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'Eavy Metal

2023-05-20T17:14:15Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

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[[Image:Painting like a fuck.jpg|right|One of these is made by a 'eavy metal painter, other isn't. Guess which one!|thumb]]
''''Eavy Metal''' is [[Games Workshop]]'s dedicated painting studio. Their job is to paint some models for [[Codex|the codexes]] and box-art. They are masters of [[THIN YOUR PAINTS|thinning their paints]], and they recruit from the best, like [[Golden Demon]] winners. The style of painting used by GW (basecoat, (recess) shade, edge highlight, finer edge highlight) is commonly referred to as "'Eavy Metal Style", and is the bane of painters everywhere for the insane amount of time it takes to edge highlight everything.

<s>The only real thing worth mentioning about 'Eavy Metal was Darren Latham, then he became a sculptor, now the people's painter Niel Green is the man of the moment tbh</s> Joe Tomaszewski. Joe. Motherfucking. Tomaszewski.

As of 2015 Joe betrayed the team and turned to twiddling his thumbs as a profession. Now its all about <s>Gary Birdlime</s> the legendary Shraven.

It's a common mistake from those new to the hobby to try to copy the 'eavy metal painted model pictures on the box. This is pretty much a bad idea, especially if you don't understand things like "base paint", "thinning" or "drybrushing". If you have any doubts, remember: You can paint 'em however the fuck you want. Nobody begins as an 'eavy metal painter. [[THIN YOUR PAINTS|But at least try to make sure that other people can look at the finished product without trying self-harm.]]

==How do I become a heavy metal painter?==
*http://taleofpainters.blogspot.pt/2012/04/tutorial-how-to-paint-like-eavy-metal.html

If you for whatever reason really ''really'' want a job at GW painting, it may be better to aim a bit lower for the army painting team (who paint the armies in the codices, go figure), that's where [[Duncan Rhodes|Duncan]] and the Warhammer Community presenters come from.

{{Model-Making}}

[[Category:Games Workshop]]

Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters

2023-05-20T17:13:38Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

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[[File:Daemonhunters_40k_Game_Cover.jpg|700px|thumb|center|''Who you gonna call? Daemonhunters!'']]

'''Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters''' is a Turn-Based Strategy game in the vein of [[XCOM]] and a sequel/reboot of [[Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate]]. It's a pretty good game and provides much of the XCOM feel that was lacking in Chimera Squad and Legends. Just make sure you remember that the lore and gameplay are kept quite separate, otherwise you'll get an aneurism.

==Story==
The game follows Strike Force Xiphos of the [[Grey Knights]] after a long, mostly offscreen crusade against a [[Khorne|Khornate]] cult called the Kaedium that had devastated three sectors before it was stopped, banishing its [[Bloodthirster]] leader back to the [[Warp]] at the cost of Strike Force Xiphos' Force Commander Agravain and most of its battle-brothers. Brother Ectar appoints you to lead the journey back to [[Titan (Moon)|Titan]], the home base of the Grey Knights, but Strike Force Xiphos was intercepted by an Ordo Malleus [[Inquisitor]], Kartha Vakir, who commandeers their heavily damaged [[Strike Cruiser]], the Baleful Edict, to investigate a [[Nurgle|Nurglite]] plague called "The Bloom" in the nearby Tyrtaeus Sector, much to the chagrin of the ship's [[Techpriest]] Dominus Lunete Ozmarantis and the profound irritation of their immediate superior [[Grand Master]] Kai.

Vakir's research reveals the existence of "seeds" that the followers of Nurgle carry with them to spread the Bloom. Her studies into the seeds' origin lead the Knights and the Inquisitor to the ruined Craftworld Usa'rya, which is being used to incubate the Bloom. The Craftworld's still-uncorrupted Avatar of Khaine comes to life just long enough to reveal the existence of five "Reapers" sent to act as the Bloom's vectors, and warns the Knights that if left unchecked it will bring on an apocalyptic event called the Morbus to ravage the galaxy. The Inquisitor's party is then nearly overrun by Nurglite forces led by the Daemon Prince Kadex Ilkarion, but the appearance of [[Kaldor Draigo]] buys them an opportunity to escape. Before they do so, the Supreme Grand Master confirms the truth of the Avatar's warning and tasks Vakir with stopping the Bloom before it's too late.

In spite of the Bloom's newly accelerated spread and the Knights' outrage over her perceived carelessness, Vakir has a plan. She kept a piece of corrupted Wraithbone from the Craftworld's Infinity Circuit that can be attuned to the psychic stench of the Reapers, a creation she calls the Codex Toxicus. Should the Reapers be defeated and the Prime Seeds that they watch over be claimed, the strains of the Bloom they oversee will die off.

After collecting three of the Prime Seeds, Kadex attacks the Baleful Edict and destroys the Codex Toxicus. Vakir is able to bind Kadex, but without the Codex Toxicus Strike Force Xiphos has no way to find the remaining Reapers. With no further options available, Vakir volunteers to scour the Daemon Prince's mind for any useful information. She manages to stay sane through the ordeal and discovers the source of the Bloom: a collection of roots hidden deep within the Garden of Nurgle. While she fears that Xiphos will have no way to find the Garden in the Warp, let alone destroy the roots, Ectar reminds her that Draigo still wanders the Warp. He proposes to use the Prime Seeds to generate enough Warp energy to get his attention. From there they can warn him of the Bloom's threat and gain his assistance.

Draigo agrees to help, but as the Inquisitor returns she has a vision: Kadex has warned his master of Draigo's arrival, and an ambush has been set for the Supreme Grand Master for when he arrives. Ectar is enraged and attempts to execute Vakir, but is stopped by Lunete, who proposes that Xiphos move to support Draigo in the Garden. Ectar scoffs at the idea, but Vakir claims that if they banish Kadex they can follow him back to his master. It is only when the purgation ritual is complete that she reveals her true intentions: to allow Kadex to claim her soul so Xiphos may use it as a beacon to find the Garden. Ectar is horrified that [[Grimdark|she would allow herself to be tormented for eternity]] for the sake of their mission, but she insists on going through with it nevertheless.

After fighting their way past another one of the Reapers to reach the Garden, Strike Force Xiphos reunites with Draigo to confront the true mastermind behind the Bloom: [[Mortarion]], who is all too eager to pay the "heart-carver" back for his past defeat on Kornovin. He boasts that the first seeds were made from the remains of Draigo's brothers, and with the death of the Supreme Grand Master the Morbus will be unstoppable.

After a desperate battle, Draigo and his allies force Mortarion to flee, with the Daemon Primarch blaming Kadex's incompetence for their failure. While the Baleful Edict goes back to Titan to commemorate the sacrifices their allies have made for their mission, Draigo stays in the Warp, now accompanied by the Knights of Xiphos who fought beside him. Kadex, now a disembodied skull, is shown capturing Vakir's soul, declaring his [[Rape|intent to use her]] for [[Grimdark|his future plans for revenge]].

==Characters==
*'''The Commander''': [[You]]. The second most senior member of Strike Force Xiphos left after Ectar, and since he can't lead, command falls to you. Originally heading up the incredibly simple job of getting back home without dying (OK... It's 40K, it's not THAT simple, but you have a Grey Knight ship with you, that should be fine right?), you're then [[Not As Planned|interrupted]] by Inquisitor Kartha Vakir to help her deal with a mysterious plague, which graduates into fending off a systems-wide chaos invasion. So now it's up to a noob commander, a nearly dead ship and a depleted strike force to take on an incursion of a Nurgle horde. No pressure, right? Generally portrayed as professional and level-headed unless you pick certain dialogue choices.
*'''Brother Ectar''': Your head advisor. A Purifier, he was a skillful warrior but his lack of confidence in his own command combined with the machinations of a handful of Inquisitors trying to use a rebellion instigated by a [[Lord of Change]] to topple a corrupt planetary government led to [[Not As Planned|disaster]]. As penance, Grand Master Voldus decreed that he must deny himself the opportunity for an honorable death in battle and a position of command in lieu of supporting Xiphos' commander aboard the Baleful Edict. As a result, he appoints you (the player) to take command of Xiphos after Commander Agravain's death in the tutorial. As befitting his order, his general response to any form of [[Chaos|chaotic taint]] is to [[Exterminatus|purge it with extreme prejudice]], which often puts him at [[Skub|odds]] with Inquisitor Vakir, who sees merit in studying the enemy to defeat them. Being a Space Marine, supporting him generally grants bonuses to experience and other parameters to your units.
*'''Inquisitor Kartha Vakir''': A Thorian with a grudge against [[Nurgle]] after the death of her parents to one of his "gifts", she is the one who first sets Strike Force Xiphos against the Bloom and takes it upon herself to study ways to combat it. Cocksure and prideful in her abilities, her methods are borderline [[Heresy|heretical]] and come across at haphazard at times, [[Just As Planned|but it works out]]. Combined with her attitude, she is constantly at odds with the rest of the crew since she is after all endangering the Edict by collecting and researching [[Daemon|daemonic]] material, opening herself and the vessel up to [[Chaos|chaotic]] [[Heresy|corruption]]. Ultimately, her willpower and sheer resolve to end the Bloom manages to impress even Ectar. Being the one researching the plague, supporting her generally speeds up research.
*'''Magos Dominus Lunete Ozmarantis''': An ancient Tech-Priestess (we know, it's hard to tell with that many implants) who has served for centuries aboard the Baleful Edict and is old enough to remember when Draigo was a Justicar. She very bluntly expresses her lack of concern for anything beyond the Edict, and [[Rage|butts heads]] with Ectar and Vakir if the Edict's safety is put into question. However, she's also the voice of reason whenever the two are squabbling, [[/tg/ gets shit done|breaking up their arguments to focus on the matter at hand]]. She's rather [[Belisarius Cawl|progressive]] for a Techpriest, willing to [[Heresy|modify]] Servo Skulls to help Vakir collect blight seeds and expressing a scientific interest in xenotech like [[Wraithbone]]. Being the head tech-priestess, supporting her generally grants benefits to science and and lab work, such as granting servitors or speeding up her work.
*'''Grand Master Vardan Kai''': Grand Master of the First Brotherhood and Steward of the Armoury who once did battle with [[M'Kar|M'Kar the Reborn]] and [[Tyranid]] forces at the same time, and the Grand Master Strike Force Xiphos answers to. Kai serves as the Councilman in this game, reviewing and judging the Strike Force's performance every 60 days. As Steward of the Armoury, Kai offers a selection of battle-brothers and wargear you can redeem using Requisition for completing missions, and you can upgrade your armoury access during his reports (also with Requisition) so that better armor and troops show up as potential mission clear rewards on top of the usual servitors, grimoires, and Requisition. Don't piss him off unless you want to lock yourself out of new equipment for a couple of months. He is initially unconvinced of the threat that the Bloom poses and would very much prefer that you be reassigned to more important warzones and, coupled with a major beef with the Ordo Malleus, constantly berates Inquisitor Vakir for seemingly wasting his troops on simple grunt work. Later on, he begins to recognize the threat posed by the Bloom but is prevented from helping in any measurable way [[Railroading|by plot contrivance]]. Voiced by the famous actor Andy Serkis.
*'''Supreme Grand Master [[Kaldor Draigo]]''': Though he only appears in a few scenes, he plays a critical role saving Inquisitor Vakir on the infested Craftworld, and becomes the key to ending the Bloom when it's discovered that it originates from the Garden of [[Nurgle]] itself, where only Draigo can reach. Despite not being written by [[Matt Ward]] this time, he preserves his [[Mary Sue]] status by kicking Mortarion's ass once again, with only 4 of your Knights backing him up, upstaging [[Dawn of War II]]'s final battle where you're fielding all of your characters plus [[Gabriel Angelos]] against a giant [[Hive Tyrant]].

==Gameplay==
Like how the original Chaos Gate was ''[[Blood Ravens|inspired by]]'' the original X-COM, Daemonhunters take many cues from the modern XCOM games, with some elements from other successors like ''Phoenix Point'' and ''Gears Tactics''. The strategic layer lets you select some research for Inquisitor Vakir to pursue that will aid the fight against the Bloom, select which part of the Baleful Edict Dominus Lunete should prioritize repairs, and wait for a mission in the <s>Geoscape</s> galaxy map to defeat the servants of the [[Nurgle|Plague God]] (does this sound familiar to XCOM players already?). Certain story events will have your crew butt heads over the mission, and picking sides will grant bonuses or maluses to their department, such as faster research times for supporting Vakir or increased exp gain for supporting Ectar.

Across the sector, each planet has a corruption meter that increases all sorts of nasty shit that can happen as it rises, usually in forms of buffs for enemies and debuffs for your dudes. Missions will appear randomly on different planets and you have a limited time to race across the Warp to do them before they expire and raise the planet's corruption meter, which means you [[Grimdark|can't save every planet]]. Most missions have objectives like killing every enemy or specific ones, but you can optionally choose to undertake a secondary objective (aka "Glorious Deeds") if available, from killing a certain number of enemies with melee, taking at most a certain amount of damage , not using any Will points, or completing the mission using only basic equipment. Completing primary and secondary objectives award Requisition, the resource used to redeem mission rewards from new recruits or stronger wargear, but failing secondary objectives costs you 1 Requisition, so you must choose wisely whether you are fit to do them.

Down in the Libris, [[Inquisitor]] Vakir needs to progress her research into defeating the Bloom, and to do so she requires Bloom seeds extracted intact from enemies during missions. Some enemies will be marked as "seed carriers", which have seeds implanted in certain parts of their bodies. The primary method of extracting seeds is to kill these enemies in melee, [[Metal Gear|Zandatsu style]], but melee critical hits will allow you to extract the seed straight away if the enemy can't be immediately killed. Ranged or environmental kills won't yield any seeds, but ranged crits with Precision Shot (i.e., the Astral Aim ability) can sever enemy body parts that contain seeds, which will still award you the seed. One of Vakir's researches unlocks a servo-skull that can harvest a seed directly, allowing you to safely and reliably extract seeds at very long range; several of the Apothecary's skills also allow them to extract seeds more easily. Bloom seeds can also be found scattered around the map in Bloomspawn spores which can be collected by any of your Knights (and also restore a point of willpower when they do so). Initially, there is only one strain of seed, but Vakir discovers the existence of four other strains, each with their own seeds.

Besides unlocking new research, Bloom seeds can also be spent to unlock Purity Seals on master crafted weapons, granting access to bonus stats or abilities such as increased critical chance or armor pierce on psybolt.

Meanwhile, Dominus Lunete oversees the repairs and upgrades of the Baleful Edict, each section requiring a number of [[Servitors]] and days to work on. Servitors are a resource that can be collected on missions and during random events, and are consumed when you begin repairs to a particular section. Certain events can also allow you to sacrifice Servitors in order to avoid risking your Knights or spending seeds, so you have to weigh in which resource you're most willing to sacrifice in these events. The Baleful Edict can also take damage to its hull integrity in such events, or later on if you encounter a [[Death Guard]] ship or Warp Storm without the necessary upgrades. Naturally, if you lose all your hull points, you lose, but you can order Lunete to repair the hull, as well as upgrade the Edict's systems to better deal with enemy ships or events.

The tactical layer allows you to deploy up to 4 Grey Knights Space Marines to the field, and plays similarly to XCOM, although instead of a move + action vs longer move, each marine starts with 3 action points (AP) to spend on movement, abilities or attacks in any order. Warp-based abilities, from powering up attacks with psychic power or psyker powers, cost [[Mana|Willpower (WP)]] to use, but increases the Warp Surge gauge which activates some debilitating effect when full. The Warp Surge gauge fills every turn at an amount dependent on corruption level, acting as a timer to prevent turtling much like XCOM 2's mission timer, but you're not completely screwed if it 'runs out' as it merely disadvantages you instead of immediately failing the mission. Still, you wouldn't want to let it fill up too often as it can quickly put you at a disadvantage and heightens the risk of permanently losing a battle-brother. The exact effects it has depend on the strain of the Bloom present on the planet, with different strains favoring different effects:
* '''Poxus, the Strain of Disease''': The first strain you'll encounter. Warp Surges associated with the Poxus strain tend to inflict negative status conditions on your Knights and making them more susceptible to said conditions while increasing the debuff resistance of enemies and giving them the ability to inflict debuffs with their attacks.
* '''Mortus, the Strain of Death''': Warp Surges associated with the Mortus strain interfere with using psychic abilities. This can be direct by means like increasing willpower costs, disabling Stratagems, and hurting you when you use psychic abilities, or indirect by providing enemies with the ability to reduce willpower with their attacks.
* '''Dolorus, the Strain of Agony''': Warp Surges associated with the Dolorus strain are prone to inflicting damage directly to your squad, stopping you from healing, and boosting the amount of damage enemies can inflict on you.
* '''Necrosus, the Strain of Decay''': Warp Surges associated with Necrosus revolve around reducing the effectiveness of your attack and defense and provide enemies with more armor to further reduce your ability to hurt them.
* '''Tentarus, the Strain of Growth''': Warp Surges associated with Tentarus pile on Mutations (mostly in the form of HP boosts) and can summon Bloomspawn to get in your way.
* '''Technophage''': Introduced in ''Duty Eternal'', this strain occurs in conjunction with the other Bloom strains rather than appearing by itself. It adds much stronger enemies than usual and spawns them in greater numbers, but gives your Knights the chance to salvage valuable [[archeotech]]. If they can get it (it doesn't have a time limit like XCOM's Meld, but there's always a squad nearby defending it), archeotech can be used to upgrade the equipment for Techmarines and Dreadnoughts. Beware its Warp Surges, as they'll unleash some truly nasty shit like spawning reinforcements at the start of the enemy turn (rather than the end of it), nullifying your ability to benefit from buffs, and massively buffing an enemy's HP and armor.

However, being [[Space Marines]] and all, each battle-brother won't be instantly killed if they drop to 0 HP in battle; rather they will enter a critically wounded state which they will recover from (albeit with their maximum health cut in half) if healed or after taking 3 turns to catch their breath. Still, if a critically wounded Knight drops to 0 HP again in the same battle, they will die for good, and even if they survive the mission, they lose a Resilience point, which is the number of times they can get critically wounded and survive- if it goes down to zero, they stay dead. Fortunately, getting [[PROMOTIONS|promoted]] increases maximum Resilience, so it pays off to preserve your forces as much as possible. And unlike XCOM, your Grey Knights know which end of the Storm Bolter the shots come out of so there's no risk of missing your attacks. You do however have a chance to score critical hits (both in melee and at range, though the former happens more often), which let you deal bonus damage, ignore armor, or debuff enemies in a variety of ways. It becomes imperative to abuse crits as much as possible later on when more nasty enemies show up in order to disable their more dangerous weapons and abilities, which can be optimized via certain skills and wargear.

The battlefield contains many obstacles such as classic explosive barrels and statues that can be shot or smashed to take out multiple enemies at once, and you can knock around enemies with skills and explosives, potentially blasting them into bottomless pits for instant kills, giving you an incentive to position properly (Be warned! They can do the same to you!). There exist high and low cover objects scattered around; as there is no accuracy factor in this game, all attacks will connect barring certain auto abilities that have a chance to block certain attacks, but said cover reduces damage by a flat amount and high cover can block line of sight and angles of attack entirely. Thus, you have to rely on cover and armor to absorb fixed damage, where high cover blocks more damage than low. This is important especially in the early game, where your [[Indrick Boreale|spess mehreens]] in default wargear are [[Wat|actually pretty squishy]] starting out, such that lowly cultists armed with autoguns and heavy stubbers can quickly [[Dakka|pepper them down]] if they stand in the open. It's important to note that in most cases entering overwatch will force you to leave cover and only functions in a cone in front of your Knights, so mind your flanks and consider if the potential for a free shot or two is worth leaving yourself exposed.

Another key mechanic in the tactical layer are stuns and [[Blam|executions]]. Many enemies have a stun bar that scales with difficulty; depleting it via stun damage (not the same as HP damage) will stun the enemy, opening them up to a [[Anal Circumference|guaranteed crit]] from the next attack. Performing a melee attack on a stunned enemy gives you the option to execute them, instantly killing them while restoring 1 AP to all Knights. This can be very [[Cheese|exploitable]] as it can [[Rape|allow you to wipe out multiple pods in a single turn]] if you manage to chain stun them all. That being said, some enemies take a lot of hits to stun and a few are outright immune to stuns, executions, or both.

Finally, Inquisitor Vakir can support your Knights from the Edict via Strategems, which can be unlocked through her research, acting as once-per-mission spells that include granting additional AP, group teleportation, or healing. However, they will be disabled if she is temporarily wounded through random events, a Warp Storm is active over the mission location, or if she personally takes to the field in certain story missions, using a custom set of equipment and psyker powers.

==Grey Knight Classes==
4 classes of Grey Knights are available at the start of the game, while 4 more advanced classes can be unlocked later after a story mission. Two more will be added in the Duty Eternal expansion.
===Basic Classes===
* '''[[Interceptor Squad|Interceptor]]''': Offensive class that can teleport through the Warp to flank enemies or tactically retreat from trouble, without triggering those pesky enemy auto skills. They start off pretty weak and [[Derp|unable to teleport]] [[Wat|without investing in the skill]] (though since it's a core skill, it should almost always be available to you), but advancing their teleportation and melee trees grants them [[Rape|insane damage output and mobility]]; while their ranged tree isn't as impressive, it does allow them to use Psilencers and grants a skill that disables enemy psychic abilities. They don't have much on the defensive side, but with support from allies, they are one of the best classes if not [[Cheese|the best class in the game]].
* '''[[Justicar]]''': Defensive class that focuses on tanking enemy attacks, but can work as an offensive frontliner too. A very [[Ultramarines|jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none]] class that doesn't really stand out alone, but can support allies well especially by giving them more AP and armor and has a taunt skill for tanking purposes (don't forget to pair it with Overwatch or a Paladin with Defend for maximum effectiveness). Can equip Terminator armor to improve durability, but doing so limits their mobility.
* '''[[Purgation Squad|Purgator]]''': Offensive ranged focused class that can equip [[Dakka|big guns]] like the [[Psycannon]], [[Psilencer]] and [[Incinerator]], granting them heavy firepower in exchange for poor melee attacks, so keep them away from melee foes. They can also specialize in grenades, gaining additional grenade uses and improving blast radii to the approval of [[Tarkus]] and [[Kommando|Ork Kommandos]]. Going down the Astral Aim tree allows your Purgators to become [[Ork Snipers|snipers]], scoring guaranteed critical hits that can also disable targets by [[Abaddon|shooting off their limbs]].
* '''[[Apothecary]]''': Support class that focuses on healing injured battle-brothers with their Narthecium and supporting them with Servo-skulls. They can also specialize in extracting blight seeds from certain enemies which are needed for further research, but that becomes obsolete once you have reliable crit builds later on. They also have some offensive and supportive psychic powers; despite the latter's short range if you don't have a specific servo-skull from their servo-skull skill tree, the buffs themselves are a significant boost to any melee class. Can also equip Terminator armor.
===Advanced Classes===
*'''[[Grey Knight Paladin|Paladin]]''': Defensive class like the Justicar but more specialized in frontline tanking, knockback, and inflicting stuns/critical hits. They're limited to only Terminator armor, but is also the only class that can use the Storm Shield, which they can forgo for a Psycannon if you specialize them in it, trading more durability for some firepower. Although they don't get direct boosts to the Aegis like the Justicar and lack most of its support potential, they've got a nifty skill that lets them automatically attack anything in a wide area while also drastically boosting their armor, and with the right upgrade they can outright cancel the first critical wound they get on a mission.
*'''[[Chaplain]]''': Support class limited to Terminator armor that is similar to the Justicar, buffing allies and taunting enemies into attacking them. With a greater focus on buffing allies, they use litanies and prayers that last forever but only one of which can be active at a time and uses willpower as long as it's on. Using a different litany or prayer cancels out the previous one, allowing you to adapt to different situations if needed. They are the only class capable of using the Crozius Arcanum, which has a chance to inflict the Vulnerable debuff on enemies with attacks.
*'''[[Librarian]]''': Offensive spellcaster limited to Terminator armor with a variety of powerful psychic powers, from group teleportation to energy vortexes that [[Rape|mulch groups of enemies]] AND [[Butthurt|disable vehicle weaponry]]. As a result, they're mostly limited by the number of Will points they have, and because their use will involve raising Warp Surge a lot, they can also learn a skill that will reduce the Warp Surge meter, otherwise it can quickly spiral out of control later in the game.
* '''[[Purifier]]''': Offensive ranged focused class like the Purgator, but with a greater focus on the Incinerator and an obsession with setting things on fire that rivals the [[Salamanders]]. They can also be trained in Astral Aim and grenade-fu like the Purgator, but unlike the Purgator, can become specialized in melee to scorch adjacent enemies with the purifying flames of their soul. True to their name, their purity makes them immune to hazards, capable of purifying enemies of their buffs and applying a purifying flame damage over time on them, which can become ''permanent'' when upgraded. Like the Purgator, they cannot use Terminator armor.
The Castellan Champion edition adds '''[[Castellan Crowe]]''' as a playable unit, wielding the '''Black Blade of Antwyr''' with a unique skill tree. This would sound [[Awesome|great]] if not for the fact that he's effectively [[Games Workshop|day one DLC gated behind $10]].

===Duty Eternal Classes===
*'''[[Techmarine]]''': The Techmarine himself is a balanced mix of melee and ranged ability thanks to his bolter, Omnissian Axe, and servo-harness, and possesses a mix of tools to mess with mechanical foes while acting as a healer/buffer for the Dreadnought. But his biggest draw is from the combat servitors he can bring into battle with him in the place of wargear. Depending on their weapons, they can take multiple roles- they can overwatch, incapacitate enemies to force them to skip their turns, or just hit really hard. They're squishy compared to a Grey Knight, but on the other hand they're also expendable.
*'''[[Doomglaive Dreadnought|Venerable Dreadnought]]''': It's a Dreadnought, what the hell did you expect? Its left arm can be equipped with a Doomfist that possesses high stun and knockback and comes with a heavy flamer for clearing out hordes, a Doomglaive with an AoE attack that pierces armor and the ability to create flame hazards, or a missile launcher that can bombard enemies from behind cover while slowing them down. Its right arm can be equipped with a twin-linked lascannon that can perform precision shots and comes with Astral Aim, a plasma cannon great for knocking clustered enemies away and can be overcharged for an even bigger blast that deals massive damage (it does disable it for a few turns, though), a multi-melta that loses the ability to stun in exchange for fucking up armor, and a heavy psycannon that's able to silence enemies and can disable their ranged weapons with its special ability. It can only join on specific "Technophage" missions, and does so as a fifth member of your squad. Also, keep in mind that it doesn't regain WP through kills, but regenerates one WP at the end of each turn.

==Chaos Units==

* '''[[Cultist]]s''': Come in a few variants, but most of them can still be quite dangerous. They die very quickly if you actually strike back, but don't underestimate them. Generally, they will try to pin your units with overwatch, suppressive fire and grenades, forcing pinned units to take damage if you try to move them without dislodging the Cultists first. One overwatch shot isn't too bad, but [[Dakka|five or six of them at once]]...not so much.
* '''[[Poxwalkers]]''': Typical zombie-type enemies that swarm in large numbers, and their groan ability can turn nearby corpses into weaker but still annoying "lesser Poxwalkers". One variant is the bloated Poxwalker, which has more health and explodes on death in a toxic cloud that improves other Poxwalkers' max HP and inflicts plague on your units; it'll become enraged when its health is low and try to blow up in your face, so either inflict a crit to disable the death explosion or take it out from a safe distance (preferably after clearing out any other Poxwalkers).
* '''[[Apostate Cardinal|Apostate Preacher]]''': Enemy caster that focuses on buffing Nurgle troops, debuffing your Knights, and forcing Warp Surges. Only slightly tougher than a regular Poxwalker and generally hangs in the back, but can cast bolts of armor-piercing warp-stuff if he doesn't have any buddies to hide behind or has his staff disabled with a crit. All of his abilities are psychic, so Silence will leave him completely helpless. Occasionally, he appears as a target objective in Bloomspawn missions, surrounded by 4 Malignant Growths that can't attack and grant him a shitload of armor as long as they're alive. If you let him complete his ritual, he turns into a Plague Ridden and his Growths turn into Plaguebearers, so try to focus them down as much as possible.
* '''Bloomspawn''': Big ugly plants that spit explosive globs of goop which inflict debuffs when they hit you and heal other enemies caught in the blast, or smack you with armor-piercing vines. Several variations of them exist with different amounts of HP, but all of them should be fought from heavy cover and/or from a safe distance.
** '''Bloomspawn Spreader''': A grown-up Bloomspawn that you must kill in certain mission types. Like its smaller cousins it acts as a giant mortar, spitting out explosive globs of filth over a huge area that gives your Knights random [[AIDS|afflictions]] and heals its allies. They also gain armor and extra damage for each nearby Feculent Gnarlmaw, and while killing the Gnarlmaws will weaken it you'll need to weigh the advantage that gives against the turn limit built into the missions it shows up in.
* '''[[Feculent Gnarlmaw]]''': A surprisingly hardy tree monster that produces a damage field that hurts anyone too close while healing and buffing allies in its range. But you'll have to get close to do substantial damage to it, because it has an aura that reduces ranged damage it receives for both itself and its allies.
* '''[[Death Guard|Death Guard]] [[Plague Marine]]s''': Early game analogues to your Justicars- slow, but well-armored and have a self-heal. Like the cultists, they'll try to set up overwatch traps to lock your Knights down, and they also possess a melee attack that disables auto abilities. Some of them have Plague Belchers that poison the ground, making it hazardous to walk over, [[Derp|but perhaps due to buggy AI]], instead of unflinchingly marching up to your knights to shart on them, [[FAIL|they will often waste their turn to shart on the empty ground behind themselves if your Knights are too far away]]. Fortunately/Unfortunately (depending on your perspective), their AI got improved and now they're a lot more numerous and aggressive. A free update also introduced Plague Marines equipped with Meltaguns and krak grenades, which naturally makes them able to blow through your armor more readily.
* '''Plague Champions''': Stronger Plague Marines with significantly increased survivability. They can give orders to their allies to help them beat you up better while stealing your Willpower, smashing your cover, and debuffing your defense. At least they can't heal themselves. They can also make allies immune to stun, so if you're abusing stuns and executions, you might want to take him down before he can buff his allies.
* '''[[Noxious Blightbringer]]''': These bell-wielding bastards add stun resistance to all nearby enemies as long as they're alive, and they're completely immune to ''all'' psychic attacks if you don't disrupt them first. Worse, they've got an AoE armor piercing attack that inflicts Silence on your knights. Take them down first when possible so they don't shut down your abilities.
*'''[[Blightlord Terminators]]''': Heavier armor than the regular Plague Marines, access to suppressing fire from their autocannons, and the ability to automatically melee attack the first Knight to walk next to them make these guys a nasty piece of work, to say nothing of their ability to debuff your ranged damage with their blight grenades. Either try to outrange them or bring someone that can disrupt their melee counter.
* '''Blightlord Champions''': Nurglite equivalents to your Paladins: they don't have any ranged attacks, but they hit hard in melee and can lock down chokepoints with the best of them with their equivalent of the Paladin's Defend skill. Engage them at long range, preferably with a weapon that has Armor Pierce or Armor Break; they've got an AoE that debuffs melee attacks, so while you could try to beat them at their own game it's not a very good idea.
* '''[[Chaos Spawn|Unnamable Beasts of Nurgle]]''': A Daemonic creature with a fuckton of HP but no armor, though they can be stunned. They don't inflict a lot of damage, but most of their attacks are AoE and inflict knockback, and they have an ability to grab one of your Knights to [[FATAL|instakill them next turn]]. Fortunately, you can disable most of the above abilities by shooting/hacking off the limb that enables them, however they have a 50% chance to heal and regrow a limb at the end of their turn. They can also gain mutations at a disturbing rate, so you might want to kill them fast.
* '''[[Foetid Bloat-Drone]]''': A mechanical unit with low armor but a decent amount of HP, they focus on crippling your Knights' movement. They can bomb an area to inflict the Hobbled effect (-1 movement) and return fire at any ranged attack, inflicting Immobilized, both attacks ignoring armor. As such, a melee specialist can easily dispatch them, while you'll have to use full cover, disable their return fire ability or disrupt them to safely hit them with ranged. They can also consume nearby corpses to heal themselves and gain a mutation. A free update gives some of these Fleshmowers, which reduces the threat they pose at long range but gives them a very nasty armor-piercing melee charge.
* '''[[Myphitic Blight-Hauler]]''': Lots of armor, but once that breaks has surprisingly low health, which also makes it easy to kill with armor ignoring attacks. Can do heavy damage and smack your units away if they're in melee and can produce a smokescreen that weakens incoming ranged attacks. Has a special "Mortar" attack that will blow up small areas after a turn, can smash up cover, and has a multi-melta that breaks armor.
* '''[[Helbrute]]''': At long range, he blasts you with armor breaking attacks that wreck cover or charges you in an attempt to knock you over, and up close he can grab your Knights to leave them unable to act before throwing them a turn later. Focus fire on him with high powered attacks from as far away as possible, since he tries to charge and grab whoever hits him and explodes a turn after he dies. Disrupting him, with Psilencers for example, can disable his many dangerous auto skills including his explosion on death.
* '''[[Nurgling]]s''': Not enemies so much as they are a map hazard in Aeger's boss fight. They spawn every turn from specific structures aptly known as "Nurgling Spawners" and from Aeger himself, who consumes them to use in several nasty skills and can transform them into Plaguebearers. You can't target them individually but your Knights can knock them around by moving on them, and they can be destroyed with AoE attacks.
* '''[[Plaguebearer]]s''': The most common Nurgle daemons are slow as molasses, but they can take a beating and gain a new mutation every turn. Take them down quickly before they get the mutation that lets them resurrect a turn after they die, or at least have a spare AP to erase their resurrection symbol so they don't come back. Keep in mind that they have a chance to negate one melee attack per turn, and watch out for the debuffs they can inflict.
* '''Plague Ridden''': Elite Plaguebearers with a ranged spread attack that debuffs Knights and heals allies at the same time and can provide mutations for nearby allies as well. The first hit they take in a turn increases the Warp Surge counter for good measure, and they're just as tough as you'd expect. They have an aura that reduces ranged damage for themselves and their allies, so unlike the standard Plaguebearers you'll want to get up close to beat them. Silencing them with Psyk-Out Grenades will keep them from using their most dangerous abilities.
* '''Lord of Virulence''':
* '''Chaos Knight War Dog''':

==Chaos Bosses==
* '''Kadex Ilkarion, Warden of the Bloom''': The [[Daemon Prince]] presiding over the Bloom's spread, Kadex first introduces himself when Inquisitor Vakir and your Knights discover the origins of the blight seeds inside an infested [[Aeldari]] [[Craftworld]]. As Vakir tries to get a sample from the corrupted Infinity Circuit, he must be fought off alongside waves of Nurglite reinforcements while protecting the Inquisitor. He possesses a number of abilities designed to [[Troll]] you, from teleporting a Knight to a random spot (typically right in front of a bunch of Plague Marines and Plaguebearers), cursing a Knight to take damage when Kadex is wounded, creating illusory duplicates of himself when he's hit, and simply calling even more reinforcements on top of the ones that already spawn in constantly. Turns out he [[Butthurt|has a bone to pick]] with Vakir for [[Not As Planned|foiling]] one of his plans in the past. He shows up again later to invade the Baleful Edict, doing all of the same shit but matters are complicated further by your intially being only able to use Vakir. Your Knights will eventually show up, but you won't have any control over which ones they are- you ''have'' been leveling everyone up, right? He gets a tiny canon cameo in The Siege of Terra's sixth book Warhawk where he's described as leading one of the Death Guard's larger groups outside the Lions Gate Spaceport.
* '''Aeger the Benevolent, Reaper of the Poxus Strain''': A [[Great Unclean One]] said to have an extensive history of defilement, and is always accompanied by a mass of his Nurgling "nephews". He has 100 health, spawns Nurglings with the help of a handful of Nurgling spawners in his arena, and is armed with both a Plague Flail and Doomsday Bell. The flail knocks your men back and plagues them, while the bell makes him consume Nurglings to heal himself and turn them into [[Plaguebearers]]. Take out the Nurgling spawners first, as his most powerful abilities need a bunch of Nurglings nearby to work properly.
* '''Malathian the Harvester, Reaper of the Mortus Strain''': Another Great Unclean One, this time armed with a Bilesword and Bileblade. His psychic attacks get stronger with the number of other daemons he summons to the point of being able to cause one-hit kills, plus he creates effigies that boost his armor to massive levels and also inflict powerful debuffs as long as they're present. Worse, the effigies add further debuffs to his attacks, including one that kills the victim in 3 turns (and by sheer coincidence, its debuff causes Knights whose HP hits 0 to outright die rather than taking a critical wound). Keep an Interceptor around to take out the minions and effigies while one of your tankier Knights keeps Malathian busy.
* '''Cruciatus the Generous, Reaper of the Dolorus Strain''': You might think that having to take down a [[Chaos Knight|Knight Desecrator]] with just four Grey Knights and no access to dedicated anti-vehicle weapons might be just a tiny bit unfair, and you'd be absolutely right. His health is surprisingly low for a boss, but he's got tons of armor, multiple ranged AoE attacks from his Laser Destructor, and a melee attack that incapacitates a Knight for a turn before either dealing damage or outright inflicting a critical wound. Fighting him requires lots of armor piercing/armor breaking abilities combined with careful exploitation of his habit of rushing at the first Knight that shoots him. Critical hits will be a big help too, as one of his parts will increase his vulnerability to future crits if broken.
* '''Munificus the Undying, Reaper of the Tentarus Strain''': This powered up [[Chaos Spawn|Unnameable Beast]] isn't called "Undying" for nothing- if an attack doesn't outright kill him he'll immediately heal right back up to full health. Most of his attacks aren't especially strong, but they're AoE and possess knockback that'll bounce you around the arena, possibly into a bottomless pit or in front of the local Bloomspawn. The secret to beating him is to use criticals to break his body parts- that'll reduce his max HP until it becomes possible to take him down in a single hit. Naturally, it's not that simple to do because he'll dump a hazard zone and a Bloomspawn every time he takes a crit before jumping out of reach, and his arena is also full of chasms that Power Armor can jump cross, but Terminator Armor can't. Thus, Purgators/Purifiers with Astral Aim, crit focused Interceptors (he can parry, so Paladins aren't as helpful) and Librarians with upgraded Gate of Infinity are easiest ways to quickly chase him down and knock off his bits, while being able to quickly clean up the weeds that keep spawning in. He's immune to Purge, so you have to take him down quickly or disable the parts that increase his stun and crit resistance before they become unmanageable. Keep in mind that Willpower will be in short supply as well since Bloomspawn don't provide it when killed.
* '''Morgellus the Corroded Prince, Reaper of the Necrosus Strain''': A big, bulky [[Plague Hulk]] with access to a bunch of abilities to break your armor and disrupt your ability to fight him, backed up with high health and armor. He's immune to critical hits under normal circumstances, but if you stun him you can remove that immunity from him. You'll want to have a melee damage dealer for this since he takes less damage from ranged attacks until you break his claws, but with all the knockback he can bring you'll need an Interceptor to stick near him at all times. Oh, and watch your footing because he'll try to break parts of the platform you're standing on and send you falling to your doom. Take too long, and the entire battlefield will fall apart with you on it.
* '''[[Mortarion]]''': [[Bullshit|Ok, ok, try to suspend your disbelief that Draigo and 4 other Grey Knights can take the fight to a Daemon Primarch in his own backyard]]. Believe it or not the writer responsible for such fluff-rape is [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]] rather than [[Matt Ward]] this time. But seriously, Mortarion is fittingly the single deadliest enemy you'll ever face in the game. With 200 health, 10 armor that can't be broken, and a -50% critical chance, this fight will truly be a test of endurance. He's also 2-3x as fast as any other boss or enemy in the game and doesn't trigger overwatch when he moves. Morty's weaponry also packs a punch. Lantern is an AOE attack which ignores cover, armor, and sends your knights flying. Silence will also send them flying, hobble them, and do heavy damage while breaking 2 armor. His many abilities are geared towards AOE effects and debuffs as well, while Barbaran Plate ensures the greatest blows aren't permanent. Draigo himself is an important part of the fight, because if he goes down the Death Lord will try to take his soul- if he isn't disrupted '''immediately''' you lose on the spot. During the battle, Mortarion will power himself up using one of the Bloom Roots in his arena with every 40 HP he loses- he's invincible when he does this and only Draigo can destroy the roots. In addition to all of this, you'll also have to manage a second squad to prevent a massive army of Death Guard goons from joining their Primarch and making an already fearsome battle even more of a struggle than it already is. Make sure this team is tanky and has plenty of ranged firepower, because they'll be up to their armpits in Blightlords. Mortarion is kept off of Draigo long enough for the ritual to complete and when the bloom is purged instead of finishing the fight he rages at Kadex's incompetence and teleports away.

