks more realistic etc. It also adds in new HD terrain + environment textures, as well as additional team colours based on citadel paint colour schemes. All of the changes are visual-only, but the enhanced textures may put a strain on older computers, so only use this if your computer or laptop can handle it, or otherwise consider lowering your graphics.
*[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2151033716 Red Lasguns:] A simple but beloved re-texture mod which makes all Imperial and Chaos lasers present in the game (including lasguns, multi-lasers, lascannons etc.) fire red-coloured beams instead of the regular yellow or blue. With this change it does look a lot more pleasing to the eyes.
*[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2056204230 Locknot's Expanded Setup:] A useful mod which adds many more options to be able to further customize the game setup than what is already offered by the base game. This includes new World Sizes, 12 new player colors from the official Citadel Paints list, new game paces, new difficulties, new wildlife density options, and more. It's worth checking out.
*[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2510489637 More Artefact Types:] A mod which adds in cut artefact types as well as adds back artefacts that existed in earlier versions. On top of that it also adds a few new ones. This encourages the player to further explore the entire map, which in the base game they had little reason too unless you set artefact density on high.
*[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2353495995 Faction: Iron Hands:] A well-made mod which adds in the [[Iron Hands]] as a new playable faction. Plays similarly to the generic space marine faction but have some unique mechanics of their own, as well as new units and research. A custom quest line and intro has also been added which provides the player with an immersive experience. It's also important to note that it doesn't matter what colour you choose in the game setup as the Iron Hands always come default in their custom color scheme as well as having the distinct "Iron Hand" symbol/emblem on their various units, so Iron Hands all the way, Second founding chapters don't apply here. Worth a try for any fan of the Iron Hands or just space marines in general.

==See Also==
*[https://www.slitherine.com/game/warhammer-40000-gladius-relics-of-war The official Gladius site]
*[https://store.steampowered.com/app/489630/Warhammer_40000_Gladius__Relics_of_War/ Buy the game on Steam]
*[https://www.gog.com/game/warhammer_40000_gladius_relics_of_war Buy the game on GOG]
*[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyLLeKcxw24X9l92eOL_sUE0iE_rNYkgC The complete Gladius soundtrack]

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms

2023-03-09T09:31:33Z

2601:1C0:5000:CFF0:3C54:264A:E1AF:BED0: /* Campaign Strategies */

[[Memes|Ogres, my Lord!]] This is the general tactics page on how to play [[Ogre Kingdoms]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]].

==Why Play Ogre Kingdoms?==
*You like doomstacking with monsters anyway so why not play a faction that is 95% monsters?
*You love the satisfaction of seeing a unit's health drop heavily from the impact of a massive charge.
*Because you are the one person on the planet who has asked themselves "What if you mix Mongols with Flintstones?"
*Because you love meat. In fact, you are likely eating a pork chop wrapped in bacon as you read this.
*Your enemies will scream and run, [[Meme|but you think that's part of the fun]].
*You relate to their body image a little too much.

===Pros===
*'''THICC''': The vast majority of your troops are composed of monsters and large units. If you only play this game to build up large monster stacks to take over the world with, this is the race for you.
*'''High Charge''': You are the most devastating army off the charge. A lot of armies are going to evaporate once you make contact and not even regular anti-charge tactics work against you that well.
*'''Quality''': Stat wise, Ogres are one of the scariest armies in terms of pure stats. Few other factions will be able to compare to you pound for pound.
*'''Armor? What's that?''': Almost everything you have pierces armour. No amount of armour is going to protect your enemies from a 4-meter tall hulk of flesh that swings a hammer the size of a small building.
*'''Monsters''': Monsters, monsters and more monsters, you are the primo monster faction with only 2 infantry units that aren’t monsters. One way or another you will have little trouble winning the monster mash.
*'''Decent Ranged''': For a monster focused faction you are solid at shooting. You got two forms of artillery, a monster with a bolt thrower, Leadbelchers and even Gnoblar Trappers can be useful. Ok, the Wood Elves will probably beat you in a ranged fight but you can put out some serious damage from far away.
*'''Mobility''': For a faction filled with morbidly obese dumbfucks who wouldn't look out of place on R/Incel, you are quick on your feet. Your artillery can move as fast as heavy cav and you do have a variety of cavalry to speak off. Even your basic ogre bulls have good cardio with 54 speed. You actually stand a decent chance at outmaneuvering your opponent aside from a [[Slaanesh|few]] [[Wood Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|extreme]] [[Beastmen|cases]].

===Cons===
*'''Lack of Numbers''': Your units have a super low model count. Even a single casualty in a unit of anything other than Gnoblars will hurt a lot more than what other factions will suffer.
*'''Anti Large/Charge Defense''': Given how reliant you are on size and charge, factions that have plentiful anti large and charge defence might be a massive pain in your giant, 2-ton ass (grins in Dwarf.) Ogre charge does help with Charge Defense somewhat, though you will still be losing a good chunk of your damage.
*'''No staying power''': With a heavy reliance on charges and fear you will not be winning a sustained fight. If your enemy can outlast your ammo or your charges you will find your inflexible roster will fail you.
*'''<s>Feet</s> Guts Firmly on the Ground''': You've got no air power. Nadda. And your shooting is somewhat limited. The Lore of <s>Manticore Summoning</s> Beasts helps out a bit, but armies with dedicated air power will be a problem.
*'''Armor? What's that?''': I mean, to be fair it's probably hard for them to find armour in their size, but it does mean armour for most ogres units tends to be on the lower side. You can patch this weakness somewhat by going heavy on ironfists/heavy cav/stonehorns, but armor will be a problem in the earlygame and in multiplayer where you'll be filling your armies with ogre bulls.
*'''Footlords only''': None of your generic or legendary lords get mounts, though they do have above average movement speed. Your lords can rip up and eat most other lords for lunch, but you're going to have trouble catching them.
**'''Lack of Mounts in General''': Honestly, the only Lord or Hero with a mount is the Hunter with a Stonehorn. Granted, you have an army of massive, muscled up monsters who will eat most other lords and heroes for breakfast, but they're going to have to get there on foot.
*'''DLC?''': On launch, the Ogres missed out on Bruisers, Yhetees and Thundertusks. It remains to be seen if these will be added as FLC units later or will be added as DLC.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Ogre Charge''': If an ogre unit charges a braced unit with charge defence, they will only lose half of their charge bonus. This is very important for a faction that is so reliant on getting the charge for their damage it's nice that they have a way to not get completely cockblocked because the enemy is just standing still. That said most opponents, even the AI usually don't just sit there and let you charge them and even if they do you're probably better of circumnavigating their frontline and going for their skirmishers in the rear. So while not the most practical trait in the game it's still nice for the Ogres to have.

*'''Captives''': During a battle the Ogres slowly fill a meter for each unit they kill that is broken or shattered. As the meter fills special army abilities are unlocked, including Dismember (an AoE slow and charge debuff), Massacre (AoE buff for AP damage and gives affected units Terror), and Butcher (basically Regrowth from the Lore of Life). This will be a very useful army mechanic against chaff-filled armies like Skaven or Beastmen, but will be hard to use against armies with a lot of unbreakable units (like daemons or undead) or a lot of low-model counts (like other ogres).

*'''Mercenaries''': Ogre Camps allow other factions to purchase Ogre Mercenaries if they are nearby. They're limited to regular Ogre Bulls and also have limits on how many they can have in their army at a time.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Greasus Goldtooth]]''': Overtyrant of all ogres, in his beautiful and shockingly obese glory. Greasus inflicts a leadership debuff on enemy units due to how stinking rich he is and a damage resistance aura based on how impressive his shiny crown is. He may or may not be slower due to being pushed by gnoblars instead of being carried by them, but either way he's big as hell and might want to be careful about ranged units.
*'''[[Skrag the Slaughterer]]''': Skrag is a legendary caster lord, using Lore of the Great Maw. Skrag is still an ogre (and has big swords instead of arms), so he is capable of holding is own in melee unless against anti-large or duelists. On top of that, Skrag has the ability to summon Gorgers during battle, and his cooking pot can make any gorgers in his army stronger the more kills he gets. Which he can rack up very quickly by using the AOE spells from the lore of the great maw.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Tyrant''': Standard melee lord, well armored and does decent armor piercing. His really nice benefit is the "Snacks" ability which lets him heal while in melee.

*'''Slaughtermaster''': Generic caster lord, supporting the ogres through the power of either the Lore of the Great Maw or Lore of Beasts. As an added bonus gets the "Extra Ingredients" ability, which is the ogre version of Arcane Conduit, increasing your Winds of Magic while you're in melee.

===Legendary Heroes===

===Generic Heroes===
*'''Butcher''': A hero version of the Slaughtermaster, in case you want a melee lord but still want magic. Like their lord counterpart, Butchers come with Lore of the Great Maw or Lore of Beasts. Also gets the "Extra Ingredients" ability.

*'''Firebelly''': A caster hero, cooking the army's next meal during the battle with the Lore of Fire. Also has a number of bound abilities, including an explosion for getting out of melee, breath attacks, and a damage reflection buff. Generally a good fighter in melee and a reliable source of magic damage, but with zero armor he can be quite squishy.

*'''Hunter''': A hybrid character with throwing spears, provides buffs to Sabretusks (SP only) and the only character on launch able to use a mount, a massive Stonehorn. His ranged attacks are anti-large on or off the Stonehorn, so he's effective at both sniping and demolishing infantry with his mount. If you play multiplayer, bringing one or two of these guys on a Stonehorn is an auto include. If you bring a Stonehorn as a mount you get [[Creed|stalk]], a missile resist, a ward save, and AP Anti Large missiles. Oh, and did we mention this is all while only being 100 gold more expensive than a standard Stonehorn?
**A couple Hunters with the "Lower Sabretusk Upkeep" skill can make them essentially free. Throw in the rest of the buffs they give to sabretusks and take the red line buffs from your lord and you can make an extremely cost effective doomstack.