==Tips and Builds==
* Ship speed should be the most prioritized ship repair/upgrade as it will help you reach multiple Bloom missions whenever they appear, maximizing your requisition and resource gain as long as you can consistently complete missions.
* Stuns and [[Blam|executions]] are the most [[Cheese|broken]] mechanic in the game as stated above, especially on the highest difficulties which make enemies as disgustingly resilient as [[Nurgle|Nurglite]] forces are expected to be, where it is much easier to inflict stun damage over HP damage. Note that some Warp Surges make enemies outright immune to stuns.
* Recruited high level Knights with skills you don't want? You can either respec new Knights with dead Knights through the upgraded Apothecarion or simply send them home to Titan to free up your barracks at a 2 Requisition refund. A free update added the ability to pay requisition to respec as well, although any Knight thus respecced will be unavailable for a while.
* Besides respec'ing abilities, dead Knights can also be turned into bonus ability points to make your Knights even stronger, or interred in the Venerable Dreadnought if it doesn't have a pilot.
* Random events are probably one of the more [[Skub|spottier]] aspects of the game where it seems you're screwed over more often than you gain something. The consequences are also very vague and don't often tell you what exactly it means when something is "at risk", which can range from losing resources/hull points, damaging part of the Edict, wounding one of your crew to random Knights going on a 60 day crusade or [[Rage|straight up dying]]. Because you don't always get corpses back for respec'ing from events and high starting level recruits can have bad skill builds, avoid options that send your Knights away if you can afford the other options.
* Damage-over-time afflictions like Bleed trigger ''at the end of the turn'', which means an enemy about to die from Bleed can still make one more move before dying, or be saved by an ally. Fortunately, the same applies to you.
* Performing an [[Exterminatus]] isn't necessary to complete the game but is still a good option to have in case you can't spare any Knights for a [[Noctilith Crown]] mission, though Grand Master Kai [[Butthurt|won't be happy]] if you use it too often.
* A lot of Stratagems fall under "unnecessary but nice to have", so you aren't missing much by skipping most of the Stratagem research, especially when ''Quicksilver'' and ''Gate of Infinity'', two early Stratagems you can unlock, are some of the best and relevant throughout the entire game.
* '''Justicar'''
** Most builds can't go wrong picking up ''Terminator Armour'' and ''Hammerhand'', granting more durability and allowing your Justicar to disable dangerous abilities/collect blight seeds in a pinch.
** Pure Support: Primarily supports other Knights with ''Honour the Chapter'', which will require a lot of Willpower. For your remaining skill points, investing in ''Fortress'' helps you protect squishy frontliners like Interceptors and melee Purifiers, while investing in the Psycannon discipline forsakes melee damage to grant some midrange damage output (unless they're using Terminator armor).
** Frontline Tank: Stack HP and armour to become unkillable especially with Warp Charged Aegis Shield, then using the ''Provoke'' ability to [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|draw fire away]] from your other Knights. You can then invest in ''Crushing Charge'' or ''Rend the Unclean'' to smash aside the enemies swarming your Justicar, or double back to ''Honour the Chapter'' to support allies.
* '''Interceptor'''
** ''Teleport Range'' is recommended for any build since it is what truly grants the Interceptor amazing mobility, same goes for ''Hammerhand'' with the same reason as the Justicar. ''Psychic Suppression'' is also a good utility skill to consider when dealing with enemy casters that you can't kill this turn.
** Melee Fighter: A purely offensive build that invests in the Teleport Strike and Melee discipline trees. You can Teleport Strike into a large group of enemies, then proceed to [[Rape|blend]] them with constant crits, where the ''Ruthless Precision'' skill lets them go on a [[RIP AND TEAR|rampage]]. Couple this build with focus and crit enhancing wargear, and the Justicar's '''Honour the Chapter''', your Interceptor will be [[Cheese|tearing through even bosses]] in a single turn.
** Ranged Support: The less popular build because the Interceptor [[Derp|doesn't have good skills]] [[Herp|to take advantage of shooting]] and are limited to Storm Bolters until you unlock the Psilencer. They also rely on the ''Support Fire'' skill to put out [[Dakka|some extra shots]] on an enemy being shot at by another Knight if it's also in range of the Interceptor. However, ''Support Fire'' shots are a fixed 2 damage regardless of your weapon's base damage, and require investing in the entire tree to activate a second time and inflict extra damage, and also cannot crit or inflict stun. Thus, it's also antithetical to stun builds as ''Support Fire'' can [[Not As Planned|accidentally kill off enemies you were about to stun]].
** Melee Support: A more sensible but nonetheless obsolete build featuring the Hammerhand, Psychic Suppression and Cleansing Strike trees to disable specific enemies, when it's better to just outright kill enemies than cripple them.
* '''Apothecary'''
** Keep in mind that you can directly use the Apothecary's heal and psychic powers on a target WITHOUT manually moving next to them, as the Apothecary will move to the target regardless without wasting AP.
** Apothecarion Skulls have [[Derp|limited uses]] and takes up a wargear slot, so it may not be worth the skill point investment unless your build is very Biomancy heavy.
** Pure Support: The typical build for the Apothecary, focusing on improving ''Battlefield Medicine'' and Servo Skulls with some Biomancy on the side. Upgrading ''Battlefield Medicine'' with Warpcharge allows it to grant 1 AP to the Knight being healed, which gives your heal a lot more value. Servo Skulls are very flexible type of wargear and the Apothecary can carry a buttload of them, and being able to heal from a distance is essential when almost all of the Apothecary's abilities are melee range. ''Warp Speed'' and ''Iron Arm'' are the go-to psychic powers, which can make Interceptors even more [[Cheese|monstrous]] while compensating the Justicar and Paladin's low mobility.
** Melee Support: Apothecaries can dabble in melee combat by using their Biomancy skills on themselves, though they lack Hammerhand, passive crit bonuses and Nartheciums aren't really amazing weapons. With Terminator Armour, they can soak quite a bit of damage and heal it back up, while the ''Emperor's Judgement'' ability can be used to slow down and control melee foes.
* '''Purgator'''
** In general, any build should focus entirely on either the Psycannon or Psilencer. Both weapons have their merits, so you should have a Purgator specialized for each. Remaining points can then be invested in the Astral Aim, Sanctified Kill Zone and Wargear disciplines, the latter of which allows you to carry up to [[Awesome|6 grenades]] on a single Knight.
*** While they can also use the Incinerator, they don't have any abilities that really benefit it, leaving it a better choice for the Purifier.
** AoE Nuker: Focusing on the Psycannon, a strong midrange weapon with the Psychic Onslaught Warp Charge ability that blasts the area surrounding the target, capable of slaughtering groups of enemies at a decent range and ignores cover. Put ''Sanctified Kill Zone'' on your intended targets to ensure [[Anal Circumference|maximum carnage]]. With focus enhancing wargear and the ''Rapid Reload'' skill, you can compensate for the Psycannon's low ammo count by [[Dakka|ensuring you never run out of it]]. Near the end of the game, you may want to grab Psycannons with higher base damage and/or crit, as big chunky targets like Helbrutes and Blightlord Champions aren't really threatened by Psychic Onslaught.
** [[Ork Sniper]]: Focusing on the Psilencer, which is the longest range weapon type in the game. You can easily pick off enemies at long range and with some focus, consistently inflict the Disrupted ability which can [[Troll|neuter]] many dangerous foes. The Psilencer's AoE ability has short range, but is useful in a pinch if your Purgator is swarmed by Poxwalkers or Plaguebearers. ''Support Fire'' is iffy for reasons stated for the Interceptor, and similarly doesn't benefit from any weapon effects for just a little fixed damage.
** Ranged Support: Similar to the Interceptor, focusing on offense is vastly preferable to support. Still, it's doable and somewhat decent. The ''Emperor's Light'' power isn't bad, and can be useful against certain bosses and [[Chaos Spawn|enemies]] that love their mutations, but more importantly gives you some breathing room against ranged enemies. ''Arcane Weapons'' is a weird skill, since the best classes that benefit from it is [[Derp|another Purgator]] or a Purifier. You might also want to run a Storm Bolter if you invest in that skill due to its higher ammo capacity (especially with some Master-crafted variants), which isn't too terrible since the Purgator can unlock armor pierce on its Psybolt, and can perform executions.
* '''Librarian'''
** While all their abilities are useful, any sort of Librarian benefits most from investing in their Gate of Infinity and Warp Surge trees, because group teleportation is just that [[Cheese|broken]] and being able to reduce Warp Surge whenever you don't want to deal with it is handy.
** If you take the passive focus skills, Librarians with a Nemesis Force Staff become pretty tanky as they can ensure Aegis Shield activates for free every turn.
** AoE Nuker: Focusing on the ''Vortex of Doom'' skill, it functions similarly to the Psycannon's Psychic Onslaught ability, but with the bonus of [[Troll|disabling weapons]] of mechanical foes (Helbrutes, Foetid Bloat Drones etc.). However, it's not as useful against high HP organic or daemonic enemies, where ''Psychic Shriek'' takes the spotlight, helping you stun enemies like [[Blightlord Terminator|Blightlords]] and [[Chaos Spawn|Chaos S- those things]].
** Pure Support: Librarians can also stack a ton of armour on allies with ''Sanctuary'' and ''Fortress'', similar to the Justicar. However, by the time you unlock the Librarian, you should have a pretty high level Justicar around, and once again it's simply better to kill enemies before they can attack you.
** Ranged Support: With very high Willpower, the Librarian can specialize in Storm Bolters with good Psybolt abilities. If it grants increased crit chance, you can consider investing in the Psybolt tree to increase the Librarian's ranged damage output, while with increased stun, you can easily stun enemies, especially individual/spread out enemies where ''Psychic Shriek'' isn't cost effective.
* '''Chaplain'''
** Litanies and prayers use 1 WP per turn once active, so try not to activate them if you don't need to. That said, there is a high level Crozius that removes the WP upkeep, so equip it if you can find it.
** You have enough skill points to fully invest in at most 2 skill trees, so the following builds can overlap. However, avoid dipping into too many trees as you can only have one litany active per Chaplain, and you really want upgraded litanies over their basic forms.
** AP Generator: Focusing on the ''Litany of Hate'', this couples best with stun builds, ensuring a constant stream of AP that will [[Cheese|trivialize even multiple pods]].
** Frontline Tank: Use ''Provoke'' and ''Litany of Faith'' to draw fire and soak damage, especially if you have a good Terminator Armour with better armour or Aegis Shield. With a crit focused Crozius, they can also fight competently in melee and benefit off ''Ruthless Precision''.
** WP Generator: ''Invocation Of Focus'' complements high WP usage, allowing you to stretch out your WP use especially later on where opportunities to recover WP become fewer. With a focus boosting Crozius or Storm Bolter, the Chaplain himself can even [[Awesome|use Force Strikes and Psybolts for free]] (mind the Warp Surge!)
** Crit Support: With either ''Words Of Power'' or ''Intonement for Guidance'' though the former is more flexible. ''Words Of Power'' further improves the damage output of Interceptors and Paladins, and also helps [[shooty]] Knights with good reliable crits. ''Intonement for Guidance'' is more iffy and mainly used if you have a lot of ranged focused Knights without crit boosting wargear.
* '''Paladin'''
** Once again, ''Hammerhand'' is a great ability to grab on a melee class in general, and the Paladin has several crit damage bonuses to compound his damage output.
** The ''Defend Position'' ability is tied to the Storm Shield, so it cannot be used if you trade it for a different ranged weapon.
** One of the Paladin's core skills is +1 stun, which helps a lot in stun builds especially with an Apothecary casting ''Warp Speed'' and ''Iron Arm''. With a high stun weapon, the Paladin can [[Rape|run around stunning and executing enemies with impunity]], [[Not As Planned|unless they cannot be stunned]].
** Frontline Tank: The Paladin's best role, focusing the the Defend tree with some points into Melee and Fury. Since you'll be locked to the Storm Shield, you're recommended to take ''Smite'' as a backup ranged option. ''Defend Position'' is a melee overwatch skill, which can be used to catch enemies around corners or camp reinforcement portals, also setting up the Paladin to use ''Hammerhand'' or ''Fury of the Ancients'' next turn. Furthermore, in the same tree, ''Only In Death'' allows you to put your Paladin in harm's way with less consequence.
** Ranged Support: A less orthodox build passing up the Storm Shield and the ''Defend Position'' ability for support skills and ranged potential. If you wanted to try ''Arcane Weapons'' and not waste a Purgator, here's your chance. You can also invest in the Ranged Weapons tree, which is your only real way of improving the Psycannon. If you still have points left over, you can go for the ''Emperor's Will'' tree in order to donate WP that would be better used on other Knights, or in ''Hammerhand'', since you can still use a melee weapon.
* '''Purifier'''
** The Wargear discipline is similar to the Purgator's but with the ability to get +2 grenade damage, making it a reliable investment for most builds.
** Investing in ''Unstoppable Conflagration'' can greatly improve damage output, especially with the Incinerator, but you'll want a Justicar to supply AP for casting the required psychic powers.
** AoE Nuker: Probably the best Purifier build, investing in the Incinerator and Flames Of Purity disciplines to [[Rape|melt entire pods]] with the Incinerator. Though ''Astral Aim'' cannot be used with Incinerators, it's worth investing in the tree just for ''Rapid Reload'', since ''Flames Of Purity'' will constantly deplete your ammo. Speaking of which, you'll naturally want wargear that maximizes your ammo count, since ''Flames Of Purity'' scales with the amount of ammo used. Be careful if you pick up knockback for ''Flames Of Purity'', as you might knock smaller enemies like [[Plague Marines]] and [[Plaguebearers]] out of range.
** Ranged Support: While lacking Psycannon and Psilencer passives, Purifiers can still make use of Astral Aim to snipe off enemy bits, chuck a ton of grenades and purge mutations with ''Cleansing Flame'' which [[Flame Falcons|can permanently set enemies on fire once upgraded]]. This can be useful if you're running out of time and don't want to be [[Tarpit|bogged down with weak enemies]], so you can set them on fire and leave them to burn as you rush the objective. ''Unstoppable Conflagration'' can help improve damage with the lack of ranged passives.
** Melee Support: The only way to describe a melee built Purifier, as they lack [[FAIL|durability, mobility and damage output]]. Still, they have access to ''Hammerhand'' which is always useful in a pinch, and are immune to hazards, meaning they can safely charge through plague zones and fire to slap a heretic, and grenade-fu is always helpful. Again, ''Unstoppable Conflagration'' is your only real way to improve damage with the lack of passives, and you can also pick up ''Cleansing Flame'' for the same reasons above.
*** If you have his DLC, [[Castellan Crowe]] plays like a melee Purifier, but with ''Warp Suppression'', ''Rend The Unclean'' and ''Crushing Charge'' in lieu of of the Astral Aim, Incinerator or Flames of Purity trees. Not that it matters since he can't change his loadout (for obvious reasons, but it's not a problem because it's extremely powerful anyway), and his unique class skill is literally [[Plot Armor]] that prevents him from dying or losing Resilience. While some of his skills [[Derp|aren't fully upgraded]], these skills do give him a noticeably greater amount of utility and AoE damage over generic melee Purifiers, and he also has the ''First Strike'' auto ability that lets him melee attack the first enemy that moves adjacent to him.
*'''Techmarine'''
** Your first choice of Servitor should be the Plasma Cannon Servitor; it might not be able to do much damage on its own, but with its AoE and knockback it's practically an infinite use frag grenade.
*'''Venerable Dreadnought'''
** Be careful with the Dread's health- unlike normal Knights, you have to expend Servitors to repair it on top of the recovery time.

==Links==
* [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1611910/Warhammer_40000_Chaos_Gate__Daemonhunters/ Steam Page]
* [https://www.youtube.com/c/ChaosGate Youtube Channel]

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
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[[Category:Inquisition]]
[[Category:Grey Knights]]
[[Category:Death Guard]]

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay

2023-05-19T20:16:56Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

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, short vengeful alcoholics with funny hats 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 (Warhammer Fantasy)|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 MP 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 offensive 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.
**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. 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.

*'''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. They are basically more expensive Dwarf Quarrelers with better unit sizes and better reload with harmony.
**They have become substantially more important in the Campaign after the WoC and Chorf updates: the shields let them tank Horror fire and Hobgoblin spam, at the cost of being more expensive and a slightly worse Global Recruitment than the non-shielded variant.
*'''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/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': <div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">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. </div></div>

*'''[[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.
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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
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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.

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*'''[[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===
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
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 Be'lakor.
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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}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh

2023-05-19T20:09:02Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

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

==Why Play Slaanesh?==
*You prefer Speed and using your mobility to outmaneuver and tear apart your enemy as opposed to the simple rip and tear.

*You want to play the only army in the game that is non-binary inclusive.

*Because fuck armor, your crab claw ladies don't give a fuck about it.

*Because you're a sexual deviant and this is the best way to show your horniness without going out in public. (Though since this game is T rated the more sexual parts of Slaanesh are toned down, <s>at least until some of the modders have their say</s> [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2790949528&searchtext IT ALREADY HAPPENED], but granted, what do you expect?)
===Pros===
*'''Speed''': You ARE the fastest army in the entire game. Your cavalry, chariots, and Legendary Lord have a base speed of 100, daemonettes outrun most skirmishers with base speed over 50, and even slaanesh marauders have above average cardio with 38 speed. Your army will run circles around everyone else, wood elves and beastmen included.

*'''AP''': Heavy armour shouldn't be a problem for you in the slightest. Factions that rely on armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos will dread when you come on to the battlefield.

*'''Cavalry and Chariots''': With numerous varieties of both Cav and Chariots you have the ability to be a really strong threat while on the move. Sure, Heartseekers and Hellstriders probably won't beat Grail Knights in a fair one on one fight but their sheer speed will mean that back line is probably doomed. Plus the chariot variety means an armored front line is going to suffer.

*'''Flanking Potential''': Cavalry aside, many of your units are fast and have "Devastating Flanker" as well. You can expect to be one of the best factions for penetrating a soft spot in the enemy's army.

*'''Fatigue fighting''': Fatigue heavily penalizes melee attack and armor stacking to -30% melee attack and -25% armor when a unit is completely exhausted. Melee defense remains surprisingly good with only a maximum -10% penalty from fatigue. This significantly benefits you since most of your units rely on melee defense and ward saves for survival. While you're not going to outlast Nurgle or any faction with lore of life, your army of half naked tarts will fight. . .well not better but less bad compared to other factions the longer a battle drags on.

*'''Immunity to Fear''': A big part of the Mark of Slaanesh on the tabletop was immune to psych. This is carried over as Immune to Psych for your mortal units. Combined with all your daemons being unbreakable, you really won't give a shit about big scary monsters or units.

*'''Diplomacy''': Few mortals can resist the God(dess) of Pleasure. Unlike other Daemonic Forces, you have diplomatic options at your disposal. This can be useful to close off a front with a non-aggression pact or even ally with factions who otherwise would refuse to talk to you. As of immortal empires, you can dominate any human or elf faction as your vassal including legendary lords. This allows you to recruit allied units to patch the holes in your roster and bring some extra cannon fodder armies to support you on the campaign map.

*'''Discount Campaign Armies''': Slaanesh is deceptively powerful on the campaign map due to his ability to pump out free 20 stack disciple armies almost at will. They can't reproduce exponentially like Khorne's armies can, but they stick around alot longer. Great for backline garrison duty or to be sacrificed in the field skaven style to keep your real armies from taking casualties.

*'''Leadership Shenanigans''': You cant rout the demons you spend most of your time fighting in the realm of chaos campaign but you're great at routing the high elves, dark elves, and Brettonians that you'll spend most of your time fighting in Immortal Empires.

*'''Doomstacks''': patch 1.2 gave greater demons bound spells instead of being crappy spell casters, now all the monogod factions except khorne can get the up to 2 uses of their entire respective demonic spell lore as bounds spells for each greater demon they bring, this has made bring 17-19 of these in a doomstack by far the most overpowered army comp in campaign, Every single greater demon now provides like a hundred extra WOM worth of spells for free. once you can afford a pure stack of these there is basically no reason to use any other unit anymore. you can easily wipe 2-3 full enemy stacks and cheese your way through the endgame. ironically this mean that in campaign Bloodthirsters went from being probably the best greater demon to the worst overnight. This applies equally to slaanesh, nurgle, and tzeentch but not khorne or legions of chaos.
===Cons===
*'''Fragile''': The downside of having an army of half naked monster girls/boys/things? There isn't a ton of armour to go around. Expect to be taking a punishing on the way in (Not that Slaanesh has an issue with that) if you aren't using ward saves. Which you should since Slaanesh units have some bound ward save abilities which are generally far more impactful than armor. The problem is fixed a bit with CoC giving you armored units, though most of your army will still be pretty squishy.

*'''Lack of Ranged''': You can't hump your opponent to death from the other side of the map. You have one ranged unit in the form of Marauder Horsemen. Seriously, even freaking KHORNE has more than that. You have no chance at playing defense.
*'''Lack of Fliers''': When Furies are the best flying unit you have, it's safe to say you aren't a faction that is designed around dogfighting and controlling the skies. You are easily the weakest Monogod faction when it comes to the air. you do have Demon princes now, and Azazel in multiplayer but this does not make an air force.

*'''Monster fighting''': The only way for you to fight big, ugly, single entity monsters is to bring big, ugly single entity monsters of your own. Against factions like Skaven and Vampire Coast, your soul grinders/keeper of secrets will be forced to hide in a treeline not contributing to the battle until your opponent's missile units are completely tied up.

*'''No Flexibility''': The other monogods are one dimensional too but you have it the worst. Everyone fighting you knows you're going to bring a fast glass cannon army. Like your other chaos monogod siblings, you do one thing well and can't do much else. Somewhat ironic that the factions closest to chaos are the most predictable opponents.

*'''Autoresolve hates you''': Get ready to fight a lot of really one sided fights because Autoresolve thinks your Exalted Daemonette stack will get decimated by that one ten unit stack of Kossars.

*'''Fast Games''': Because of their fragility and need to be maneuvered correctly to win, expect Slaanesh games to be quick, regardless of who wins. Slaanesh will either completely slaughter the enemy or run into a brick wall and crumple to dust. If you like long, tense game where the winner can be decided at any moment you won't get that from Slaanesh too much.

*'''Bad Replenishment''': You would think the guys who have orgies every day and have limitless daemons from hell on their team wouldn't have issues replenishing their numbers. You would evidently be wrong, have fun watching your army sit in a city for 4 turns to heal back casualties.

*'''DLC''': Sorry but trends are trends and some of your better units are for Lord Packs. If you want respectable armor or 1 ranged unit, you better fork up for the Champions of Chaos. From a launch standpoint you got Tzeentch and Nurgle beat, but you could use some more mortals/boob snakes.

*'''Not beginner-friendly''': a bit of an odd one sure, but it has to be said, Slaanesh is not a faction for beginners with no range units, no somewhat tanky monsters and all of your units being made of used condoms where even a cheap unit of archers can kill your lord in milliseconds, Slaanesh heavily punishes you for one mistake and one has to sell their soul and become the dark lord of micromanagement if you want to win consistently as Slaanesh, ''especially'' in multiplayer.
==Faction Traits==
*'''Daemonic''': Undead with extra steps, really. Once your daemonic units lose enough leadership, they'll begin to lose health and fade back into the Warp in the same vein that undead units crumble away. The good news is that even if your daemons are doomed to evaporate, they'll at least stick in and fight to the last model.

*'''Devastating Flanker''': A bunch of your units have this special ability which doubles their charge bonus when attacking an enemy unit from the flank or rear. Considering your Furies and all your cavalry have Vanguard, as well as the obscenely high speed of your army overall, this incentivizes you to try to encircle the enemy as quickly as possible and... well no way to say this that's not going to be a double entendre, [[FATAL|'''Hit them hard and fast in the rear!''']]

*'''Sensuous Seductions''': Like with the other Chaos god armies you have a battlefield resource that unlocks map-wide abilities as you accumulate it. As with the other daemonic factions these battlefield resources have three tiers and when you use one of them it reduces the resources you've accumulated so far. This one is gained by killing units that have negative morale, meaning you can keep replenishing these abilities so long as there are still units on the battlefield to kill. The three abilities (in order of strength and cost) are:
**''Fascination'': A direct-damage spell that also causes Rampage on the target. Use it to force fliers to land and cause enemies to rampage into bad matchups.
**''Narcissism'': An AoE snare, similar to Net of Amyntok.
**''Sweet Sorrow'': An AoE buff to speed and vigor.
==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[N'Kari]]''': He's big, he's fast, he's purple, and he's got four nipples. Has a blistering 100 speed, which means he's a single entity monster that can keep up with warhounds and light cavalry. This guy can blitz across the battlefield and right into your "backline," which is good because he has only 5 armor and needs to hurry if he doesn't want to get turned into Swiss cheese by ranged units. His offensive potential is extremely high, and you can stack physical resist and ward save to make him quite durable in melee, but best used to hit and run/flank. Also a caster of the Lore of Slaanesh, but you're probably better off putting skill points elsewhere, use a hero caster. His special abilities include:
**''Harvester of Souls'': heals him when nearby units are complete destroyed (this stacks)- combine with high ward and he'll be extremely tough, especially when fighting enemies that crumble instead of routing.
**''Willing Prey'': debuffs an enemy's melee attack and defense.
**''The Witstealer Sword'': massively boosts his AP and base weapon damage.-Alternative live dangerously and take the Sword of Slaanesh from his chaos realm first visit if possible and enjoy a greater demon with well over 100 speed 60-70% physical resist/40% ward and a sword of Khaine equivalent, doing 1.2k weapon damage.

*'''Prince Sigvald the Magnificent (DLC, Multiplayer only)''': Similar to Warriors of Chaos, take Sigvald if you want an affordable footlord who refuses to die to anything your opponent throws at him.

*'''Azazel (DLC, Multiplayer only)''': Giving Slaanesh a flying duelist lord completely changes his multiplayer meta since Slaanesh only had furies to contest the skies prior to the Champions of Chaos DLC. No longer will you be stuck impotently shaking your fist at the sky while flying caster lords and skirmishers poop all over your groundbound forces. More importantly, he's very reasonably priced and costs about the same to bring into a multiplayer battle as Alarielle on her hawk or Harkon on his terrorgheist. Just be careful with him, he's a glass cannon like most Slaanesh units and will die quick if not microed well. And don't be afraid to hit the land button to hide in your own army if the enemy has air superiority.
===Generic Lords===
*'''Exalted Keeper of Secrets''': Same as Blood boi, Bird Boi, and Plague Boi. The Exalted Keeper of Secrets acts as the lord while the standard one is a monster you can recruit. An anti-large AP monster with the Lores of Slaanesh and Shadows that can get around the battlefield very quickly. Believe it or not it's slower than a Bloodthirster and less mobile since it can't fly. That said it has a lot of nasty special abilities, including a Mortis Engine effect against low-leadership enemies, AoE hexes that causes rampage or reduce melee attack, and an activatable buff that massively boosts its melee damage over the course of three stages. Also gets some regen while killing broken units. plus the usual devastating flanker. kinda fragile and dependent on micro but potentially very deadly.

*'''Daemon Prince of Slaanesh (DLC)''': Not sure why anyone would ever use this guy. He doesn't differentiate himself from an exalted keeper of secrets other than having a grab bag of Lore of Shadows + Slaanesh spells instead of going all in on one or the other. His special ability selection is worse than an Exalted Keeper's, even if he is a bit cheaper. Unfortunately stuck with the terrible warriors of chaos blue skill tree in campaign and can't reduce upkeep costs at all.

*'''Herald of Slaanesh''': A hybrid lord with the Lore of Slaanesh and/or Shadow magic along with AP in melee. Think a Loremaster for the High Elves only faster and frailer. Can ride the Steed of Slaanesh, Seeker Chariot, or Exalted Seeker Chariot. You'll want to stick to the Steed of Slaanesh unless you're a micro god, she's naked and unarmored no matter what mount you choose and the chariot mounts make her a bigger target for missile fire. Will also realistically be your only Lord choice in the early campaign as you can't get the Exalted Greater Daemon without evolving one of these things like a Pokemon. Like other daemonic Herald lords she also has three "locus" abilities, which include:
**''Grace'': A ward save that greatly improves melee defence and physical resistance. -By far the best, helps fragile Slaanesh units survive
**''Swiftness'': An augment which greatly improves charge bonus, speed and charge speed.
**''Beguilement'': A hex which reduces leadership and melee defence.

*'''Chaos Lord of Slaanesh (DLC)''': Your token mortal lord who also happens to be your only generic lord option with good armor. Unfortunately, he can't get manticore or chaos dragon mounts like WoC chaos lords can. Probably best off skipping him. Heralds have more long term potential in campaign after your lords pokemon evolve and in multiplayer, you're better off spending a bit more for Sigvald if you want a tanky anchor for your front line. Similar to the Daemon prince they have a terrible blue skill tree with no upkeep reduction options.
==Heroes==

===Legendary Heroes===

===Generic Heroes===
*'''Alluress''': A hero version of the Herald, like for the other three gods. Same spell lores and mounts. Also has Devastating Flanker. Take her if you want a fast caster to follow your lord around around casting spells to rampage/net/nuke enemies around them. The chaos sorcerer has much better armor and is a far superior caster due to his unique skills while the alluress is more fighty in the long run since she can spec points into a yellow tree while the sorcerer can't. You're probably better off going for a sorcerer in most scenarios, though, the alluress can shine if you put her in a single entity doomstack of cultists/keepers of secrets where she can buff your entire army with her locus abilities.

*'''Cultist of Slaanesh''': A Dark Elf cultist and a skilled fighter with a number of unique abilities including Devastating Flanker and "Gate of Slaanesh." The gate is a one-time summon of a unit of daemonettes in MP but can up upgraded in campaign to 3 daemonette summons and later one Keeper of Secrets per battle. Can be mounted on a Chaos Steed for added mobility or a warshrine for added tankiness. Actually have very good melee stats and ok armor (by Slaanesh standards at least), good duelists or anti-infantry. In campaign, you can quickly make a doomstack of these ladies by spamming cult buildings and at 250 gold/turn upkeep, they make for a very affordable doomstack too. Remember that their real power is the 3 demonettes and one keeper of secrets they each bring on top of their base abilities.

*'''Chaos Sorcerer of Slaanesh (DLC)''': A more support oriented caster hero with good armor and the ability to ride a chaos warshrine mount. Like the Alluress, comes in lore of shadows and lore of slaanesh variants. This is your guy if you want a caster who spends most of their time hiding amongst the infantry casting AoE + support spells. They have campaign skills to reduce cooldowns or miscast chance and are much better as a pure caster than the alluress, and they can get a skill that heals them while casting so they have built in miscast resistance.
==Units==

===Infantry===
*'''Devoted Marauders of Slaanesh''': Slannesh's warriors of pain and seduction ([[Emperor's Children|no, not those guys.]] [[Daemonette|or those guys.]] [[Hedonites of Slaanesh|Look, Slaanesh has a lot of freaks working for them, ok?]]) The big difference between these guys and normal Mauraders is that they have Immune to Psych, meaning they are far less likely to run than their cousins in the Warriors of Chaos and Norsca. The standard version also have shields and bonus damage vs infantry. As far as expendable chaff goes, they're pretty damned good for their price. In campaign one of the easiest to get followers gives -15% upkeep to these and the can all get Soporific Musk from the tech tree alongside -10% more upkeep. They are actually very cost effective as long as they're fighting lower armor troops and do decent versus more elite units as well, and they are your only unit to global recruit in one turn. Like most of your units they do badly in auto resolve but perform great in manual battles.

*'''Devoted Marauders of Slaanesh (Spears)''': Your only anti large infantry. Increased speed compared to most infantry makes them a bit better at trapping cavalry + chariots, but don't count on them to win vs meaner monsters like Terracotta Sentinels or greater daemons. Pretty crap early tier spearman, after the early game drop them.

*'''Devoted Marauders of Slaanesh (Hellscourges)''': Patch 2.2 restored their base AP damage, they are back to being the best cheap troop choice for the early/midgame. Good defensive stats and very cost effective.

*'''[[Forsaken]]:''' A fast damage dealer notable for being your first decent armored infantry in campaign. Lack of AP means you'll want to replace them with Chaos Warriors or Exalted Daemonettes in the mid-lategame. Honestly crap, basic Marauders are already pretty good at chaff killing and these are overpriced for what they do.

*'''Daemonettes''': Very fast, very AP heavy, and very squishy Daemonic infantry unit. Roughly equivalent to Wardancers, stats wise, but considerably faster. Has Devastating Flanker. Consider that a unit of Seekers serves basically the same role but can cycle charge and flank better while also having poison, and aren't much more expensive. You may be better off using Marauders as a frontline and using chariots and cavalry over Daemonettes as flankers. They are more than twice as expensive than Marauders, and a lot of what they do is better done by other units. Honestly they are just too overcosted for what they do, early on Marauders are much, much more efficient in both campaign and multiplayer.

*'''Exalted Daemonettess''': Faster, killier, sexier Daemonettes. Roughly equivalent to Bladesingers, stats wise, but considerably faster. Has Devastating Flanker and the Soulscent passive ability, which increases their AP and melee attack when within range of an enemy unit whose morale is wavering or lower. Same issue as basic Daemonettes, since they should be used to flank ask yourself if you should just use a Hellflayer, Exalted Chariot, Fiends, or Heartseekers instead given all are faster, deadlier if cycle-charged, and have poison. Still a good unit of course, and much better than basic Daemonettes. They do have a unique charm ability that debuffs enemy melee attack so can be stacked used with Soporific Musk, lord auras, and spells to put a disgusting amount of debuffs on an enemy. Try to only have them engage targets that are suffering from things like Soporific Musk, your lords debuff aura, poisoned etc. If you stack enough debuffs they take barely any damage in melee and will absolutely rip your enemies apart. They don't auto resolve well at all unfortunately, and are slow to replenish and recruit.
**'''Bringers of Beguilement (RoR)''': These ladies come with Perfect Vigor and a contact rampage effect, so use them to try to lock an enemy in place and keep them there for a proper pounding. Also nice that they don't lose combat effectiveness as the fight goes on.

*'''Chaos Warriors of Slaanesh (DLC)''': Finally a tough frontline unit for Slaanesh to Hammer and Anvil with, and with physical resistance, Immune to Psych, and slightly better speed plus strider they do a great job at holding the line and killing lightly armored units. They <s>fill a niche</s> <span style='color:purple;font-size:100%'>fill the big gaping hole in Slaanesh's army, and fill it well.</span> Slaanesh exclusive whip variants make for especially tough anvils since they possess good armor, good melee defense, shields, and expert charge defense.
**'''Mirror Guard (RoR) (DLC)''': Identical to the warriors of chaos unit. Has Immunity to Psychology, a melee def buffing aura, and a statline almost as good as Chosen despite being much, much cheaper. Mirror Guard are the perfect anvil to pair with Slaanesh's many glass hammers and will likely feature in most competitive multiplayer armies.

*'''Chosen of Slaanesh (DLC)''': Same as the warriors but stronger. Whip variants were completely garbage at launch with zero AP damage. Patch 2.2 fixed that, Hellscourge Chosen are now one of the best elite infantry in the game and can even beat Black Orks in a knock down drag out fight.
===Missile Cavalry===
*'''Marauder Horsemen of Slaanesh (DLC):''' A cost efficient skirmisher that's also your only ranged option. Can fight relatively well in melee for light missile cav thanks to devastating flanker. An alternative to hellstriders with less melee power but the option of ranged fire too, probably will become obsolete late game in campaign.
===Cavalry===
-all of these except Chaos knights come with poison
*'''Seekers:''' One of the fastest units in the entire series, unfortunately they don’t have any armour, so cycle charging is your best strategy when using them. Has Devastating Flanker and Vanguard deployment, making them well suited for getting right up in the face of range-heavy armies.

*'''Heartseekers:''' Named after the unit champion of Seekers, these things are a straight upgrade. Unlike your regular seekers these guys have the Soulscent passive ability which increases their armour piercing and melee attack capability when within range of an enemy unit with morale wavering or lower. Also has Devastating Flanker and Vanguard deployment.
**'''Eternal Entourage''': In addition to Perfect Vigour these ladies and their snake-raptors buff the melee attack and weapon strength of nearby allied heroes and lords. Useful for an alpha strike on the enemy general and will still be hitting pretty hard even in the late stages of a battle. Still fragile as all hell.

*'''Hellstriders:''' Comes with lances (or pincers rather) or hellscourge whips. Lance variants get bonus anti-large, hellscourge variants oddly have improved armor piercing damage unlike other hellscourge units. Lance version are a cheap answer to light cavalry, but wont do crap to to heavy cav and are bad versus infantry. Hellscourges are pretty decent anti-infantry light cav. these are respectively 40% or 30% cheaper in multiplayer than seekers but lack devastating flanker and AP. They do have the soul hunters ability which improves their leadership, charge bonus, and damage resistance as they kill models. Best used to run down skirmishers and broken/shattered units. great cost effective unit in multiplayer but in campaign they should probably be replaced with seekers or chariots later on.

*'''Chaos Knights of Slaanesh (DLC)''' Your armored heavy cav. As expected, they're significantly more mobile than other chaos knights and come with strider + devastating flanker, for mono slaanesh these wont put out anywhere near the offensive power of heartseekers but are much more durable to prolonged melee and ranged. Probably go heartseekers most of the time but by no means a bad option. sword and shield may be preferably to lances, they already have good charge bonus from devastating flanker so the much better melee stats may be preferably to even more charge, but depends on how religiously you cycle charge them probably.

===Chariots===
*'''Seeker Chariot:''' A low model chariot unit with poison, magic attacks, fear, and Devastating Flanker. Has a ton of armor piercing damage and is fast enough to outrun warhounds. Can plow through damn near any infantry squad without charge defense when moving at max speed. In-game physics is probably similar to real life physics where increasing speed results in an exponential rise in kinetic energy. Avoid ramming cavalry, monsters, and warhounds, they'll bring your chariots to a dead stop where they'll be quickly torn apart due to their near-nonexistent defensive stats. Get used to using these guys in campaign, disciple armies tend to include 3-4 of them who will make up the majority of their killing power.

*'''Hellflayer:''' Upgraded seeker chariots with the soulscent ability that increases damage for every nearby enemy with wavering morale. Skip it, enemy morale plummets after the chariots hit, not before and seekers/hellstriders are better at running down routing enemies than chariots are. Two turn recruitment makes it unsuitable for campaign and cost efficiency concerns makes it unsuitable for multiplayer.

*'''Exalted Seeker Chariot:''' A single-entity chariot that will mow down any heavily armored infantry it comes across. Has Poison, Perfect Vigour, and Devastating Flanker. While it has great stats, it's crippled by high cost and the fact that it only gets one model per squad. Exalted seekers and lower grade chariots give much more bang for the buck.

*'''Chaos Chariots of Slaanesh (DLC):''' A heavily armored chariot with mundane attacks instead of the poisoned, magical, armor piercing attacks of seeker chariots. Has strider so it doesn't get penalized for charging uphill or through water. Moves at slightly better than average for a chariot speed instead of the formula one racer speed of seeker chariots. Take them if you want a chariot that doesn't spontaneously vaporize from lack of micro.
**'''The Sibilant Slaughtercade (DLC)''': An upgraded chaos chariot with vanguard deployment, poisoned attacks and the soul hunters ability that increases damage resistance, leadership, and charge bonus as it racks up kills. If it gets pinned while mowing infantry that isn't anti-large just leave it there, unlike most chariots it will win that fight.
===War Beasts===
*'''Fiend of Slaanesh:''' Imagine even faster, bigger, rat ogres with a debuff aura and you’d get the idea. Would be able to keep up with the rest of your forces, but unfortunately has just as much armour as the rest of them. Has the Soporific Musk passive ability which lowers enemy melee defense and melee attack. also has devastating flanker combined with 95 speed making them function like monstrous shock cavalry, good melee stats for monster's when combined with soporific musk.

*'''Chaos Furies (Slaanesh):''' Essentially the same as the other furies, acting like daemonic harpies with buffs from their god. In this case, speed, armour piercing and Devastating Flanker. Most importantly it has Vanguard deployment, which means it can deploy alongside your cavalry units for punishing encirclements. Since they are your only flying unit they can remain valuable far past other factions furies despite being a tier 1 unit, and their armor piercing means they can reliably do some damage to anything they get a good rear charge on. Also two turn global recruitment time makes them disposable and easy to replace no matter what stage of the game you're at.
===Monsters===
*'''Chaos Spawn of Slaanesh''': Has the Soporific Musk ability like fiends, though it was bugged and didn't work until patch 1.2. They function as cheaper but slightly worse fiends basically, not much reason to use them once you can afford fiends instead, at least in campaign. they do have high non ap weapon strength so they might be slightly better at chaff killing but that's not something Slaanesh needs help in.

*'''Chaos Warshrine of Slaanesh (DLC)''': A big, slow support monster with a mortis engine like AOE HP drain effect. Ironically less useful for Slaanesh's army than warriors of chaos. This warshrine is built to win grinding battles of attrition and does not work well with the mobile shock tactics that the rest of Slaanesh's roster excel in. If however you decide to skip the flank playstyle and go for a Marauder/Chaos Warrior/Chosen death blob this thing is a god send. - it works just fine with Slaanesh mauraders as a front line of chaff or chaos warriors. in campaign you may wish to just use this as a mount for sorcerers or cultists instead of bringing by itself.

*'''Soul Grinder of Slaanesh''': A purely melee version of the Soul Grinder with 75 speed, anti-large, and lots of armour piercing damage. May be preferable for most uses to the keeper of secrets because they have actually good armor and fill a similar role. it is easily the toughest endgame unit you have access too. In multiplayer, these guys are near mandatory in certain matchups since they're your best answer to big, single entity beatsticks. In campaign, you have little reason to use them after finishing the research that gives all Keepers of Secrets 2 free casts of every lore of Slaanesh spell.

*'''Keeper of Secrets:''' Your Greater Daemon unit is fast, has lots of weapon strength and armor piercing, as well as Blissful Rapture, Devastating Flanker, and Strider. Can cast two bound spells from the Lore of Slaanesh: Lash of Slaanesh and Acquiescence. They're powerful melee killers but they need to flank and cycle charge for best affect due to their low durability. Take advantage of their high mass and slippery animations to run in and out of the fight. Consider pairing them with N'Kari or an Exalted Keeper to form high-damage goon squads. Soul Grinders are Tankier and might be better for prolonged brawls. Campaign tech tree can give them the whole Lore of Slaanesh as bound spells. Good targets for buffs to weapon damage like Mind Razor or the Slaanesh rampage buff. With the abillity to get up to 2 casts of every lore of Slaanesh spell free as bound spells from campaign techs these guys are very deadly and versatile, they lack a soul grinders armor but free magic makes them much deadlier. In campaign put your lord with as many hero's as you feel the need for and a Doomstack of just these and you'll have no trouble. For an example of how to abuse the magic to the fullest, use 17-19 of these, paralyze the entire enemy army with Phantasmagoria on each unit, drop Pavane and Slicing shards on every enemy unity then flank them before Debuffing them with Acquiescence and finally rear-charging in with Hysterical frenzy and I guess you can lash them too if anything is left.
**'''The Marquis of Masochism (RoR)''': The Marquis swaps out the usual KoS spells for Phantasmagoria and The Enfeebling Foe, which is good in multiplayer but somewhat annoying in campaign since he won't benefit from increased Slaanesh spells from research. It also gets a special ability that heals it when near units with low leadership, which increases in effect as more nearby units lose their leadership. Phantasmagoria really shines in combo with this ability, as it both nets enemies in place and lowers their leadership in a wide radius. Drop it on the Marquis' head and watch his health shoot up while he slaughters anything nearby. Also he is a literal reference to Hellraiser. "I have such sights to show you!" You aren't hiding anything CA!
===Artillery===
None to speak of.
==Multiplayer Strategies==
Slaanesh is all about one thing, going at your opponent as fast as possible. Oh, they will resist, but you'll get your way in the end. Slaanesh really needs to find that perfect vulnerable position and slide right in. Don't go for grinding here, get into the habit of rhythmically pulling in and out to get the best result possible. Be sure to conserve as much of your unit's energy and fight too, you don't wait to climax too early. If all goes well eventually everything will come together in one big- <span style='color:purple;font-size:100%'>'''SNAP''' I'm the embodiment of ecstasy and excess and even ''I'' was getting sick of the sex puns!</span> Ok fine, you have a ton of mobility, AP and dps on your units but they will fall apart really fast if they meet stern resistance. Your units are built to flank, so if you try to take a frontal fight with any semi sturdy faction you are going to get massacred. The lack of ranged and fliers also means you will have to get to that backline the old fashioned way. It will be a Micro heavy army that will reward good timing and have one of the higher skill floors in the game. Now go teach those ungrateful bastards our horny ways!

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': One of a few factions hornyer then you! (Rimshot). They're the only faction with somewhat comparable speed to you, so expect a game of trying to get a charge off while not being charged in turn. Their archers and hybrid Artillery in the Cygor might force you to be a little bolder then you might otherwise want. Over all: an interesting match up.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This matchup is a bit complicated. Brettonia's missiles + infantry won't be too much of a problem. Men at arms are dead meat to chaos marauders and you can easily outmaneuver screening forces if they're silly enough to box up around ranged units. Their cavalry is a different story. While they're quite susceptible to your abundant AP, they're better at extended combat than you are especially if they brought lore of life and perfect vigor grail knights. More dangerously, Bretonnia has ''the'' best flying cav in the game. Even if you out-race their infantry and put their cavalry on the run, Pegasus Knights have absolutely free reign to pick and choose their fights. Need to [[/d/|pull out]] of an engagement turning sour? Well, those Pegasus Knights just swooped in and boxed in your forces. However, you have two potential ace in the holes. First, Brettonia hates fighting single entity monsters. Bringing a soul grinder will really throw a monkey wrench in their plans. Second, bringing a lore of Slaanesh caster on a fast mount allows you to screw with their mobile units by AOE snaring them with phantasmagoria and forcing them to rampage with Pavane of Slaanesh. Use it to snipe lords, ruin counter-charges, and force knights into bad positions where they can be rear charged.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''': They're going to bring khorne and nurgle units. see their sections for how to deal with that, otherwise do your best to abuse speed and try to snipe their low-powered lords with a keeper of secrets or N'kari.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': Now this is a fight you'll love to take. Big, slow armored infantry with virtually no ranged options make for very easy prey for your speedy armor shredding daemons. You can effortlessly dive in and out of combat as you wish. Just try to shut down any Hellcannons and Marauding Throwing Axe Horsemen they may have brought with them and you'll be golden. As of the Champions of Chaos DLC, this matchup has become much more dangerous now that the Warriors of Chaos can bring flying duelist lords, flying cavalry, and the same hellstriders from your roster.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': Oh look, another faction geared heavily against armored factions! Unfortunately for you, they are flexible enough to still engage non-armored units with the same or similar degrees of lethality compared to your one-note tune. What's worse, is they have chariots and infantry who can do so from range. Anti-large also frequents their forces, which can be particularly dangerous to your own chariots and monsters. The good news is that you still outspeed them and can easily run down their missile units, even fast ones like scourgerunners and crossbow dark riders. Also, consider disengaging when murderous prowess triggers and reengaging after it wears off.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Oh man, if you can micro well you are going to have a field day with Dwarfs. You have pretty much everything that they hate fighting from an affordable AP frontline, fast flankers to dive the backline and chariots galore. Daemonettes will make the most cost effective front line with a few screening marauders infantry to eat missile fire. As for cav, Seekers are the punchier option, hellstriders are the more affordable option. Both can easily dive those cannons and guns before they can do much damage. Even your furies have AP and Devastating Flanker, which will make them great for killing dwarf ranged units. With three options of chariots to pick from (go for normal seeker chariots, they'll be available in more numbers) you should be able to punch through their lines and dry hump that silly book of theirs. Really, the only thing that won't work are monsters as Dwarfs have plenty of missiles and Anti Large, so Fiends, Spawns and KOS can stay at home, meaning a Herald, Sigvald, or Azazel will be your best Lord option. If you can micro well you can dominates this match up but if not... well, prepare for a lot of your skimpy crab ladies to get turned into sexy ground beef.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Similar to fighting Vampire Coast. Cathay is going to noobbox under sky junks and you have neither the ranged units to shoot them down nor the air force to challenge Cathay's air superiority. Also like the vampire coast, you're going to have to pull down Cathay's monsters with marauder spears or hide a big anti-large monster in the woods until all of Cathay's ranged units are tied up. Your only hope is to rush into danger close range where the sky junks can't get a good shot without blasting their own infantry into the afterlife. Then hope that their army breaks before your army evaporates.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Greenskins are awful at charge defense and dealing with large units in general, you can get alot of mileage from cavalry, chariots, and fiends. Since they have less of an air presence than you do, Azazel is a good lord pick for rear charge leadership bombs and furies make for great harrassers since greenskins don't have a way to stop them from going where they're needed.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''': A very rough matchup. Khorne players will ditch their chaos warriors for bloodletters that are just straight up superior to your daemonettes. No ranged units and khorne's propensity for counter-charging you makes this a very painful matchup as 'hammer and anvil' runs into khornes 'just hammer'. Abuse magic as best you can and make use of your speed to take favorable engagements if you can.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''': An irritating matchup, since almost every infantry unit of theirs can pepper you with low AP ranged fire and hold surprisingly long thanks to by our blood. Go wide with tons of marauders, you'll need to tie up as many of them as possible if you don't want to get shot to death.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Stacked in your favor, so long as you don't stay stuck in for too long. Saurus based formations will be child's play to your forces. Slow and heavily armored, even your infantry will be able to cycle charge them with impunity. Larger dinosaurs will be at your tender mercies as well, Soul Grinders, Keepers of Secrets and even just Marauders with Spears or massed AP infantry will be suited to dealing with the heavily armored beasts, but watch out for their healing. Skinks are the opposite of Saurus, being relatively quick infantry that will grind you down one poisoned dart or javelin at a time. You are still ''much'' faster than they are, and by using acquiescence and sopofiric musk, you can easily make a meal out of them once you catch them; even daemonettes can handle skinks if you can get the charge off. Units to be particularly wary of will be the Terradon Riders. You can do virtually nothing as they rain poisonous javelins from the sky, crippling and slowing your forces to be a better match for Skink Cohorts or Chameleon Stalkers. So long as you keep on the move, cycle charge their forces and try to waste as much ammo as you can, they'll eventually be forced to commit to a losing fight. Furies are a must-pick here as terradon riders can be reliably countered by them without backup.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': A rough matchup, norscan beserkers have no armour but a fuck ton of infantry-shredding power, You might be tempted to bring along marauders with their anti-inf bonus to counter but any norscan player worth their salt WILL bring mammoths which you have little to no options to deal with.A tough matchup but winnable if you can manage to take favorable engagements with your speed but if the norscan player wises up and turtles up you're in for a rough time.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Nurgle's fliers will be a thorn on your side the entire match. Your fliers are no match for his and an inopportune rear charge by bloatflies + furies will really mess you up. That and your marauders/chaos warriors will lose to his in a fair fight. But the match still favors you because Nurgle has several big achilles heels for you to take advantage of. He has no anti-large, soul grinders + keeper of secrets will easily murder any big monsters he brings. He has no anti-charge and can't stop your chariots + cavalry + monsters from ploughing through his troops. And the sluggish speed of his army means he can't reliably block your fast movers or run away when you cast pit of shades or slicing shards on his front line.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Ogre artillery comes with enough meat to hold off your attacks until backup arrives and in most cases can simply 'pull through' your attacks with higher mass and they WILL bring artillery. Ogre strategy against you is to abuse your lack of anti-large and just ram you around the battlefield and eat through your roster. expect leadbelchers to cut you apart on your cycle charges and hold their own if you do manage to dive them. as for counters bring your daemons and chaos spawn and try to abuse your magic the best you can. expect a very painful battle.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': You'll be able to dive their backline in record speeds, but you should not underestimate the firepower they can plug you with before you reach them. They'll likely have hordes of Skavenslaves to simply tie down your forces through unarmored bodies alone, so try to keep on the move.

*'''Slaanesh''': You're definitely going to want to bring the lore of Slaanesh on a mobile caster for this one. The winner of this mirror match will be whoever better positions their army and being able to ruin your opponents maneuvering is too big an advantage to pass up.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': This is going to be a difficult one. You can win the infantry game, but you can't win it quickly since skeletons are great at buying time with their lives. And you will need to win the infantry game as quickly as you can, sepulcre stalkers + necrosphinxes easily outclass your anti-large and you'll need all the help you can get to push their constructs off the field. Be on the lookout for a lore of light lich priest on a skeletal steed, a single net of amyntox can swing the battle against you if you're not careful. Consider bringing Azazel to assassinate their lords/heroes, Tomb Kings aren't going to win the air war with their piss weak carrion.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': Tzeentch's ground units are squishy, and bad at melee, and not as fast as yours, so you ''should'' use that to your advantage by encircling them and shredding them in melee as quick as possible; they are probably the only Daemons you'll be okay with sticking around in melee with, but you should be charging as much as possible still just for the Charge Bonus. All those ranged shots won't matter if you're already up close and give them no chance to use it. Do not under any circumstances let any flamers live, they will melt through your infantry like paper and is more than worth taking furies soley to tie them down until your other units get there.
:That being said, Tzeentch also has the ''most flyers'' out of the 4 gods, so you should expect a Tzeentch player to take some of them just to fuck with you; screamers or doom knights will intercept your chariots. Tzeentch also has Barrier, which nullifies the first few hits they take in combat, which will be your charge. Models will still get thrown, they just wont get hurt right away.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': This may be a hard one since most of your anti-large comes on big monsters that will get shot to pieces if the vampirates look at them funny. Go wide with marauders and daemonettes, you won't need anything tougher to take on zombie deckhands. As for the giant enemy crabs + necrofexes, you can hide your own monsters somewhere and not commit them until after you tied up their ranged units or you can try dogpiling them with seekers + marauder spearmen. Neither option is ideal, but they're the only choices you got. Also consider bringing Azazel. Harkon on his overgrown vampire bat can fight off furies and allow the coast's flying skirmishers to bully your forces all game long, but Azazel can ruin his day and clear the skies for your furies to run down any deck droppers your opponent decided to bring.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': The Vampire Counts might be your comrades in terms of shunning ranged weapons but beyond that they're very different from you. You have almost no flyers, Vampires have a bunch. Your units hit really hard but are super fragile, while the undead excel at grinding you down with blobs of durable chaff. This second part is the biggest problem for you, as wars of attrition are the ultimate bane of your existence. All those flying units will also mean your great speed still won't give you your choice of engagements, as the vargheists can charge you but you can't charge the vargheists. Your best bet is probably going to be to act as a scalpel, cutting the enemy lords an heroes neatly out of their army. If you can do that the rest won't matter. Unfortunately, since a lot of their lords can take flying mounts, that will be easier said than done. Definitely bring Furies and anything that can act as an assassin or elite anti-large. The fact that their units don't route is good and bad for you. Bad because you can't stack your army abilities while fighting them, and good if you bring N'Kari as when they die he can get a ton of heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': Calling it now, this will be an interesting mashup. You both are going to be fast, and very squishy, so dealing with their archers should be easy. However, your lack of armor on your nude beasts will make them easy targets. So basically a drag race of vegans vs virgins. Likely to go very poorly for Slaanesh as Slaaneshi armies will be paying for AP that is not going to do anything to the hippies, and Slaaneshi armies tend to be very allergic to missiles, which the wood elves are just about the most shoot happy faction in the entire game.
==Campaign Strategies==
*'''General''': Gifts of Slaanesh should be given to every lord (friend and enemy) that you can find, get the tech that boosts disciples gained from gifts and you'll quickly get a nearly unlimited amount of disciples which turns into nearly unlimited disciple armies. you can use these defensively instead of offensively and can easily pull off keeping a defensive army in every province you own, possibly even EVERY SETTLEMENT you own. The defensive benefits of this are massive and it allows you to field only minimal offensive armies keeping your economy strong, and slaanesh already has the best economy out of all the demon factions, you can build an impressive empire of vassals, defended by tons of free disciple armies. Most of the order factions that threaten you can be seduced into compliance. Its actually a very easy faction to play in campaign. Your cults are most useful to give seductive influence and diplomatic boosts or allow you to recruit more cultists to spread more cults, the disciple granting cult building actually kind of sucks because its measly 5 per turn is nothing compared to the 25 per turn gifts of slaanesh give you. and the disciple army spawn cult is useless, it only spawns with like 5-6 units. Its more efficient to wait for minor factions to be wiped out or confederated before seducing them. To quickly seduce a faction have a cultist spawn a cult in one city, then build the cultist recruitment building to recruit a new cultist who spread to the next city etc, and then repeat with every settlement (you can disband excess cultists when done, if needed). After every settlement has a cult have the mass of cultists spam hero actions on every lord till they all have gifts of Slaanesh, then just wait. It doesn't matter if they declare war on you even. you can simply force them to vassalize once seduction is maxed. You can also destroy the cultist buildings then replace them with the diplomacy boost ones to give a massive boost to diplomatic relations. Nkari's double vassals tribute means you actually get a lot of money from your vassals.

*'''[[Immortal Empires]]''': N'kari begins in Chrace on the northeastern side of Ulthuan. You'll start with a cult in Saphery and communication with Morathi and can get a head start on seducing both of them so you can force vassalize them later. There's two ways you can kick off the campaign. Take over Ulthuan or sail east and take over Brettonia. Whichever you choose, I recommend vassalizing Cothique or Eltharian so they can cover your flank and so you can ally recruit Lothern sea guard. Slaanesh is lacking in ranged + anti-large and Lothern sea guard can do both jobs relatively well. Also, send a cultist to Norsca when you get the chance. Slaanesh is super popular amongst the chaos types and pretty much all of them will sign trade agreements with you the moment you show up. Ironically Slaanesh plays kind of like evil high elves with tons of vassals and diplomacy. His campaign goals just require you to conquer or vassalize all of Ulthuan then faff around until you reach the occupy/raze/sack requirement. After you take Ulthuan just leave 1-2 disciple armies in every province of the outer ring as defense (or even every outer settlement) then focus on seducing nearby large factions like the dark elves or brettonia as a buffer and source of tribute. you may need to wipe out hexotle or alith anar, but the empire should be too far away and distracted to pose you any real threat. Probably Don't bother with defense buildings in your settlements, your disciple armies are than enough combined with garrisons. Focus all in on economy, maybe skip with resource buildings because your trade income even with tons of resources is pathetic, you only get like 100 gold per trade agreement even with all of ulthuans special resources.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle

2023-05-19T19:56:10Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

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

==Why Play Nurgle?==
*Because you've always wanted to take a cannon to the gut and say "I'm sorry, did something hit me?"

*You will be a tanky menace. Burning through you is going to be a massive pain in the face for most factions.

*Because you want to worship Chaos but not be a COMPLETE asshole.

*Saying you worship Nurgle is the perfect cover for your horrible B.O. (No it isn't take a fucking shower.)

*You enjoy the irony of playing the God of Disease during a certain global pandemic. Bonus points if you actually had it. Double bonus if you were asymptomatic like a true favored one.
===Pros===
*'''Durability''': You are one of the tankiest factions in the entire game. With high health, defense and regeneration on most of your units you will be a monstrous pain in the ass for most faction to cut through. Plus lore of Nurgle can heal and make your army even tankier.

*'''Healing''': Speaking of healing, you have some of the best health regen abilities outside of the Vampires. Not only do you have heals in your spells but your army ability Fecund allows you to bring your units back to a healthy state when injured.

*'''Morale''': Nurgle is about toughing it out even when you're a walking mass of pustules and tumors, all of your units have high leadership if not outright unbreakability.

*'''Poison Aplenty''': It'd be a sin if Poison wasn't common in your roster, helping you carve through enemies and make it even harder to take you out.

*'''Debuffs''': The mark of Nurgle gave a reduced chance to hit on the table top, which translates to some nurgle units giving reduced melee attack to units they're in contact with. As such the enemy units will rarely be fighting at full strength. Your plagues can also provide plenty of debuffs, speaking of which...

*'''Plagues''': It is Nurgle, the god of disease, and despair. He can spread plagues better than the Skaven can, allowing you to spread corruption very fast, and soften up enemies and settlements before you pick them off the map like ripe rotting fruit from Nurgle's garden. For the cultists that understand Grandfather Nurgle's love, expect powerful boosts instead from receiving a plague.

*'''Balanced Roster''': Unlike most of the other vanilla rosters, your army roster is flexible and can adjust to do anything; maybe not as much as Undivided, but still a lot better than the other 3 Gods. You've got artillery in the form of a Soul Grinder or Kugath, and rotflies as fast fliers.

*'''Doomstacks''': patch 1.2 gave greater demons bound spells instead of being crappy spell casters, now all the monogod factions except khorne can get up to 2 uses of their entire respective demonic spell lore as bounds spells for each greater demon they bring, this has made bringing 17-19 of these in a doomstack by far the most overpowered army comp in campaign, Every single greater demon now provides like a hundred extra WOM worth of spells for free. Once you can afford a pure stack of them there is basically no reason to use any other unit anymore. You can easily wipe 2-3 full enemy stacks and cheese your way through the endgame. Ironically this means that in campaign Bloodthirsters went from being probably the best greater demon to the worst overnight. This applies equally to slaanesh, nurgle, and tzeentch but not khorne or legions of chaos.
===Cons===
*'''Slow''': Don't expect to be going anywhere fast. Most factions are going to have you beat when it comes to mobility so try and get into the meatgrinder as fast as you can. You can move faster than your average Dwarf but that's about it. Champions of Chaos did at least give you actual cavalry, but it's still pretty slow by cav standards.

*'''Weakness to Fire''': With all that Regen and healing comes a weakness to fire, so any faction that has plentiful access to it is going to be your bane. High Elves, Dwarfs, Cathay, Tzeentch, and really any faction with Lore of Fire may be a rough time.

*'''Lack of Ranged''': I mean, Tzeentch aside Chaos isn't known for being strong in the ranged department, but unlike you they at least have options. Your only units dedicated to ranged combat is the Soul Grinder and Marauder Horsemen. Some units have Death Heads as a precursor attack, but good luck out shooting Elves with only that.

*'''No Anti Large''': You have literally 0 units that come with an anti large modifier. Combine that with a lack of dedicated missiles and big single entity monsters could be a big issue for you to get rid off. Your best hope is to throw your own monsters at them, and even then the big boys on the enemy roster aren't going to be dying fast.

*'''No Anti-charge''': The other monogods get marauders and/or chaos warriors with spears or halberds to ward off enemy charges. You don't. Needless to say, you really don't appreciate enemies who specialize in cycle charging cavalry and ramming chariots through your ranked infantry.

*'''Lack of Offense''': Sure the enemy won't be killing you quickly, but you aren't going to be killing them that much faster. Melee Attack and charge will likely be low for your units. Debuffs are there to make up for it, but expect to either have to rely on monster or magic to delete enemies or prepare yourself for the grind.

*'''Give papa Nurgle a hug! I promise it's not contagious!''': Very few factions are willing to align themselves with the literal personification of plague. Besides the Skaven who also personify it, The ogres who are stupid enough to consider working with you, and your mortal followers in the Beastmen, Norsca, and Warriors, you are unlikely to have too many diplomatic options.

*'''DLC''': Call it a safe bet. Every core race before you had units cut for DLC and you will be no exception. You have the fewest mortal units of all the Monogods, and the two you do have are straight up recolors, so expect Blightkings, Bile Trolls and others in the future.
==Faction Traits==
*'''Cloud of Flies''': A trait shared by all of your Daemon Units. As your Daemons stay in melee combat, they actively gain Melee Defense, encouraging you to let them grind it out against the enemy. You're the tanky Daemon faction, you're supposed to stay in and outlast the enemy as opposed to outfight them. This doesn't mean you need to be completely passive, but it does mean that you don't really need to do any complex maneuvers. Not exactly the most nuanced faction passive in the entire game, but one that does fit the playstyle that Nurgle wants to go for.

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

*'''Army Abilities''': Like the other Chaos gods Nurgle's armies get a special meter that fills up on the right hand side of the screen, unlocking three army abilities as it fills up. We don't have an exact name for Nurgle's mechanic yet, but we do know a few details. One, his meter fills up based on how much damage your units are taking, rewarding you for prolonging battle into endless grindfests. Two, all of his army abilities have the "Chain" property, which means that they all target a single unit at first but can jump to other units nearby. None of them are Area of Effect, meaning while they have the potential to affect a huge part of the battlefield you have less control over exactly which units are affected.
**''Curse of the Slug'': Your first army ability is a slow that will spread from the targeted enemy unit to other ones nearby, but the duration isn't very long.
**''Fecundity'': A heal that you cast on a friendly unit and will then spread to other nearby friendly units. Excellent for keeping a blob of infantry in the fight or sustaining a melee death star.
**''Rot, Glorious Rot'': A plague that infects the first unit you use it on, dealing substantial damage over time, and spreading to other enemy units nearby. This will absolutely decimate blobs of infantry. The tool tip also implies the victims of this disease fill up with ''smegma'', which is possibly one of the most disgusting things Nurgle has done in recent memory.
==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Ku'Gath|Ku'gath Plaguefather]]''': The one and only. He's a spellcaster of Nurgle (duh) and also works as artillery here like on tabletop. Big Ku'gath has 14,800 HP(!), but is expectantly VERY slow. Like 28 speed slow, Hierotitans can outpace this guy. His slow speed combined with only 70 armour means, that he will actually be rather susceptible to skirmish fire. While this may sound bad, again, mother fucker has 14k HP and ranged attacks, so he should be able to weather the storm and pelt and skirmishers that come his way. Can also summon a unit of Nurglings that have a suicide explosion ability. His artillery range attack makes him far superior to a normal Great Unclean One, because he can't be safely picked apart by ranged attacks.

*'''[[Festus the Leechlord]] (DLC, Multiplayer only)''': Lore of Nurgle, a healing/mortis engine aura, and above average HP makes him your best lord if you want a low profile support caster to hang around melee mosh pits. But his mediocre stats and non-existent mobility means you should go for a different pick if you want your lord to be able to do anything else. Consider escorting him with single entity monsters or an exalted hero if you're up against a faction that can bring flying goon squads like Tzeentch and Brettonia.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Exalted Great Unclean One''': The generic lord equivalent of the standard Great Unclean One. This blubber butt is a massive regenerating wall of slime with access to poison attacks and the Lores of Nurgle and Death. Wields a giant bell mace in one hand and a plagueflail in the other. It's slow. Like, I'm talking Hierotitan and Giant levels of slow. I mean if you want to out run your opponent why the hell are you playing Nurgle? Combine that and the low armor and this is a unit you want to keep away from factions with strong missiles. This thing is a tanky monstrosity that will hold out against almost anything, with nightmarish special abilities, including a Mortis Engine effect and debuffs to enemy leadership and melee defense. It needs healing to operate at its best, so either it or a hero need to bring Lore of Nurgle.

*'''Herald of Nurgle''': Nurgle's secondary generic lord option, also a caster with Lore of Nurgle or Lore of Death. Unlike Exalted GUO he has a bit more mobility, being able to ride both a Palanquin and a much faster Rot Fly. Durable, but nothing compared to the EGUO. Works better vs ranged heavy factions like Vampire Coast/Cathay who can easily shoot a EGUO to pieces. In MP he has one Locus ability, the Locus of Fecundity, which is a bound AoE heal that he can use three times. The Locus alone is a good reason to bring the Herald, as it makes him much better at keeping your army alive than the EGUO. If you want the EGUO as your lord in campaign you're going to have to upgrade one of these guys at a certain level, so get used to seeing them.

*'''Chaos Sorcerer Lord of Nurgle (DLC)''': A Lore of Death and Lore of Nurgle caster lord similar to heralds of Nurgle. Can passively heal nearby units similar to heralds, but his regeneration aura isn't as strong. However, he can bring a corrosive mace which inflicts a contagious armor sundering effect on up to five enemy units. Comes with a chaos steed mount if you want a mobile + groundbound caster lord or a chaos warshrine mount if you want to stack passive regeneration auras.

*'''Daemon Prince of Nurgle (DLC)''': Notable for being Nurgle's best offensive lord. Very fast on his feet with 80 speed and flying but he costs almost as much as Ku'gath, so make sure you know what you're doing if you bring him. Has a pretty good mixed lore of Death and Nurgle, with some of the best spells from each.
==Heroes==

===Legendary Heroes===
None yet.
===Generic Heroes===
*'''Plagueridden''': The hero version of the Herald so you can have it if you want the Great Unclean One as your leader. Has a AoE buff to melee attack and weapon damage so he's a good hero choice if you want to win a little faster in the melee grind. Can ride on a Rot Fly or a Palanquin of Nurgle.

*'''Cultist of Nurgle''': Your mortal Hero with a one-off Plaguebearer summon. He has several other useful abilities including Armor Sundering and an AoE poison hex that gets stronger over time, affecting the offensive stats of both melee and missile troops. Overall he's built to debuff the enemy in contrast to the Plagueridden, who buffs your own troops. A good pick if you're worried about taking a lot of missile fire, but he has basically no armor so be careful he doesn't get sniped. Can mount a Chaos Steed.