==Units==

===Infantry===
*'''Gnoblar Fighters''': Your chaff unit. Surprisingly tanky compared to what you might expect, having the same statline as Goblins. However that lack of shield really hurts them in the long run. Use them as even more fragile goblins to absorb charges, tarpit units for a small while, and to plug gaps whilst your chungus boys get into position. They're expendable so none of your other troops really care what happens to them.

*'''Gnoblar Trappers''': Gnoblars, but they have stalk, vanguard deployment, and a ranged attack. Also come with the ability to slow down enemies in an area around them, making them surprisingly good support skirmishers. Still Expendable. Very useful for sneaky caps in Domination Mode.

===Monstrous Infantry===
*'''Ogre Bulls''': Your "standard" infantry, they come in the usual monstrous infantry size and a tremendous charge bonus to batter the enemy with. They will cause fear and come with siege-attacker to help get past those city walls so you don't have to wait out in a siege. Come in three varieties: a cheaper, single mace version, dual weapons for anti-infantry and an ironfist for bonus melee defence and missile block. None of the variants have very good armor piercing, however.
**In Campaign, the Ironfist variant is a cost-effective early-game stack against other Ogres, the additional armor being pretty helpful since none of the Bull variants have AP or Anti-Large anyway.

*'''Ironguts''': Your thiccest bois. Comes with armour-piercing melee and are also one of the only armoured units in your entire roster. Expect them to be able to throw down with the best elite units the other factions have to offer. Notably lack an ironfist variant, meaning that they can only rely on that extra armor to survive missiles.

*'''Maneaters''': The well-travelled mercenaries of your army, they are far more flexible than your standard unit of ogres. They come in a pistol, ironfist and a great weapon variant. The pistol for helping them pepper the enemy before the battle itself is joined, the ironfist for extra survivability and the great weapon for increased charge and a bonus vs large. They also come with Immune to Psych so don't expect to see these guys running away any time soon. Note that Maneaters are basically superior to Ironguts in all stats ''except'' for armour, and are priced accordingly.
**'''Powder Guts''': A pistol variant that is pretty much the normal pistols with better range, accuracy and damage. They do get an ability that gives them buff when they're losing, but overall they're just the normal pistol unit but better.

*'''Leadbelchers''': Hybrid missile/melee unit with good range + armour-piercing damage + fire on the move. These guys are one of the best units available, their cannon salvos deal enormous damage. They can do okay in melee but don't leave them in it for too long. Consider keeping some Gnoblar Trappers or Gorgers nearby to screen for them.

===Beasts & Monsters===
*'''Sabretusks''': Similar to high elf war lions, except they have more models, more melee attack, more weapon strength, and run as fast as chaos warhounds with 95(!) speed; great for hunting ranged weapons or chasing down routing units when your monstrous cavalry have better things to trample. Try to keep them away from hard targets, zero armour-piercing damage and rampage means they won't survive if they tangle with an enemy that can properly fight back. A hunter hero can make them incredibly scary in single-player by giving them frenzy, stalk, and vanguard deployment, but they don't get those bonuses in MP.
**Pretty good when following in the wake of a Stonehorn. Smaller war beasts don't normally fare very well when the enemy is braced, but formations are nothing to the Stonehorn.
**Their rampage can also be an asset. Warhounds are generally very fragile and can be routed easily. Sabertusks however are very stick and if they rampage then it'll be even harder for the enemy to get rid of them. Just make sure they get on the right targets.

*'''Gorgers''': Come in groups of eight, unbreakable, stalk, frenzy, and vanguard deployment. Use them like Mournguls, sneaky flankers to rip apart tasty and tender backlines. Were broken as fuck at launch since they could beat Bloodcrushers and Celestial Dragon Guard in a head on fight despite costing less and being sneaky backline skirmishers instead of frontline bruisers. CA has since slapped them with the nerf bat, sending them back to the sneaky skirmisher role where they should have been the whole time. Extra dangerous if you bring Skrag due to his unique item's ability to buff Gorgers.

*'''Slavegiant''': Your normal giant unit, except this time cajoled and beaten into battle by the very people who destroyed their race rather than bribed with booze. Sometimes the Ogres are the absolute worst. Ironically, this is one of the only giants that can regain health thanks to the Trollguts spell, making it a lot more tanky if you bring a gut magic caster.

*'''Stonehorn''': Give the Norscan War Mammoth more armor, missile resistance, have it ridden to battle by a hungry Shrek rather than an angry viking, and you've got the Stonehorn. As expected outclasses the Giant in every way and has some of the best armor in your roster. Like an unholy merging of the Mammoth and the Khemrian Warsphinx its bounding animations let it run straight through infantry formations to deliver absolute hell.
**By the Maw, Stonehorns are so ridiculously good you can expect them to be nerfed by the next balance patch. Stonehorns have practically zero weaknesses besides getting locked in combat with an anti-large monster/monstrous infantry. Its attack animations make it practically immune to being tarpitted by anti-large infantry, it has high armour and missile resistance to cover the usual weakness of monsters vs ranged, and its monstrous charge bonus will flatten any frontline it rams into, letting it get straight into the ranged units cowering behind the enemy shieldwall. It's a little on the slow side compared to the newer monsters of other factions, but it's fast enough to completely scramble the enemy's frontline before the rest of your chungus boys arrive. Stonehorns are your best monster, use them well and often.
**See those Cathayans huddled around their cannons, providing "Harmony"? Sure would be a shame if someone ran them over and wrecked their shit.
**'''The Snowhorn of Mourn''': The RoR of the Stonehorn is a funny unit. He has better stats like most RoRs but also gets frostbite and a special ability called "Glacial Shield" that provides substantial missile resistance for a short period, at the cost of slowing the Snowhorn down. Stonehorns are pretty good at tanking missile fire already but this ability makes the Snowhorn almost immune to anything but the heaviest AP missiles. Because the ability has a short duration and decent length cooldown you have to pick when to deploy it very carefully. It might be best to rely on the Snowhorn's regular armor and missile resistance on the approach, as Glacial Shield's slow effect means you'll just be in the line of fire for longer if you pop it too early. However, if you can get into the enemy's back lines and then pop it they will fine you very hard to remove.

===Monstrous Cavalry===
*'''Mournfang Cavalry''': One of the most powerful cavalry units from the tabletop game and their Total War counterparts don't disappoint. Their statline is scary, they have about the same mass as a Carnosaur, and their lack of armour actually works in their favour too, since the things enemies would normally roll out to counter monstrous cavalry usually have lower base damage, making them even beefier than they already appear on paper. They don't have Ogre Charge for some reason, but their speed and heavy mass will usually make up for it. Comes with standard, ironfist, and great weapon variants. The only cavalry that can beat Mournfang Cavalry with great weapons are Crushers with Great Weapons.

*'''Crushers''': Rhinox cavalry. I know. We’re surprised they’ve shown up in the base game too. Essentially an even better version of Mournfangs, they come in two variants, ironfists and great weapons. Does basically everything the Mournfangs do but better. Pound for pound the best heavy cav in Immortal Empires. No other cavalry even comes close to being able to take on crushers with great weapons. War Bear riders are a pretty distant second and everyone else gets absolutely dumpstered. Multiplayer cost efficiency is a problem though. A 1800-1900 point cost means you can buy a squad of mournfangs and an additional squad of ogre bulls or sabertusks for the same price as one crusher cav squad.
**'''The Sky-Striders''': Meet the strongest cavalry unit in the game to-date, courtesy of stolen Sky-Titan weapons. These guys hit harder than their great weapon cousins, have missile resistance, and frostbite. The enemy ranged won't be able to focus them down as fast and any enemy cavalry they encounter will take massive damage on the charge and be unable to escape. A must-take against cavalry-heavy factions like Bretonnia and still pretty useful against monster heavy factions as well.

===Artillery===
*'''Gnoblar Scraplauncher''': A single entity catapult, with surprising speed and charge stats. They shoot a spread of three projectiles which explode in a fairly wide radius of shrapnel on impact. The downside is they have very poor AP. When they run out of ammo use them as a back-up chariot. Otherwise they're best to bring against factions with a lot of unarmored chaff.
*'''Ironblaster''': Mobile cannon pulled by a rhinox and firing spreadshot cannonballs that sunder armor. In other words, it's an artillery piece with none of the weaknesses. This is one of the best units on the roster as it can snipe out large monsters while running over infantry that gets its hands on it. If left alone this thing will demolish armies. Cavalry will be its biggest weakness, as they're fast enough to catch up and tear it down. Also since it only has one model it may lose in shootouts with other dedicated cannon units.
*'''Stonehorn Harpoon Launcher''': All the benefits of a regular Stonehorn but with a ranged attack to boot, though with a price increase to match. A big armoured monster with a fire on the move ballista that can outrange Vampire Coast Deck Gunners. Capable of throwing down with an Ancient Stegadon in melee, though you'll much rather throw it at infantry.