*'''Exalted Hero of Nurgle (DLC)''': the melee beatstick hero nurgle has bean missing this whole time, they offer offensive power and mobillity to a faction that sometimes lacks both, they also have some good unique skills to add extra healing or debuff enemies. Unfortunately their mount options are only a horse or chariot, but they are a solid and useful combat hero.
==Units==

===Infantry===
*''' Nurglings''': The first real swarm unit in the game. While there are technically only 60 models in a unit, those models consist of roughly 5-6 Nurglings meaning there's roughly 300 of these little shits in the same unit. In terms of use, they're chaff and look to be damn good chaff at that. They have vanguard in order to block the enemy attack and mostly just exist to waste the enemy time and wear them down. They also have the ability to set off suicide bombs, though this may be limited to summoned nurglings only. Plus, they are some of the most amazingly animated units in the entire trilogy, doing all sort of little adorable yet clumsy acrobatic tricks!!

*'''Marauders of Nurgle (DLC)''': Basically the same as WoC marauders, just a teeny bit slower and a teeny bit tankier. These are nice in campaign because they give Nurgle something even cheaper than Nurglings for your early game, and given how much Nurgle struggles with income this can be a real blessing.

*'''Marauders of Nurgle (Great Weapons) (DLC)''': Your cheap can openers, use against factions like dwarfs when you want to spread AP across your frontline instead of putting all your eggs into one expensive basket. actually pretty solid, Ap, poison, and plentiful healing to support them, means they can swing above their weight class reasonably well.

*'''Plaguebearers''': The bread and butter of your armies. As slow as zombies and minimally armored, but decent melee stats, regeneration/poison, and a fuckheug HP pool means they'll hold for ages and grind most basic infantry to dust through attrition.

*'''Forsaken''': Basically the same as Forsaken in other armies. They are faster, have frenzy, cause fear and are immune to psychology, but are much more fragile compared to the Plaguebearers. In multiplayer, they're the best frontline infantry against factions with good ranged options. In campaign, they're best used as a hammer until you can replace them with Spawn. No, wait, i only said half their '''naarghohmygodithurtsrrrrargl'''.
**'''The Daemonspew''' Slightly upgraded Nurgle forsaken with a swarm of flies ability which decreases melee attack for all enemies around it.

*'''Chaos Warriors of Nurgle (DLC)''': The good news is chaos warriors works incredibly well with Nurgle's many sources of healing. The bad news is you only get basic + great weapon variants, no halberds means you're going to have to find another source for anti-large. still given similar cost and role you may choose to largely replace plaguebearers with these, though both have their uses.

*'''Chosen of Nurgle (DLC)''': The ultimate tanky knightmare, or give them greatweapons to make them tanky can openers. Notably, the greatweapon variant is one of if not the strongest melee infantry unit in the game, surpassing its Undivided greatweapon counterpart. Testing has shown that it can beat any other non RoR infantry unit in the game in a one-on-one fight, although it's a VERY close thing vs Exalted Bloodthirsters.

*'''Exalted Plaguebearers''': Aside from being a standard upgrade, they have the ability to throw a smaller versions of the Plague Drone’s Death’s Heads at foes as they approach, similar to Dwarf Miners and Chameleon Stalkers.
**'''Festering Stooges''' Exalted Plaguebearers that come with terror and regen in melee. And by "Regen" I don't mean you get passive healing but are weak to fire, I mean you get a fuck ton of passive healing that can bring back models. These guys are stupidly tanky against melee troops but need to be in melee to get their healing, so missiles will hard counter them.
===Missile Cavalry===

*'''Marauder Horsemen (Throwing Axes) (DLC):''' Speedy, low range skirmishers that can chuck poisoned throwing axes at your enemy. Will probably become a staple of multiplayer matches since marauder horsemen are very cost effective plus poison will make them difficult to catch.
===Beasts===
*'''Chaos Warhounds (Poison) (DLC):''' Finally, immortal empires gives Nurgle the cheap, fast, skirmishy, harasser they desperately needed. Identical to their Warriors of Chaos and Beastmen counterparts, use them the exact same way. or you could just use rotflies which are flying and actually have AP, at least in campaign where the price difference matters much less.
===Cavalry===
*'''Plague Toads''': A surprising addition from the [[Forge World]] Throne of Chaos book, but a cool one non the less. Much slower than other cavalry, being giant amphibians and all, but have a very high charge bonus and do well against infantry.

*'''Plague Drone''': An oddity for this faction, being not only fast fliers, but have armour piercing as well. Comes in two variants, standard melee (essentially an upgrade of rot flies) and a ranged version that tosses Death’s Heads at their foes. Like standard Rotflies, their mass makes them considerably more dangerous on walls, allowing them to knock enemy melee infantry off the walls thus both disrupting them and killing models.

* '''Pox Rider''': Essentially just an upgrade to the Plague Toads, only with Plaguebearers on top of them instead.
**'''Barons of the Bog''': This RoR is a substantial upgrade on regular Pox Riders with greatly increased armour and two passive abilities. One restores vigour to nearby allies, the other debuffs the weapon strength (including AP) and mass of nearby enemies. These froggies will toss the enemy around while being nearly impossible to kill. The armour will help them withstand focused range fire a little better, which is good because as soon as your enemy notices them they're going to have a giant target on their backs.

*'''Chaos Knights of Nurgle (DLC)''': Your best cavalry unit. Slightly slower than other chaos knights but comes with poison attacks to debuff enemies and make it harder for them to escape once they're engaged. The real MVP of the campaign, they can be recruited from minor settlements so you can actually mass recruit them. They also have melee stats comparable to chosen with way better speed.
===Chariots===
*'''Chaos Chariots of Nurgle (DLC)''': Heavily armored chariot with poisoned attacks and slightly less speed than other chaos chariots.
===Monsters===
*'''Chaos Furies (Nurgle)''': Same as normal Furies with poison attacks, which makes make them the best furies in prolonged combat. One of the fastest units in your army and pair well with Nurglings for Vanguard shenanigans. In sieges they can make surprisingly good tower killers if you're willing to cycle charge them a bunch.

*'''Chaos Spawn (Nurgle)''': Faster and killier than most troops in your army and tankier than their other monogod cousins. Since you're the only chaos faction without charge defense spears/halberds, you'll want to mix these guys with your infantry to bodyblock chariots and cavalry charges.

*'''Beasts of Nurgle''': A big adorable puppy of a single entity unit. Able to slow down units behind and in contact with it while also bringing good AP to the table. They have regen, which helps make them extra durable but comes with the usual weakness to fire damage.
**This might sound really sad, but this thing is currently your most cost effective monster killer. It's cheap, tanky, a rare source of AP and honestly a decent damage dealer for its price. Now obviously if you throw it one on one against a Bloodthirster it'll get bullied for its lunch money but for every one Bloodthirster you can bring 2 of these things. If you're in multiplayer and are fighting a faction that brings big monsters, dedicate funds to a couple of these things to double team it. Is it the the best anti large option? No, but it's the best you have right now.

*'''Chaos Warshrine of Nurgle''': Support monster with a regen aura that gets better as units die around it. Make your tanky blobs even tankier. Of all the warshrines, Nurgle's synergizes best with his own faction since it plays directly into their playstyle and since Nurgle armies will be completely unbothered by the fuckslow movement speed.

*'''Rotflies''': Riderless Rotflies. Melee only, using their flight speed and armour piercing to harass enemy back lines. Use them as a replacement for Furies. Their high mass means they're very strong on walls where they can send melee infantry plummeting to their death.

*'''Soul Grinder of Nurgle''': Looks and acts like a 40K Plague Hulk, only replace the sword with a claw. Essentially the only other artillery the faction has aside from Ku’gath, and definitely the only long-ranged unit you can get more than one of. very good anti-infantry artillery with great speed and durability. One of the fastest Nurgle units. Good choice for a doomstack, similar to a vampire coast necrofex stack.

*'''Great Unclean One''': Nurgle's big bulbous boys of mass and rot capable of taking the blast from a hell cannon and shrugging it off. These jolly green giants want nothing more than to spread Papa's love and the massive swords they wield can shear through armour. They can cast two bound spells from the Lore of Nurgle - Stream of Corruption and Miasma of Pestilence. Campaign techs can grant more spells. Good for a tanky goon squad alongside an Exalted Great Unclean One. With their massive health pool a few overcast Fleshy Abundance spells can keep them both in the fight for a long time. Due to their speed you probably want to either plop them on an objective point where they can stay forever, or keep them in the frontline brawl. Patch 1.2 changed their inherent spell casting to bound spells and with campaign techs can get up 2 uses of every Nurgle spell per match, this gives them a good mixture of unit and single entity killing power, a strong damage reflection buff and some free single target healing. Definitly worth using alongside of Soul grinders in campaign now, especially once you've tech'd them out.
**'''Uncle Furuncle''': This jolly guy is a GUO with Miasma of Pestilence swapped out for Spirit Leech and a special ability that gives him a temporary Mortis Engine aura while simultaneously healing him. However, he loses the Lore of Nurgle passive. An ideal offensive counterpart to the more defensive qualities of the normal GUO.

*'''Bilious Thunderguff: (RoR) (DLC)''' An upgraded giant sworn to Nurgle. Surprisingly competitive with great unclean ones with better HP, weapon strength, and similar bound AOE spells to crap all over surrounding infantry.
===Artillery===
None to speak of, other than Ku'Gath lobbing Nurglings at people and soul grinders. Though admittedly Soul Grinders are actually very solid artillery.
==Campaign Strategies==
Starts nearby at war with some dwarfs and with Fateweaver relatively nearby.

You should learn quickly how your wird building cycle, coordinating them up to give you units and bonuses when you expect you needed.

Dwarves, Fateweaver, and likely Skarbrand, later on, will be a tough fight. Your plagues are not a faction addon, Its a requirement for Nurgle. Building an army or recovering from a fight, use a plague to boost replenishment. About to attack a settlement, use the hero you get at the start to place a plague on them.

Your unique recruitment mechanic makes getting large amounts of high tier units difficult, your best and easiest to recruit campaign units are Chaos Knight's of Nurgle (which are comparably to chosen but much easier to recruit) and Beasts of Nurgle (which can be ridiculously tanky) because both of these can be generated from minor settlements. Great unclean ones are also extremely strong once they get all the free bound spell techs but they recruit painfully slowly. Generally the Nurgle demon units are much weaker than the warriors of chaos options, chaos warriors are generally better than plaguebearers in many match ups and the high armor of the warriors of chaos units mean they auto resolve much better.
'''Realm of Chaos'''

Poxbearers of Nurgle (Ku'gath): Ku'gath has found himself in a really, really uncomfortable spot. Although his west and northern fronts are somewhat safe, everywhere that is not those two directions are not fun. A clan of dwarves is to your east, along with some Tzeench armies to your north. South of you is yet even more dwarves, and the ordertide that is Kislev. You are going to want to take this very slowly, and carefully. First, deal with the ogre's that are harassing you. Once you got your first province secure, deal with the dwarves, they will not stop until you have been scrubbed from the map entirely. South of you, Kraka Drak has little more to do besides sending their armies to come piss you off. Try to ally the local norscan clans to keep them busy. North of you, a Tzeench faction is busy planning to bring your end. If possible, try to stay on your good side, as pushing north will attract the attention of Kairos and Cathay.

'''Immortal Empires'''

Poxbearers of Nurgle (Ku'gath): Ku'gath evicted Malus Darkblade and is now starting in the Dragon Isles. The map has also been reworked so you can access the mainland via a stepping stone land bridge. This is both good and bad news for you. The good news is you're nestled up against a map edge and won't need to worry about rear attacks. The bad news is you start next to Imrik, Thorek, and Greasus, all of which are difficult matchups for Nurgle. Try to make nice with Greasus and expand west to Skarbrand. The Southlands is increasingly looking like the new Lustriabowl with 3(!) Chaos factions, Volkmar, and Teclis moving there from ME and you do NOT want the place to turn into another ordertide snowball.
==Multiplayer Strategies==
You are designed to pretty much out last everyone you fight against, as your Nurglings and Plaguebearers hold the line so your monsters and army abilities give the enemy a slow death. Poison and debuffs are aplenty in your army as you drown the enemies in their own sickness. However, you had best pray your enemies are Anti Vaxxers because if they practice social distancing, it'll be hard for you to do your job. The fastest thing in your army are toad monsters and fat bugs, so yeah you're not exactly a speed demon. Combine that with your lack of ranged units and kiting builds in particular are a big problem for you. Still, if you are able to get into melee, expect the plagues to slowly melt them down. Now go out there and make Papa Nurgle proud!

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': Beastmen are lousy in a war of attrition, which is where you excel. They rely on getting off their strong charge bonus and overwhelming you before their low leadership and armor causes them to buckle. Bring the Lore of Death and its leadership debuffs to help speed up their collapse. Big blobs of Plaguebearers and Nurglings will probably outlast their infantry. The main thing you need to worry about are their big monsters, especially Jabberslythes.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': Bretonnia struggles against large monsters and you've got plenty of those. You won't need much to win the infantry fight, so bring a bunch of nurglings and back them up with Beasts of Nurgle, Soul Grinders, Chaos Spawn, ore maybe even Great Unclean ones. Maybe grab a couple of Furies to swamp their archers as well. Watch as the knights charge into you again and again and you just heal the damage right back up. Eventually you'll wipe the floor with their peasants and then it's just a question of who outlasts who -- exactly the kind of engagement you like.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos Dwarfs| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Be prepared for a world of hurt. They are tanky, long range and have no shortage of fire based weapons to ruin your day with.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': The good thing is that you can easily swarm and drag down the Chaos Warriors and Chosen and send the Marauders packing off the field. The bad thing is that Dragon Ogres and Shaggoths are very hard for you to counter and the Hellcannon is extremely difficult to shut down because its crew is only there for show and the unit itself is unbreakable. The other bad thing is that they have access to the Lore of Fire. However, Chaos Warriors are bad at range and while they do have Chaos Dragon mounts for their lords as well as feral manticores; your plague drones and rotflies can still win the skies and set up rear attacks against them. Dragon Ogres and Shaggoths are doubtlessly a huge problem for you, but they are very expensive and prime targets for the lore of death. A Chaos Sorcerer Lord of Fire on a Chaos Dragon mount is quite the conundrum for you to deal with and you're the rare army where that would be a decent pick. Archaon is also an extremely nasty enemy for you to deal with as he brings tons of flaming damage and you don't have anything that can safely target him, try to cripple him with debuffs and don't give him good targets for his big damage spells.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': Dark Elves are another army that relies of winning the fight quickly. If their Murderous Prowess wears off before they've won a definitive advantage their low model count and slightly sub-par defensive stats will cause them trouble. This is perfect for you since you're ''the'' army for just wearing the other guy down. Another major advantage you have is your ''lack'' of armor. Many Dark Elf units are heavily specialized to deal AP damage, a metric utterly wasted on your army of bubbling, rotting flesh. The biggest thing you probably have to worry about are Hydras and the Lore of Fire. Hydras mulch infantry and fire damage of any kind will do extra damage to your regenerating units while debuffing any healing. Be sure to bring some Furies or Rot Flies to flank and take out their bolt throwers and crossbows. Scourgerunner Chariots and Dark Riders are going to be a big pain, try to just keep them occupied while you reduce the rest of their army to a pile of goo.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Ku'gath's traditional nemesis and for good reason. They might be as slow as you are but they have a ton of range and easy access to fire damage. Make good use of your Rotflies, Furies, Pox Riders, and Forsaken because you need to close the distance as fast as possible, otherwise Dwarf cannons will turn your army into bubbling puddles of green paste. Do not under any circumstances, take Great Unclean Ones to this match up. They will die faster than you can blink between Slayers and the sheer ranged firepower of the bearded manlets.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': If you can reach the Empire's main lines you will roll over their infantry in good time and make use of your general air superiority to bully their artillery. The problem is getting there and the fact that you are very vulnerable to the lore of Fire and Light, and to a lesser degree Heavens. While on their own Imperial infantry are no match for yours, with proper magical and lord and hero support they can be shockingly sticky and even outright defeat yours; especially with good magic or priests behind them. The Artillery is very unpleasant to deal with, particularly the Hellstorm rockets which love your unarmoured slow moving blobs and the Hammer of Witches whose magic damage projectiles will make your Great Unclean Ones regret existing; but you should be able to use Nurglings and Rotflies to silence them long enough to meet the grind. That being said, the cavalry is one of your greatest conCerns. Demigryphs with Halberds and Knights of the Blazing Sun are particularly bad news for you and need to be focused down as fast as possible; preferably with slowing debuffs, because if allowed to run riot you will regret it. Huntsmen archers are also basically made to punish you, as your poorly armoured monsters are literally their ideal target. Grenade Outriders are also a huge pain fo you to deal with due to lacking anything to reliably catch them and with a flaming sword of rhuin will absolutely spoil your entire day.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Everything you hate about the dwarfs except they have actual cavalry, fliers, more mobile lords, monsters, and flaming cannons. Also their scary melee legendary lords are much too fast for you to disengage from. Them lacking the lore of fire per se is cold comfort when the Lore of Yang does everything you hate about the lore of Fire and Long Ma will shred any of your fliers with ease (nevermind Miao Ying or worse; Zhao Ming), leaving Sky Junks free to rain point blank rockets down on your troops. To have a chance of coming out on top you're going to have to play in a rather Un-nurgle way. Which is to say you're going to be relying on Plague Toads, Rotfliers, Furies, Chaos Spawn and variants thereof and leave the plaguebearers, nurglings, and unclean ones at home. Anything that doesn't have a speed of at least 50 is artillery fodder and is honestly not worth taking. Trying to out-grind Cathay is while doable, very much not-optimal because they are built to last long enough for their heavy hitters to land the killing blow and you simply cannot break them fast enough; you need to blitz them.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Finally, someone without fire damage out the ass and whose mechanics encourage getting stuck in. The main things to watch out for are the Greenskins' own monsters who can be difficult to deal with, especially Rogue Idols who you can only excruciatingly slowly chip away at, as well as Greenskin skirmishing and artillery. Do not underestimate Greenskin artillery, take out doomdivers as soon as you see them and take full advantage of your air superiority. Greenskins generally have leadership issues, so the best way to win the infantry shoving contest without waiting to see if your Debuffs can out-last their endless WAAAGHs is to quickly bring in fliers and cavalry to break them. Anything that causes terror in particular is useful and since you lack armour; Black Orcs are thankfully somewhat wasted on you (though still more than enough to kill literally any of your infantry handily). This is a match-up you have many good advantages in and is generally in your favour, but the Greenskin roster is enormous and full of all kinds of tricks; underestimate the Waaagh at your own peril.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''': Ugh. You might as well forfeit this one. High elves excel in everything you hate. The most cost efficient archers in the game. Plentiful access to flaming attacks. Mobile mages that can root your fliers, root your few fast movers, or torch them with burning head depending on exactly how your opponent wants to ruin your day. Leave the bigbois at home and go heavy on nurglings and plague toads. You need someone capable of running down archers to keep your 20 movement speed army from getting shot to death and rotflies will just get snared + swatted out of the skies by Alarielle and her flying goon squad of dragons/phoenixes. A Soul Grinder is a must bring as that is the best answer in your army to archers. That'll probably just be delaying the inevitable though, Soul Grinders give you the ability to respond at range but they're not going to outshoot an entire high elf ranged line by themselves. Pray that the chaos gods give you a better matchup next time.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''': Khorne is one of your easier matchups since Hellblade demands that his forces get into prolonged mosh pits if they want to function at their best and his shooting is okay at best while surprisingly for a god associated with fire; has little access to flaming damage. Khornate lists can still pulverise you if you take it too easy, but they have few ways to not play your game. You should definitely avoid Nurglings as Khorne's mechanics absolutely will punish you for bringing fodder. While if you just let it play out you absolutely will lose the infantry grind, you have the means to intervene in that grind to break apart the Khornate line of battle while Khorne's magic-hating ass has limited options beyond just fighting harder. The units to watch out for are skull cannons, blood/skullcrushers, khornbull minotaurs, and of course bloodthirsters. Skull Cannons at least have very limited ammo before they have to get into melee to get more, and you're quite good at stopping them from pulling out back to gun range, but they can do flaming damage and are able to do sizeable damage to your shambling lords and heroes; Plague Drones or Toads are best suited here. Blood/Skullcrushers and Minotaurs need to be prevented from getting proper charges at any cost, so quickly gumming them up with Vanguard units and slowing debuffs is a must. Bloodthirsters and especially Skarbrand though, are an absolute nightmare to deal with.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''': "Surely the ice faction doesn't have fire damage!" you say like the fool you are while Ra-Ra-Rasputin dances on your burnt corpse. And you will learn to absolutely hate the frostbite effect as Kislev makes you go from slow to more or less stationary, and your lack of armour makes you hideously vulnerable to Kislev's various AoE spells as well as the humble kossar. Catching Kislevite horse archers or war sleds is an exercise in futility and its much more efficient to just try and ignore the damage and focus on winning the fight. And Kislev's units are surprisingly sticky due to By our Blood as well as some of the best average leadership of any of the human factions. And with their combination of ranged firepower and superior speed as well as innumerable ways to slow you down, Kislev can keep on pulling out of unfavourable engagements and whittle you down with more and more firepower. And what's worse is that basically all of Kislev's ranged units can handle themselves in melee so you'll need something meatier than Nurglings or Furies to genuinely slow them down. This is another match-up where you don't want to bring Great Unclean Ones unless you want to give Streltsi and Ice Guard target practice. As for War-Bear riders; I'm sorry to inform you that you don't really have any good options against those. Just pray the polar bears have a stomach ache after eating you or something.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': This matchup is going to suck. Your complete lack of anti-large becomes painfully obvious when the dinosaurs are unleashed and you will ''never'' be able to catch Skink Skirmishers as they dance around you at nearly twice your movement speed. Saurus are just as immovable in a grind fest as you are and they have access to plentiful healing courtesy of Life Slann, Skink Oracles (who will eviscerate your large entities) and Revivification Bastilodons. Then there's the fire. Solar Engines Bastilodons, Salamander Hunting Packs, Ancient Salamanders, Fireleech Bolas Terradon Riders and Fire Slann can incinerate vast swathes of your forces well before you can make it to the grind fest. The best thing you can do is to get some Plague Toads and Plague Drones to eek out an advantage in the infantry fight. Nurglings can be vanguard deployed to buy you some time to get the rest of your army as far up field as possible. Lastly, a Soul Grinder or two wouldn't hurt as aside their skirmishers and artillery, Lizardmen have a relative dearth of ranged options. Otherwise, buckle up. It's gonna be a rough one.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Most diseases don't survive well in cold environments, and the Norscans are out to prove it. This is a deceptively difficult matchup for you. The good thing is that Norscan infantry relies on the berserk ability to be surprisingly tanky, and then using their speed to break away while it's on cooldown. However, you can grind their infantry all day long and berserk is basically worthless because you're a daemon faction that deals magic damage. Plus, your physical resist is going to be super useful here, since Norsca has pretty limited sources of magic damage. What you'll have to worry about though is their monsters and anti-large. Plague drones and furies can be useful to zone out any javelins (although to be honest, you probably don't have a prayer of catching marauder horsemen), but skin wolves and ice wolves with their anti-large and terrific speed will spell doom for your big monsters like plague toads and Great Unclean Ones. However, it's the monsters that will really be a headache. Mammoths have the mass to push through your infantry formations easily, so tarpitting them is difficult. Plus, your army has never even heard the word "anti-large" before, so you're basically reduced to sniping them out with magic and trying to take advantage of their relatively lower leadership to cause a quick route, which is definitely not the ideal way to deal with them. And to top it all off, Norsca has access to the lore of fire, which means you can't deal with them like you would with similar factions (i.e. beastmen) by just blobbing and watching everything die around you. Soul Grinders might be ok to apply some pressure at range, but to be honest, it's going to take some good micro to keep the Norscans from getting their hands (or claws, or tentacles or whatever) into the cookie jar with their fast movers.

*'''Nurgle''': Are you a Slaanesh worshipper? Because you have to be into some kind of masochism if you got '''THIS''' mirror match and didn't immediately back out of the game. There are two ways you can handle this, one being an EGUO Mortis build. Surround your lord with Exalted Plaguebearers and chaff and head right into the meatgrinder to drain your enemy's health. The problem is your enemy is probably going to do the exact same thing, so ultimately this fight would come down who's fat green asshole comes out on top. The harder, but more unexpected and fun way to earn grandpa's attention is, believe it or not, a mobility build. Get Poxriders, Toads and Rotflies to outmaneuver your enemy, pick apart stragglers and run circles around him. Yes, these units are still pretty damn slow but come on, you're in a Nurgle mirror match, at the worst he will only be able to match your speed. It's certainly way more interesting than going with the first option and pray that RNGesus blesses you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Presently the single worst match-up you've got in TW:WH3 until immortal empires comes out. You are bad at dealing with large units, Ogres are basically all large. You don't like enemies that can shoot and scoot away from you, all Ogre shooting is on fast moving platforms and most of it hits like a truck. You don't like fire damage, Firebellies are one of the best lore of fire casting heroes in the game, a lot of your damaging spells are best used against large blobs of infantry; there are precisely two units in the entire ogre roster that fill this role and neither of them are terribly important for the ogres, you hate high impact charge that can bowl through your lines; Ogres are basically the juggernaut when it comes to stopping their charges. You really need to do something to prevent them from setting up charges and to keep their shooting units from hitting you for as long as possible. Ogres don't like being bogged down; but they're extremely slippery and surprisingly one of the fastest armies in the entire game on average. Nurglings won't last long, but through dying for the grandfather they can buy you the time you need to pull off a win and plague drones are your best hope of silencing the Ogors' guns just long enough to get to grips with them. Great Unclean Ones are probably not worth it in this matchup as Ironblasters and Leadbelchers are extremely proficient at outright deleting them off the map and if they don't; Ogres are very proficient monster killers in melee anyway. And those two units deserve particularly special mention as they absolutely will decide the entire battle if you're not able to shut them down. Crushers and Mournfangs with great weapons are also units that your nightmares are made out of.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': Another particularly shitty matchup. Skaven have guns and artillery for days. Ratling Guns in particular will make you begin to pray for a quick end due to the suppressing effect they have ''further'' slowing down your already trudging forces while Death Globe Bombadiers and Warpfire Throwers will utterly end whatever they're pointed at. Though it kinda sounds like a broken record at this point, but vanguard deploy some Nurglings to distract the Skaven for as long as possible. Plague Toads will be your best bet to deal with any infantry they have while Rotflies and Plague Drones will give you a decent means to tie down the Skaven Missile units... if they aren't well and truly shot out of the air before they make it in. You'll need to keep an eye out for any Halberd Stormvermin or Moulder Monsters. ''If'' your main army can manage to make it into and pin down the Skaven army, you should win the grind. But when your army is so slow that Ratling Gunners and Warplock Jezzails effectively become skirmishers, you know it's not a matchup in your favor.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': The fastest army in the game versus the slowest. Finally, something that is ironically in your favor! Slaanesh has even fewer ranged options compared to you and as such will be forced to commit to a grind fest. Considering their specialization against AP, so long as you stay clear from your few armored units, this should not be a problem.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': Hey a faction that hates fire damage as much as you do! Unfortunately for you the Tomb Kings are also much better at shooting than you and have much more dangerous monsters. A Necrosphinx will feed a Great Unclean One its own ass in moments while Sepulchral Stalkers can delete any large units you felt like bringing. Your slow, bunched up hordes also give Caskets of Souls dry orgasms as they rain down magic death on their heads. You absolutely need to take down the Tomb King Lord because you can't outgrind the Tomb Kings fast enough to not be crushed by their monsters and chariots or shot to pieces by their numerous and scary means of poking holes in you. While they at least don't have the lore of fire, they have the Lore of Light which you hate only mildly less between it being able to make any given unit fight to the bitter end whenever the caster wants, crank up the speed dial for large sections of the army, zap single entities off the map with Shem's Burning Gaze, root your few precious mobile units in place with the Net of Amyntok, or delete whole sections of your army with banishment.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch|Tzeentch]]''': It's a safe bet that this will be a very unpleasant matchup for you. Tzeentch will control the skies, your fliers are no match for his even if he doesn't bring a flying lord of change. The plodding movement of most of your army means you won't be able to chase down Tzeentch's speedier units and keep them from abusing barrier regeneration with hit + run attacks. Worst of all, your enemy has access to an absurd amount of fire damage, so kiss goodbye to regeneration. Best advice is to suicide screen your army with nurglings and bring plague toads/pox riders to trap cycle chargers. Minimize losses by blocking with fodder, spreading out to reduce units hit by breath/vortex spells, camping in forests, and spamming fleshy abundance heals from the Lore of Nurgle. Winds of magic are a finite resource and Tzeentch's ranged units don't have much ammo so eventually he will have to close to melee and fight you in your element. You should have the game in the bag if you keep enough of your army alive.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': The good news is that you do have tools against blobbed up infantry. The bad news is that you are target practice for the largest pile of guns you've ever seen and your unarmoured and agonizingly slow hordes will have the zombies manning Queen Bess salivating. You'll probably win the grind against the Zombies barring dumping a ton of magic or them hitting you with one of their big AoE spells, but this doesn't matter at all unless you win fast enough to get to the gunlines which is a huge ask for Nurgle. The Vampire Coast also has extremely powerful monsters and you are terrible at dealing with monsters and the only reason you might not see the RoR Necrofex in this match up is that the points limit is too small to fit both it and the Queen Bess. If you do see both, you are going to suffer. And the Coast sadly has enough of an airgame as well as sufficient dakka to pound your own fliers out of the sky. Like their landlubber counterparts, you have to watch out closely for Wind and Vortex spells; especially the Wind of Death which can instantly decide a melee fight and you're too slow to dodge reliably. Harkon on his pet bat are an absolute pain in the ass and you don't really have any answers to him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': Ah, a faction with fewer ranged options than you! A majority of their units exist to bog you down, something you're not entirely opposed to humoring them on. Just don't clump up for their casters to lay down a Winds of Death. This is generally a match up revolving around who can make better use of their hammer units in armies mostly comprised of anvils and who has better sense for when to use healing effects. Mortis engines and corpse carts should generally be your priority, as the Undead can come back from being knocked down and their ability to spread healing and buffs for their troops and cripple yours is nothing to scoff at. Ganking the Vampire Lord is generally a big ask due to lacking strong enough fliers to take on a zombie dragon or the terrorgheists and vargheists that usually accompany them, but it isn't impossible if you have the winds to spare for spirit leeches although this is probably a waste of WoMs. Don't even try to gank the Red Duke or a Blood Dragon lord though, your air units will only die tired. This is a match-up where the Great Unclean Ones come in handy due to the lack of reliable anti-large from the vampires and their lack of shooting.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': Yeah... good luck ever catching these guys. Kite builds counter Nurgle hard and this is the best kiting army in the game. Nurglings might actually be a must bring in this match up as their vanguard will allow them to ambush any archer unit and tie them up for Furies to finish them off. Rot Flies and Plague Drones may prove useful as their speed will let them catch up to any running units, though they will be an easy target for missiles. Another must bring might be the Soul Grinder, as Waywatchers get shut down by artillery and it will be able to defend itself against any cavalry that might come its way. Plague Toads are another potential option, but they'll have trouble catching the more slippery elf units since they run slower than heavy cav with 59 speed. This might end up being one of those "Avoid at all costs" match ups.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch

2023-05-19T19:48:44Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

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

==Why Play Tzeentch==
*You love magic, and want every opportunity to cheese the FUCK out of it.

*The thing that appeals to you about Chaos are the strange, almost Lovecraftian creatures that swim around in it, and this is the best option for that.

*You want to act like everything is going [[Just As Planned]], even when everything is going horribly, horribly wrong.

*You enjoy the hit and run style of the Wood Elves, but want to insert just a little bit of Chaos into the mix.
===Pros===
*'''Magic''': While you do only have 3 magic lores to pick from, you still look to be strong in the sense of just how many spells you will be able to pump out. The fact that you will have large magic pools, gain army spells are rewards for casting and the ability to pump up your magic on the campaign map will make you one of the most magic reliant armies in the game.

*'''Firepower''': And not just because half of your projectiles are literal fire. You are the best ranged faction not just of all the monogods, but of all the Chaos factions in general! (Not that you have much competition in that regard.)

*'''Fire''': You will have it aplenty with Flamers and Horrors in your roster. Anything that is weak to fire is going to burn and burn hard.

*'''Air Game''': You have flying Daemons, flying chariots, Lords of Change, discs that allow your lords and heroes to fly, and flying cavalry on Frisbees of doom. Point is, with all the flying shit you have you should have a good amount of air control.

*'''Survivability with Skill''': Barrier helps keep your units alive in the face of destruction. If you are good at cycle charging and keeping the barrier alive, you can go through a battle taking minimal casualties.

*'''Trolling in Campaign''': The shit that you can do in campaign is hilarious. From transferring settlements between factions, breaking alliances, forcing enemy factions to stop moving and forcing wars you can do so much fun meme shit that will make Warhammer's best troll proud.

*'''Doomstacks''': patch 1.2 gave greater demons bound spells instead of being crappy spell casters, now all the monogod factions except khorne can get the up to 2 uses of their entire respective demonic spell lore as bounds spells for each greater demon they bring, this has made bring 17-19 of these in a doomstack by far the most overpowered army comp in campaign, Every single greater demon now provides like a hundred extra WOM worth of spells for free. once you can afford a pure stack of these there is basically no reason to use any other unit anymore. you can easily wipe 2-3 full enemy stacks and cheese your way through the endgame. ironically this means that in campaign Bloodthirsters went from being probably the best greater demon to the worst overnight. This applies equally to slaanesh, nurgle, and tzeentch but not khorne or legions of chaos.

*'''Versatility''': with the new DLC you now have very tough defensive and anti-large ap infantry to compliment your powerful ranged and flying units. Your easily the most well rounded chaos faction.
===Cons===
*'''Limited Range''': Describing your maximum effective range on most of your units as "spitting distance" wouldn't be out of place. You certainly have it better than factions with no/limited missile units, but factions like the Wood Elves, Skaven, Empire, Cathay and High Elves will generally be able to start wearing down your shields/health before you get close enough to return the favor.

*'''Lack of Staying Power''': Nothing in your army is all that durable aside from your rather expensive Chaos Warriors and Chosen. You're either going to have to fork over extra money to get a sturdy frontline or hope that you can micro your Marauders and Horrors well enough that they don't insta die.

*''' No Dedicated Melee Character.''': While not every single last one of your Lords and Heroes are bad in melee, no one really specializes in it. All of them are mages and thus won't be beating dedicated melee characters. Exalted Lords of Change and Daemon Princes are respectable but they're expensive, need build up in campaign and are weaker in melee compared to the other Chaos God equivalent. Even Vilitch doesn't have AP or modifiers to make him really scary.

*'''Magic and Fire resistance''': If you're fighting an opponent who has Magic and/or Fire Resistance, you may be in trouble. With the rework to Magic Resistance this won't be the worst thing ever for your infantry, but the reduced spell damage will suck because you will have a massive mana pool that you'll dump on buffs, debuffs, and heals instead of shooting mind bullets.

*'''Micro Intensive''': This is not an army for beginners. It encourages cycle charging and keeping out of an opponents range all without much in the way of a frontline. Though the rapidly recharging shields offer more wiggle room for errors than the likes of the Beastmen/Wood Elves, who are similarly squishy, it can still be very unforgiving when it comes to mistakes so play these guys at your own risk. It did get a lot simpler with the addition or armored infantry, though they may not carry the day for you.

*'''"Friend" is another word for "backstabber"''': As with most of the daemonic factions, diplomacy is not your forte. While the Skaven are insane and duplicitous enough to consider working with you, the ogres who are willing to help you if you offer them anything shiny, and your mortal followers in the Beastmen, Warriors of Chaos, and Norsca are of course willing to help, you will not have too many options for diplomatic gestures beyond them. Sure other factions don't auto declare war on you anymore but with how much they hate you they may as well.

*'''Awful Replenishment''': Your unit replenishment rate is stupidly slow and you don't have many ways to bump it up. If an army takes heavy casualties they're out for a while.

*'''DLC''': Your mortal roster is very shallow unless you open your wallet to flesh it out. While this is a problem for all the monogods, it's much more noticeable for Tzeentch who's missing chaos marauders and chaos warriors by default.
==Faction Traits==
*'''Barrier''': You know how on the table top Tzeentch's mark typically gave an invulnerable save or +1 to an existing save? This is exactly that. A magical barrier that all Tzeentch units have. As long as some of the barrier is left, it will absorb the damage of anything that hits the unit. It's not too big, but it'll be enough to buy your troops some time to do what they need to do. It recharges when out of combat, so it encourages a hit and run ranged style of combat that Tzeentch loves. Make sure you keep it up because the vast majority of your units are squishy and won't take much of a beating from pretty much anything.

*'''Mark of Tzeentch''': All the mortals in your army come with this, giving them Barrier and magical attacks. See above why Barrier is good, and Magic Attacks makes it so anything with a physical resistance isn't going to benefit from it. This means your mortals are great at dealing with ethereal units, Daemons or anything that could benefit from taking less physical damage.