==Multiplayer Strategies==
You are THE monster faction of the trilogy. You have a grand total of 2 normal infantry units, neither of which is going to carry the day for you, and a bunch of big fat boys in all manners of flavours. You are going to be a scary force on the charge and have some of the scariest units in the entire game. Mournfangs make elite cav from other factions cry and they're your lowest tier cavalry unit. Of course, your reliance on monsters comes with an obvious weakness as you will struggle against... well, pretty much anyone who can bring a decent amount of Anti-Large to the field. You may also struggle since your army tends to be predictable, and I imagine veterans will learn how to counter you fast. Still, if you want to grab a monster horde to feast on your enemies this is the race for you. Here's how to win glory for The Maw:

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': If Ogres are high-mass, anti-Charge Defense, Beastmen are high-Charge, low-Mass; basically, you do well on braced guys, they do well flooding flanks, so keep yours protected and use your mass/chaff to keep them stuck-in when they make contact. Your Monstrous Infantry are no match for charging Minotaurs with Great Weapons, but your Monstrous Cav will do a lot of damage on most of the Beastmen's roster. Hunters on Stonehorns and Leadbelchers can deal with Ghorgons, and because Beastmen have low Armor, feel free to leave the Great Weapons at home.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': Bretonnian cavalry being essentially immune to your greatest strength is going to hurt badly. knights of the realm will break through 90% of your roster and will be able to outspeed all of your roster 'even sabertusks'. prepare for pain

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''': An extremely good matchup for your ogres, other than khorne warriors with halberds 'who can be knocked over anyway' the low-mass hordes of chaos will be mulched. Do bring a leadbelcher or two in case the daemons break out the greater daemons

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': Your plentiful AP will be enough to crack open the evil refrigerators a WoC player will call a frontline. Mournfangs and Crushers with Great Weapons will destroy Chaos Knights as well. Dragon Ogres will be a definite concern, and should be dealt with using Leadbelchers and Ironblasters.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': Scourgerunners. Scourgerunners, Scourgerunners, Scourgerunners. If they were a standout unit in the Dark Elf roster before, they are a rockstar in this matchup, and victory will come down to in a large part how you deal with them. They'll outrun your cav, stay out of range of your missiles and can dodge your artillery if they're micro'd well enough. Sabretusks seem like a good way to get them off your back with their insane speed, but can they reach the chariots without being shot half to hell? Other than that, Dark Elves can bring a pretty good amount of anti-large to the field with their infantry, but they have a hard time building wide because their army is pretty expensive. While they're not exactly a slow faction, you should generally have the mobility advantage, since their cavalry just won't be able to stack up to yours. Make sure you're using it to get those charges in, especially against elite units like Black Guard. Some artillery could be a good idea in case they bring a Kharibdyss. You're fast enough to maul any unprotected missile infantry, and your own missiles should be a good way to shoot any lords/heroes they bring full of holes.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': If you can reach the Dwarfs you're going to do a lot of damage; they've always had trouble fending off lots of large entities at once. However, that "if" is nothing to sneeze at. You will be eating cannonballs from the beginning of the match. Be sure to bring ironfist variants on most of your Ogre troops to get ''some'' survivability against dwarf ranged play. Bring Leadbelchers and Ironblasters as well; dwarfs often have trouble against the artillery of other armies, and while they'll probably focus down your ranged units before you do theirs at least if they're doing that they're not shooting your advancing ogres. If by some miracle your Ironblasters survive they can still serve as chariots, something else dwarf players hate. Gorgers might be a worthwhile investment for stealthily getting into the back lines. Watch out for Trollhammer torpedoes!

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': If you didn't like the Empire before then you'll definitely hate them now. With Markus Wulfheart, Huntsmen, artillery aplenty, and skirmish cavalry running circles around you, fighting the Empire is going to suck. However, With what we know about ogres so far some good advice would be bringing Gnoblar Trappers to ambush, ensnare, and destroy skirmish cav. You can also get good mileage out of sabretusks, they're speedy enough to catch outriders and mean enough to eat artillery crews along with their weaksauce empire infantry bodyguards. The Empire's frontline for the most part will crumple the moment you get in melee, but watch out for halberdiers and try to soften them with your leadbelchers and artillery. Bring Maneaters with great weapons to handle their Demigryphs with halberds, and shut down their artillery as soon as you can because great cannons, steam tanks, and luminarks will blast your ogres and monsters to pieces. As for enemy lords, the primary threat is Markus Wulfheart. He's squishy, but the trouble is catching him before he kills your lord, heroes, your monsters, and your ogre infantry. Try to tie him down with your gnoblar trappers and speedy units, then close in on the bastard and use his bow as a spick to roast him on.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Guts out boys! Cathay is going to bring halberds and plenty of ranged against you. Your best bet is to plow a Gutbus of Ogre Bulls and right through their front line and into the chewy center. For all of Cathay's strong defensive tactics a mass of ogres and other monsters can overwhelm them. Bring some Sabertusks or Gorgers as well though, because you will want to shut down their long ranged firepower, especially Grand Cannons and Crane Gunners, so your ogres don't get too shot up on the approach. Consider bringing an Ironblaster or two keep them preoccupied with an artillery duel. Leadbelchers will be helpful for gunning down the dragons and Stonehorn will really maximize your bunkerbusting ability, but at this point you're going to have to make some tradeoffs as ogres don't come cheap.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Arachnarok spiders will be your bane here if your opponent brings them otherwise this matchup could go either way as both your armies will end up in a slugging match.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''': Helves basic tier 0 spearmen and archers will shred through anything you can bring. In campaign either go for autoresolves or bring 3 armies against their 1. In multiplayer just give up.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''': Khorne Warriors and calvary will be squished before your counterparts. Better yet most won't gain their Hellblade bonuses unless you've brought Gnoblars. Bloodthirsters could be a problem due to their anti-large power, and they could fly over your lard-line for any juicy artillery beasts you've been keeping.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''': An extremely painful matchup. kislev has missile units out of the ass and your low-armor ogres will have a poor time against them. kislev's other 'premier' unit are anti-large war bears that can't be knocked over. prepare for death

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Though Saurus won't seem too daunting a proposition, Skink Skirmishers and Chameleon Skinks are going to be a literal pain in the ass due to their speed and your relative lack of armor. The abundance of poison weaponry generally sucks and Lizardmen aren't exactly hurting for Anti-Large in the form of Saurus Spears, Temple Guard, Salamander Hunting Packs and Carnosaurs. Lastly, their Terradon Riders will be a rather annoying nuisance due to your very limited anti-air options. The good news is that your cavalry will generally bowl right through theirs and with proper positioning, you'll likely be able to shoulder check your way through most defensive lines. Leadbelchers can make short work of Saurus and Kroxigors in general if you can get flanking shots onto them. Just make sure you have some Sabretusks and Mournfang Cavalry screen any Skinks or Cav trying to tie them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': This will probably be a tough match-up considering Norsca's anti-large. Consider bringing artillery to destroy them from afar before you charge in.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Nurgle hates enemies he can't tarpit and is bad against large numbers of monsters, powerful ranged weapons, and fire damage. Given that you can bring all of these to the table if you can't win this match-up you should probably turn off the computer and go play hop-skotch or something.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': Weapons teams and enough chaff to hold even your THICC mass off. you're fucked

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': You can't flank ogres enough said

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': Skelly infantry won't last long against you, especially if you bring a Firebelly for lore of fire. What you really got to watch out for are their constructs, especially dedicated anti-large ones like Sepulchral Stalkers and Necrosphinxes. Load up with anti-large and try not to cluster your units too closely together. Your army is highly highly dependent on getting the charge and you don't want your entire strategy to get ruined by a single Net of Amyntok.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': Bring sabretusks and gorgers, if you're not able to chase down tzeench he's going to abuse his barriers and whittle you down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': While you are vulnerable to missiles, the coast is also going to struggle like hell to keep you at range given how incredibly fast you are and how easily you can shove them around with your charges. Prometheans are really their only means of stopping you from getting where you want to go and Crushers or Mournfangs with great weapons should annihilate the crabs in short order.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': A very tough matchup. bring firebellies and gnoblar scraplaunchers because as ogres you have a lot of difficulty dealing with swarms of infantry and the vampire counts WILL bring a truckload of anti-large skeleton spears and ethereal units. Do your best to protect the firebelly as you flame storm the counts.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': Forests give a 80% penalty to large units speed and melee attack, and any good welf is going to sit in that fucking treeline and mulch you to death with his no-collision arrows. your best bet is to bring stonehorns and leadbelchers and get into a quasi-artillery duel to force him out into the open.

==Campaign Strategies==
Use and abuse your camps; settlements can only hit tier 3 and shouldn't be your primary method of generating revenue, food, or armies.

If you're playing as Greasus, it may make sense to migrate west and confederate Skrag ASAP because Greasus is shit. Otherwise, while Cathay will be rich and easily-held territory once you defeat Meow Ying, Zhao Ming, and Nakai the Wanderer, it will be a slog to conquer it all and you'll be trapped in a hell of siege battle after siege battle after siege battle against the same units for 100 turns. On the other hand, as Skrag you'll have you pick of targets but no real defensible territory, so be ready for lots and lots of battles with pretty much everyone. Unfortunately, the Ogre Kingdoms are half-baked and the fantasy of being a wandering merc army eating the land as you amass riches isn't really playable in Immortal Empires, a sort of Hoard mechanic might have been a fit for that playstyle but alas we don't have that. Ogre contracts are absolute shit compared to Eshin contracts or Oxyotl missions, so you have no real good source of supplementary income besides sacking or razing everyone around you or attacking Cathay caravans, so be prepared to have no allies to shore up the weaknesses in the ogre roster unless you focus hard on diplomacy. If you do, factions with armor-piercing missile units (Handgonners, Hand Cannoneers, Crane Gunners) or splash damage artillery (Helstorms, Globardiers) may be your best options.

On the plus side, ogres are much more powerful than other faction's early-game units and you can expand quite quickly. Keep up the momentum with your camps and you should have an easy mid-game where Leadbelchers and Crushers will shine. Ironblasters and Stonehorns are going to be your late-game army, though there aren't many traits, if any, that improve them. Your mages will be fairly mediocre.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay

2023-03-09T05:22:19Z

2601:1C0:5000:CFF0:3C54:264A:E1AF:BED0: /* Domination */

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

==Why Play Cathay==
*Because Total War: Three Kingdoms didn't go hard enough into fantasy for you.
*These guys are finally being fleshed out (with the full blessings of our [[Games Workshop|evil British overlords]] nonetheless) after years and you want to see what they come up with.
*You're into chinese history and mythology.
*You want to play a defensive gunline but don't want to play as the Totally Not Holy Roman Empire, short vengeful alcoholics or the bad guys from Pirates of the Caribbean
*You think it's extremely funny to watch Flamers of Tzeentch, Jezzails, and Artillery pieces nuke themselves when you use Mirror Missile on them.

===Pros===
*'''Designed for Total War''': One thing we can say as an advantage for Cathay is unlike the other factions they will be designed from the ground up to be in a Total War game rather than trying to transition from a tabletop game into total war. This gives them the potential to be one of the best-designed races and balanced since they're not trying to fit a square Warhammer peg into a round Total War hole.
*'''Numbers''': Cathay has the largest population of all the human nations, so they have bodies to spare. This is mainly reflected by Cathay's numerous and cost efficient peasant spearmen + archers. Cathay's rank and file infantry more closely resembles the empire in cost and model count.
*'''Range''': As the oldest Human nation to have gotten gunpowder, it makes sense it plays a big role in your army. You have access to a ton of gunpowder units and artillery to blast the enemy apart. You also got some elite crossbows to play around with. The harmony system ensures that your ranged units have some of the higest reload skill in the entire game, which means... Well, [[Dakka|you shoot a lot.]]
*'''Air Power''': With your Longma, War Balloons and your Dragons you will be decently scary in the air. You won't be fast, and any opposing faction with decent air cavalry will likely threaten you, but you have some potent options.
*'''Harmony''': Cathay has a solid combination of ranged and melee units that work together well in concert. Similarly, units can either be Yin or Yang aligned and having the two working together provides you with a bonus.
*'''Defensive''': Cathay is built to last. Between your faction mechanics and selection of magical lores, Grand Cathay is built to hold the line. If you crave a faction with a strong, staunch line of spears to keep your enemies at bay, Cathay's going to be the faction for you.
*'''Magic:''' Cathay is actually able to keep up with the best of them when it comes to magic. Sure, you don't have the variety that High Elves or Empire have but with 4 lores you do have the most of the game 3 factions. Plus, with Mastery of the Elemental Winds, your spells do more damage the more mages you have in your army. Especially in campaign, Miao and Zhao can carry the army with their spells alone.

===Cons===
*'''Synergy''': Due to the way Harmony works, you will NEED to keep units close to each other, otherwise individual units will underperform. As such, you will likely be locked into turtling in order to get your units close enough to get the buffs they might need in order to perform efficiently. On their own, your units actually have ''lower'' stats than their equivalent in other armies, only getting better when properly buffed.
*'''Slow''': Cathay won't be winning many foot races compared to other factions. Though not as plodding as nurgle or dwarfs, you don't have much in the way of cavalry and your war balloons are pretty susceptible to air cav and missile fire.
*'''Subpar Cavalry''': With Nurgle getting Chaos Knights and Marauder Horsemen in the Champions of Chaos DLC, you now have the worst cavalry of all the Warhammer 3 factions. Jade Lancers are on equal footing with Empire Knights, which doesn't seem bad until you realizes that your second best cavalry option is roughly on par with another faction's weakest heavy cav that tend to get flattened by more elite options. Peasant Horsemen are similar to Mounted Yeomen and while Longma aren't bad they are expensive while not having AP or anti large. Could be worse, you at least ''have'' cavalry, but most factions will out match you with their riders.
*'''Limited Skirmishers''': No vanguard deployment, stalk, or cheap fast movers other than peasant horsemen. Cathay sucks at harrying broken units off the map and hunting enemy skirmishers + war machines.
*'''AoE Susceptible''': A core mechanic of Cathay units is that they gain bonuses when in close proximity with each other. While this can be great for holding the line, it also makes your forces more vulnerable to vortex or wind spells. You'll have to keep an eye out for enemy wizards.
*'''No Melee Expert Non-Legendary Lords or Heroes''': None of your non-LL and Heroes are really that good in melee combat or can serve as a tank. I know what you're thinking "But the Dragon Siblings!" but they won't be leading all your armies in campaign and they are expensive in multiplayer. 3 out of 4 of your Lords and Heroes are Mages and the one that isn't, the Lord Magistrate, is a support buffing character rather than a melee duelist or a tank. Shugengan lords are stated to be decent in melee but trust me, that's only by Mage Lord standards. You won't have many characters that can be safely thrown into melee combat. Concept art was found for a "Gate Master" hero, which will likely serve as the Cathayan equivalent of the Empire Captain or High Elf Noble, so this issue will probably be fixed with DLC.
*'''Empty Campaign''': Cathay is MASSIVE in Immortal Empires with the addition of the Grand Canal and southern provinces that didn't exist in the Realm of Chaos campaign. While CA tried to spice the place up by moving Lokhir, Sniktch, and Nakai and adding NPC skaven/greenskin/vampire factions to the area, both Miao Ying and Zhao Ming face little resistance to expansion and can quickly snowball into economic juggernauts. Hopefully we get DLC for the Monkey King or Jade blooded vampires or Snakemen of Khuresh to give them more of a challenge.
*'''DLC''': There are three guarantees in life. Death, Taxes, and Core Races getting units withheld for DLC. There is already a notable lack of monkey in the Cathay roster. Sorry Cathay, don't expect to be different. (Though in this case, I guess it's less "units being held back" and more "CA and GW making up more shit later.")
**Note that we can generally predict 2-3 lord packs for Cathay. In Mythology china gave each of the 4 cardinal direction's there own set of associations, beast, element, god so on, and with two lords already claiming two of those directions, 2 more for the other two compass points and a possible 5th for the center seems likely.

==Faction traits==
*'''Battle Harmony''': Shared by all non-character Cathay units. Melee units are marked as "Yang", while ranged units are "Yin"; these units gain bonuses when near a unit of the opposite type: leadership and melee defence for melee Yang units, and leadership and reload speed for ranged Yin units. Characters multiply these bonuses for nearby units.
*'''Mastery of the Elemental Winds''': Shared by all Cathayan spellcasters, this ability enhances their spells for each spellcaster present in the army. This encourages taking multiple spellcasters, something not usually done in other factions.
*'''Formation Attack''': A trait that makes the unit try to stay in formation, even when in combat. Increases defense at the cost of DPS.

==Lords==
We finally got the names of the two legendary lords, and they turn out to be new characters. The children of the Dragon Emperor and the Moon Empress, they rule in his stead over the various provinces of Cathay.

===Legendary Lords===
Cathay has a tech unlockable banner that gives 20% ward save, use this on your legendary of choice, if you take the sword of Slaanesh from the chaos realm you'll get another 20% ward save and tons of damage. Finally the jeweled dagger arcane item gives 25% ward save.enjoy being the toughest/deadliest lord in WH 3. Even Skarbrand cant compete with 70-80% ward save dragons who also cast spells. Unfortunately as of patch 2.2 they can only cast their one basic spell while in dragon form and not use most abilities (Lame....). you can easily stay transformed all the time if your willing to use a hero caser instead. cathay has two items, The Luminark lens (gives 40% fire weakness to enemies map wide) from caravans, and Catalytic kiln (gives a weak mortis engine effect and 22% more fire weakness around lord) get flaming attacks on your lord from beating kostalyn or an item or something and enjoy 62% more damage on everything.
*'''[[Miao Ying]], the Storm Dragon, ruler of the Northern Provinces and Commander of the Great Bastion.''': Daughter of the Dragon Emperor. Miss Cold and Aloof. She is in the north and is daddy's favorite. Can transform between human form where she buffs harmony and a big dragon to melee it up in battle. She will be able to use a hybrid of Life and Yin Magic: Including Earth Blood, Storm of Shadows, Flesh to Stone, Missile Mirror, Regrowth and Talons of Night, with both Lore Traits of Lifebloom and Power of Yin, which means she has basically all the best spells from both lore of life and yin. She has the Wrath of the Storm ability, which increases melee attack, makes attacks magical, and makes those affected immune to psychology. She also has the Disdain of Dragons ability, which lowers enemy melee attacks in a constant radius. She also has access to the Mirror Missile spell which is easily one of the most trollish spells in the entire game, you will never tire of watching the enemy's elite ranged units delete themselves when they fire with the hex activated. She is the only lord cathay has with non-bound healing spells, and regrowth is amazing on herself and terracotta sentinels. no inherent access to regeneration as a skill though, the von carstein blade item from caravans is perfect for her. She gets -50% upkeep to missile units, so bringing a stack almost full of celestial dragon crossbows is probably your best endgame option. Maybe bring 4-6 terracotta sentinels to defend them and support with her healing/provide harmony and you should be good to go on top of her own significant power.

*'''[[Zhao Ming]], the Iron Dragon, ruler of the Western Provinces and Lord of Shang-Yang''': Son of the Dragon Emperor, and a mama's boy. His faction is stated to focus on and specialize in Alchemists and Astronomers. Can transform between human form where he buffs harmony and a big dragon to melee it up in battle. He uses a hybrid of Metal and Yang magic, unfortunately his spell selection is kinda terrible, his only really great spells are final transmutation and breath of the dragon, and I guess wall of fire isn’t bad either but the rest are pretty weak. It feels like they purposely picked only the weakest spells from the lore of Yang to give him, he would have been great with jade shield and stone stance. The biggest issue is that constellation, dragons breath and wall of fire are all chaff killing spells, and he really doesn’t need 3 variants of the same thing. He gets regeneration, an AOE ward save aura (includes him), and can cast final transmutation with a discount which is very powerful for taking out the mass soulgrinders you face in the final campaign battle. He has large army wide buffs to armor and weapon damage. He has -25% upkeep for all yang units, so a basic endgame army for him is him plus at least one alchemist and probably an astromancer (each providing extra winds intensity, and the compass mount gives some free bound spells), maybe optional 1-2 longma riders and/or sky junks (though neither is that necessary), and the rest terracotta sentinels. He gets 100% magic item drop chance so your basically guaranteed to be able to fuse or find all the best magic items in the game.