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

*'''The Eye of Tzeentch''': As you cast spells a meter on the right hand side of the screen fills up, unlocking three different abilities at three tiers. This meter can fill up more than once, meaning that as long as you keep casting spells you can unlock these abilities pretty much endlessly.
**''Arcane Surge'': This is the first ability, granting an 80% Winds of Magic recharge for 14 seconds with a 60 second cooldown. This ability encourages you to spam lots of low cost spells like Pink Fire or Blue Fire so that you can fill the meter quickly and replenish your Winds.
**''Bolt of Change'': The second ability is essentially just a Doombolt from the Lore of Dark, only it applies a Sundered Armor effect. Can be cast anywhere on the battlefield and has a 90 second cooldown.
**''Storm of Fire'': The final tier unlocks a bombardment spell with a massive area of effect and plenty of armor piercing damage. Can also be cast anywhere on the map but has a 120 second cooldown
==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===

*'''[[Kairos Fateweaver]]''': Kairos is one of the best magic users in the entire game. Every battle Kairos can pick spells from the other lores of magic on top of his Lore of Tzeentch. Stat wise he is actually pretty pathetic, being weaker than a normal Lord of Change in melee. He makes up for this by being very strong in casting, having Greater Arcane Conduit and a mixed spell lore in Multiplayer. With Regrowth in his multiplayer kit, he is going to be one of very few Non Nurgle Chaos characters with the ability to heal. He'll be the only flying monogod chaos legendary lord at launch. His Staff of Tomorrow allows him to reset the cooldown of his spells and his Gaze of Tzeentch allows him to root an enemy in place and allow your little friends below to burn them to pieces. He is a perfect example of Tzeentch's combat as a whole, strong with magic, but keep him the fuck out of melee.

*'''[[Vilitch the Curseling]] (DLC, Multiplayer only)''': Vilitch is a solid, semi tanky fighter/mage with the Lore of Tzeentch that unfortunately leaves a bit to be desired compared to the other Legendary and Generic lord options in multiplayer. Don't take that to mean that he's outright ''bad'', he's good in blobs since he can keep the Barrier regenerating at a faster rate and can be a solid fighter. What screws him over is his lack of mounts, as Lore of Tzeentch is great in multiplayer for flying around, snipping single entities with overcasted Blue Fire and getting good positions to place damage spells for blobs. Since Vilitch is stuck hoofing it, he can't do this as effectively as say a Chaos Lord of Tzeentch, who also has a shield regen ability. This might have been made up for if he were an amazing fighter, but while he's respectable he doesn't have AP or any kind of Anti Large or Infantry bonus to make him a real threat. He can be fun to use, but if you want to tryhard you have more efficient options.

*'''Sarthorael the Everwatcher (Multiplayer only)''': The big chicken from the previous 2 games is now playable for Tzeentch in multiplayer as... a weaker Exalted Lord of Change with the Lore of Metal. Honestly, not much reason to pick him over Kairos or an Exalted LoC since they can do what you would want from Sarthorael better.
===Generic Lords===
*''' Exalted Lord of Change''': Budget Kairos. These guys are powerful spellcasters and come with the Lores of Metal and Tzeentch. One big advantage they have over Kairos is that they're significantly better in melee, with decent melee stats and AP damage. Now obviously a Bloodthister will still clap them if you're stupid enough to charge them in, but they can be used as flying flankers to back up an infantry engagement or a monster duel. You'll probably be mostly using them for spells though. Has a passive ability that reduces ability cooldowns whenever it's casting.

*'''Herald of Tzeentch''': A wizard with ranged attacks, along with having some more support abilities for helping out units outside of magic. Compared to the Lord of Change he's weaker in terms of magic in exchange for having more buffs and supportive elements. He can be mounted on a Disk or a Burning Chariot. Get ready to see a lot of these guys in early campaign because you'll need to level them up and evolve them if you want to get your hands on an Exalted Lord of Change.

*'''Chaos Sorcerer Lord of Tzeentch (DLC)''': Your Mortal Lord in the Champions of Chaos DLC. Provides a much more heavily armored alternative to the Herald and with better melee in exchange for a lack of a missile attack. In multiplayer they can also summon spawn so they can be great for shutting down missiles or getting a surprise flank. Comes with magical attacks, the Lores of Tzeentch and Metal and is able to mount a Warhorse, Disk or Warshrine. they forgot to update their blue skill tree for monogod factions, so he doesn't have upkeep reduction skills. which is really bad, probably skip till they fix it.

*'''Daemon Prince of Tzeentch (DLC)''': Comes with the Champions of Chaos DLC. More magic focused that some of the other Daemon Princes, though the weakest in a pure melee fight. Comes with a mixed lore of Tzeentch and Metal and a number of abilities that boost his spellcasting potential. Probably his most important ability is Paragon of Change, which heals the Barrier hitpoints of the Prince and any nearby allied units with Barrier.
===Legendary Heroes===

===Generic Heroes===
*'''Iridescent Horror''': Budget version of the Herald, allowing you to take one for a Lord of Change army or for your Legendary Lord. They have some Loci abilities that allow them to buff troops in combat without using magic. Like the Herald they have ranged attacks. They come with the Lores of Metal and Tzeentch and can mount up on a Disk or a Burning Chariot. burning chariot ranged attack is very potent. have powerful winds regen as a locus skill.

*'''Cultist of Tzeentch''': Your mortal hero and the only mage in your army that can use the Lore of Fire. The big reason to bring them is to summon more Daemons to the battlefield. In MP he can only summon a single unit of Pink Horrors but in campaign this can be upgraded to multiple Pink Horrors or even a Lord of Change. He'll get his ass cheeks handed to him by any decent melee fighter but makes up for it with spell casting and his Daemon summons. Can be mounted on a Chaos Steed for greater maneuverability and durability or a Tzeentch Chaos Shrine to buff up your spells.

*'''Chaos Sorcerer of Tzeentch (DLC)''': Marked Sorcerer hero for Tzeentch, coming with Lores of Metal and Tzeentch. It's pretty much a hero version of the Lord variant, down to the mounts and the lores. If you want a mage who might actually survive if the enemy decides to sneeze on them for half a second than this is going to be the mage for you.
==Units==

===Infantry===
*'''Blue Horrors of Tzeentch''': Your only chaff infantry in vanilla. Their range attack is pretty pitiful with only 5 ammo. Blue Horrors are meat shields for your Pink Horrors, meant to throw off some magic volleys then run in and die to hold for your more important troops. That said barrier makes them a lot tougher than they seem and if your micro is good, you can cycle them in and out of harm's way long enough for the Barrier to replenish. you know have chaos warriors, so their frontline role in campaign is probably going to be obsolete after the early game, still good in multiplayer.

*'''Chaos Marauders of Tzeentch (DLC)''': All but replace blue horrors as your chaff and your early game frontline if you own the Champions of Chaos DLC. These guys will serve best as screens for your horrors so they can shoot without fear of being rushed. Comes with Barrier and magic attacks, so they will trade up against units with physical resistance. Loses to the marked marauders from the three other gods in a fair fight, but barrier makes them better at absorbing charges and countering hit + run attacks. Comes in a vanilla sword + board variant and an anti-large spear variant. You'll want to ditch these guys for chaos warriors asap in campaign.

*'''Forsaken of Tzeentch''' They work very similar to the WoC version, though due to Barrier these guys will be slightly more resilient and make up more of a front line role rather than a fast flanker role. These are pretty much obsolete with actual chaos warriors and marauders in the new DLC. Too expensive.

*'''Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch (DLC)''': They're here and they aren't recolors this time! Tzeentch Chaos Warriors comes with Barrier and Magic Attacks. As such, they will probably be the best of the Chaos Warriors at fighting Daemons, though they're less efficient against normal troops. Also comes with a halberd variant to ward off heavy cavalry. They're pretty much a straight upgrade to normal Chaos Warriors since the Mark of Tzeentch doesn't actually come with any downsides like with Khorne or Nurgle (for now at least). if your not worried about missiles and are fighting armored targets you can go full halberds.

*'''Chosen of Tzeentch (DLC)''': Pretty much the same thing as above, only applied to the more elite Chosen. Magic Attacks, Barrier, and comes with a Halberd Variant. These guys will serve as your elite infantry and will hold forever so your shooting units have all the time that they need to light shit on fire. Plus with the statline of Chosen PLUS Barrier, nothing is going to beat these guys without insane states and/or a TON of AP.

*'''The Severed Claw (Aspiring Champions) (RoR) (DLC)''': A more defensive variant of aspiring champions with halberds, charge reflection, and Tzeentch barriers. While they're not as cracked as Archaon's endgame Aspiring Champions being loaded up with buffs, The Severed Claw will absolutely obliterate '''anything''' horse or larger stupid enough to charge them. Chaos Knights, Bloodthirsters, Terracotta Sentinels, Dragons, these lads will wipe the floor with them. They deal majority AP damage, have a massive anti-large bonus, and being Tzeentchi they deal magic damage. Melee generally isn't Tzeentch's thing, which makes these evil boys in spiky blue an even nastier surprise for anyone who thinks they can roll over your backline with cavalry.
===Missiles===
*'''Pink Horrors of Tzeentch''': Upgrades to the blue guys. Have a better flaming range attack, and actually decent melee stats. Sadly, they don't split into Blue Horrors upon death. In the early game these guys will play the ranged support to a front line of Blue Horrors but over time you'll want to replace them with...

*'''Exalted Pink Horrors of Tzeentch''': ...these guys. They come with insane ranged damage, out damaging the elite skirmishers of other factions, and increase the Winds of Magic recharge rate for your army as long as they're alive. These guys will be a mainstay of your armies in the late game, as strong missiles combined with extra magic is something no one will want less of. No AP on the ranged attack, but with a missile damage of 35 heavily armored units still won't like being hit by these guys.
**'''Blazing Squealers''': The first RoR for Tzeentch, the Blazing Squealers are an upgrade to Exalted Pink Horrors that boast better melee stats, higher leadership, and stronger missiles that imbue Warpflame. If that wasn't strong enough, '''they have a bound ability that replenishes the ammunition of ALL allied units within 55m of it.''' In an army that quickly runs out of ammo, such an ability is ludicrously powerful and there's no good reason not to take the Blazing Squealers along, as they can support your other Horrors and replenish the very limited ammo of your Exalted Flamers and Burning Chariots.
===Cavalry===
*'''Marauder Horsemen of Tzeentch (DLC)''': A Tzeentchy version of the WoC javelin cavalry. These guys however come with the Warpflame contact effect on their javelins, so not only can they buff up their own flaming attacks but if you pair them with Horrors or Flamers they will help them pump out even more damage. They can be useful in melee but they're primarily a missile cavalry so try not to get them murdered by other heavy cav.

*'''Chaos Knights of Tzeentch (DLC for Lances):''' Your heavy cav, designed interestingly to be a more durable holding unit. They lack the heavy charge of most cav but in return they have heavy armor to block damage thrown at them. Combine this with Barrier, and this is a Cav unit actually designed more so to hold the line rather than to flank and cycle charge. They also cause fear, so are great against low leadership armies. These can be used as a replacement for Forsaken, they are more than tough enough to front charge anything that approaches your ranged units and can still be cycled out if you need to regen barrier. Try using them as a mobile front line. Chaos Knights have the best melee stats in your army, with great MA and MD. The DLC gives a Lance version which abandons the holding role of the sword and board unit in exchange for more traditional heavy charge.

*'''Doom Knights''': Chaos Knights riding discs of Tzeentch, equipped with polearms and shields. They are much squishier than the normal knights but in return are faster, can fly and hit much harder. These are your best flying melee troops and one of the best ways to keep enemy fliers off of your Lords of Change and Burning Chariots, and can handle or tie down most enemy fliers long enough for your oodles of magic and ranged attacks to deal with whatever they're fighting. Interestingly despite having Halberds they don't have AP or Anti Large, though they make up for that with an insane charge bonus and weapon strength. Once again, they encourage cycle charging, though Barrier should help keep individual models alive when pulling out, which is a problem with most flying cav. They do worse in a straight fight than Chaos Knights but mobility and flying make up for it.
**'''Knights of Immolation''': Doom Knights that have the ability to drop bombs on the enemy. The unit can drop little eldritch bombs that do significant damage, allowing you to easily dispose of tightly packed blobs. However, the ability has a 60 second cooldown that will only go down when it is in melee combat, so eventually you will have to send them into melee before they can pull off another bombing run.
===Chariots===
*'''Chaos Chariots of Tzeentch (DLC)''': Nice Tzeentch Chariots, very good at running down infantry and comes with magical attacks and barrier. What the fuck else you want me to say? It's a chariot unit, go out there and make some Dwarfs cry with it.

*'''Burning Chariot:''' A flying ranged focused chariot that has one of the most devastating ranged attacks in the entire game. Like other flamers, Burning Chariots require good positioning to make the most out of them, as they have a low ammo count and pitiful armor. More so than other flamers, Burning Chariots will die fast if caught under concentrated missile fire, so make sure your enemy's ranged units are engaged elsewhere before sending this in. Try to hold it in reserve for particularly valuable engagements, as you'll want to make the most out of every shot.
**As noted, the lack of ammo will be a problem, so do yourself a favor and turn off automatic fire, at least until you have the Chariot in range of what it is you want to kill.
**Speaking of, their attacks are identical to and Exalted Flamer, and like an Exalted Flamer tend to do the most damage to single entity targets. Very good at sniping lords when you're facing an army without much of an air force like ogres and greenskins. Park them on top of the enemy lord and BBQ him to death. You can avoid missile fire with erratic movements + good micro and barrier means you can tank a few shots on the way in without any permanent damage.
**speaking of erratic movements, it's unique collision attacks and melee animations can give it an edge in getting in and out of melee, like how the Tomb Scorpion fucks up infantry.
===War Beast===
*'''Chaos Furies (Tzeentch)''': Flying skirmisher harassers who come with Barrier, allowing them to soak up slightly more damage than the Furies of the other gods. They have vanguard allowing for better ambush and flanking potential. Will die if something so much as looks at them funny, so be careful with how long you leave them to fight. or you could use screamers which have actual AP, maybe not much reason to use these in campaign.
**Their only use is their expandability. Doom Knights, Screamers, and Burning Chariots can have a hard time pulling out without taking losses, and in a micro heavy army this can be a timesuck. Throwing furies at them can make cycle charging easier. You can also throw spells or fire at them without really caring.

*'''Screamer:''' Flying Steve Irwin killers, who for some reason have human faces. Seriously go watch the World of Tzeentch trailer, his face is hilarious. Closest thing you have to light cavalry, these sky "sharks" (they're obviously manta rays, why the fuck does GW keep calling them sharks? Actually some sharks have a similar body shape to rays and both are cartilaginous fish in the same suborde- <span style='color:blue;font-size:1o0%'>*ZAP* Nobody cares know-it-all</span>) are designed for counter charging cavalry and monsters with their AP Anti Large. They will be put on the endangered species list if you throw them against most heavy large units on their own, they are meant to counter charge enemy cav and monsters while they're dealing with something else.
**Fast, pointy, and anti-large, these dudes are pretty much tailor-made to shred Cathayan Airships and Dwarf Copters, especially when you cycle-charge.
===Monsters===
*'''Spawn of Tzeentch''': Chaos Spawn but blue this time. Debatably the most durable Spawn on its own thanks to Barrier, what sets Spawn of Tzeentch apart from their monogod counterparts is that their attacks are armour-sundering in a faction that can struggle to deal with armour, so they can be good for tying down heavily armoured units for your Horrors and Flamers to shoot to pieces. They're still Spawn, and they have the lowest damage output of all Spawn types, but as Tzeentch your damage comes from ranged attacks and magic, why were you expecting to have a good melee combatant? One recommended tactics is placing a spawn unit inside a unit of forsaken to add killing and staying power to the forsaken. honestly with real chaos warriors now you probably don't need to bother with these.
**'''Wyrd Spawn (RoR) (DLC)''': A slightly better chaos spawn with higher melee attack and defense that causes terror. Doesn't do much that a vanilla Chaos Spawn can't, but might be useful in certain matchups.

*'''Flamers of Tzeentch''': A mobile flamethrower unit that can pump out ludicrous damage to unarmored targets. Apparently still ok in melee, though don't expect them to last long against most dedicated melee units. They require good positioning to use effectively, especially since they only have 10 ammo. Notably it's the first flamethrower unit that has AP damage, which might signal some hope for things like Irondrakes or Warp Fire Throwers. very deadly if used correctly. also good vs large single entities.

*'''Exalted Flamer:''' A single entity purple version that has one of the most devastating ranged attacks in the game, able to deal heavy damage to anything, but is ideal against single entity targets. Downside is that it has very limited ammo so every shot has to count. It also applies Fire weakness in both melee and ranged, allowing it to set up your other units to do more damage to the enemy.
**Like the Chariot, you're going to want to turn automatic fire off until the right moment. While you're not as fast as Slaanesh you're still quite mobile, so you can afford to have your Horrors and Forsaken distract your opponent's line while the Exalted Flamer looks for a good shot. Spreading Weakness to Fire drastically increases the efficiency of all your other missiles, too, so even Horrors will find their shots putting dents in the enemy.
**Fuck up Nurgle's day by pointing the Exalted Flamer at whatever's regenerating, then pepper it with cheap Horror fire.

*'''Chaos Warshrine of Tzeentch (DLC)''': Just like the warshrine of the other gods and undivided, it provides a buff for your army, in this case being increased Spell Mastery. As things around it die you will get up to 20% power recharge rate and up to 10% additional spell mastery, and the unit doesn't have to be the one to actually do the killing to pump it up. Which is great because aside from having barrier the rest of the stats on this thing really isn't that great. If you really want to bring one of these things, bring it as a mount for a Cultist or Sorcerer lord/hero. It's not strong enough as a unit on its own and it can give your mage a strong amount of HP in order to survive a beating. its buff effects are frankly quite weak, probably the worst warshrine.

*'''Soul Grinder of Tzeentch''': This thing channels the power of Zeus to chuck lightning bolts from its hands that do AP and Anti Large damage. It's a very versatile unit as it can deal with large units from afar and still deal some good damage up close. It also has magic attacks, so it will also be hitting for most of its damage. The low ammunition is a bit of a pain and it hits less hard than you would hope. An exalted flamer or burning chariot is much better at single entity killing.
**You've got missiles for days, but your anti large melee is lacking. This is practically a must when the opponent has other large single-entities, and Barrier will ensure that you can tank a few artillery shots (but not all, so send furies or screamers to harass those that are a problem). Keep in mind your range is still less than that of most dedicated artillery, so long range duels can "hurt."

*'''Lord of Change''' A Skeksis by way of HP Lovecraft. The LoC is a big flying monster that has decent stats but is outclassed by most similar monsters. Don't expect it to go toe to toe with a Bloodthirster. Like most of the other Greater Daemon units it has access to two spells from its god's lore, in this case Pink Fire of Tzeentch and Blue Fire of Tzeentch. Both of these spells have a low Winds of Magic cost, meaning LoCs will be useful for spamming cheap spells to fill your Eye of Tzeentch meter. In campaign there are technologies that can unlock more spells for them. Probably best used as a hit-and-run monster, with the spells as an added bonus.
**Praise the Changer of Ways, update 1.2 has changed the spells of Greater Daemons (and the War Compass for Cathay) from WoM spells to Bound Abilities, meaning a Lord of Change can bring its own firepower rather than eating away at the WoM of your Lord and Heroes. That said, in multiplayer it only has 1 bound use of Blue and Pink Fires of Tzeentch each, but it's a more viable pick if you're running a Herald Lord if you still want a big flying monster to rule the skies with. Just, as above, keep it as far away from any Bloodthirsters or Dragons as possible. Up to 2 casts each of every 2 spell for free from campaign techs means that each one brings a massive amount of anti infantry firepower, with a little anti-single unit from blue fire. A Doomstack of these can drop 19 vortexes (each made of 3 smaller vortexes) then drop 19 Infernal gateways to mop up the rest, and they can do it twice. Its insane. Any single entities or hero's that survive can be blue fired and melee'ed to death.
**'''The Golden Griffin of Theurgy''': What you'd get if Balthasar Gelt fucked a chicken. It comes with a permanent Glittering Robe placed upon it bringing it up to 90 armor and swaps out the Tzeentch Spells for Searing Doom and Gehenna's Golden Hounds. You could argue the spell swap is a bit of a downgrade since Lore of Tzeentch is so good but the increased armor and melee stats actually makes this golden turkey scary in a fight. If you want a Lord of Change that can actually engage in fisticuffs this is the bird for you.
==Multiplayer Strategies==
Barrier is one of the most interesting passive abilities in the game, and combine that with your focus on range, flying and magic, you are a heavy hit and run faction. The main strategy is to get your troops in to blast the enemy from range or fly them in, have the barrier soak up any damage they take, pull them out to have the barrier recharge, then send them back in again. You are designed for cycle charging and keeping the opponent as far away as possible while still being able to blast them to pieces. Because if any dedicated melee faction gets into your troops and you can't pull them out, they will be going to kiss Tzeentch's blue feathered ass faster than [[Magnus the Red|Magnus]] after Prospero burned down. You will be an incredibly scary ranged faction with a ton of great fliers and mages, just stay out of melee. Here is how you can formulate your plans for Tzeentch:

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': Getting your units away from the Beastmen is going to be hard as Slaanesh is really the only faction that can reliably out pace them. As such, getting away from them long enough to recharge your barrier might be a bit of a problem. For a frontline I would go for Forsaken, as they can beat all Beastmen infantry aside from Bestigors and if they do bring Bestigors you got more than enough Missiles to bring them down. Beastmen might try to beat you in the Kite game with Throwing Axe Centigors and Ungor Raiders so I would grab a few Furies to tie them down longs enough for Chaos or Doom Knights to get their charge off and finish them off. As for their big monsters, if you can hold off the Hounds and Centigors from getting to your ranged units them I wouldn't worry about them as they have low armor and Pink horrors should be able to melt them. Just make sure those Minotaurs and Ghorgons are tied up with something so they can't get to your backline. As for your lord, a Lord of Change or Kairos should be able to take advantage of their poor leadership and cause a lot of goat people to run from the field. As long as you don't charge one in to fight a Ghorgon or get absorbed by missiles you should be able to keep them safe in the air to cast and let the rest of the army slaughter some cows.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': The first of the notable micro-heavy armies is not one to be trifled with. Their cavalcade of cavalry will prove downright devastating to any frontline you can muster and any Pink/Blue Horrors would be lucky to get a shot or two off before their knights plow through them. Soul Grinders are basically your best/only option for dealing with their high-value cavalry, supplemented with some Screamers to help chew through their thick armor. Just beware of their Pegasus Knights, who can cut down said Screamers and any (Exalted) Lord of Change hapless enough to be airborne with them. At the end of the day though... this just isn't your matchup.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''': The forces of Daniel have every daemon unit at their fingertips, meaning they can minmax to ruin your day; unless they try to out-Tzeentch you in which case you'll roll over their faces. However, they lack virtually all mortal units, so you can use this to your advantage. A Bloodthirster is a likely pick for killing your LoC/Herald on disc, so Doom Knights backed up by Screamers are a good pick to maintain air superiority; then it's a matter of killing as much of the enemy as possible before they reach your squishy horrors.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': Slow, heavily armored and virtually helpless at range? Your mortal servants are practically begging to be torn asunder by your magical might. Take an Exalted Lord of Change with the Lore of Metal to punish them for all that armor plating, some Screamers and a Soul Grinder to deal with their cavalry and monsters, and a Burning Chariot or two to help mulch the rest of them. You'll can absolutely stay out of reach if you'd like to, but it wouldn't hurt to bring some disposable chaff to help pin key units down so that your vortex spells can eviscerate them.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': This matchup kinda sucks, not going to lie. All their [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] and artillery will make approaching them a daunting prospect and their faction-wide magic resistance will temper your attempts at blowing them up with magic. But not completely. As another heavily armored faction, the Lore of Metal will still do ample work at softening up those tin-can soldiers and they are far from suited to chasing you around the map. If they brought some Gyrocopters, use your Screamers to tear them out of the sky. If you can, drop some Doom Knights or Chaos Knights on their artillery to take them offline before they deal too much damage.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': This matchup works out for you a bit better than the prior entry simply because the Empire isn't quite as heavily armored. Unfortunately, they're also more versatile and swifter due to their cavalry options.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Your #1 Non-Daemonic rival, this will mainly be a match up of who can get the most value out of their ranged units. You heavily out maneuver them with Furies and Doom Knights, and the combination of the two should allow you to overwhelm any Longma riders (If you get the charge on them, otherwise they might mess you up) and tear up those war balloons. Of course if they get shot out of the sky that won't matter, so maybe it's better to keep them hidden until you see a chance to nab their guns and artillery. Overall, Cathay actually seems like it'll win out in a prolonged melee, though without their guns they have no real way to stop you from kiting them to death. Once the guns are down use your Chaos Knights to block their cavalry and have Horrors and Flamers roast them alive. They'll never catch you without cav, and if your pullout game is strong you can keep your barrier alive if they still have some missiles. A Herald will likely be your best Lord option as it will be a lot harder for Cathay to shoot down than a Lord of Change.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''': This might actually be a hard one for you for several reasons. For one, they HEAVILY out range you, so they will be able to poke down your Barrier and do damage before your troops will actually be able to get into position. With the low armor on most of your troops, even basic Elf archers can be deadly. Plus, Tempest is a damn good way to deal with flying cavalry and monsters, and with Alarielle being a staple in all High Elf armies, she is sure to bring it. Your best bet might actually be to rush with Forsaken and Chaos Knights, and use Furies or Screamers to tie down the archers and bolt throwers so your troops can get in. A Soul Grinder can also help out with the Cav and Dragons elves love to bring. A Herald and Cultists should be your Lord/Hero combo, as any Lord of Change will get tempest and shot down and Lore of Fire is good at dealing with compact formations. This is one of the few match ups you might want to actually play aggressive and get into melee ASAP.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''': A difficult but not unwinnable matchup. While Khorne's frontline is slower than yours, they have warhounds and flesh hounds to pounce on your Horrors, and Bloodthirsters will rip apart any flying unit of yours they get their hands on. Perhaps more than facing any other faction, maintaining barrier is vital to your success as you will lose the melee fight, thus your best bet is avoiding the melee fight for as long as possible. Against a mortal-heavy Khorne roster, Forsaken, Spawns and Flamers of all kinds are your friends, Forsaken have high armour and Spawn will help crack open their Warriors of Khorne, and Flamers have good AP damage to delete blobs of infantry. A daemon-heavy roster will give you more trouble, Bloodletter's innate spell resistance will hamper your damage output, and flesh hounds are purpose-built for fucking up your day. Screamers will shine here, they can hold down Bloodthirsters for a bit (but don't expect the Screamers to kill them), and they can help cut off any of Khorne's hounds trying to munch on your Horrors. The relatively low speed of most of Khorne's roster means the key to victory will involve a lot of kiting and staying the fuck out of melee (which frankly playing Tzeentch you should be used to). Avoid using Blue Horrors as they'll just feed the enemy's Hellblade units, and try to take control of the skies as quickly as possible so your Burning Chariots, Heralds, Iridescent Horros and Lords of Change can yeet off projectiles and spells with (mostly) impunity.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': If there's a particular factions that could ''potentially'' rival you in magical potency, the Slann of the Lizardmen could give you a run for your money... not that they'll run. At all. This is a sentiment shared by a majority of the Lizardmen roster; if you keep on your toes, you should have little issue out maneuvering and kiting any infantry-based army. This is something you'll ''have'' to do, because if any Saurus Warrior manages to get his claws on your barrier, they'll crack through that with frightening ease. Skinks are substantially less threatening in melee, but they do have the potential to tie down your forces for the slower/clumsier heavy-hitters you'd otherwise be juking for days. Screamers will be quite potent harriers in this matchup; their penchant for chewing on larger, armored creatures gives them a notable edge against them, so long as they're not fighting those monsters head on. Use a Soul Grinder or two as well as some Chaos Knights to hold key beasts in place so that your Screamers can chip in without dying in the process.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': As befitting your polar opposite, fighting Nurgle is an absolute pain. For one, Nurglites get buffs the more damage they take (a plague of slowness at lvl 1, a plague that heals you at level 2, and a plague that hurts you and SPREADS at level 3), and get better on the defense the longer they're stuck in. In comparison, ''you'' can only shrug off the first few hits you take, and your barrier won't regenerate until you're out of combat; your army abilities are a recharge, a special Doombolt, and a super-sized Tzeentch's Firestorm. When the anons say your army was micro-intensive, ''they really mean it''. Nurgle has rotflies that can tie up and screen your flyers, and unfortunately, only the Screamers are anti-Large AP (Doom Knights are too nerdy to know how to properly use their Halberts, apparently); Plague Drones can also be equipped with death's head plague grenades, so watch out for that when you think your chariots are safe just because they pulled out. Nurgle also has poison artillery in the form of Ku'Gath and the Grinders, you only have Grinders, that admittedly do pretty good AP lightning bolts. While you never wanted to stay in melee for very long anyway, it goes double against Nurgle, since his forces will debuff you in all sorts of ways when you're close. You're going to want to make full use of your air superiority here, flying in and out of range to cast spells and throw fireballs at his bigger fa/tg/uys; one advantage for you in this regard is that some of his tougher units come with ''regeneration'', which your fire attacks are SUPER EFFECTIVE against, and you can make that weakness worse with an Exalted Flamer/Burning Chariot's Warpflame ability. So long as you keep an eye on Nurgle's units and keep track of what's actively regenerating, your ranged fire weapons should be able to put in work for you. Finally, Tzeentch is all about betrayal, so don't be afraid to have some chaff whose sole purpose is to get stuck in and die of warpCovid. Nurgle has abilities that spreads from unit to unit, so you should throw Furies or Blue Horrors to take hits while the rest of your army flanks them and sets the Nurglites on fire.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Ogres are a mixed bag to fight - they'll crush you into paste on the charge, but the majority of their unmounted ogres have poor armour and will die to concentrated fire. They can potentially outshoot you with leadbelchers and artillery spam, but their complete lack of air units leaves them wide open to fly-by shootings from Burning Chariots. Abuse your air superiority as much as possible - use Furies and Screamers to intercept cavalry charges, and send Doom Knights to deal with ranged units. Soul Grinders are a good pick, and consider using some Spawn to bolster your frontline against the inevitable ogre charges.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The good news? Swarms of Skaven make easy pickings for bombardment and vortex spells. You can also wreak havoc with your Doom Knights, Screamers and (Exalted) Lords of Change who'll be free to pick their engagements with impunity due to the complete lack of aerial presence the Skaven have. The bad news is that the Skaven will be firing upon you ''long'' before you can tie them down and well before any of your ranged units can contest them. Pound for ethereal pound, you will generally deal slightly more ranged damage against the rats than they will against you (especially if you're savvy with your barriers), but you'll run out of ammo much more quickly than the rats. To this end, you'll definitely want to focus on the faster aspects of your army and keep on the move.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': Uh, yeah.... maybe it'll be best to avoid this one if you can. Your whole schtick is to avoid direct combat with your enemy for as long as possible and these guys are literally designed to get into direct combat as fast as possible. Combined with the fact that your core units are squishy ranged troops and this could be a really bad match up. You do have one undeniable advantage though, air power. Slaanesh has no ranged troops and their only air unit are furies, so you are free to dominate from the air. Bring either a Lord of Change or a Herald/Iridescent Horror on a flying mount and use them primarily to cast from a safe position. Since the Lord of Excess has no real way to threaten them you are free to cast and skirmish to your heart's content, especially if you have a Burning Chariot or Doom Knights. Of course the more you invest in the air the less you'll have on the ground and Daemonettes will catch Horrors eventually. Get a ton of Blue Horrors to block and screen for your more important Pink Horrors and Flamers. Chaos Knights won't catch Slaanesh Cav but they can probably beat them in a one on one fight. Slaanesh doesn't have any armor to speak of so there is no point in investing in AP. Still, with how much Slaanesh out-speeds you they will catch up and tear some of your boys to pieces eventually. Again, maybe best to avoid this one.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''':

*'''Tzeentch''':

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

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': Another particularly micro-intensive faction with a bit more of a skip to their step than any of your daemons. Wood Elves will be challenging to pin down; much of their missile infantry/cavalry selection is able to fire and move at considerable ranges; many of which outrange your dudes by a lot. Additionally, this constant moving can make it trickier to land breath/vortex spells on them. Having said that, you do have a few good things going for you. If that Wood Elf player was foolish enough to bring Forest Spirits against you, you can easily smoke them with your ample fire-and-magic based attacks. As far as the meaty elves themselves? Virtually none of them are armored, so if you can land a few volleys of...practically any of your own missile units, you'll all but incinerate the lot of them. Just try to stay away from their Bladesingers/Blade Dancers, as they'll carve through your forces just as lethally if you allow them to catch up.
===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''S'''

As stated before, Tzeentch is just kind of bullshit right now. Barrier is stupidly good, bugs make certain spells way stronger than they should be and all your range means you can obliterate your enemy before they can really hurt you. You have the mobility to take points and due to barrier, magic and range you have the means to hold them too. Of course, you still need to play Tzeentch Like Tzeentch. If you face roll on the keyboard and blob into a melee fight against Khorne or Nurgle then yeah, you're gonna lose and you'll deserve it. However, you have so much good shit right now that that your only real iffy match up is Kislev. The only thing that you have to fear is that CA is inevitably going to beat you half to death with the nerf bat and no amount of future sight is going to protect you from it. Enjoy being top of the meta while it lasts.
==Campaign Strategies==

===Kairos===
*'''Realm of Chaos''': I know Kairos is advertised as the Anti Cathay faction, but expanding into Cathay early is actually a really bad idea. Not only will you be surrounded by enemies, but two thirds of the territory there is either unpleasant or uninhabitable for you. As such, spend your early game expanding in the Chaos Wastes, build up your economy and allies, then expand into Cathay when you're strong.

*'''Immortal empires''' In immortal empires you've got a secure start position at the bottom of the southlands. By the time you start expanding northwards currently skarbrand and the other aggressive AI factions have already mulched half the continent by turn 15. Take it slow(ish) and abuse changing of the ways and you should be in for one of the most chill and smooth-sailing campaigns.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos Dwarfs

2023-05-19T19:29:55Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

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

==Why play Chaos Dwarfs?==
*Because you like seeing things go BOOM!
*While everyone else is in the Renaissance at best, you will show the world the glory and horror of the Industrial Revolution.
*Because you love the shameless evil of the Dark Elves but don't like the actual ''Elf'' part.
*You love to artillery box and shoot things with giant fuck off guns.
*Because you feel like every single villain should use an exceptional amount of fire.
*You're a fan of clan Skryre and their tactic of dropping high explosives into the ranks of their own slave fodder.
*You wanted to play dwarves but you are tired of the classic honorable mining fellows.
*You have a VERY high tolerance for silly hats.
*You're a Victoria 3 player but also want war in your game.

===Pros===
*'''[[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|Gunpowder]]''': Your guns are some of the most powerful in the whole game. Expect to win in a straight up shoot out against pretty much any other faction that relies on guns. Combine that with some of the strongest artillery in the game and no enemy will want you shooting for long.
*'''Armor''': At least for the units you actually care about. Even the lowest Chaos Dwarf has strong armor comparable to the Dwarfs when it comes to durability. Of course your Hobgoblins won't be great in this department, but you don't really care about them now do you?
*'''Melee Grind''': What? You thought that just because they are good at shooting they must stink in melee? Nope! Chaos Dwarf infantry is very strong and hard hitting and their monsters are quiet good at turning the enemy into pasta sauce.
*'''Fire''': Not only do you have lots of it but you have lots of units resistant to it. Anything weak to fire is going to burn and anything that uses fire will feel damn near useless against you. You also have plenty of ways to give fire weakness, leading to some cool combos.
*'''Monsters''': You got plenty of them, from K'Daai, Lamassus and Great Tauruses you have plenty of monsters to throw around.
*'''Versatile''': You got a unit for more or less any occasion. Yeah you prefer to shoot but you got strong Infantry, Cavalry, Fliers and magic as well. It's possible to pull out all kinds of tactics, especially compared to your Dawi cousins. The flexibility of the Chorfs on launch puts many other factions to shame. It's almost absurd just how well all different parts of the Chorfs' roster work together. You have plenty of sources of Flammable to complement your plenty of sources of fire damage, your four lores of Fire, Metal, Death and Hashut give you every buff, debuff, and direct damage you need. Enemies charging your frontline? Drop an Ash Storm and give your Blunderbusses Flaming Sword of Ruin and even the strongest units will disintegrate before your eyes. Need to tarpit something? You have plenty of expendable greenskins to hold things in place while your artillery rain death on them. You have a tool for virtually every situation.

===Cons===
*'''Insufficient Mid-Tier Options''': You don't have a lot of options that are strong while also affordable. Your options consist of either very strong but very few Chaos Dwarfs or plentiful but near useless Hobgoblins and Labourers. In game, your army lacks effective mid-tier units that can kick ass while still being an affordable price. In multiplayer, you're all but forced to bring expensive elite units which your opponent will immediately target with magic or units like jezzails.
*'''Single Entity Artillery''': Your artillery is fearsome but they're all single-model units. You can actually get into trouble during artillery duels as many other ranged factions can bring units of cannons with four shots to your one.
*'''Short-ranged infantry''': The Chaos Dwarfs always favored blunderbusses over handguns. While dumping a whole unit of shotguns into somebody is going to hurt, longer range units can kite away from you. Your other possible option, goblin archers are... not great if we look to the orcs. Fireglaives have decent range but they are also highly expensive and you have limited recruitment. So if you want to really touch somebody at distance you'll have to rely on your artillery.
*'''Slow''': Chaos-corrupted Dwarfs are still Dwarfs, and you still curse the day the Old Ones gave you stubby legs. Sure you're faster than the Karaz Ankor Dwarfs but that's like saying you're faster than your 4 year old nephew, not something you should be bragging about. Even Bull Centaurs are rather slow for Cav and while Hobgoblin cav is quick, it’s not good for much outside of killing skirmishers and artillery or chasing off routing units.
*'''Cost-inefficient''': The big one: Chaos Dwarfs don't like fighting in armies as there is too few of them to risk their lives consistently compared to their western brethren. As such, the Chorfs have high upkeep for units like chaos dwarf warriors, infernal guard, etc. and will be reliant on slaves, which you will likely only be able to get by fighting and winning battles. Don't expect anything to go cheaply unless it is a slave with low morale or a hobgoblin.
*'''Anti-Large? What's that?''': You don't have super cost effective Anti large options. All your AP missiles cost a pretty penny and anything with Anti Large is in the elite camp, so monsters might actually be a problem for you.

==Faction Traits==
*'''Contempt''': All Chaos Dwarf race units (so excluding Hobgoblins and K'Daai, but including Bull Centaurs) will only suffer morale penalties from watching friendly units rout if they also have the Contempt rule. This means that if your Greenskin or Monster units run away, they aren't going to give a shit, allowing your Dorfs to stay in the fight a bit longer than other units in the same situation.

*'''Malign Authority''': The ability of your Greenskin sla- oh, I'm sorry- LABOURER units. They gain extra leadership when a unit with the Contempt rule is nearby, allowing them to stick around for just long enough to drop another volley onto their faces while they hold the enemy in place.
**'''Expendable''':The other ability all your "Laborers" have, this means when they run only other Laborers will care, Hobgoblins won't care and Chaos Dwarfs have contempt so they don't care if Either Hob Goblins and Laborers run. So yes CA managed to accurately put the three castes of chaos dwarf society into the game in a fusion of Crunch and Fluff.

*'''Backstabbers''': Common to all hobgoblin units, increases both melee and missile damage if above half health.

*'''Fire Resistance''': All Chaos Dwarf race units have some degree of fire resistance, in the 15%-25% range, varying by unit.

*'''Hellbound''': Common to all war machines and artillery besides the Hellcannon, this passive grants Magical Attacks, 20% Physical Resistance, and perfect Vigour for as long as HP is >25%. Oddly enough, can be removed in multiplayer for some extra funds.

*'''Hell-Forged''': Common to the same units as Hellbound, simply allows them to be healed by the Daemonsmith's Reforge ability, which is given even more importance by the buffs gained from keeping Hellbound enabled. Also works on K'daai.

==Lords==
===Legendary Lords===
*'''Astragoth Ironhand''': An ancient, partially petrified Sorcerer-Prophet with machinery grafted to his limbs to move, and de facto the faction leader. Comes with a mix of the Lore of Hashut and the Lore of Fire. Despite being a caster lord, he can hold his own against melee beatsticks like Vlad and Malekith thanks to his high melee stats and his special ability that increases physical resistance at the cost of mobility over the course of a battle. And while he doesn't get a mount, that's not a problem when his mobility suit allows him to run at heavy cavalry speed.

*'''Zhatan the Black''': Your dedicated melee beatstick. He's not the strongest melee lord in the game, but he's well armored and shielded, making him fairly tanky. He's also got decent maneuverability if you take the Lammasu or Great Taurus mount. His most powerful ability is his "Sadistic Snare," a single target net that allows your ranged units to turn that target into mincemeat.

*'''Drazhoath the Ashen''': Lore of Hashut caster lord. Can mount a Taurus, Lammasu, or Bale Taurus. Drazhoath isn't bad in melee thanks to his mounts but he's nowhere near as good as Astragoth. He's the closest thing you have to a dedicated caster lord. In most cases you'll want to keep him away from the enemy and only bring him into melee on choice targets and rear charges. If you bring his magic item his spell mastery increases with kills, so a little bit of time in melee can pay dividends down the road.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Sorcerer-Prophet''': Based off of the Legion of Azgorh they can use the Lore of Hashut, Fire, Death, or Metal. They're very much a support lord with a ranged flaregun attack that applies the Flammable! debuff to enemies, as well as an aura that boosts the missiles resistance and reload speed of war machines. He can take all of your big flying monsters as mounts, giving him added flexibility.

*'''Overseer''': Your dedicated melee lord, the Overseer doesn't have a lot that makes him stand out other than Expert Charge Defense. He can take the Great Taurus and the Lammasu as mounts but not the Bale Taurus. Overall the Sorcerer-Prophet is probably a better choice in most circumstances.

==Heroes==
===Legendary Heroes===
*'''Gorduz Backstabber''': Gorduz is a Hobgoblin melee hero with a Giant Wolf mount. In campaign he can buff any Hobgoblins in your army up to terrifying levels. Chaos Dwarfs have a tough early campaign but he can carry you if you have a Hobgoblin stack. In combat he's very tanky with a heal when his health is low and his "Lucky Dice" item which has three random possible results including more armor, a ward save, or physical resistance. Take Slippery to make him even harder to kill. Very useful in Domination battles where he can be quite hard to get off of a capture point due to his durability.

===Generic Heroes===
*'''Daemonsmith''': Hashut's own mix between a caster and master engineer. Come with the lores of Hashut, Fire, Metal, or Death, and can heal War Machines and K'daai. Essentially a weaker version of the Sorcerer-Prophet with the same mounts, flaregun attack, and war machine boosting aura. If you're planning to bring a lot of war machines or K'daai you want one or two of these guys to keep them going.

*'''Infernal Castellan''': These guys are members of the Infernal Guard who have redeemed themselves and had their mask removed, revealing the scars beneath. They're missile specialists who wield a Fireglaive, which in addition to an armour-piercing ranged attack grants them damage reflection, charge defense, and anti-large in melee. They also have the "Dig In" ability which only kicks in if they stand still for 25 seconds after which their range and missile resistance are increased and their charge defense becomes Expert Charge Defense. These guys are a cheaper alternative to a whole unit of Fireglaives but can play a similar role, plinking away at enemies from a distance. A good choice for sniping enemy heroes and lords. In the campaign, these guys get Restock as an ability at the end of their skill tree.

*'''Bull Centaur Taur'ruk''': These guys your big melee beatstick, arguably better at this role than the Overseer is. They hit hard with lots of armour-piercing/anti-large damage, give Guardian to other nearby character units, and have respectable speed and durability. If you're up against an army with lots of monsters or you want to form a goon squad to beat down the enemy lord, bring one of these guys.

==Units==
===Infantry===
*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Slaves|Goblin Labourers]]''': The worst of the worst infantry in the game, the only thing they beat is peasant mobs and that should say something, luckily like peasant mobs they're a damn cost-effective meatshield. Have a chorf unit near them and, well, they still ain’t very good but at least they won’t rout immediately.

*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Slaves|Orc Labourers]]''': Your other trash unit, orc laborers are only good as cannon fodder against heavily armored factions, otherwise goblins are more cost-effective. They're so bad they lose to ''goblins'' (the non-Labourer kind), makes one wonder what the chorfs put their laborers through that make even orcs suck ass at fighting.

*'''[[Hobgoblin Warriors|Hobgoblin Cutthroats]]''': Similar to but stronger than the Greenskins' Goblins. Also benefit from Malign Authority and Backstabbers. Because of Contempt you can use them just as disposably as the Labourers. With 140 models they for good tarpitting.

*'''[[Sneaky Git|Hobgoblin Sneaky Gits]]''': Stalk, poison precursor ranged attack, poison anti-infantry melee. Has mediocre melee stats and no armor piercing so use them as a cheap sneaky tarpit like night goblins.

*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Warrior|Chaos Dwarf Warriors]]''': Tier 2 heavy infantry, across the board superior to Dwarf Warriors, but used in essentially the same way. Comes with axe & shield or armour-piercing great weapon options, have silver shields which their honorable cousins still don’t have, this has… led to more than a few popped veins

*'''[[Infernal_Guard|Infernal Guard]]''': Tier 3 heavy infantry, comparable to Longbeards. Come in axe & shield or AP great weapon varieties.

*'''[[Infernal_Guard|Ironsworn]]''': Heaviest infantry available to the Dawi Zharr. Charge defense vs all and broadly similar stats to Dwarf Ironbreakers, magical & flaming attacks. Like Ironbreakers they get a ranged grenade attack but unlike Ironbreakers this grenade is armour-piercing and will devastate even elite infantry.
**'''The Immortals:''' An elite double axe Regiment of Renown which can turn basically any other infantry they face into rump roasts. In particular they don't loose models until they've lost 25% of their HP, so they keep dishing out full damage while the other side has taken a lot of casualties.

===Missiles===
*'''Hobgoblin Archers''': Closely analogous to Greenskin Goblin Archers, but with Flaming Attacks added. Can be surprisingly good if Weakness to Fire is abused (or absolutely useless against Dragons).

*'''Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses''': THE standout member of the present roster, a frontline of Blunderbusses can on it's own rout many armies, and with charge defense vs large even the stuff that reaches them will have a hard time getting through them. Comparable melee stats to Dwarf Warriors, and their ranged weapon does an ungodly amount of damage to anything that enters it's 90 range. Prepare for the possibility of this unit getting nerfed like Ogre Ironbelchers.
**'''The Granite Guard''': RoR Infernal Guard with blunderbusses and AP great weapons. They have closer stats to the Fireglaives than the Blunderbusses (as well as a closer pricetag), but they have a few unique tricks. Firstly, they have innate Suppression with their ranged attacks, and if you sit them still for 25 seconds they'll gain +40% range, +15% missile resistance and Expert Charge Defence. Note they're still blunderbusses, even with +40% range you only reach 126 range, but these rock-hard dwarfs can form a solid anchor for your blunderbuss line. Blunderbusses are already lethal, and the -30% speed they inflict on anything they shoot will make it hard for melee units to reach them, and anything that does reach them will have a whole load of AP to deal with. However, they're still short ranged and they will be shot to pieces by anything they can't shoot back.
*'''Infernal Guard Fireglaives''': Tier 3 hybrid infantry, with a 145 range repeating rifle. Very capable melee combatants to boot, one of only two Chaos Dwarf units with anti-large. Will lose bad in a 1-to-1 shootout against Blunderbusses but are better at outshooting longer-ranged foes your Blunderbusses can't reach.

===Cavalry===
*'''Hobgoblin Wolf Raiders''': Superior Goblin Wolf Riders. Come in spear & shield and bow varieties, and have the unique ability Cowardly Despoilers granting +25% Weapon Strength when attacking a unit from behind or the flank.

*'''Bull Centaur Renders''': A bit like tankier Dragon Ogres. Come in axe & shield, anti-infantry dual axe, and anti-large great weapon varieties, all with armour-piercing. Similar to Blunderbusses, Bull Centaurs with great weapons are absurdly overtuned and will beat practically every other cavalry unit in the game and will likely be hit with the nerf hammer in upcoming patches. They're slow for monstrous cavalry however, and are vulnerable to kiting.

===Monsters===
*'''[[Great Taurus]]''': The basic doom cow and your cheapest monster. It has respectable stats, it flies, it causes terror, it gains physical resistance and reflects melee damage the longer it's in combat. Drop it on a backline and watch it go moo.

*'''[[Lammasu]]''': An odd flying monster with some tricks up it sleeves. It has Enfeebling Foe and The Withering as bound spells, which can be useful as the only access to Shadow spells in the roster. Compared with the flying cows, it has far less AP damage, lower melee attack and substantially less charge bonus, but higher melee defence and magical attacks. Besides its spells, the unique feature of the Lammasu is it has an aura that nullifies enemy unit's magical attacks. This would be very useful... if the Chorf's roster actually had any units that relied on high physical resistance to survive. Really, the only non-RoR units that rely on physical resistance are the K'daai, which if you're babysitting, it's better to just stick a Daemonsmith on a Lammasu rather than bring one of these by themselves.

*'''[[K%27daai|'K'daai Fireborn]]''': Daemons summoned from the burning depths so they may then be bound into armour and turned into the Dawi-Zharr's brand of Monstrous Infantry. K'daai have a few attributes that make them tricky to use. They gain physical resistance and damage reflection the longer they're in melee, and they're Unbreakable as long as their health is high but as soon as it dips too low they start taking damage from Daemonic Instability. They have an anti-infantry bonus with most of their damage being AP and can buzzsaw through even elite infantry... so long as their health is up. Once it drops the Fireborn die ''fast''. Since they benefit from a Daemonsmith's Hellforged ability they're one of your few units that can be healed but you have to keep an eye on them or they'll be gone as soon as you blink. They suffer a bit from filling the same role as dual weapon Bull centaurs but being far more fragile.

*'''[[Bale Taurus]]''': Exactly the same as the Great Taurus but with better stats and the addition of a flaming breath attack. This steak wants ''you'' well done.

*'''[[K%27daai|K'daai Destroyer]]''': The big monster from the trailer and the ultimate work of the Chaos Dwarfs, the K'Daai Destroyer is a massive metal-wrought prison for a raging fire daemon, and it is here to rip and tear through your enemy's frontline. Flaming magical attacks with a whopping 680 weapon strength will pulverise any man-sized thing it gets its claws on, and its animations are designed for it to rip through even the most elite infantry in seconds. On top of being Hell-Forged allowing your Daemonsmiths to repair it, it's a Bound Fire Daemon like the Fireborn, it has Blazing Body, and its unique Hellish Frenzy buffs its damage, charge bonus and melee attack while it's above 75% health, although it also has Daemonic Instability which means once that Unbreakable wears off it can die quickly. If you want a giant monster to throw at your enemy, look no further than the K'daai Destroyer. Just keep it away from anti-large monsters.

===Artillery & War Machines===
*'''[[Magma_Cannon_(Warhammer_Fantasy)|Magma Cannon]]''': Single unit anti-infantry fire artillery with a range of 450. Upon hitting something, its projectile makes a fire field on the ground that continuously damages and stuns anything in it, which breaks up a unit's formation on the advance. If the enemy is coming towards you in a big blob, target the front ranks of the blob, the other guys will walk into the fire patch.

*'''[[Iron_Daemon_War_Engine|Iron Daemon]]''': Fat single unit, powerful collision attacks and two fat blunderbuss cannons. This and the Skullcracker's primary melee attacks are anti-infantry steam cannons mounted on all sides of the chassis, so this thing can do a lot of damage whether it's sending rounds into the enemy's flanks or rolling straight through it. It's melee attack/defense are mediocre, so it won't perform optimally if you order it into an infantry blob and forget about it. See also: Dreadquake Mortar.

*'''[[Hellcannon|Hellcannon]]''': The classic artillery piece using the souls of the damned as homing ammunition. Not much to be said, just the WoC unit returned to their fellow countrydwarfs. Lacks the unique traits of the faction's other machines, and is the only crewed unit on the roster.

*'''[[Iron_Daemon_War_Engine|Skullcracker]]''': The dedicated melee counterpart of the Iron Daemon that for some reason has the exact same stats as the Iron Daemon minus the guns. Despite this, it costs more than the Iron Daemon. Lords do have redline skills that improve the Skullcracker's melee stats, but this just isn't a thing in multiplayer battles. Probably needs some stat adjustments to differentiate it from its ranged brother.

*'''[[Deathshrieker_Rocket_Launcher|Death Shrieker Rocket Launcher]]''': A much killier version of the Empire's Helstorm and Cathay's Fire Rain. 420 range, can fire both anti-infantry airburst rockets and anti-large direct detonation rockets (Two direct hits of the latter will break Queen Bess). Important to note that the anti-large rocket will only ever hit a single entity - shooting it at anything that isn't a single or very low model count unit is hugely inefficient. This is the most specialised of the Chorf's artillery, it loses out in the anti-infantry department to all other options available and the single-fire rocket is lacking in accuracy. It does have an extremely high firing arc that lets it ignore most terrain in between itself and its target.

*'''[[Dreadquake_Mortar|Dreadquake Mortar]]''': CHUNKY 380 range mortar. Single hit will cut a lot of unit's model count in half, but the slow speed of the projectile can make it a little situational. The damage number doesn't count the AoE earth tremor effect that persists for a few seconds after the shot lands. While highly inaccurate, a direct hit will decimate all but the most heavily armoured units and it will stop anything in its tracks with its -60% speed debuff. Be careful though, as the Dreadquake doesn't discriminate, and a poorly aimed shot will decimate your frontline as quickly as it'll decimate the enemy's. But that's what your greenskin units are for, ay? Can be taken by itself, or can be pulled into battle by an Iron Daemon or a Skullcracker, for all your war train needs - benefited further by it's 360° firing.

==Tactics==
You army is very flexible but suffers from specialization. You have mid-ranged bow units or short ranged armour-piercing shotgun units. You have heavy monstrous cavalry with armour-piercing but you don't have ''fast'' heavy melee cavalry. You have very fast light cavalry but it's fragile and lacks armour-piercing. Your best all-arounder units are expensive and are meant to support an army rather than define it, unless you're very late in the campaign. The good news is you have an answer to almost everything and it's hard for the enemy to predict what you're going to bring. They may prepare for you to bring a fearsome gunline when instead you rush them with Bull Centaurs, Wolf Raiders, and Iron Daemons. Alternatively they may prepare for you to bring a bunch of big monsters and instead you bring enough firepower to level a mountain.

If you bring the right mix of units you can do very well and effectively respond to unexpected threats. Your biggest weakness is probably the "all or nothing" aspect of your army where you have very expensive and powerful elite units and very cheap and plentiful chaff but not that much in between. If you lean too heavily on one or the other and your enemy prepares accordingly you can get shut down hard and fast.

===Multiplayer Strategies===
The Chaos Dwarfs are pretty strong! With their mix of powerful artillery, single entities, elite infantry, and ranged, they have a flexible and powerful roster. They also have a very EXPENSIVE roster, and unlike campaign (where their best units are at least somewhat spammable once you accumulate enough resources), the price tag is going to matter in multiplayer. This all means you have to consider your matchups carefully if you want to win, even more so than other factions. Your chaff is some of the worst in the game, and you'll have to bring some in nearly every battle just to avoid being completely overrun. While it might sound odd given your slow moving infantry and artillery, the Dawi-Zharr shares some design philosophies with other rush factions in the game. They can put out terrifying damage very quickly both in melee and at range, but if your enemy can outlast your onslaught, the battle may turn. Also, seeing as this DLC released quite recently (at the time this was written anyway), expect some nerfs to come in for the tall-hatted Bablyonians. All that aside, here's how to make slaves of the other factions in the game:
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This can be difficult for you. Bretonnia is usually a strong counter against missile-heavy factions due to their ability to swamp the field with cavalry. You'll never have to go too elite with your front line, a few Dwarf Warriors and a bunch of Labourers will do the trick against peasants. Blunderbusses will gun down cavalry but defending them will be hard. Fireglaives will hold up better if they get charged but they're going to be too expensive for you to bring a large number of them. Bretonnia can sometime struggle to kill large monsters, so consider bringing Bull Centaurs with great weapons for some strong AP/anti-large punch. If they can intercept the knights your ranged units will have time to do the work.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarfs| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': The Dark Elves are on a very short list of factions that can keep pace with you when it comes to ranged damage output, so this one is probably weighted against you, though not overly so. The amount of ap the druchii can bring to the front will be shivering the timbers of even your most elite armored up infantry, and their army can be quite fast as well, with their mobile threats being quite hard to snipe out with artillery. First off, don't bother with K'daai or your other monsters too much. Yes, it's tempting, especially to break into that juicy crossbow line, but with their relatively slow movement, they'll get shredded without careful micro. A Lammasu or Bale Taurus is probably the best option monster-wise due to their flying, though they'll still get pincushioned by Darkshards if you're careless. Druchii cheap infantry is much better than your cheap infantry, but you're much better at decimating their tightly-packed formations with your other tools. Besides, Executioners are the only infantry they have that can really threaten your elites 1 on 1, and if the opponent knows what he's doing, he won't be bringing elite infantry. Dark Rider Crossbows and Scourgerunner play are probably going to be a pain in your stunted neck, the former being a fairly cheap very fast source of ap damage, with the latter kiting your Bull Centaurs and big units into the shadow realm. Wolf Raider spam is probably the best way to zone them out. If they're wasting those precious volleys on your low-tier wolf cav, that's good for you. Another note is to watch out for the often meme'd on anti-large Cold One Knights. They will actually trade very well into your Bull Centaurs, to say nothing of K'daai, Taurus, etc. Getting some blunderbuss shots into them, or targeting them with Lore of Hashut is the best way to get them off the field. As for characters, Malus has been the best Dark Elf tank lord for a while, and none of your lords really stands a chance against him in a melee fight. Drazoath on his cow makes for great utility, flying around and nuking any unit out of place with Lore of Hashut. Finally, watch out for lore of Dark Magic or Shadows, both with their heavy ap components can grind down your warriors with surprising efficiency.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Your hated cousins are in many ways your ideal opponent. They're slow and focus on heavily armored infantry, which is something you excel at destroying with your powerful artillery. A Dreadquake can do a lot of damage here. However Dwarf artillery is cheaper and get more models per unit, meaning they can mass fire much easier than you can, making artillery duels difficult. Magma Cannons are good at killing artillery crews with the fiery vortex they leave behind and are also good at killing infantry generally, so they are a must in this matchup. Dwarfs are even more vulnerable to big monsters and chariots than you are so a few Bull Centaurs or Iron Daemons can put in good work here, so long as you can keep them from getting shot to death on the way in. Watch out for Slayers, you don't have a great answer to them short of tying them up with chaff.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''':

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''':

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

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': The Dawi-Zharr worship Hashut, but they might as well join up with Khorne with the sheer amount of skulls you will reap in this matchup. You'll nuke their infantry, and as long as you're good about protecting your blunderbusses any construct they bring from Warsphinxes to Necropolis Knights to Sepulchral Stalkers will see their hp bar plummet as soon as you can get some good shots in. They also hate flaming damage, while you have it out the ass.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': You can do their main tactic better than them. Your artillery will decimate every flavor of infantry they can bring, and even if they make it into melee, your blunderbusses and ironsworn/ infernal guard will be great at taking them out. If they try boxing up, you have the game in the bag. If the Coast player is smart, he might try a melee rush with Mournghouls, Scurvy Dogs, and Deck Droppers, and a Necrofex for long-range killing power. Bring fireglaives to counter Mourghouls, and a flying lord with ash storm to zone out deck droppers. Your answers to the Necrofex aren't great, but a unit of Bull Centaurs will probably be enough to tie it down if not kill it outright.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': It's exorcism time. Your fire damage does you a lot of favors here as well, able to cut down on the Counts' healing. Blunderbusses will delete their large threats or lords if allowed to fire in. You will of course have to bring some amount of chaff, and your laborers will be even more useless than usual, being routed quickly by fear/terror causing infantry, but you have plenty of ways to clear all those zombies and skellies off the field. K'daai units can be a great tool against any flavor of vampire infantry with their fire damage and penchant for fighting chaff, since they gain bonuses the longer they are in melee. Of course, Dreadquakes or Magma Cannons are also great tools for clearing all that chaff. Meanwhile they don't have many responses to your bigger monsters, so a Destroyer or Bale Taurus can pay quite some dividends. What they might try is a cavalry heavy list with lots of Dire Wolves and bats for clearing chaff, and Black Knights and Blood Knights for getting work done. The latter can actually be quite threatening, able to take on your large threats and even elite infantry with their anti-large and armor-piercing. Focusing them down with ranged fire or constantly grinding them down with your cheaper damage spells is probably the best way to deal with them.

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

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

==Campaign Advice==
===Mechanics===
Chaos Dwarfs have a large number of mechanics at their disposal, more than pretty much any other faction in the entire game. The good news from a comprehension stand point is that a lot of them are from other factions, so if you are familiar with how those factions work than you can implement the same thing into the Chorfs. As for what is unique to them however, it may seem very complicated at first but honestly once you start playing you catch on pretty quick.

Firstly, Chorfs are focused around economic development, and have three different building chains that produce three different types of incomes outside of normal gold. There are '''Outposts''' that produce '''Raw Resources''', '''Factories''' that consume Raw Resources to produce '''Armaments''', and '''Towers''', Regional capitals that produce '''Conclave Influence'''. Outposts and Factories both have building chains that produce the Raw Resources and Armaments, where as Towers produce Conclave Influence naturally.

Your Raw Resources consume '''Labour''' to produce from your '''Labour Economy'''. Labour are your totally fairly treated, well paid and not at all enslaved workforce that are gained from winning battles, raiding, use of your '''Military Convoy''' system (basically Cathayan Caravans, where you sell Gold or Armaments in exchange for Gold, Raw Resources or Labour, encountering battles and new chances for units as your convoy travels the map) or from random events. Once you have two provinces you can manage your Labour with a tab that allows you to see where your Labor is, move Labourers around to other parts of your empire, and stop Larbourers from going to provinces you don't need them anymore. It's important to make sure your Provinces all have the Labour they need because if they don't your Outposts won't produce the Raw Resources you need as efficiently. You can also sacrifice Labourers in order to gain money, control, Conclave Influence or instantly construct buildings.

Raw Resources are extremely important in the early game as you need them to upgrade your towers, certain buildings and produce Armaments. Armaments are used for '''The Hell-Forge''' mechanic to help you get decent armies. Any unit in your army that isn't a Hobgoblin or Labourer is restricted by unit caps, and you can spend Armaments in the Armoury in order to raise said cap. You can also spend Armaments in the Manufactory in order to upgrade your higher end units, though this will cost you Armaments up front and an upkeep of them per turn. You can also trade them with the Convoy system, which will get you better and more resources than with pure gold. Finally, Conclave Influence is used in the '''Tower of Zharr''' system, where you can secure seats in the tower and steal seats from other Chaos Dwarfs for buffs and bonuses, all the way up to confederating the other Chaos Dwarf factions. Influence can also be used to upgrade towers to higher tiers when you conquer a city.

I know, I know, big scary wall of text, so let's break it down.

'''Treasury''': Normal gold earned from income buildings, used to upgrade Outposts, recruit and maintain units. Can be traded in Convoys

'''Labour''': Totally not Slaves got from battles, raids and Convoys used to make Raw Resources, instantly construct building or sacrificed for buffs

'''Raw Resources''': Made from Outposts' Strip Mine buildings. Consumes Larbour. Used to upgrade Towers, Factories and certain buildings and produce Armaments

'''Armaments''': Made from Factory's Gunsmith buildings. Consumes Raw Resources. Used for upgrading units or selling on the Convoy

'''Conclave Influence''': Got from Settlement Buildings, certain buildings and events. Used to upgrade conquered towers and secure seats in the Tower of Zharr.

Looks very complicated at first but you catch on fairly quick. If you play Victoria 3 you might be laughing at someone calling this system complex but by Total War standards it's a fun and in depth evil economy simulator (Plus if you play these guys you get an economy simulator game where war is actually FUN!).

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos Dwarfs

2023-05-19T19:27:49Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68: /* Missiles */

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

==Why play Chaos Dwarfs?==
*Because you like seeing things go BOOM!
*While everyone else is in the Renaissance at best, you will show the world the glory and horror of the Industrial Revolution.
*Because you love the shameless evil of the Dark Elves but don't like the actual ''Elf'' part.
*You love to artillery box and shoot things with giant fuck off guns.
*Because you feel like every single villain should use an exceptional amount of fire.
*You're a fan of clan Skryre and their tactic of dropping high explosives into the ranks of their own slave fodder
*You wanted to play dwarves but you are tired of the classic honorable mining fellows.
*You have a VERY high tolerance for silly hats.
*You're a Victoria 3 player but also want war in your game

===Pros===
*'''[[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|Gunpowder]]''': Your guns are some of the most powerful in the whole game. Expect to win in a straight up shoot out against pretty much any other faction that relies on guns. Combine that with some of the strongest artillery in the game and no enemy will want you shooting for long.
*'''Armor''': At least for the units you actually care about. Even the lowest Chaos Dwarf has strong armor comparable to the Dwarfs when it comes to durability. Of course your Hobgoblins won't be great in this department, but you don't really care about them now do you?
*'''Melee Grind''': What? You thought that just because they are good at shooting they must stink in melee? Nope! Chaos Dwarf infantry is very strong and hard hitting and their monsters are quiet good at turning the enemy into pasta sauce.
*'''Fire''': Not only do you have lots of it but you have lots of units resistant to it. Anything weak to fire is going to burn and anything that uses fire will feel damn near useless against you. You also have plenty of ways to give fire weakness, leading to some cool combos.
*'''Monsters''': You got plenty of them, from K'Daai, Lamassus and Great Tauruses you have plenty of monsters to throw around.
*'''Versatile''': You got a unit for more or less any occasion. Yeah you prefer to shoot but you got strong Infantry, Cavalry, Fliers and magic as well. It's possible to pull out all kinds of tactics, especially compared to your Dawi cousins. The flexibility of the Chorfs on launch puts many other factions to shame. It's almost absurd just how well all different parts of the Chorfs' roster work together. You have plenty of sources of Flammable to complement your plenty of sources of fire damage, your four lores of Fire, Metal, Death and Hashut give you every buff, debuff, and direct damage you need. Enemies charging your frontline? Drop an Ash Storm and give your Blunderbusses Flaming Sword of Ruin and even the strongest units will disintegrate before your eyes. Need to tarpit something? You have plenty of expendable greenskins to hold things in place while your artillery rain death on them. You have a tool for virtually every situation.

===Cons===
*'''Insufficient Mid-Tier Options''': You don't have a lot of options that are strong while also affordable. Your options consist of either very strong but very few Chaos Dwarfs or plentiful but near useless Hobgoblins and Labourers. In game, your army lacks effective mid-tier units that can kick ass while still being an affordable price. In multiplayer, you're all but forced to bring expensive elite units which your opponent will immediately target with magic or units like jezzails.
*'''Single Entity Artillery''': Your artillery is fearsome but they're all single-model units. You can actually get into trouble during artillery duels as many other ranged factions can bring units of cannons with four shots to your one.
*'''Short-ranged infantry''': The Chaos Dwarfs always favored blunderbusses over handguns. While dumping a whole unit of shotguns into somebody is going to hurt, longer range units can kite away from you. Your other possible option, goblin archers are... not great if we look to the orcs. Fireglaives have decent range but they are also highly expensive and you have limited recruitment. So if you want to really touch somebody at distance you'll have to rely on your artillery.
*'''Slow''': Chaos-corrupted Dwarfs are still Dwarfs, and you still curse the day the Old Ones gave you stubby legs. Sure you're faster than the Karaz Ankor Dwarfs but that's like saying you're faster than your 4 year old nephew, not something you should be bragging about. Even Bull Centaurs are rather slow for Cav and while Hobgoblin cav is quick, it’s not good for much outside of killing skirmishers and artillery or chasing off routing units.
*'''Cost-inefficient''': The big one: Chaos Dwarfs don't like fighting in armies as there is too few of them to risk their lives consistently compared to their western brethren. As such, the Chorfs have high upkeep for units like chaos dwarf warriors, infernal guard, etc. and will be reliant on slaves, which you will likely only be able to get by fighting and winning battles. Don't expect anything to go cheaply unless it is a slave with low morale or a hobgoblin.
*'''Anti-Large? What's that?''': You don't have super cost effective Anti large options. All your AP missiles cost a pretty penny and anything with Anti Large is in the elite camp, so monsters might actually be a problem for you.

==Faction Traits==
*'''Contempt''': All Chaos Dwarf race units (so excluding Hobgoblins and K'Daai, but including Bull Centaurs) will only suffer morale penalties from watching friendly units rout if they also have the Contempt rule. This means that if your Greenskin or Monster units run away, they aren't going to give a shit, allowing your Dorfs to stay in the fight a bit longer than other units in the same situation.

*'''Malign Authority''': The ability of your Greenskin sla- oh, I'm sorry- LABOURER units. They gain extra leadership when a unit with the Contempt rule is nearby, allowing them to stick around for just long enough to drop another volley onto their faces while they hold the enemy in place.
**'''Expendable''':The other ability all your "Laborers" have, this means when they run only other Laborers will care, Hobgoblins won't care and Chaos Dwarfs have contempt so they don't care if Either Hob Goblins and Laborers run. So yes CA managed to accurately put the three castes of chaos dwarf society into the game in a fusion of Crunch and Fluff.

*'''Backstabbers''': Common to all hobgoblin units, increases both melee and missile damage if above half health.

*'''Fire Resistance''': All Chaos Dwarf race units have some degree of fire resistance, in the 15%-25% range, varying by unit.

*'''Hellbound''': Common to all war machines and artillery besides the Hellcannon, this passive grants Magical Attacks, 20% Physical Resistance, and perfect Vigour for as long as HP is >25%. Oddly enough, can be removed in multiplayer for some extra funds.

*'''Hell-Forged''': Common to the same units as Hellbound, simply allows them to be healed by the Daemonsmith's Reforge ability, which is given even more importance by the buffs gained from keeping Hellbound enabled. Also works on K'daai.

==Lords==
===Legendary Lords===
*'''Astragoth Ironhand''': An ancient, partially petrified Sorcerer-Prophet with machinery grafted to his limbs to move, and de facto the faction leader. Comes with a mix of the Lore of Hashut and the Lore of Fire. Despite being a caster lord, he can hold his own against melee beatsticks like Vlad and Malekith thanks to his high melee stats and his special ability that increases physical resistance at the cost of mobility over the course of a battle. And while he doesn't get a mount, that's not a problem when his mobility suit allows him to run at heavy cavalry speed.

*'''Zhatan the Black''': Your dedicated melee beatstick. He's not the strongest melee lord in the game, but he's well armored and shielded, making him fairly tanky. He's also got decent maneuverability if you take the Lammasu or Great Taurus mount. His most powerful ability is his "Sadistic Snare," a single target net that allows your ranged units to turn that target into mincemeat.

*'''Drazhoath the Ashen''': Lore of Hashut caster lord. Can mount a Taurus, Lammasu, or Bale Taurus. Drazhoath isn't bad in melee thanks to his mounts but he's nowhere near as good as Astragoth. He's the closest thing you have to a dedicated caster lord. In most cases you'll want to keep him away from the enemy and only bring him into melee on choice targets and rear charges. If you bring his magic item his spell mastery increases with kills, so a little bit of time in melee can pay dividends down the road.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Sorcerer-Prophet''': Based off of the Legion of Azgorh they can use the Lore of Hashut, Fire, Death, or Metal. They're very much a support lord with a ranged flaregun attack that applies the Flammable! debuff to enemies, as well as an aura that boosts the missiles resistance and reload speed of war machines. He can take all of your big flying monsters as mounts, giving him added flexibility.

*'''Overseer''': Your dedicated melee lord, the Overseer doesn't have a lot that makes him stand out other than Expert Charge Defense. He can take the Great Taurus and the Lammasu as mounts but not the Bale Taurus. Overall the Sorcerer-Prophet is probably a better choice in most circumstances.

==Heroes==
===Legendary Heroes===
*'''Gorduz Backstabber''': Gorduz is a Hobgoblin melee hero with a Giant Wolf mount. In campaign he can buff any Hobgoblins in your army up to terrifying levels. Chaos Dwarfs have a tough early campaign but he can carry you if you have a Hobgoblin stack. In combat he's very tanky with a heal when his health is low and his "Lucky Dice" item which has three random possible results including more armor, a ward save, or physical resistance. Take Slippery to make him even harder to kill. Very useful in Domination battles where he can be quite hard to get off of a capture point due to his durability.

===Generic Heroes===
*'''Daemonsmith''': Hashut's own mix between a caster and master engineer. Come with the lores of Hashut, Fire, Metal, or Death, and can heal War Machines and K'daai. Essentially a weaker version of the Sorcerer-Prophet with the same mounts, flaregun attack, and war machine boosting aura. If you're planning to bring a lot of war machines or K'daai you want one or two of these guys to keep them going.

*'''Infernal Castellan''': These guys are members of the Infernal Guard who have redeemed themselves and had their mask removed, revealing the scars beneath. They're missile specialists who wield a Fireglaive, which in addition to an armour-piercing ranged attack grants them damage reflection, charge defense, and anti-large in melee. They also have the "Dig In" ability which only kicks in if they stand still for 25 seconds after which their range and missile resistance are increased and their charge defense becomes Expert Charge Defense. These guys are a cheaper alternative to a whole unit of Fireglaives but can play a similar role, plinking away at enemies from a distance. A good choice for sniping enemy heroes and lords. In the campaign, these guys get Restock as an ability at the end of their skill tree.