===Lords===
*'''Dragon-Blooded Shugengan Lord''': Descended from when a human pulled a Donkey from Shrek with Cathay's rulers. Your Mage lord, they come with the lores of Yang or Yin and their mounts are Warhorse or Jade Longma for extra mobility. While they are ''slightly'' better than most mage lords in melee don't expect them to last long if a dedicated melee character gets a hold of them. Yin and Yang variants each get to choose from 4 different options of bound spells from other lore’s usable 4 times each, I prefer Yang because they can get earthblood, which is Cathay’s only healing access or spirit leach is good for yin. the flying mount is a major reason they out preform the lord magistrate.

*'''Lord Magistrate''': Your cheap normal frontline general. His gimmick is being able to further improve the harmony mechanic of his army, so extra incentive to form up in a sexy turtle. He also comes with the ability to buff the defense, damage or range of units with his army abilities. His mounts are Warhorse or Sky Lantern. Sadly he's garbage in melee, his mounts suck and pretty much anything he can do a Shugengan can do better. As such no real reason to nab him unless you want to hear his gloriously hammy voice acting. He's also unfortunately the only lord that will ever lead your caravans. Also voiced by the amazing Shogun 2 battle advisor.

===Legendary Heroes===

===Generic Heroes===
*'''Alchemist''': Mages who fight with vials and magic that looks like Chinese calligraphy. Lore of Metal user with some extra bound buffs to armour, melee attack and magic damage with armour piecing. Can mount a warhorse. She has a battle skill buff that gives increased base damage and magic attacks with the ability to specialize in adding either Poison with the same bonus damage as the base version, Flaming which gives double the base damage increase, or a version which gives more AP damage and non AP as an aoe buff power. She can be good just to make sure that your units have other ways to fight the enemy. They boost army mobility, so make sure to put one in every army. remember even if they don't cast they provide winds mastery to your army.

*'''Astromancer''': Your lore of heavens caster. His mounts are a Warhorse for mobility or a Wu Xing War Compass which seems as though it will boost his magic output considerably. You pick this mage if you just want to blow shit up, as his War Compass mount gives him two free bound spells to rain upon the enemy. Also provides winds mastery.

==Units==

===Infantry===
*'''Peasant Long Spearmen''': Your early chaff unit that's literally expected to run away once things get hairy. The unexpected MVP of the MULTIPLAYER roster (at least until DLCs give you something better). They come with Expendable ''and'' Expert Charge Defense, which is a rarity for tier 1 units. They are pretty good in campaign too but Jade Warriors with all the tech and ancillary buffs are a lot more efficient and auto resolve much better.
**Rather than treating them like Skavenslaves, they're a lot more like TK Skeleton Spearmen without the shields: a really good screen with lots of bodies, relatively high health compared to the rest of your infantry, and high model count that can absorb losses. They're still expendable chaff, and you take them to die in place of your Jade warriors or Celestial Guard.
*'''Jade Warriors''': Your mid-tier unit and your bread and butter until you can afford Celestial Dragon Guard, and you may prefer to run halberd Jade Warriors anyway for cheaper armies even after unlocking Dragon Guard. Have a unique mechanic where the longer they sit still and brace, the more bonuses they get, gaining higher charge resistance and armour. Make the Dragon Empire into the Turtle Empire with these guys. Just keep in mind that like turtles, they don't move very fast or hit very hard. Basically empire troops with worse melee stats, but much better armor, and a greater focus on defense in general. all jade warriors can benefit from plus 3 recruit rank and -8% upkeep from very common ancillaries in campaign, an they have a lot of boosting techs in the tech tree. Stack red skill tree buffs, techs, harmony, and spells and jade warriors will be your reliable cost-effective workhorse units all game long, just like empire state troops. They are comparable to dwarf warriors in raw durability.
**The Sword and Shield combo, when combined with Harmony and their own innate stationary buff, they are very tough and can still find a use to tank hits for the Dragon Guard in the late-game. Excellent front line unit with ok missile block chance and dwarf warrior levels of armor. They have much worse melee attack than empire swordsmen but slightly better melee defense, which goes to much better when buffed with harmony. keep in mind you don't fight many missile units as Cathay in campaign so the shield is usually wasted.
**The Halberd has better melee attack and armor piercing, so they're like the Wardancers in that even when fighting against heavy infantry, its generally a lot more useful to take them to do some damage. Still more of a holding force than an aggressive force. Once you conquer Cathay you will probably just be fighting demons and marauders so these will probably be better than the shield variant. Compared to empire halberds they have worse melee defense and melee attack (even with base harmony buffs), but much higher armor. As long as you aren't fighting lots of missile units these make for a generally superior front line than the sword and board variant, and they can easily have 100 or more armor in campaign so don't need to be that afraid of non-ap missiles. Dragon guard are definitely stronger than them but jade warriors are so much cheaper and easier to recruit that you may be better off just going with these for most secondary or defensive armies, maybe save the dragon guard for your legendary lords or primary offensive armies only. With the addition of Azazel to the campaign you really need to rush these early so you have a melee unit with AP and charge defense to stand up to his Chaos Warriors, chariots, and Manticores.

*'''Celestial Dragon Guard''': Your elite, end-game unit, taking the best from both Jade Warriors since they're all armed with Halberds and Shields. They have expert charge defense, AP, and don't get bonuses/lose nothing from moving, meaning you could move them to where they're needed most, or even have them charge though Peasant chaff, foregoing the low charge bonus to keep models alive given the low-model count typical of Elite Infantry. Good unit but in campaign you may just prefer to use terracotta sentinels, backed up by cheaper jade warrior units instead, as generally Cathay doesn't rely on their melee infantry for damage.
**'''Dune Dragons''' - Dragon Guard with Magic Attacks, Magic Resist, Immune to Psych and Encourage. These guys are pretty much designed to be a middle finger to large Daemons as they can punch through physical resist and not get terror routed.

===Missiles===
*'''Peasant Archers''': Like your peasant infantry, but with a bow and arrow. Cheap and expendable, potentially valuable if you need a relatively disposable unit to provide a small amount of ranged support and trigger the harmony buff where needed. Has no AP, but that shouldn't be a problem in campaign where the majority of your chaos, norsca, and ogre enemies don't have much armor. Becomes obsolete for your main armies fairly quickly since you can get jade crossbowmen very early, but they make good emergency fodder since they can be recruited pretty much anywhere.
** Very cost effective, especially with the harmony buffs. Can put down a significant amount of fire with their reload skill buffs.

*'''Jade Warrior Crossbowmen''': Jade Warriors with crossbows (in case you couldn't have told from their name). Armoured and with a shielded variant, they sit in-between Empire Crossbowmen and Dwarf Quarrelers in terms of durability and power; they still have the same "hunker-down" ability as regular JW, so you'll probably want to move them in position behind Long Spears and refrain from moving them to keep those bonuses. Similar to jade warriors they have a lot of tech and ancillary buffs so remain useful all game long, eventually you'll consider switching these for celestial crossbows or crane gunners, at least for your more elite armies, defensive armies can probably stick with these. Harmony gives them very impressive reload speed.

*'''Jade Warrior Crossbowmen With shields''' You know the drill by now. silver shield and a plus 8 to melee defense. In campaign you can usually skip the shields since you don't face many missile units but they aren't a bad option by any means, with 8 more md they can last a big longer versus light cav and hounds until backup arrives. They are basically more expensive Dwarf Quarrelers with better unit sizes and better reload with harmony.

*'''Celestial Dragon Guard Crossbowmen''': Jade Warriors on steroids, once again. Shielded, heavily armoured and with armour-piercing bolts, they're durable archers that can trade shots with the enemy's best. Definitely a better upgrade to jade crossbows than regular dragon guard are to jade halberds, but remember that ap doesn't matter if your fighting most demons.
**On paper, their bolts have more strength than the Sisters of Avelorn, but it's mundane AP versus the Fire/Magic combo that lets the Sisters put in work against pretty much anything. Celestial Crossbowmen have better DPS when buffed, though.
**Desperate and in a pinch? Castle too tight for shooting? Well, they're still Celestial Guard, and so are decent in melee, minus the AP or anti-large bonus. They still give Harmony when in melee. As a pure ranged unit they do face competition from crane gunners who have much better range, but these can actually hold the line and tank some damage, plus the benefits of indirect fire. Generally a core of these with 2 crane gunners is a good mix for example, have the crane gunners snipe lords and high priority cav or fast targets, while these handle the infantry and slower enemies.

* '''Iron Hail Gunners''': A living version of the Zombie Handcannons from the Pirate coast, these ladies massacre armored infantry with their high-AP shotguns. With the Harmony system, being able to keep them closer to your melee units will make them into machinegunning shotgunners. Can fire in melee if the enemy makes contact without breaking through the first rank.
**Unlike your Crossbowmen or Crane gunners, they lack shields or armor, but are much more mobile. You can flank with them to outright delete elite infantry, but even having them shoot through gaps in your formation is also helpful, because they're Cathayan shotguns. Keep in mind they do worse than jade crossbowman in auto-resolve. lack of indirect fire is an issue so learn to use chevron formations. Replace these with crane gunners as soon as you can however. Frankly given that all your early game enemies tend to have poor armor in campaign, you should probably just use Jade warrior crossbows instead.
**Considering how quickly you can get these ladies in the Campaign, they're instrumental damage dealers from early to mid.
** Be cautious about using them against the ogres because they will literally just run through your front line, because hurr durr pull through. In campaign, best employed against all chaos factions other than Tzeentch, whose basic units will fucking slaughter the gunners with their ranged attacks, because fuck you I guess.

* '''Crane Gunners''': Human Skaven Jezzails. Much like their rat counterparts, these gunners excel at long-ranged sniping with their second-only-to-artillery range and will likely form a core part of your backline while you make the enemy come to you. They come with shields, which should give them some missile resistance to weather counter-fire and kill those jezzails. You're probably better off going for grand cannons in most match ups though. Grand cannons have better all around combat stats and the exact same movement speed; but with Patch 1.2, they are now shieldbreakers (reducing Missile Block Chance) and their missiles gain limited piercing, which makes them good at mowing down closely ranked. Better than cannons at sniping mobile targets and they can take cover + shoot out of forests when cannons can't. 1-2 of these in an army is a great way to snipe down high priority targets.

===Cavalry===
*'''Peasant Horseman''': The fastest thing in your army that can't fly. Probably based on the herdsmen levies that numerous Chinese dynasties employed as scouts and light cav. With an almost identical statline to Brettonian mounted yeomen, the only reason to get peasant horsemen is because Cathay has no alternatives other than Jade Lancers and Longmas who are simply too expensive to waste chasing down routing units + artillery crews. You'll want to grab a few of these guys in Multiplayer and early campaign, but hopefully we'll get better alternatives with future DLC.

*'''Jade Lancers''': Jade warriors on horseback. More defensive than other factions cavalry. More suited defending your flank than running in to attack the enemy. high armor but mediocre melee stats and speed. in camapign use them if you want a flanking unit, who will actually kill the units they are supposed to kill, or just peasant horsemen if you want to run down routing enemies. They can get the Slaanesh Devastating flanker ability from a campaign tech so they they will have over 90 charge bonus on the flank, they will do good work cycle charged, but replace with Longma riders asap.

*'''Great Jade Longma Riders''': Your versions of pegasus knights, except instead of a rich noble who sneers at peasants, you get a rich noble whose great-great-great-grandad/mom got busy with a dragon. Also comes with Fear, possibly making them an expensive option to spook away and chase routing units. Their true strength will be as a bodyguard unit for your squishy balloons/artillery against enemy air forces and flankers, and being a hammer to the rest of your rosters anvil. 1-2 of these is a great option for any of your armies.
**Stats wise, they're roughly between pegasus and royal pegasus knights that traded away their Anti-Large bonus in exchange for 30 more armour (110 total), higher weapon strength, and charge bonus. As such, they're better at dealing with multiple different types of opponents but aren't quite as good at dealing with large units and other cav.
**'''Righteous Lances of Wei-Jin''': Comes with good AP damage and the Guardian ability that decreases damage taken by nearby lords and heroes. If you want a bodyguard for your flying lords or just want air cavalry that fight armored targets these are the horse dragon things for you.

===Chariots===
*'''Wu-Xing War Compass''': A big ol' magical battery that boosts Harmony and counts towards Mastery of Elemental Winds increase the power of your spells. Can cast Urannons Thunderbolt and Comet of Casanodora; the Compass has been buffed in 1.2 to give you 2 free casts of each power without costing WoM, but their ''Celestial Comet'' is half as strong (but also twice as fast) to compensate. Better used as a mount for your spellcasters than an actual unit on it's own
**Also ok in melee as a ...cart. It moves as fast as infantry, literally anyone who gets run over by this thing deserves to die under the hooves of plain old cows dragging a heavy fucking magic compass.

===Monsters===
*'''Terracotta Sentinel''': Take the standard Terracotta soldier from China, make it really big and teach it kung fu and you have this thing. Possible doomstack material. They are unbreakable and hit like a truck, making them good at both clearing chaff and 1v1ing monsters. Don't leave them unsupported against missile units or anti-large elites, as they'll still break down to concentrated AP and missiles. Causes Terror for understandable reasons.
**If you've played Tomb Kings, you know what to expect: keep them away from Halberd tarpits and anti-large monstrous infantry, and if you can't, give them a screen, like Peasant spears or Jade cavalry.
**It's also the best monster in the entire game right now. Like seriously, this thing can beat a Necrosphinx or a Bloodthirster one on one. It's also incredibly affordable and only costs 100 gold more than giants despite fighting much better in combat. Yeah these things are a little bullshit. Given that Cathay as a faction is considered subpar it's nice that they have at least one unit that is unambiguously strong, but expect CA to whack these guys with the nerf bat eventually. Seriously with the blue tree you can get these for like 250 upkeep each, just spam doom stacks of these supported by magic and you’ll destroy everything. You don’t even need to support them with the harmony system, but can anyway by bringing a balloon or two. They can get an insane plus 15% replenishment buff from the tech tree as well as an ancillary that giives -10% upkeep and unlike most single entities they auto resolve very well due to high armor and health.
**'''The Jolly Green Guardian (Regiment of Renown):''' A Terracotta Sentinel with better missile resistance ''and'' a permanent missile mirror aura that applies to all enemies around it. The aura also renders him immune to many short ranged anti-large units like poison wind globardiers and norscan javelins. You'll need to use him aggressively as a bullet sponge in most matchups to get the most out of his abilities.

===Artillery===
* '''Grand Cannon''': Your basic artillery unit with surprising mobility thanks to being pulled by oxen. Comes with flaming attacks by default, making it slightly better at burning trees and mummies, and cutting through regeneration. It is roughly as fast as a standard infantry unit, which is actually a big deal because it will be able to keep up with your main army and rearrange itself much easier than a normal cannon.
** Extremely strong basic artillery unit and will likely be your main damage dealer and the focus of your army: with the harmony bonuses, it can and will kill large units very fucking quickly with their reload bonuses. Always nice to swat Fateweaver out of the sky even before the shit starts spamming searing doom/various fires over your lines.
** It's important to note that these boys are the most accurate cannons we've seen in Total war so far, extremely useful as they're actually capable of swatting tzeench's flying chariots out of mid-air.You can get to tier 3 extremely quickly in campaign and these boys WILL be your bread and butter in both campaign and multiplayer.

* '''Fire Rain Rocket''': Imagine a hellstorm rocket battery that fires even faster due to the Harmony mechanic. Terrifying. Aim for big blobs of enemies and watch as they become chunky salsa. Compared to the normal Hellstorm it does more missile damage, but the majority of it isn't actually AP. So while you still want to aim for blobs, those blobs should be of less armored infantry rather than heavily armored stuff. Do amazing in auto resolve just like empire hellblasters.

* '''Sky Lantern''': The smaller of the two airship units with Crane Gunners, and dedicated support. It provides a morale boost to your infantry on top of Harmony, so even your Peasants will hold the line for as long as they humanly can. As Cathayan Sky Balloons they grat vision on units that are hiding in foliage, which can help thwart ambushes. They don't reveal Stalk, though.
**It can fire while moving and line of sight isn't much of a problem, so as long as it doesn't get attacked, it can take potshots at the enemy. It's slow as balls though, so any flying unit that gets its hands on it will be able to tear it to pieces. And pretty much every chaos army has furies who will rip it to shreds
**Almost useless, if it wasn't for the harmony mechanic + its encouragement buff, you probably wouldn't ever take them. As a flying unit, it can provide a source of Harmony that the enemy cant touch unless they devote their other flyers or ranged units on it.
**Offensively, though, their crane guns are like the stormbolter on a Rhino: they just don't shoot enough to actually be dangerous, and don't have the bombs that would otherwise make them useful. You may as well take the Crane Guns on infantry if you want sniper fire, or the Sky Junk for Guns, Bombs, and Rockets.

* '''Sky-junks''': The heavier of the two airship units that [[Awesome|acts as a flying Helstorm Rocket Battery]]. Can also drop bombs gyrocopter style, and has high armour against missile units. Unlike most other flying units, it can't toggle landing, so try to protect it against flying cav with missile units. It is slow as fuck and will be pretty much useless once it runs out of ammo, but it will hopefully do some devastating damage before that happens.
**Tanky enough to take hits from Furies and other flying beasties that lack AP, they are a nice flying Distraction Carnifex until they run out of ammo. And even when they do, they're a nice flying anvil to hold flyers in place while your Longma riders hammer them.
**Much more effective when you fire very closely downwards, otherwise, just a shitty, inaccurate, single-entity fire rain launcher. Even in campaign, the SkyJunk Miao Ying starts with tends to autoresolve poorly, needing to be microed in siege battles because the balloon-based rocket-ship cant [[Derp|draw LOS through buildings]].
**Oddly enough, they can be healed mid-battle with Miao Ying or a dragon blooded lord with bound lore of life spells.

==Multiplayer Strategies==
You are what happens when the Empire, Dwarfs, and Skaven all have the world's weirdest threesome where lingering eye contact was held with the Vampire Coast; and they had a baby. Your themes revolve around plentiful, expendable infantry and strong missiles working in unison to bunker down an area and blast anything that comes at you straight to hell. Harmony is a double edge sword, as while it encourages you to pair units together and builds buffs, it also means units on their own aren't reaching their full potential. This is a quantity over quality faction with limited offensive options, as the closest thing you have to offensive infantry is sword and board Jade Warriors, and while they have cavalry, they're slow and limited compared to other factions.