*'''Bull Centaur Taur'ruk''': These guys your big melee beatstick, arguably better at this role than the Overseer is. They hit hard with lots of armour-piercing/anti-large damage, give Guardian to other nearby character units, and have respectable speed and durability. If you're up against an army with lots of monsters or you want to form a goon squad to beat down the enemy lord, bring one of these guys.

==Units==
===Infantry===
*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Slaves|Goblin Labourers]]''': The worst of the worst infantry in the game, the only thing they beat is peasant mobs and that should say something, luckily like peasant mobs they're a damn cost-effective meatshield. Have a chorf unit near them and, well, they still ain’t very good but at least they won’t rout immediately.

*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Slaves|Orc Labourers]]''': Your other trash unit, orc laborers are only good as cannon fodder against heavily armored factions, otherwise goblins are more cost-effective. They're so bad they lose to ''goblins'' (the non-Labourer kind), makes one wonder what the chorfs put their laborers through that make even orcs suck ass at fighting.

*'''[[Hobgoblin Warriors|Hobgoblin Cutthroats]]''': Similar to but stronger than the Greenskins' Goblins. Also benefit from Malign Authority and Backstabbers. Because of Contempt you can use them just as disposably as the Labourers. With 140 models they for good tarpitting.

*'''[[Sneaky Git|Hobgoblin Sneaky Gits]]''': Stalk, poison precursor ranged attack, poison anti-infantry melee. Has mediocre melee stats and no armor piercing so use them as a cheap sneaky tarpit like night goblins.

*'''[[Chaos_Dwarf_Warrior|Chaos Dwarf Warriors]]''': Tier 2 heavy infantry, across the board superior to Dwarf Warriors, but used in essentially the same way. Comes with axe & shield or armour-piercing great weapon options, have silver shields which their honorable cousins still don’t have, this has… led to more than a few popped veins

*'''[[Infernal_Guard|Infernal Guard]]''': Tier 3 heavy infantry, comparable to Longbeards. Come in axe & shield or AP great weapon varieties.

*'''[[Infernal_Guard|Ironsworn]]''': Heaviest infantry available to the Dawi Zharr. Charge defense vs all and broadly similar stats to Dwarf Ironbreakers, magical & flaming attacks. Like Ironbreakers they get a ranged grenade attack but unlike Ironbreakers this grenade is armour-piercing and will devastate even elite infantry.
**'''The Immortals:''' An elite double axe Regiment of Renown which can turn basically any other infantry they face into rump roasts. In particular they don't loose models until they've lost 25% of their HP, so they keep dishing out full damage while the other side has taken a lot of casualties.

===Missiles===
*'''Hobgoblin Archers''': Closely analogous to Greenskin Goblin Archers, but with Flaming Attacks added. Can be surprisingly good if Weakness to Fire is abused (or absolutely useless against Dragons).

*'''Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses''': THE standout member of the present roster, a frontline of Blunderbusses can on it's own rout many armies, and with charge defense vs large even the stuff that reaches them will have a hard time getting through them. Comparable melee stats to Dwarf Warriors, and their ranged weapon does an ungodly amount of damage to anything that enters it's 90 range. Prepare for the possibility of this unit getting nerfed like Ogre Ironbelchers.
**'''The Granite Guard''': RoR Infernal Guard with blunderbusses and AP great weapons. They have closer stats to the Fireglaives than the Blunderbusses (as well as a closer pricetag), but they have a few unique tricks. Firstly, they have innate Suppression with their ranged attacks, and if you sit them still for 25 seconds they'll gain +40% range, +15% missile resistance and Expert Charge Defence. Note they're still blunderbusses, even with +40% range you only reach 126 range, but these rock-hard dwarfs can form a solid anchor for your blunderbuss line. Blunderbusses are already lethal, and the -30% speed they inflict on anything they shoot will make it hard for melee units to reach them, and anything that does reach them will have a whole load of AP to deal with. However, they're still short ranged and they will be shot to pieces by anything they can't shoot back.
*'''Infernal Guard Fireglaives''': Tier 3 hybrid infantry, with a 145 range repeating rifle. Very capable melee combatants to boot, one of only two Chaos Dwarf units with anti-large. Will lose bad in a 1-to-1 shootout against Blunderbusses but are better at outshooting longer-ranged foes your Blunderbusses can't reach.

===Cavalry===
*'''Hobgoblin Wolf Raiders''': Superior Goblin Wolf Riders. Come in spear & shield and bow varieties, and have the unique ability Cowardly Despoilers granting +25% Weapon Strength when attacking a unit from behind or the flank.

*'''Bull Centaur Renders''': A bit like tankier Dragon Ogres. Come in axe & shield, anti-infantry dual axe, and anti-large great weapon varieties, all with armour-piercing. Similar to Blunderbusses, Bull Centaurs with great weapons are absurdly overtuned and will beat practically every other cavalry unit in the game and will likely be hit with the nerf hammer in upcoming patches. They're slow for monstrous cavalry however, and are vulnerable to kiting.

===Monsters===
*'''[[Great Taurus]]''': The basic doom cow and your cheapest monster. It has respectable stats, it flies, it causes terror, it gains physical resistance and reflects melee damage the longer it's in combat. Drop it on a backline and watch it go moo.

*'''[[Lammasu]]''': An odd flying monster with some tricks up it sleeves. It has Enfeebling Foe and The Withering as bound spells, which can be useful as the only access to Shadow spells in the roster. Compared with the flying cows, it has far less AP damage, lower melee attack and substantially less charge bonus, but higher melee defence and magical attacks. Besides its spells, the unique feature of the Lammasu is it has an aura that nullifies enemy unit's magical attacks. This would be very useful... if the Chorf's roster actually had any units that relied on high physical resistance to survive. Really, the only non-RoR units that rely on physical resistance are the K'daai, which if you're babysitting, it's better to just stick a Daemonsmith on a Lammasu rather than bring one of these by themselves.

*'''[[K%27daai|'K'daai Fireborn]]''': Daemons summoned from the burning depths so they may then be bound into armour and turned into the Dawi-Zharr's brand of Monstrous Infantry. K'daai have a few attributes that make them tricky to use. They gain physical resistance and damage reflection the longer they're in melee, and they're Unbreakable as long as their health is high but as soon as it dips too low they start taking damage from Daemonic Instability. They have an anti-infantry bonus with most of their damage being AP and can buzzsaw through even elite infantry... so long as their health is up. Once it drops the Fireborn die ''fast''. Since they benefit from a Daemonsmith's Hellforged ability they're one of your few units that can be healed but you have to keep an eye on them or they'll be gone as soon as you blink. They suffer a bit from filling the same role as dual weapon Bull centaurs but being far more fragile.

*'''[[Bale Taurus]]''': Exactly the same as the Great Taurus but with better stats and the addition of a flaming breath attack. This steak wants ''you'' well done.

*'''[[K%27daai|K'daai Destroyer]]''': The big monster from the trailer and the ultimate work of the Chaos Dwarfs, the K'Daai Destroyer is a massive metal-wrought prison for a raging fire daemon, and it is here to rip and tear through your enemy's frontline. Flaming magical attacks with a whopping 680 weapon strength will pulverise any man-sized thing it gets its claws on, and its animations are designed for it to rip through even the most elite infantry in seconds. On top of being Hell-Forged allowing your Daemonsmiths to repair it, it's a Bound Fire Daemon like the Fireborn, it has Blazing Body, and its unique Hellish Frenzy buffs its damage, charge bonus and melee attack while it's above 75% health, although it also has Daemonic Instability which means once that Unbreakable wears off it can die quickly. If you want a giant monster to throw at your enemy, look no further than the K'daai Destroyer. Just keep it away from anti-large monsters.

===Artillery & War Machines===
*'''[[Magma_Cannon_(Warhammer_Fantasy)|Magma Cannon]]''': Single unit anti-infantry fire artillery with a range of 450. Upon hitting something, its projectile makes a fire field on the ground that continuously damages and stuns anything in it, which breaks up a unit's formation on the advance. If the enemy is coming towards you in a big blob, target the front ranks of the blob, the other guys will walk into the fire patch.

*'''[[Iron_Daemon_War_Engine|Iron Daemon]]''': Fat single unit, powerful collision attacks and two fat blunderbuss cannons. This and the Skullcracker's primary melee attacks are anti-infantry steam cannons mounted on all sides of the chassis, so this thing can do a lot of damage whether it's sending rounds into the enemy's flanks or rolling straight through it. It's melee attack/defense are mediocre, so it won't perform optimally if you order it into an infantry blob and forget about it. See also: Dreadquake Mortar.

*'''[[Hellcannon|Hellcannon]]''': The classic artillery piece using the souls of the damned as homing ammunition. Not much to be said, just the WoC unit returned to their fellow countrydwarfs. Lacks the unique traits of the faction's other machines, and is the only crewed unit on the roster.

*'''[[Iron_Daemon_War_Engine|Skullcracker]]''': The dedicated melee counterpart of the Iron Daemon that for some reason has the exact same stats as the Iron Daemon minus the guns. Despite this, it costs more than the Iron Daemon. Lords do have redline skills that improve the Skullcracker's melee stats, but this just isn't a thing in multiplayer battles. Probably needs some stat adjustments to differentiate it from its ranged brother.

*'''[[Deathshrieker_Rocket_Launcher|Death Shrieker Rocket Launcher]]''': A much killier version of the Empire's Helstorm and Cathay's Fire Rain. 420 range, can fire both anti-infantry airburst rockets and anti-large direct detonation rockets (Two direct hits of the latter will break Queen Bess). Important to note that the anti-large rocket will only ever hit a single entity - shooting it at anything that isn't a single or very low model count unit is hugely inefficient. This is the most specialised of the Chorf's artillery, it loses out in the anti-infantry department to all other options available and the single-fire rocket is lacking in accuracy. It does have an extremely high firing arc that lets it ignore most terrain in between itself and its target.

*'''[[Dreadquake_Mortar|Dreadquake Mortar]]''': CHUNKY 380 range mortar. Single hit will cut a lot of unit's model count in half, but the slow speed of the projectile can make it a little situational. The damage number doesn't count the AoE earth tremor effect that persists for a few seconds after the shot lands. While highly inaccurate, a direct hit will decimate all but the most heavily armoured units and it will stop anything in its tracks with its -60% speed debuff. Be careful though, as the Dreadquake doesn't discriminate, and a poorly aimed shot will decimate your frontline as quickly as it'll decimate the enemy's. But that's what your greenskin units are for, ay? Can be taken by itself, or can be pulled into battle by an Iron Daemon or a Skullcracker, for all your war train needs - benefited further by it's 360° firing.

==Tactics==

You army is very flexible but suffers from specialization. You have mid-ranged bow units or short ranged armour-piercing shotgun units. You have heavy monstrous cavalry with armour-piercing but you don't have ''fast'' heavy melee cavalry. You have very fast light cavalry but it's fragile and lacks armour-piercing. Your best all-arounder units are expensive and are meant to support an army rather than define it, unless you're very late in the campaign. The good news is you have an answer to almost everything and it's hard for the enemy to predict what you're going to bring. They may prepare for you to bring a fearsome gunline when instead you rush them with Bull Centaurs, Wolf Raiders, and Iron Daemons. Alternatively they may prepare for you to bring a bunch of big monsters and instead you bring enough firepower to level a mountain.

If you bring the right mix of units you can do very well and effectively respond to unexpected threats. Your biggest weakness is probably the "all or nothing" aspect of your army where you have very expensive and powerful elite units and very cheap and plentiful chaff but not that much in between. If you lean too heavily on one or the other and your enemy prepares accordingly you can get shut down hard and fast.

===Multiplayer Strategies===
The Chaos Dwarfs are pretty strong! With their mix of powerful artillery, single entities, elite infantry, and ranged, they have a flexible and powerful roster. They also have a very EXPENSIVE roster, and unlike campaign (where their best units are at least somewhat spammable once you accumulate enough resources), the price tag is going to matter in multiplayer. This all means you have to consider your matchups carefully if you want to win, even more so than other factions. Your chaff is some of the worst in the game, and you'll have to bring some in nearly every battle just to avoid being completely overrun. While it might sound odd given your slow moving infantry and artillery, the Dawi-Zharr shares some design philosophies with other rush factions in the game. They can put out terrifying damage very quickly both in melee and at range, but if your enemy can outlast your onslaught, the battle may turn. Also, seeing as this DLC released quite recently (at the time this was written anyway), expect some nerfs to come in for the tall-hatted Bablyonians. All that aside, here's how to make slaves of the other factions in the game:
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This can be difficult for you. Bretonnia is usually a strong counter against missile-heavy factions due to their ability to swamp the field with cavalry. You'll never have to go too elite with your front line, a few Dwarf Warriors and a bunch of Labourers will do the trick against peasants. Blunderbusses will gun down cavalry but defending them will be hard. Fireglaives will hold up better if they get charged but they're going to be too expensive for you to bring a large number of them. Bretonnia can sometime struggle to kill large monsters, so consider bringing Bull Centaurs with great weapons for some strong AP/anti-large punch. If they can intercept the knights your ranged units will have time to do the work.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarfs| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': The Dark Elves are on a very short list of factions that can keep pace with you when it comes to ranged damage output, so this one is probably weighted against you, though not overly so. The amount of ap the druchii can bring to the front will be shivering the timbers of even your most elite armored up infantry, and their army can be quite fast as well, with their mobile threats being quite hard to snipe out with artillery. First off, don't bother with K'daai or your other monsters too much. Yes, it's tempting, especially to break into that juicy crossbow line, but with their relatively slow movement, they'll get shredded without careful micro. A Lammasu or Bale Taurus is probably the best option monster-wise due to their flying, though they'll still get pincushioned by Darkshards if you're careless. Druchii cheap infantry is much better than your cheap infantry, but you're much better at decimating their tightly-packed formations with your other tools. Besides, Executioners are the only infantry they have that can really threaten your elites 1 on 1, and if the opponent knows what he's doing, he won't be bringing elite infantry. Dark Rider Crossbows and Scourgerunner play are probably going to be a pain in your stunted neck, the former being a fairly cheap very fast source of ap damage, with the latter kiting your Bull Centaurs and big units into the shadow realm. Wolf Raider spam is probably the best way to zone them out. If they're wasting those precious volleys on your low-tier wolf cav, that's good for you. Another note is to watch out for the often meme'd on anti-large Cold One Knights. They will actually trade very well into your Bull Centaurs, to say nothing of K'daai, Taurus, etc. Getting some blunderbuss shots into them, or targeting them with Lore of Hashut is the best way to get them off the field. As for characters, Malus has been the best Dark Elf tank lord for a while, and none of your lords really stands a chance against him in a melee fight. Drazoath on his cow makes for great utility, flying around and nuking any unit out of place with Lore of Hashut. Finally, watch out for lore of Dark Magic or Shadows, both with their heavy ap components can grind down your warriors with surprising efficiency.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Your hated cousins are in many ways your ideal opponent. They're slow and focus on heavily armored infantry, which is something you excel at destroying with your powerful artillery. A Dreadquake can do a lot of damage here. However Dwarf artillery is cheaper and get more models per unit, meaning they can mass fire much easier than you can, making artillery duels difficult. Magma Cannons are good at killing artillery crews with the fiery vortex they leave behind and are also good at killing infantry generally, so they are a must in this matchup. Dwarfs are even more vulnerable to big monsters and chariots than you are so a few Bull Centaurs or Iron Daemons can put in good work here, so long as you can keep them from getting shot to death on the way in. Watch out for Slayers, you don't have a great answer to them short of tying them up with chaff.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''':

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''':

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

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': The Dawi-Zharr worship Hashut, but they might as well join up with Khorne with the sheer amount of skulls you will reap in this matchup. You'll nuke their infantry, and as long as you're good about protecting your blunderbusses any construct they bring from Warsphinxes to Necropolis Knights to Sepulchral Stalkers will see their hp bar plummet as soon as you can get some good shots in. They also hate flaming damage, while you have it out the ass.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': You can do their main tactic better than them. Your artillery will decimate every flavor of infantry they can bring, and even if they make it into melee, your blunderbusses and ironsworn/ infernal guard will be great at taking them out. If they try boxing up, you have the game in the bag. If the Coast player is smart, he might try a melee rush with Mournghouls, Scurvy Dogs, and Deck Droppers, and a Necrofex for long-range killing power. Bring fireglaives to counter Mourghouls, and a flying lord with ash storm to zone out deck droppers. Your answers to the Necrofex aren't great, but a unit of Bull Centaurs will probably be enough to tie it down if not kill it outright.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': It's exorcism time. Your fire damage does you a lot of favors here as well, able to cut down on the Counts' healing. Blunderbusses will delete their large threats or lords if allowed to fire in. You will of course have to bring some amount of chaff, and your laborers will be even more useless than usual, being routed quickly by fear/terror causing infantry, but you have plenty of ways to clear all those zombies and skellies off the field. K'daai units can be a great tool against any flavor of vampire infantry with their fire damage and penchant for fighting chaff, since they gain bonuses the longer they are in melee. Of course, Dreadquakes or Magma Cannons are also great tools for clearing all that chaff. Meanwhile they don't have many responses to your bigger monsters, so a Destroyer or Bale Taurus can pay quite some dividends. What they might try is a cavalry heavy list with lots of Dire Wolves and bats for clearing chaff, and Black Knights and Blood Knights for getting work done. The latter can actually be quite threatening, able to take on your large threats and even elite infantry with their anti-large and armor-piercing. Focusing them down with ranged fire or constantly grinding them down with your cheaper damage spells is probably the best way to deal with them.

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

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

==Campaign Advice==
===Mechanics===
Chaos Dwarfs have a large number of mechanics at their disposal, more than pretty much any other faction in the entire game. The good news from a comprehension stand point is that a lot of them are from other factions, so if you are familiar with how those factions work than you can implement the same thing into the Chorfs. As for what is unique to them however, it may seem very complicated at first but honestly once you start playing you catch on pretty quick.

Firstly, Chorfs are focused around economic development, and have three different building chains that produce three different types of incomes outside of normal gold. There are '''Outposts''' that produce '''Raw Resources''', '''Factories''' that consume Raw Resources to produce '''Armaments''', and '''Towers''', Regional capitals that produce '''Conclave Influence'''. Outposts and Factories both have building chains that produce the Raw Resources and Armaments, where as Towers produce Conclave Influence naturally.

Your Raw Resources consume '''Labour''' to produce from your '''Labour Economy'''. Labour are your totally fairly treated, well paid and not at all enslaved workforce that are gained from winning battles, raiding, use of your '''Military Convoy''' system (basically Cathayan Caravans, where you sell Gold or Armaments in exchange for Gold, Raw Resources or Labour, encountering battles and new chances for units as your convoy travels the map) or from random events. Once you have two provinces you can manage your Labour with a tab that allows you to see where your Labor is, move Labourers around to other parts of your empire, and stop Larbourers from going to provinces you don't need them anymore. It's important to make sure your Provinces all have the Labour they need because if they don't your Outposts won't produce the Raw Resources you need as efficiently. You can also sacrifice Labourers in order to gain money, control, Conclave Influence or instantly construct buildings.

Raw Resources are extremely important in the early game as you need them to upgrade your towers, certain buildings and produce Armaments. Armaments are used for '''The Hell-Forge''' mechanic to help you get decent armies. Any unit in your army that isn't a Hobgoblin or Labourer is restricted by unit caps, and you can spend Armaments in the Armoury in order to raise said cap. You can also spend Armaments in the Manufactory in order to upgrade your higher end units, though this will cost you Armaments up front and an upkeep of them per turn. You can also trade them with the Convoy system, which will get you better and more resources than with pure gold. Finally, Conclave Influence is used in the '''Tower of Zharr''' system, where you can secure seats in the tower and steal seats from other Chaos Dwarfs for buffs and bonuses, all the way up to confederating the other Chaos Dwarf factions. Influence can also be used to upgrade towers to higher tiers when you conquer a city.

I know, I know, big scary wall of text, so let's break it down.

'''Treasury''': Normal gold earned from income buildings, used to upgrade Outposts, recruit and maintain units. Can be traded in Convoys

'''Labour''': Totally not Slaves got from battles, raids and Convoys used to make Raw Resources, instantly construct building or sacrificed for buffs

'''Raw Resources''': Made from Outposts' Strip Mine buildings. Consumes Larbour. Used to upgrade Towers, Factories and certain buildings and produce Armaments

'''Armaments''': Made from Factory's Gunsmith buildings. Consumes Raw Resources. Used for upgrading units or selling on the Convoy

'''Conclave Influence''': Got from Settlement Buildings, certain buildings and events. Used to upgrade conquered towers and secure seats in the Tower of Zharr.

Looks very complicated at first but you catch on fairly quick. If you play Victoria 3 you might be laughing at someone calling this system complex but by Total War standards it's a fun and in depth evil economy simulator (Plus if you play these guys you get an economy simulator game where war is actually FUN!).

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne

2023-05-19T17:28:12Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

This is the general tactics page on how to play [[Khorne]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]].
==Why play Khorne?==
*Because sometimes you just want to not think too hard and rip the other guys apart limb from limb.
*You play aggressive, and don't want to play any of that "defense" bullshit
*[[Doom]] is your favorite game franchise and you always wanted to play from the Demon's point of view.
*You are fond of Mesoamerican cultivars that are not beans or squash.
*You want the best/second best warcry in the game
**''Ahem'': <span style='color:red;font-size:100%'> '''BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!'''
===Pros===
*'''Unmatched Melee''': With the high amounts of charge, damage, and armor in your faction, pretty much no one can beat you in a one to one melee fight. Your units beat pretty much anything in the same tier as them. The only way you could lose a melee fight is if you're peppered by missiles, magic or drained by a Mortis Engine.

*'''High Armour''': The mortal half of your roster has pretty high armour values, so non AP missiles and attacks won't really bother them. Your Daemons aren't so good in the armour department compared to the mortals but they do have plenty of resistances to make up for it.

*'''Monsters''': Bloodthirsters, Bloodcrushers, Skullcrushers, Spawn, Minotaurs and many more means you will have some of the scariest monster units in the entire game. Winning the monstermash shouldn't be an issue and allow your big bois to take over the battle for you.

*'''Magic Resiliency''': Magic is for wimpy nerds and daddy Khorne will make sure you won't die in the most embarrassing way possible. Enemy spells won't hurt you nearly as bad as other faction.

*'''Mobility''': Khorne actually has some wheels on him. You have two different units of warhounds, furies and cavalry to run around the map and out maneuver your opponents. Your infantry, especially Chaos Warriors, are pretty slow however, so keep that in mind.

*'''Strength through Kills''': The more you kill the stronger you get. As such, you are rewarded for being aggressive by getting more damage and shredding potential. Note that Khorne cares not if you're killing phoenix guard or skavenslaves, your units power up even faster if your opponent is dumb enough to throw a bunch of shitty chaff units at you

*'''Noob Friendly''': Khorne right clicks on things until they die. No backline you need to protect, no worrying about magic management or where to place spells, hell you barely need to worry about making sure your enemies are fighting the right targets. Due to your high armor and insane melee buffs, Khorne is actually pretty beginner friendly if you are just starting with game 3.

*'''Anti-Large''': You are the only demon faction with access to multiple (effective) anit-large units in all stages of the game, Halberd Chaos warriors, great weapon minotaur's, and finally Bloodthirsters keep you effective at anti-large at every stage of play.

===Cons===
*'''No Magic''': What, you want to blow shit up with your mind like a god damn pussy? If that's the case Khorne isn't for you. Even the Dwarfs have a substitute in the form of Runes that make up for it to an extent. You will not be able to contribute any magic to the field in the form of wizards, costing you some AOE burst.

*'''Less Effective Against Elites''': with your battle mechanic keying off ''number'' of kills it means that against elite factions that bring fewer soldiers you will be less effective. Not ''ineffective'' mind you, but it does mean you'll be at a disadvantage as less units benefit from your Hellblade ability.

*'''Limited Ranged''': Skullcannons and marauder horsemen are your only ranged option, meaning you don't really have any option to play defense. Granted if you wanted to play a defensive set up why the hell are you playing Khorne in the first place?

*'''Lack of Versatility''': Sneakiness and subtlety are for little bitches. You may be one of the most hardcore melee rush factions in the game, but that's really all you got going for you. This can make Khorne relatively easier to game plan for compared to a lot of other factions who have an easier time employing numerous tactics.

*'''Top Heavy''': More of a problem before the Champions of Chaos DLC when Khorne's cheapest infantry unit were freaking Chaos Warriors but Khorne is still missing cheap anti-large infantry and expendable chaff, both of which are necessary to spread the field.

*'''Friends? What are those?''': Well... what do you expect? Not only are you playing a game called Total '''WAR''', you're playing for the Chaos God of Blood. The only mortal "allies" you can make are with the Warriors of Chaos, Beastmen, Norsca and ''potentially'' Skaven and Ogres, if they're not feeling duplicitous. Even as far as Daemons go, Slaanesh isn't keen on working with your forces and even other Khornate factions tend to rub each other the wrong way. Everyone else hates your god damn guts and for good reason.

*'''DLC''': Every core race has joined this club, and you are noticeably missing core units from the mortals side of things unless you open your wallet.

*'''Poor Economy''': What the hell were you expecting? It's the Blood God, not the Personal Finance God. The only money you'll be making is from post battle loot, sacking and raiding. Combine that with your expensive units and the fact that Blood Hosts cost upkeep and you'll be in the red most of the time.

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

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

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

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

*'''[[Valkia the Bloody]] (DLC, Multiplayer only)''': The Gorequeen has the raw melee stats to rival Skarbrand. She makes a great hit + run duelist with 100 speed, a temporary invincibility ability, and a bound wind ability to clear out chaff. She's infantry sized so avoids the risk of anti-large sniping and is a small target for enemy ranged fire.
===Generic Lords===
*'''Exalted Bloodthirster''': One of two possible Bloodthirster units available in the army, this one being the Lord equivalent. As you'd expect, it's really fucking scary. The stat line on this thing is absolutely absurd, giving it flaming and magical attacks along with a plentiful amount of AP. It also has a bunch of gnarly special abilities including one called Deathblow that buffs its already spooky weapon strength by 50% (both AP and Non AP), and another that causes automatic miscast damage to any wizard casting spells nearby. The ability to fly also allows it to pick and choose its targets and stay on the move. Combine all of this with it being unbreakable due to it's Daemonic trait and the Exalted Bloodthirster is extremely hard to get rid of. Great in campaign, BUT you should really think twice before taking him in multiplayer where he costs 3150! gold. An exalted bloodthirster is good, but not when you can get two units of exalted bloodletters and one unit of chaos warriors for the same price. And if you're absolutely deadset on paying out the nose for a single entity murder machine, you can pay 200 more gold and get Skarbrand instead.

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

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

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

===Legendary Heroes===

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

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

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

==Units==

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

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

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

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

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

*'''Exalted Bloodletters''': Bloodletters plus. They're a very similar unit only just much better at the job but also much more expensive. These guys will let you carve through more elite options than your standard Bloodletters can. Best go-to late game troops.
**Because of auto-resolves preference for skirmishers, Exalted Bloodletters don't do very well in autoresolve; the fact that they don't rout also makes it really likely for you to lose even Rank 7 units in difficult sieges.
**'''Hellforged Host''': Hey look, Daemons who actually know what armor is! These guys come in with 60 armor so unlike the normal Exalted Bloodletters they don't have to worry about getting torn apart if missiles look at them funny. They also get their Hellblade buff on 40 kills instead of 80, so unless you REALLY misuse them, you should get that buff no problem.

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

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

*'''Chaos Knights of Khorne (DLC)''': While chaos knights are by no means bad units, Khorne benefited from their addition less than the other chaos gods did since bloodcrushers and skullcrushers are superior in most matchups. That said, Khorne chaos knights have fire attacks, so they can be useful against flammable factions like tomb kings and wood elves.
===Missile Cavalry===
*'''Marauder Horsemen of Khorne (DLC):''' Your ranged skirmisher with flaming, armor piercing throwing axes. Use them to pick away at high value armored targets like heavy cavalry. Can also do double duty as light cavalry thanks to melee bonus vs. infantry and frenzy.
===Chariots===
*'''Chaos Chariots of Khorne (DLC)''': More or less the same as the WoC version except with frenzy and spell resistance.

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

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

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

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

*'''Flesh Hounds''': They share the same speed as normal Warhounds (95) but have a much smaller model count per unit but are much stronger and tougher. They also have magic resistance of 50% like Furies do. They inhabit that space of smaller war hound units from Drycha and the Norscans, and act as light cavalry. Hit like absolute trucks. Very good in multiplayer for chewing up (literally) low armored units/heros. They do terribly in auto resolve though.
===Monsters===
*'''Spawn of Khorne''': Chaos Spawn for Khorne. Yeah that's pretty much it. They have significantly higher weapon strength so they will lawn mower light troops even faster than normal spawn do already. They trade this for some slightly reduced melee defense, as you'd expect from the all out offense Khorne style, but they also have Rampage which limits their reliability. Despite these drawbacks, they're one of Khorne's more reliable multiplayer units. An exalted bloodthirster is great, but 3 units of chaos spawn is better. A must-pick in multiplayer but a never-pick in campaign

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

*'''Chaos Warshrine of Khorne''': Gives a small, increasing buff to weapon damage and melee attack as units die around it. Do not recommend, the weapon damage buff tops out at a measly 5%. That and bloodshrines of khorne provide the same +8 melee attack buff as a maxed out khorne warshrine and they fight better and cost less too.

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

*'''Bloodthirster''': The smaller, more accessible version of its Exalted cousin. It trades a lot of the scary combat stats in return for Anti-Large, making it more of a dedicated monster fighter. Aside from that, it functions as a cheaper version of the Exalted lord version, with whom it can make a good goon squad. Can take on pretty much any flying unit and win.
**'''Khorne's Bloody Fist''': An RoR Bloodthirster who has the ability "Goreshell" which gives him extra physical resistance when fighting large targets. Odd for a Khorne unit to focus on tanking damage rather than delivering it. Be careful as the enemy will likely be throwing magical attacks against you anyway, which Goreshell will do nothing to deflect.

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

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

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

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

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

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*'''Khorne''':

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Campaign Strategies==

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

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

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

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev

2023-05-19T17:23:51Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unfortunately his campaign must have been tagged on at the last second because you lose access to the later half of kislev’s tech tree unless you capture all 3 of the major cities. And they also have a number of very helpful full unique buildings with buffs. Even having an alliance with the ice court or patriarch does not count. So unless you willing to leave the mountains and move start to kislev you actually get really screwed over. Hope to god they patch it.---- they patched it, now you can count as holding the cities as long as an ally/vassal does, but unfortunately you wont benefit from their unique buildings still.

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

*'''[[Ice Witch]]''': Magic Lord for Kislev, with the lores of Ice and Tempest. Has a bound AoE damage spell as well as a Snow Leopard summon. Can ride a horse or a bear. The Ice court training mechanic in campaign gives 3 potentially good but semi-random traits with each recruitment, these can be very strong, things like plus 8 melee attack to ice guard, or 15% less upkeep for infantry or cavalry. From a campaign standpoint these have more potential than regular boyars in terms of army buffs and cost efficiency, not to say boyars are necessarily bad.
===Heroes===
*'''Patriarch''': Kislevite warrior priest of the Great Orthodoxy. This chad rides a bear and can cast four miracles, one each for the gods Ursun, Dazh, Tor, and Salyak. These buffs affect nearby units and buff charge bonus/leadership, vigour, melee attack, and provide a heal respectively. These guys are your only source of healing so they're pretty valuable. While his mount means he's decent in melee he has low armor and like his Empire counterpart he's primarily a support character that will lose to dedicated duelists. The healing prayer option is kislevs only access to non item-based healing so you may wish to favor that. Kostaltyn's subfaction gives these 20% ward save in an army. You can definitely doomstack them. It’s very strong.

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

===Infantry===
* '''Armoured Kossars''': An armored infantry choice featuring an axe and board variant and a great weapon variant. They trade out the bow for a pistol that allows them to fire off a shot or two before combat is joined, which can help them weaken an enemy before the main engagement begins. Will be your go-to front line for much of the mid game and especially in multiplayer where they're very cost effective.
**Learn to gitgud by using Chevrons [[File:Warhammer skaven tutorial.jpg|Chevrons]].

*'''Tzar Guard''': The elite infantry line for Kislev, the bodyguards of the Tzar wearing thick snazzy fur cloaks. These guys are Kislev's only pure melee infantry. Have a sword and board and greatsword variant. If you use all the potential buffs you can stack onto ice guard I find these to become semi-obsolete in campaign, they only really have the advantage in armor and shielding compared to ice guard and that isn't usually relevant when fighting demons who bring tons of AP and few missiles.
**'''Dazh's [[Hearthguard|Hearth-Guard]]''' - Greatweapon Tzar Guard with Flaming Attacks, which helps fill that niche against Nurgle, or rather make nurgles time fighting you even more miserable than it was before. Also have some utility against Tzeentch owing to their Fire Resist. Unrelated to the Squat unit of the same name.

===Hybrid missile units===
*'''[[Kossars]]''': Bow and axe unit, early game troops which with their decent melee stats can fend for themselves to some degree unlike most other archers. Running light cavalry into these guys may cost you more horsemen than you might have initially bargained for, especially if they're the Kossar with Spears variant which actively have anti-large. They are also your cheapest infantry unit meaning in the early game and probably multiplayer they will fill the role as your front line.
**Kossars are, for better or for worse, your bread and butter unit and will see use all throughout the game, so you best get used to them and what they can do. If you've ever gone overboard with the Lothern Sea Guard and made them your entire army, then you'll know that Bowmen with spears are no substitute for actual spearmen. With By Our Blood, they're good speedbumps to prevent the enemy assault from flooding your lines, and unlike Armored Kossars, their ranged weapons can arc making them useful even after they retreat to the second line.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*'''Elemental Bear''': A massive, unbreakable bear made of ice, stone and the will of Kislev’s people. It is more is capable of throwing hands (paws?) with any greater demon. It has a breath attack to accent its melee power. These guys are slow and tough but very vulnerable to ranged fire. However their massive health pool means that if the enemy doesn't bring the tools to get rid of them they might lose from army losses before the Bear goes down.
**'''The Frozen Heart of Winter''': This RoR is mostly identical to the normal Elemental Bear but has a single use cast of "Heart of Winter" from the Lore of Ice. Unlike the regular spell, which can be targeted, this version is centered on the bear and moves along with it for its duration. The slowing effect of the spell, plus the Bear's regular frostbite attacks, means nothing in melee with it is going to get out of the AoE quickly and will eat a lot of damage. Even if you cast the spell and the Bear isn't in the best position to deal damage you can still move it--and the spell--towards better targets.
===Artillery===
*'''Little Grom''': No, they didn't kidnap Grom and put him on a diet. It's a giant ass ice mortar pulled by polar bears. Does it get any more East European than that? It's a single model artillery piece with good range and good damage, and it can take care of itself in melee as the bears pulling it get anti-infantry attacks. Appears to be channeling Grom's spirit however, as it has 'collision attacks' dealing additional attacks when colliding with enemies. Better get out of the way of the bear train coming for your ass.
==Multiplayer Strategies==
You have two big themes in your roster, aggressive cav and hybrid infantry. Compared to Empire Cav Winged Lancers and Gryphon Legion are faster, harder on the charge, but less durable, meaning they are focused way more on hit and run and not as good in grind fights. Combine that with the fact that most of your infantry double as melee and ranged troops, and you are basically a far more aggressive Empire. However, it requires a lot of finesse to pull off, as your troops, while brave, are hardly durable and will fall apart fast. You ''can'' use Little Grom to play defense, but generally you seem to be better on the attack. Once the game comes out and we have multiplayer experience we will let you know how to gain victory for the Motherland!

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

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

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': You want to focus on closing the distance here with a focus on Cavalry to ram into those ranged units to focus on those Pink Horrors and Flamers. While unlikely to win a ranged engagement, you still outrange them and can whittle down those Barriers for your Cav. Though watch out for the Screamers and Flying Cav as they can wreck your Cav and backline respectively. Don't even bother with Streltsi, that AP won't be of much use here.