Since the Cathayan army is so new, there's a massive lack of units for the army compared to all the other established factions, and in some ways, it almost feels unfinished. For example, your have no ranged cavalry options, which means your cavalry options won't be able to receive the Harmony benefit if they go too far (and the bubble is so small, you can lose Harmony just chasing after other cavalry). CA is definitely holding back options to make room for new DLC.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': With more flavours of cavalry than you can comprehend, you'll need to set up extremely defensively and bring plenty of halberds to fend off all the armoured horse riders. Be sure to pepper them with your armour piecing missiles, and use peasant chaff to block charges and allow your actual hard hitters to stay in position to fire upon them. Don't bother bringing lanterns and longma riders, Bretonnias air forces are too scary and will easily win any aerial battle, and the lanterns and longma aren't going to be much help against cav and are wasted on peasant chaff.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''':
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Heavily armored barbarians are threatening Cathay's border, and it's up to hot dom dragon waifu and her warpdust snorting fuccboi brother to keep Cathay safe
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
WoC wants to get into melee as soon as they can, and their elite infantry will fuck yours since all your AP is on anti-large; at least your dudes will fuck over any Dragon Ogres, though. Anything bigger than a Dragon Ogre can be handled by the Sentinel
</br>
You outclass them in ranged combat with actual archers, guns, and artillery, WoC players will send Manticores and Cavalry after them, so keep some Halberds next to them (which you should be doing anyway for the Harmony mechanic.)
</br>
That being said, their lack of ranged weapons means that your Sky-Junks will have grand old time, and may be a better investment than ground-based Fire Rockets. Manticores will die to Longma Riders, so keeping them protected will not be an issue.
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*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''':
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This will be tough for the same reason the Vampirates are bad in this matchup, they do your main tactic better than you do. They have a wider assortment of guns and artillery, and great ways to kill your large units. They have Catapults to fuck your formations, while your indirect artillery lacks AP to punch through thicc dwarf armor.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">

You will need to play offence against the Dwarfs which isn't great as you have no armour-piercing infantry that isn't bonus versus large, and your units only hit their peak efficiency when they're stationary and next to someone of the opposite type. They're also slow, not dwarf-slow, but slow enough that you'll take losses from Dwarf artillery, so it's a good idea to have at least a few peasants in front off your dudes to die for the Greater G--Harmony.

Your shielded crossbowmen are decent with good AP, get better when they're stationary, reload quicker with the Harmony mechanic; so long as their shields are faced where the shots are coming from, you can bounce some missiles off, too; Iron Hail gunners are much quicker than Jade Warriors or Dwarfs, and their shotguns pack a mean punch, especially when they're quick-firing with Harmony. They can be very good flankers when you pair them with Peasant Long Spears to guard their flanks and provide Harmony. Crane Gunners are like Skaven jezzails, use them to shoot down Gyrocopters to clear the skies and give your airships the ability to shoot from afar without being shot down. Speaking of airships, the Skyjunk is a better investment than the Fire Rain rocket; their weapons are similar, but the Skyjunk is harder to hit by enemy artillery, has much better angling, and when it runs out of ammo, can drop bombs that will be much more disruptive than the non-AP Fire Rain rockets.

Jade Warriors with shields will likely by your best melee infantry bet as they might be able to survive salvos as they hold against the dwarven line, but try screening them with Peasant Long Spears; they'll break, but when they regroup you can use them as Harmony buffers with your Iron Hail or Crane Guns. In terms of how to break the line, Ox Cannons are quite mobile for an artillery piece, and Crane Guns can provide covering fire from afar.

Your best lord option is a dragon blooded lore of yin caster on a longma. She's highly disruptive to ranged heavy factions since she can summon fodder into the middle of the enemy gunline like a flying vampire lord and overcast missile mirror to shut down individual ranged units for 36 seconds at a time.
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*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''':
Remember what we said in Dwarfs and Vampirates? Yeah you're dealing with a faction that does your thing better than you again. Grand Cannons are better than Great Cannon thanks to Harmony buffs and better mobility, but that's about the only good thing in this particular matchup. Luminarks hard counter Sky Junks and Imperial rocketry has ''significantly'' greater range than your own, while the constant threat of Demigryph up the ass keep you from rushing in without a plan.

*'''Grand Cathay''':
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">There is no war in Grand Cathay
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
This game is still too new for a meta, and most games you have on MP will just be people trying shit out. That being said, take Skyjunks and Fire Rockets and shoot the shit out of the enemy castle. Exploit the Grand Cannons mobility and provide harmony with cheap Peasants that you wont mind losing. Pop airships with Longma or Sky Lanterns, and save the Crane Gunners for their Longma. Take a sentinel and if your opponent takes one too, they can practice their kung fu

</div></div>

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Greenskins shred dwarfs. but you have the great ability of actually having mobile options and magic. a positive matchup in your favor. bring one or two iron hail gunners to melt greenskin monsters and a lore of yang caster for the fire-wall. jade warriors should be able to hold off even black orks buying time for your missiles to bring the pain.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''': Your biggest threat will be dragons or an arcane phoenix and magic. Any sort of mass-AOE will rip apart your packed formations and the helves have a lot of options. bring grand cannons and use their accuracy to snipe their mages and dragons. otherwise your missile line is better than the helves and your frontline is better. a balanced matchup

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''': One of your better matchups. Elite armies really don't like wading through gunfire to get to the enemy lines. Khorne will bring hounds, furies, and a bloodletter summoning cultist or two to disrupt you, peasant spearsmen and maybe a longma squad should suffice to tie them up. A terracotta sentinel is highly recommended as an emergency responder to Khorne's monsters along with a lore of yin caster to snare enemies with storm of shadows and block their movement with summoned fodder.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''': This is a faction that either relies on subpar ranged power or lots of heavy cavalry. pretty much all your infantry is anti-large and you outrange kislev massively. a very positive matchup in your favour as kislev's 'jack of all trades master of none' once again fails against a more specialised faction

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': This will theoretically be a tricky match up, but ultimately one in your favor. Your plentiful AP gunpowder units will make quick work of the sluggish Saurus and, when coupled with your multitude of halberd units, can do some serious damage to their bigger beasties, but they're likely not going to be the forces a competent Lizardmen army will bring. Instead, Skinks will be your bane. Fast skirmishers and Chameleons will hassle you from all angles with their poisonous darts while their cavalry (flying or otherwise) disrupts your formations with fear/terror-inducing charges. If they're bringing a Slann, you will NEED to keep on top of your positioning; positioning your forces too close makes them prime candidates for the myriad of vortex and wind spells at their beck and call. Deal with them first, followed by any cavalry/skirmishers and clean up what's left with your plentiful gunpowder.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Nurgle hates ranged units, enemy large units, an abundance of anti-large, fire damage, and enemies that can hold out in a grindfest against them. You are all of these things and Nurgle has vanishingly few options against you. Long Ma riders take a huge dump all over any of Nurgle's fliers and the fire damage of your artillery, magic, and more will make Nurgle weep with sorrow as you delete his slow moving and utterly unshielded units off the table one after the other. And as Nurgle has extremely anemic charges he can't even reliably break your formations without lucky spell casts; which of course relies on the Nurglites even getting a spellcaster in range through your numerous means to snipe them off the field. You can basically win this matchup while AFK, but something to watch out for is nurgles Army Ability, which can jump from one nearby unit to another, and Harmony forces your units together, so keep an eye out for the plauges.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': High mass charging units will ruin your day. ogres are cathay's worst matchup bar none in warhammer 3. your frontline will get pushed around like paper as while halberds CAN deal a lot of damage and hold off ogres the ogres can bring a lot more ogre bulls for the price than you can bring halberds. It's worth having no magic and getting a cheap lord as your units are a lot more useful than the lores available for once,

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': From the looks of it, this seems to be your hardest matchup by far. Your harmony mechanic relies heavily on having a solid plan for most stages of the game and Skaven excel at disruption, be it through summons, skirmishing Eshin troops or just raw balls-to-the-wall firepower of Clan Skryre. Mirror Missile is your friend in this match-up and for its relatively low winds of magic cost is one of the single most brutal anti-ranged unit spells in the entire game, forcing the Skaven commander to either force their ranged unit into inactivity for twenty seconds or watch their prized shooters wipe themselves out.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': What's this, a speedy flanking faction designed to dive backlines? This could spell trouble for you. Fortunately, you theoretically have one way to banish Slaanesh's creeps back to the warp, and that's "Invest in flying units and box up with halberds." Slaanesh has no ranged units and only Furies as fliers, so as long as you have a Longma unit or cheap missiles to protect them, your Sky Lanterns and Sky Junks will be pretty much untouchable as they blast apart Slaanesh's ranks. Due to the amount of AP on their roster, Celestial Dragon Guard are a risky choice so invest either in Peasent spears or Jade Warriors with Halberds. You won't win the melee fight so don't bother investing in it. Have your infantry hold while your War Ballons shoot, your flying casters cast (Grab either the Dragon Siblings or a Shugangen in the air to keep them safe) and your Longma use their speed to flank and rear charge. Your balloons will run out of ammo eventually though, so make every shot count. Or just bring crossbows/archers, and shoot the living shit out of the exhibitionists.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': Lore of yang fire wall. 'nuff said

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': If the Coast thinks they can outshoot you they have another thing coming. Rocket artillery devastates Vampirate formations and while they can swat your Sky lanterns out of the sky if they bring terrorgheists, Long Ma riders and your Legendary Lords can swat those out of the air in turn and curbstomp any deck droppers they bring. You have well armoured and shielded ranged units who will tear straight through the fragile ranks of the Coast and can stop any monsters they field cold; while your artillery is able to out-trade Vampirate cannons with a better rate of fire as long as harmony is active. Also Missile Mirror was basically created to troll the Vampire Coast specifically.

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

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

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''D'''

You know how Harmony encourages you to stick your units together and to hold down a single point while not getting too aggressive? In Domination you win by doing the exact opposite of that. Since you have to spread out your forces and go on the offensive it's really hard for you to actually keep your Harmony active meaning a good chunk of your units won't be fighting at their price range. What's more, since you're out maneuvered by most factions, odds are you will not being getting to most points first and will have to fight off your enemies to secure them. Good news is that with your high armor, Terrocottas and range once you do have a point it's decently hard to kick you off. It would really help if you had some kind of decent, inexpensive mobile threat or just a fast ranged unit that can help keep harmony on all your infantry, So keep an eye open for DLC that gives you any of that. You're way better in normal land battles though, as it's significantly easier to play your game and keep Harmony up.

==Campaign Mechanics and Tactics==

Unlike Kislev, which devolves into a Daemon fuckfest around the third or fourth wave of Rifts, Cathay is so easily-defendable that it's just begging for a rework, or at least a nerfbat. You gained a new biggish threat in the form of Azazel but it doesn't change the long term easiness of the campaign, prioritize wiping him out asap or he'll spam stacks at you constantly. you early game crossbows wont do shit to chaos warriors so you'll need to rely more on jade halberds and great cannons/ iron hail gunners, but beware his Slaanesh chariots and or manticores, he makes for a potentially tough fight. Your cannons can quickly snipe him out of the air thankfully.

'''Bastion:''' You have no real enemies outside the invaders in the Steppes beyond the Bastion, or the Ogres/Chaos Warriors in the Mountains to the South. The Bastion has a unique "Chaos Invasion" mechanic where Kurgans get spawned every so often to lay siege to the Bastion. They are Norscans rather than WoC, though, so have absolutely no artillery or siege ability outside of throwing trolls or mammoths at you, and the Bastion Gates practically pay for themselves once you invest in the Upkeep Lowering building chain, (which can go as far as 90% upkeep reduction for garrisoned armies), and get the settlement to level 4 to build Terracotta Sentinels. The Kurgans pretty much only exist to die against your garrisons and give them free experience. Funnily enough, should an AI Cathayan faction own all the gates, the stacks will do absolutely nothing but wait outside the gates. if you play as the western provinces your sister in the north can just hold the bastion for you without ever getting attacked pretty much while you conquer or confederate all the other territory in Cathay. Hence how crazy easy the western provinces are.

'''Trade and Treaties:'''Speaking of Cathayan Factions, there are four hostile rebels (two for each Legendary Lord) and two Loyalist ones, who will be pretty easily confederated once you beat the rebels. Do this as quickly as you can, because your income will rise substantially with their provinces and stability. Cathayan income is comparable to High Elves, without the expensive upkeep. You will actually have enough passive income to station a hero in each province to close rifts as they come up, and the gold needed for each action. You can now just use defense building to stop rifts spawning at all.

You'll also have lots of potential trade partners; by sending Caravans westwards, you can establish diplomatic relations with factions they pass through, and trade treaties can be established with those on the route. These trade relationships can be turned into military treaties, which can eventually lead to Outposts, a new mechanic in Campaign that lets you build military outposts in major settlements (Provincial Capitals with 4+ slots). If you both have an outpost in each other's territories, both factions get to purchase infantry from each other's respective recruitment pools. Cathayan Castles with Kislev Tzar Guard? Na, think Jade Warriors backed by Kroxigors, or Hawk Riders screening for your airships!

'''Harmony and the Compass:''' Harmony is pretty tedious. Your economic/defense buildings, technology, and characters (+1 for heroes, +3 for lords) all have a corresponding Yin-Yang cost. Going too far towards one way will lead to inefficiency at the least, and provincial instability at the worst. Yin and Yang balance will fluctuate as you lose heroes and research tech, and certain buildings will wax and wane in usefulness as your empire expands/contracts: One Yin building, for example, provides better casualty replenishment, while its Yang counterpart ranks up your Peasants; one is more useful when you're trying to replenish losses after capturing a territory, the other is better for giving you quality levies, but both are mutually exclusive per settlement. Since you only need to build the first tier for the yin-yang point, it is sometimes helpful to leave a building slot open for quick rebalancing, or demolishing the ones you don't need anymore. Quick recruiting and disbanding hero's is a good way to keep it balanced easily.

The Celestial Compass on the other hand provides campaign bonuses depending on which way the winds of magic is directed: corruption cleansing, casualty replenishment, control, or growth ; as it stays pointed in one direction, a meter fills up, providing grander effects, like increased income, attrition on enemies (but only the regions beyond the Bastion, its also useless since the AI is mostly immune to attrition), or a comet like spell on the battlefield.
===Realms of Chaos===
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As mentioned above, uniting Cathay is your top priority, because the potential income you can get by having so many peaceful provinces under your direct control. And there's honestly not a lot of directions for you to expand to: The Steppes outside the bastion is simply too chaotic to be worth it, and the Mountains of Mourn are filled with Ogres and Chaos Warriors who will happily take a break from killing each other to kill you instead. Until the late game, your contact with the Old World will be limited to Caravans, which is fine, since they still provide line of sight and diplomacy options in the mountains and beyond in the Old World.

The Rifts will start out delivering only small amounts of corruption, but will get more severe as the campaign drags on, to the point that they can bring a province to 100 corruption in only a few turns. put one of the tier 3 defense building in every province and rifts will no longer spawn in your territory, just have a lord walk to a rift outside your territory instead or leave one province open to rifts. Only your faction leader can enter the Warp or traverse the rifts to fast travel to another place on the map, and when closing a rift with an army will only cause a battle, whereas using a hero only costs gold.

You need to collect four Daemon Prince souls, one from each Realm, to lead to the final battle.

*Slaanesh takes a minimum of 6 turns, as you need to go past each of the six circles and deny all the gifts presented at each exit. You can, however avoid pointless battles the easiest here by simply going straight to each rings portal and avoiding the Slaanesh daemons. If you can deal with missed chance at a soul getting the sword of Slaanesh and personal Sycophant follower is extremely strong.
*Tzeentch's realm is like a pokemon gym, where you go from island to island via teleporter until you arrive at his palace. The islands only really have 2 portals, the one you came from, and the one you need to reach, so as long as you just go from one to the next, you'll be fine. What makes this difficult, though, is that you spend the rest of your movement teleporting, no matter how much you had left. Some islands have Daemons waiting to jump you outside of the teleportation portal, sometimes one stack, others, two. Never march through a portal, since that will leave you exhausted, or worse, with no retreat option. If youre afraid of being jumped on arrival, in TW3 you can still move in the encampment stance(but at 50% range), so this not only prevents attrition but gives you an advantage on the defense.
*Khorne wants to watch you fight. His realm is full of rogue armies that you must defeat, and for each kill you get, you fill up a meter. Fill this meter and he will grant you the honor of fighting the Daemon Prince at the Brass Citadel. Pick a fight against the undead or daemons, because rather than run away, they will fight on until the entire unit is wiped. This will fill the bar quickly, and its not like you had lots of ways to chase after routing ememies.
*Nurgle grinds you down with attrition, but thankfully unless Ku'gath is there too, you won't actually catch a "real" plague. The best way to move through his realm is encamped, but doing so cuts movement in half. You can also visit landmarks for some replenishment, because Nurgle is nothing but generous. That being said, his daemons will block your path and respawn right away.
*The Shadow Legion: After collecting all 4 souls, the road to the Forge of Souls is unlocked. Once more, portals will open all throughout the world, but this time Belakors forces will erupt and lay siege to your cities. The amount looks to be variable, amd by this point in the game, you are probably at war with more than just Chaos. If you have any spare heroes, close the portals right away to prevent reinforcements. Since this happens right after collecting the fourth soul, you can time it to happen right after clearing the latest wave of Kurgans, so that at the very least, you're not dealing with a Bastion invasion at the same time you're dealing with literal hell gates erupting all over your empire.
*The Final Battle: Belakor controls the Forge of Souls. It is a survival battle, so you will face three waves while also fighting through the forge. The first wave is nothing difficult, and can be won solely through Sky Junks and Celestial Crossbows, but the 2nd and 3rd will be tedious, since you're in the Forge of Souls, you will be facing a whole bunch of Soul Grinders. Take Celestial Halberds, Celestial Crossbows, and multiple Sentinels. The Halberds are self explanatory, since you will need some tough holding units to hold against the waves of Daemons, and their expert charge defence means that while fighting Bloodletters is inefficient, they wont give up without a fight; Crossbows are quite dangerous when focus firing in volleys, but the two artillery Soul Grinders (Nurgle and Tzeentch) are both also the tankiest. Take out Tzeentch first, because Barrier recharges, and it will recharge once you stop shooting it. When teched up, Sentinels are a good match for Soul Grinders, but are very slow in movement and attacking without support, so you will want to have someone fight the Daemons while the Sentinels fight the Daemon Engines.
**This is where a military alliance really comes in handy. Bloodletters are pretty good against your infantry, and are still pretty dangerous when they mob a sentinel. Tzar Guard or Armored Kossars provide some offensive oomph that your Celestials and Jade Warriors otherwise lack.
**One tricky part about Survival is that even after a wave is "over," you will continue to be harassed until the next wave begins. After the first wave ends, Chaos Hounds wil harass your troops until they capture the secont point, so you will need to leave a rear guard behind to deal with them, otherwise your heavy infantry, or worse, your slow, slow, Sentinels wil get stuck behind swatting them. After the second wave, Belakor spawns endless Daemons. Daemonettes and Bloodletters will rush you, while Pink Horrors will pepper you with magic while taking no damage in return from barrier.
**The Final Wave wont end until Belakor is slain. Belakor summons even more Soul grinders, as well as a bunch of heavier hitters, like Minotaurs of Khorne and Doom Knights. They will be teleporting in from all over the throne room, so you will need to keep an eye out for when a portal opens and for what comes out of it. The only thing that prevents this from being utter Bullshit is that they give you a shit ton of Sentinels (7??) in the final wave of reinforcements, and you will be legitimately retarded if you take anything else besides them. In fact, because of how many Sentinels you get for the final battle, you may be able getting away only three or four in your army, and filling the rest with heavy infantry or crossbows. The final battle is chaotic and all over the place, and warm bodies to hold back the reinforcements might be more helpful than 15 sentinels all trying to gangbang Belakor.
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===Immortal Empires===
Aside from the part about rifts and the race for the souls, Cathay plays almost exactly the same in Immortal Empires as they do in Realms of Chaos. If you wipe out/ally with Nakai the Wanderer and/or Deathmaster Snikch, you can sit behind the walls of the Great Bastion and have no problems.

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