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

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

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': Because you lack fire damage this is one of the rare situations where the Wood Elves can bring lots of tree spirits without fear. Because of this it'll be a little hard to anticipate their builds. If they bring Durthu and a lot of monster you'll want a kite build. If they bring lots of archers you'll want a more melee cavalry build. Horse Archers and War Sleds will probably be good picks no matter what, as will Kostaltyn.
==Campaign Mechanics and Tactics==
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===Realms of Chaos===
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It was a really hard campaign but it’s gotten a lot better with the ability to prevent rifts using defense buildings (which you should always do). If you need to enter a rift just use one in nearby enemy or friendly territory. Just for fully conquer or confederate the 3 major cities then expand out to the rest of kislev. You can expand into Norsca but that does invite attack by the 3 major demon factions, ironically it may be easier to invade the empire or mountains instead. But really you don’t need to paint the map. Campaign is easier if you take a nice 4-5 province chunk of land and play defense while doing the rifts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unfortunately it does have to be mentioned that until tier 4 you only have one practical unit. the tier 0 kossar as it's low upkeep and easy replaceability is key for your weak economy and lack of decent units. Prepare to spam one unit even harder than the tomb kings. Is it boring as fuck-yes. is it the only practical way to hold off your enemies and unit kislev before you get swarmed by everyone-yes. —- light war sleds are only tier 3 and are extremely cost effective, tzar guard are tier 3, and armored kossars are good too. It’s really not as bad as it sounds.
</div></div>
<br>
===Immortal Empires===
Right off the bat, Kislev starts under siege. Whether you're Boris, Katarin, or Kostaltyn, you will be surrounded by enemies on one side and annoying AI "friends" on the other. Expect to basically be dogpiled by declarations of war within 2 or 3 turns, see the tiny settlements of the oblast get picked off constantly by marauding armies, and for half your turns to be spent hiding in ambush stance. Depending on the difficulty level you're playing on, you may find the other Kislev factions wiped out before you're ever close to confederating them. This is especially true for AI Kostaltyn, so don't worry too much about the Supporters minigame unless you're not leading by Turn 50.

The first thing you should do is seize some defensible, profitable territory. The oblast settlements are all sacrificial; use them to delay and bait the armies of all your enemies while your legendary lord conquers some territory actually worth a damn and builds up XP. For Katarin, it can be profitable and safe to take Azhag's settlements in the World's End Mountains and secure his gold mine before he becomes a threat. Kostaltyn has a harder start because Erengrad is held by an AI Kislev faction, and you're exposed to Azazel and Norscan factions. You might have a better chance if you can cripple their armies and then sail south to Ostland or Hochland and claim some territory they won't raze. Finally, Boris is beset on all sides by daemons but you can either seize a map edge Chaos Fortress to get a strongly defensible position or you can retreat into Norsca where your early-game, non-magic attack units will do much better. If Kraka Drak gets wiped out early, as they tend to do, you can easily secure a Gem Mine to strengthen your economy and hold out until you can spam War Bears. If you're feeling confident, head south and east, into the Empire, Sylvania, and the World's Edge Mountains. Defeat Festus, Vlad, or Azhag and claim the rich resources there and secure territory that Norsca and Chaos won't be able to reach. If you want to play a purer Kislev campaign, you'll want to head northeast first and claim the icy regions of Norsca, which are green territory for your faction. Most of the rest of the north, unless you're Boris, are going to be useless to you.

In general, the early threats to Kislev will be Azazel, Clan Moulder, the Goromadny Tribe, and Wintertooth. If playing as Boris, Archaon and the Daemon Prince will join in the dogpile but they won't actually be able to attack Katarin and Kostaltyn for a long time. All these threats will make holding onto Kislev proper difficult, but if you weather the first 50 turns or so under siege you should have enough of an army to start scaring off the cowardly AI and begin your counter-offensive. The assault will also help the player confederate the minor Kislev factions holding Erengrad and Praag, assuming they're not totally wiped out when their armies are destroyed, and holding all 3 Kislev cities is critical to generating income and supporting your armies with the faction's many, many landmark buildings. A few alliances with the Empire or Dwarves will help hold territory as the AI tend to build outposts as soon as they're able, and adding their artillery to an army of Kossars or Ice Guard can be a very effective force multiplier in the mid-game, assuming their settlements haven't been raped into the Stone Age by the Vampire Counts, Azhag, or Festus.

Speaking of your foes, the only defeat traits you legitimately have a chance of getting (early to mid-game, after which you can go out trait-hunting if you wish because your empire should be secured by other armies) are Throt, Throgg and Festus, which boost your lord's stats and their army's replenishment, respectively. The other legendary lords you face have shitty traits, so don't bother keeping them alive to farm them. Finish them off as soon as you can to give Kislev breathing space. If you're Boris, killing Archaon is also really worthwhile for the Physical Resistance and bonus to the army's Melee Attack. After Kislev is secure, Wulfrik, Be'lakor, and Sigvald are also worth hunting down.

Most of Kislev's roster will be unavailable unless and until you hold the cities. Kostaltyn especially relies on kossar spam in the early- and mid-game, which doesn't mesh too well with his Patriarch-boosting abilities. Against most infantry and some cavalry-based armies, particularly Norsca, they'll do fine. Clan Moulder has to be handled delicately because monstrous infantry and mortars will absolutely destroy kossars, but kossars are cheap and easily replaced so you can wage a war of attrition and wear them down until you're able to besiege Hell Pit. One of the worst matchups in the early game will be Azhag's Bonerattlaz; if he goes full goblin his troops may rout often but kossar ammunition, and the balance of power, will be wasted on chaff. Most ork units have enough HP, armor, and shields to wade through kossar fire and get into melee with them where, while decent, they will lose. Smart tactics are absolutely necessary if you take him on, and the same goes for the Vampire Counts.

Once you can afford it, rush for light war sleds. Not only is Little Grom in the same building tree, light war sleds give Kislev armies the speed to outrun the cavalry and monsters of most of the AI factions they'll be at war with while firing on the move. When led by Frost Maidens, they can be a very cheap, very powerful army. Best of all, they only take 1 turn to recruit while Kislev's other strong units (War Bear Riders & Ice Guard) take 2 turns or more and will have higher upkeep. Kislev's horse cavalry is pretty shit; they're squishy and require cycle charging. Unless you want flavor or you're pressed for time, if you want cavalry go for War Bears. Armored Kossars are also pretty shit and can be ignored; they're weaker than Tzar Guard if you need melee infantry to hold the line, cost more than regular kossars while doing less ranged damage, and lack the Ice Guard's magical attacks.

One issue for Kislev is the Ice Court mechanic, which will limit your ability to hire mages. The special benefits of the Ice Court can be very powerful however, so you should be training as many as you can afford and hoping you get lucky. War Sled traits are among the best you can get, Ice Shard is currently (v2.1) bugged and can be cast for free if you interrupt it with a spell or ability, and Ice Guard traits will make them even deadlier. <s>Also as of the current update, Stalking Ice Witches and Frost Maidens are some of the best way to capture walled settlements as you can sneak them over the walls to cap the victory points without interference as long as you haven't attacked/dealt damage to the AI's defenders. Katarin can do the same with stalking Snow Leopards, which is about the only use for that unit in the campaign.</s>

Atamans are another great way to improve your heroes, since they can stack the hero recruit level trait as many times as that event triggers, and all their unique traits will stack with the landmark buildings of Kislev's three cities. They are vital to strengthening Kislev's economy and army, so you should aim to get a minimum of six provinces as soon as possible. Don't be afraid to trade regions via diplomacy to do so; the payoff in improved income, unit recruit rank, or discounts on building and recruitment are more than worth it.

Finally, a note on Devotion: It's good, but some rites are better than others. If you find yourself generating a lot of Devotion, rush Rites of the Land in the Kislev tech tree to unlock summonable Elemental Bears through the Rite of Dazh, which will also improve your economy. Do note, however, the more times you use a Devotion Rite, the more expensive using ANY rite becomes, and there's no upper cap. You could find yourself needing 700 devotion by the late-game for a single rite, so there is some benefit to building cathedrals even after you win the Supporters race. It's unclear if the benefits from each level of Supporters stack or if they are cumulative, so don't spend a ton of money or devotion reducing your rival's Supporter bar.
[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast

2023-05-19T17:20:26Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

This is the tactics page for the Total War: Warhammer version of the Vampire Coast.

==Why Play the Vampire Coast==
Do I really need to explain? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHh1TxryWlw This trailer should do all the explaining for me!.] OK, fine!

*You love vampires, but want something a bit different from the gothic style normally associated with them.

*Because you don't find it weird at all CA added a naval themed faction in a game with no naval battles.

*Cause you loved Pirates of the Caribbean but really wanted the bad guys to win.

*You pirated the game and find playing as pirates, even undead ones, fitting.

* You really, really like Alestorm.
===Pros===
*'''Range, Range and yet more Range''': You are one of the four [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions currently in game, and of the 3, you lean the most heavily into them. You have a gun for every type of occasion! Cheap guns, long range guns, multi shot guns, flying guns, guns on monsters, artillery, GUNS FOR EVERYONE!
*'''Monsters''': And lots of cool ones that can fill a variety of roles. You can bring sturdier crabs to help with the frontline, stealthy flankers, cheap sacrificial monsters, ones that are great from range and up close, you have a monster for every occasion.

*'''Cheap Frontline''': Zombies don't really ask for paychecks, even zombies who are actually sentient enough to talk! Because of this, you can usually bring a crap load of them and drown the enemy in bodies, then use their bodies to fill up your ranks again when the battle is over.
** Bonus for the fact that Zombie Deckhands with polearms are slightly more killy than regular zombies and get Anti-Large, making them one of the better expendable meatshields.

*'''Aquatic''': Pretty much everything has it, you're a pirate faction after all. This means you have an army that doesn't need to worry about swampy maps or ones with a lot of water because you ignore all the penalties and get some benefits in water too.
*'''Magic''': You have Lore of Vampires, which is already one of the best lores in the entire game, and can carry you throughout most games just fine. Honestly you don't need to look at their other lores because of just how goddamn strong this one is.

*'''Harassment''': You got extremely good harassing troops in fell bats and doggies, meaning going for skirmishers and artillery is something a skilled player can do really well.

*'''Armour Piercing''': Almost your entire roster deals AP damage, both ranged and in melee. Big armoured units and monsters are no challenge to you.

===Cons===
*'''Weakness to Ranged''': While you love to sit back and shoot the enemies to pieces, you REALLY hate it when the enemy is capable of shooting back. Downside of [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] is then they don't have much range, so if the enemy shoots first you are at a disadvantage. Combine this with the fact that your units either have low armour, low model count, or both, and NOTHING in your army has a missile block chance, and missiles can be devastating. Ironically, archer spam is one of the better ways to fight this [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] army.

*'''Immobility''': You don't have it as bad as the Dwarfs, but you're pretty slow. No cav or inexpensive monsters and a reliance of guns and artillery means you will not be moving much in your average game.

*'''Weak Frontline''': There's a reason your frontline is so cheap, and it's that they are garbage in a fight. They get decimated by most tier-one infantry and are meant to hold, not to kill. Even Depth Guard aren't really that cost effective after all the nerfs that went their way, so expect your guns and monsters to carry.

*'''Everyone Needs to do their Job:''' Unlike more beginner-friendly and more so then the empire, VC units heavily rely on every unit fighting against its appropriate matchup, or else everyone dies. There are strong synergy but if that gun bunker cracks it's all over. Need Deckheands and Prometheans need hold the enemy and absorb the damage, Your blender troops need to kill what's caught in the holding line, and your guns need to kill threats like other guns and monsters before they kill your bunker. If someone slips up, the game may be over.
===Universal traits===
*'''Undead''': Almost any unit you have is undead. Who would have guessed. There are just two exceptions: The Sartosan Pirates and Sartosan Free Company that are exclusive to Aranessa Saltspite, and Aranessa herself.

*'''Aquatic''': Being the only truly maritime faction means that every unit is Aquatic; they fight better in watery areas, such as puddles and swamps.

*'''Extra Powder''': A special rule for all of your ranged units that gives you 30% more damage when you're above 80% of your ammo. This makes your opening salvo your most effective, and goes a long way toward softening up enemy units right off the bat. It's also the reason the Gunnery Wight is such an essential hero: his ability to restore lost ammo can keep your units above the threshold for more high-powered shooting.

*'''Loyalty''': Your Lords aside from Legendary ones have the same Loyalty mechanic as Dark Elves and Skaven do, so be cautious when disbanding units and picking targets.

*'''Pirate Fleet''': Your Legendary Lords work like the Horde Factions of the game do; meaning that you can accumulate Population Surplus on your LL armies and build certain buildings directly on your army, essentially making them a mobile city with 10 slots. This can be used in a variety of ways, but essentially allow your main army to act much more independently than other factions armies do because they aren't as reliant on the settlements and territory your faction holds.

*'''Infamy''': Maxing out your Infamy is your main campaign goal, this is achieved by killing enemy armies, razing and sacking settlements and stomping the competition (other Pirate Factions and the rogue pirate armies that roam the seas). In addition to that, increasing Infamy and beating the miniboss armies that come your way, Infamy also gives you Verses of the Lost Sea Shanty, powerful buffs for your entire army. Some technologies also cost Infamy.

*'''Pirate Coves''': you can set up small outposts in enemy settlements after successfully attacking them or with heroes. Said outposts can either spread vampiric corruption or siphon money out of the enemy's coffers into yours. Although the latter building is bugged since the last WH2 update and you should refrain from using it because it'll never make back its exorbitant costs.
==Unit Roster==
===Lords===
*'''[[Luthor Harkon]] (The Awakened) ''': [[Meme|The worst Vampire you'll ever hear of, but will still do so nonetheless]]. Ol' Arch Commodore Luthor commands the main part of the Vampire Coast and ironically spends most of his time trying to hold onto his little fiefdom in northeast Lustria. The Lizardmen hate your guts with your innate diplomatic malus against them but with clever planning you can easily ally with the Skaven down south and exterminate the lizards. You are the premier Vampire Coast faction but you'll spend more time fighting on land than at sea which is... odd. This is mostly due to the fact you're hemmed in at sea from both north and east by another two Vampire Coast main factions, and you do not want to have to fight them that early...
*:Luthor on the battlefield is a hybrid combat lord who has no Lores of Magic to command at the beginning of the game, which is unusual for an vampire lord. This is due to his fractured mind that schizophrenically switches from personality to personality, changing his battlefield stats and abilities at a whim. One minute you're ripping through a hapless unit of Saurus Warriors as the Mad and the next you're running away in terror as his Coward personality takes over. Later on in the campaign you will be able to unlock the Lore of Deeps for him, which will improve his usefulness. Also notable in multiplayer for being your only mobile lord pick with his terrorgheist mount.

*'''[[Count Noctilus]] ([[Dreadfleet]])''': The arch-nemesis of Captain Roth returns to wreak terror across the Great Ocean. Starting smack in the middle of the seas in the Galleon's Graveyard your starting position is nearly unassailable and is the perfect lair for you to strike out at targets of opportunity. Noctilus is the true star of the Vampire Coast for one very simple reason - he buffs and makes cheaper the best unit the roster, the mighty Necrofex Colossi. Despite your promising prospects in the lategame it can get a little difficult to find suitable targets early on without bringing down the full might of their alliances down on you.

*:Count Noctilus is the grand admiral that leads from the front with his Anti-Large AP pike and is arguably a contender for the cheesiest doomstack army as Noctilus himself can mount a Necrofex Colossus to lead nineteen other Colossi in an unstoppable tide of cannonball rape. Oh, did we mention he also has access to the Lore of Vampires and Shadow? No? Well he does, to add to his already insane bevy of options for himself and his army. If you're not building or planning to build Necrofex for Noctilus, you're doing it wrong.

*'''[[Aranessa Saltspite]]''': Aranessa holds the dubious honour of being the only Vampire Coast LL with no access to spellcasting (but makes up for it with a really, really great backstory). She herself is a bit in an odd niche, being a rather flimsy single-target damage dealer that has a ton of trick up her sleeve. What makes her particularly interesing is her netting ability that keeps any unit you choose from going anywhere. In combat she is... alright. Nothing all that groundbreaking and she will get her ass handed to her by almost any dedicated combat lord.
*:Aranessa leads the '''[[Pirates of Sartosa]]''', located on not-Sicily in the city of the same name. She has unique access to the only two mortal units of the Vampire Coast roster which gives her an edge over the other VC factions in the early game. She plays largely the most like a true pirate faction; hitting targets of opportunity, establishing pirate covens and raiding the coast line of Ulthuan.

*'''[[Cylostra Direfin]]''': Clyostra is currently the only ethereal lord in the game. Does it make her as tough as Cairn Wraiths or Hexwraiths? You wish. She's your standard caster LL, with good access to the Lore of the Deeps. She holds up fairly well in combat, and can even take a Rotting Leviathan as mount. However, she comes with some cool boons that make her a force in her own right. She starts with a cursed Bretonnian Paladin that has the stats of a regular Paladin except that he is Ethereal and pretty much unstoppable early on. She can also summon Ethereal Grail Knights. Yes, you read that right. Summoned. Etheral. Fucking. Grail Knights.
*:Unfortunately, her faction has by far the hardest start of any of the Vampire Coast Factions. She leads '''The Drowned''' on the small peninsula in the isthmus of Lustria, smacked in the middle between Morathi and Lord Mazdamundi. Unlike the other three VC factions, your initial situation is rather peculiar and you have to build a resonably good basis in Lustria before you can even think of raiding your enemies.

*'''[[Vampire Fleet Admiral]]''': There is no sexism in undeath, you can either get a halberd wielding dude Admiral or a Cutlass and Pistol wielding lady Admiral. They make up for being the sole generic Lord option for your faction by being pretty good on their own; even more so if you put them on a rotting Promethean. Combined with their extremely potent spellcasting with options from the three best Lores in the game they make for terrifying opponents.

===Heroes===
*'''[[Vampire Fleet Captain]] (Vampires, Deep, Death)''': In contrast to your other heroes, the vampire captain is obtained by normal expansion, meaning you can easily field plenty of them. While they are alright in melee, they are best used to get more access to the Lore of Vampires to assist your Lords (especially the Legendary Lords that lack spellcasting ability). In the campaign, they have the unique ability to create pirate coves as a hero action. The ability is quite expensive, and the price goes up for each cove you have, but it can be extremely useful to get a cove in a port without having to siege the settlement.- can choose ap anti-large or ranged hybrid. I generally recommend the anti large because the ranged output is quite weak but personal preference. Can mount a giant crab which I always recommend.

*'''[[Mournghul|Mournghul Haunter]]''': The Mournghul Haunter is your best (arguably your only) melee hero. Although it doesn't bring nearly the utility that the other two can provide, the Haunter is still useful as a beatstick. Deceptively fast with vanguard deployment and stalk, as well as sporting a very high melee defense stat and regeneration, the Haunter works best to intercept and hold enemy lords/heroes while the rest of the army gets in position to finish them off. His chilling aura debuff is great for keeping his target locked in combat, and his regeneration allows him to stay in the fight even against tougher foes. Just don't send him in unsupported; he doesn't do enough damage to win most fights on his own. Also take in mind that while he's a hero, he's got a much larger model, meaning about 12 infantry models can attack him at once, versus the 4-5 normal foot heroes tank. Absolutely hilarious in a nineteen model doomstack.

*'''[[Gunnery Wight]]''': By far the best support hero you have on offer, despite his outlook being very deceiving. Sharing the statline, combat role and unit profile of a Dwarfen Master Engineer (and most of their passives), Gunnery Wights are best utilized as your backline artillery support unit. The Black Powder mechanic gives you tremendous bonuses when your units have a lot of ammo left and Gunnery Wights most crucial ability is theirs to replenish ammunition to any ranged unit you have on the field, as well as giving some nice passive bonuses for ranged units and some AoE grenade abilities to keep faster units away from your precious cannons. So, do they have a downside? Quite frankly, in the campaign, you will never have enough of them, since the only way to increase your hero cap isn't though teching up or expanding - but exclusively through your pirate coves. Random events occasionally can give you one for free, but this is just a very small remedy for the problem that the supply is short and the demand very, very high.

*'''[[Damned Bretonnian Paladin]]''' (Cylostra Direfin only): An ethereal Bretonnian paladin unique to Cylostria Direfin's army. Don't kid yourself, this guy is nowhere near as powerful as the [[Green Knight|other ghostly paladin]], but he is a welcome addition to an army in need of fast moving heroes. He's a decent duelist hero with enough melee power to make up for Cylostria's subpar fighting abilities (until she gets her rotting leviathan mount).

===Infantry===
*'''[[Zombie Pirate Deckhand|Zombie Deckhand Mob]] (Regular, Polearms)''': Your fodder. They have next to no offensive capabilities but make up for it by being undead and having a tremendous body count of 160 models on large settings. Sure they won't kill much, but that's not their job, they perform the job of a meatshield really well and are cheap. Try to avoid the dual-sword variety; the added defenses of the polearm type make them a better meatshield and they have actual ap which is rare for chaff, and if you want damage (for whatever reason) the pistol gunnery mob is almost as good in melee and brings a shooting attack. Still raise dead mostly gives the regular so only use them if you must. otherwise you almost always want polearms.
**'''The Tide of Skjold''' (RoR): Upgraded sword-zombies with frenzy and perfect vigor while above 50% morale. Again, dealing damage isn't really what you want these guys for, bit if you have a little extra money in the budget go for it.

*'''[[Zombie Pirate Gunner|Zombie Gunnery Mob]] (Pistols, Bombs, Handguns, Handcannons)''': The mainstay of your armies until the late game. These are the guys your Deckhands are supposed to keep the enemies away from. Their weapons are generally a bit below average as far as missile damage is concerned - until you realize that you have 120 of them in a single unit and good range on top of that. They are excellent missile infantry for their cost and the bread and butter of your faction. They come in four varieties. The Pistol Variant has low range but can handle itself well enough in melee. Bombers inflict fire damage at the cost of range (and being somewhat finicky to use). Handguns are basically a big blob of Imperial Handgunners and work pretty much the same, large Range, Armour Piercing. Handcannons on the other hand work a bit more like shotguns. They have a shorter range than Handguns, but blast anything that comes into their range and work the best up close, where their low accuracy doesn't hold them back as much. Always turn skirmish mode off for them. They're too slow to get away from melee combat anyway and work good enough as fodder if someone manages to catch them.

**'''The Black Spot''' (RoR): Handgunners with polearms, giving them decent melee defense and anti-large damage. Strictly better than the normal handgunners and the normal polearm mobs, but you are paying extra for a unit that can only do one of those two roles at once.
*'''[[Deck Gunner]]s''': Serious firepower for the lategame. They share a lot of similarities with Skaven Weapon teams. They offer tremendous firepower in exchange for a low unit count, but their high damage, AP and Shieldbreaking missiles make short work of nearly anything that get thrown in their general vicinity. also great range.
**'''Shadewraith Gunners''' (RoR): [[awesome|Ethereal deck gunners with magic attacks]]. The only downside (if you can call it that) is that they trade Shieldbreaking for a leadership debuff for whatever they're shooting at, so they work best blasting an enemy that's pinned in melee to maximize your fear effects.

*'''[[Depth Guard]] (Axes, Polearms)''': Sadly, not as great as they used to be. These are your elite line breakers, low model count, but insane melee capabilities and regenerating on top of that. Depth Guard with Polearms in particular make mincemeat of all Cavalry that is stupid or unfortunate enough to just look at them wrong. As always ap is so important that the polearm version outperforms the axe variant against almost everything you would actually care about. Still expensive and fragile but very effective especially with campaign skill buffs and magic support. You can pull off a frontline of polearms even if you want to.
In immortal empires these boys have finally got a worthy buff, adding ACTUAL ANTI-INFANTRY bonuses to their axes making them capable of shredding some of the better infantry in the game. More importantly, they had their health regen in melee doubled and can outheal damage taken when fighting fodder or when their formation is positioned so only a few models are actively taking damage.
**'''The Bloody Reaver Deck Guard''' (RoR): Polearm depthguard with the ability to temporarily gain 44% physical resistance, making them the best heavy tanking infantry you've got.

*'''[[Sartosan Pirates]]''': Mixing it up are non-undead infantry with a pair of cutlasses for some early game DPS and movement speed. Running out of morale makes them rout, which will affect the morale of undead units as well. They have perfect vigor while the leadership is high, but the ability is much more noticeable on the free company.

*'''Sartosan Free Company''': Like the Empire free company but better because these ones have perfect vigor as long as their leadership is above half. Only Aranessa can recruit these guys that must have huge balls or mushy brains to be seen siding with the undead. Due to the Vampire Coast's preference for gunlines that can also hold their ground, these guys often ironically perform your foot skirmishing role as they have considerably more speed. Running out of morale makes them rout, which will affect the morale of undead units as well.

*'''[[Syreen]]s''': Damned spirits of the deep shanking unfortunate living sailors since forever. Ethereal infantry with decent melee stats, their ability to shrug off normal frontline damage is not to be denied but they will die to a single breath or vortex. Tricky to use effectively and for the most part avoided in army compositions. That said, they can be effective against factions that don't have easy access to spells or magic damage, like dwarfs.
===Monsters, Flying Units & Cavalry===
*'''[[Bloated Corpse]]''': A one-use suicide unit that walks up to enemies and then blows up that is in general a mixed bag. On the one hand exchanging a cheap ass disposable unit that you often can get instantly with Raise Dead to delete a unit of Chaos Knights or Black Orcs is satisfying and useful in a pinch. On the other hand they can also delete your guys and enemy ranged forces will focus fire them into premature detonation if you let them.

*'''[[Deck Dropper]]s (Pistols, Handguns, Bombs)''': These are basically flying Gunnery Mobs with the glaring weakness that their unit count is miniscule and the survivability really bad. They can have a niche as skirmish units to distract fat flying monsters like Dragons or Terradon Riders, but their use outside of this niche is fairly limited and a unit of Gunnery Zombies does their job a lot better at this than they do. If you really want to use them, the bombers are the best choice; the low range and awkward shooting arc are both solved by the superior speed and height of the deck droppers.
**'''Saltlord Scuttlers''' (RoR): The best deck-droppers by far and often the only ones worth taking. Their bombs sunder enemy armour, making them a great surgical tool for swooping in and weakening a specific enemy.

*'''[[Animated Hulk|Animated Husks]]''': Fat blobs with Frenzy. That's basically it. They are your beefy Monstrous Infantry, and provide you with much needed early AP damage, but their usefulness tanks once dedicated Infantry killers or units with bonuses against large arrive on the scene.

*'''[[Maneaters]]''': That's right, Aranessa can recruit ogres at tier 3 ports on the Immortal Empires campaign map. This makes sense because they have [[Hats|Pirate Hats]]. While mobile monstrous infantry is a welcome addition to the coast's sluggish roster, she unfortunately only gets vanilla Maneaters, not ogre pistols, ironfist, or great weapon variants. Hopefully she'll get pistol Maneaters in a future patch, they would work well with the pirate + gunpowder themes of the Vampire Coast. Until then, you'll just have to settle for allying with Skragg and hiring ogres from him instead.

*'''[[Mourngul|Mournghuls]]''': These things are really nice and work best as a substitute for cavalry. Vanguard deployment means they can chase off enemy skirmishers quickly and they get regeneration as long as they are in melee. Sadly, their lack of armour makes them rather fragile, but they a solid unit throughout the midgame.
**'''Night Terrors''' (RoR): Mournguls with terror and rampage. Terror is nice, but rampage is hard to justify on such a fragile unit. And it's not like you don't have other units that cause terror.

*'''[[Rotting Promethean]]s''': If you need a point to not budge, these are your choice. They tank damage like crazy and dish out good AP damage on their own. They are not very fast, but their durability makes up for that.

*'''Rotting Promethean Gunners''': It's Rotting Prometheans with two Handcannoneers on top. Surprisingly durable, and the additional AP damage from its riders works wonders. The Gunners will keep firing even when they are melee and shred most foot units except the most elite ones (Think Phoenix Guard or Chosen) to pieces in quick order. Combine this with their obscene armour value of 120 and you got your dedicated frontline melee unit. these DO NOT benefit from campaign boosts which specify the regular version, which means they tend to be much less durable than the basic version. likely not worth the trade off in campaign.
**'''The Lamprey's Revenge''' (RoR): Rotten Promethean gunnery mobs with regeneration, just in case the normal variety wasn't tanky enough for you. With the right magic support this unit can hold the line against almost anything.

*'''[[Rotting Leviathan]]''': Your dedicated frontline melee monster, and a really good one to boot. It has everything you could ask for: Armour, AP damage, huge unit size and looks great on top of that. It's very slow and any opponent worth his two cents will use Anti-Large infantry or AP missiles against it; however, drawing fire away from your main force is again a quality in itself, don't you think?
*'''[[Necrofex Colossus]]''': The big things from the trailer. And wow, they are not messing around. Necrofexes can altogether replace your artillery by the time they become available. They fire 3 cannon balls with good accuracy over massive distances and can hold their ground really good in melee. Get them. There is no excuse. GET THEM.
**'''The Gallows Giant''' (RoR): A necrofex colossus that trades the three cannons for a [[awesome|goddamn flamethrower]], allowing it to torch swaths of enemy units all at once. It should be noted that the Gallows Giant is shorter range than other Necrofex Colossi, cementing it's role as a frontline brawler.

*'''[[Fell Bat]]s''': Your old friends from the Vampire Counts, it's exactly the same unit. Really fast, really squishy, really good at chasing off the enemy backline or annoying flying monsters.

*'''[[Scurvy Dog]]s''': They differ very little from Chaos Wardogs or Vampire Counts Wolves. Fast and flimsy, these undead pups are ideal for tying down opposing skirmishers or chasing routing units off the field.

*'''[[Terrorgheist|Deathshriek Terrorgheist]]''': Now there's a letdown one didn't expect, but this is more due to how amazing the other monsters in the Vampire Coast roster is. The Terrorgheist isn't really that spectacular, needs a lot of babysitting and can't hold itself up against Dragons and the like - you're better off skipping it, it performs too badly for its exorbitant price tag.
===Artillery===
*'''[[Mortar]]s''': Inaccurate as hell, but will absolutely wreck infantry regiments if a proper shot lands. Due to the Extra Powder mechanic these guys are best employed dealing with elite infantry in the opening stages of a battle as the extra damage will definitely help. Good for splatting archers.

*'''[[Carronade]]s''': Great cannons hauled up from the deep and put into use under an undead crew. Flat arc-like nearly every other cannon in the game, excellent for mulching cavalry and monsters at range.

*'''[[Queen Bess]]''': Go home Hellcannons, the new FUCK HUEG howitzer on the block is here and boy is she a beauty. Has really bad reload speed but that won't matter when an entire unit crumbles in one shot from this mammoth of an artillery piece. Extra Powder gives even more cheese to this dripping-wet curd-maker, letting you select which units to make completely irrelevant from the very start of the battle. She works best to punish infantry blobs (especially if not given constant evasive micro) but struggles to hit fast-moving skirmish targets. Be careful in Multiplayer matches, this cannon is exceptionally vulnerable to getting sniped by opposing artillery and can very easily be gimped early in the battle if unattended. Protip: Combined with the Gunnery Wight passive abilities, Extra Powder and Spiteful Shot from the Lore of the Deep transforms her shots into pinpoint-accurate cruise missiles against infantry or anything that stands still.
==General Battle Strategies==
You are the [[Tau]] of Total War Warhammer. Sure you will fall apart extremely fast if the enemy can get into melee with you, but the hard part is going to be surviving long enough to get there in the first place. Coast have been the kings of the competitive meta ever since they came out... until their nerfs finally caught up with them and now they're considered decent but not unbeatable. There are plenty of people who pick up this faction for their old reputation only for it to turn out they can't actually protect a gunline to save their lives. However, a GOOD Coast player can be one of the most frustrating things to fight in the game, and here's how you become that:

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

*'''Bretonnia''': Going against Bretonnians is a difficult one. Their Knights will run circles around you and there is little you can do about it. Prepare to get flanked a lot and your artillery being pretty much worthless. That being said: Their Peasants are no match for your melee troops, even Deckhands hold up okay-ish against them. While the Knights are their biggest advantage, their flying cavalry is no match against permanent gunfire and you got some decent flying options of your own against them. The few times Terrorgheists can shine in your roster is neutralizing big flying threats like Royal Hippogryph Knights and Louen Leoncoeur. Their Knights have also no real answer to your big monsters. Hold your ground, force your opponents into chokepoints and you'll out on top.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarfs| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': You are going to have a bad time. You know how Queen Bess is pretty cool, right? Well these guys can bring three of them if they feel like or slap one on an unbreakable train engine. Your slow and plodding zombies are going to get obliterated. Depth Guard won't fare much better, as Chaos Dwarfs excel at killing elite infantry. Your best hope is to rush them, something you're not normally the best at but it is something you can do. Bats, dogs, Deck Droppers, Mournguls (both the Haunters and the regular kind), Syreens, anything that can Vanguard deploy or move relatively fast. If you're going to bring Deckhands or Depth Guard go for the polearms, they're the only things that will slow down the dual weapon Bull Centaurs and the K'daai. Your best artillery choice is probably the Necrofex as Chaos Dwarf artillery is very good at wiping out infantry but not as good at focusing down big monsters. Plus you'll outrange the Blunderbusses with a Necrofex, meaning they'll have to dedicate more elite resources to bring down your shipwreck mecha while your Mournguls creep up on their Magma Cannons. Do 'not' bring the Gallows Giant, Chaos Dwarfs laugh at fire damage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

*'''Kislev''':

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

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

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

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

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''':

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

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

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

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

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

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

*'''Daemons of Chaos''':

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

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

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings

2023-05-19T17:13:19Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the [[Tomb Kings]].

==Why Play the Tomb Kings==
* Do you want to play an undead faction which is not totally villainous?
* You want to play an undead faction that is also blingy as fuck?
* Because you want to play not Egyptians and roll over everyone with chariots.
* Do you wish to be SERVED!?

===Pros===
*'''Constructs''': The reason you play them in the first place. Tomb Kings have among some of the best monsters in the entire game. Not only do they all have incredible armour values, but you have a monster that can fill any role that you need it to. From infantry killing power to ranged damage to blob destroyers to monster slayers, you have a construct that can do anything you need your army to do.

*'''Ranged''': You aren't the Vampire Coast, but you can dish out some good damage from ranged. Ushabti Great Bows shred anything they fire against and a Casket of Souls can destroy blobs on infantry that are giving you troubles. On the lower end of the price spectrum, skeleton archers + horse archers are good budget options if you want ranged power without breaking the bank.

*'''Undead''': You get all the perks of being an undead faction. Your units are unbreakable, all cause at least fear, and many cause terror, and they are generally cheap, allowing you to swarm the field with spooky skeletons.

*'''Mobility''': Chariots, light cav, and some quick monsters mean you can be an elusive and fast faction. Sure, you won't outpace the likes of the wood elves or beastmen but you can run circles around many of your opponents and are the best of the three undead factions at the kite game.

*'''Realm of Souls''': Your main battle ability gives you healing as you take damage, allowing you to stay in the fight. It will also give you a free Ushabti summon to use when you fill the bar all the way, which you can use to swing any fight on the battlefield in your favor. In the third game realm of souls will fill twice but Ushabti remain one use only.

*'''Badass Soundtrack''': Your faction music is among the best in the game. Just look up ''I do not serve'' and ''City of Kings'' on YouTube and be blown away.

===Cons===
*'''Poor Infantry''': You are not an infantry faction, and will lose in that department unless you are fighting the worst of the worst when it comes to foot troops. Even Tomb Guard, your "elites" lose to a lot of other mid-tier infantry, so expect your constructs to do the heavy lifting.

*'''Lack of Flying''': All you got is Carrion and they're... Subpar. Don't expect to have control of the skies when bringing the boney boys.

*'''Subpar Healing''': You got ''some'' options in the form of Lore of Nehekhara and The Realm of Souls, but it won't allow you to keep up with vampire healing or anyone who brings the lore of life and Realm of Souls won't work on constructs. You have the hardest time bringing troops back out of all the undead factions so casualties actually mean something here.

*'''Flammable''': If your opponent has fire damage or the Lore of Fire, expect them to bring it. All your lords are weak to it and Lore of Fire is great at melting your infantry.

*'''DLC Faction''': While the Tomb Kings, perhaps ironically, have held up rather well while former DLC factions (like the Chaos Warriors) have aged like milk in the sun, the Tomb Kings are still fully locked behind an extra paywall to play. It's hardly the worst thing to say about a faction, but players on a strict budget will really need to weigh their options before committing to the Tomb Kings.
[[Category:Total Warhammer]]

==Legendary Lords and Subfactions==
*'''Settra the Imperishable (Khemri):''' The one true big bone pimp daddy is back to lead the Tomb Kings to glory once more. Settra has an excellent start location in the northern desert part of the Southlands with easy allies to your south and east with easy pickings from the Greenskins towards the northeast. You are all about growth and expanding Nehekhara as much as possible, curb-stomping any foolish Bretonnian or rival Tomb King that dares interrupt your conquest. Settra is among the easiest campaigns in the game due to his good growth and great public order bonuses, allowing you to keep expanding for longer.
:: Settra on the battlefield is a supercharged Tomb King who can acquit himself well in battle but is more suited towards buffing your army or wrecking your opponent's face with his mounts. You may take him on the Khemrian Warsphinxes that all Tomb Kings can ride but he is better on his pimped-out ride the Chariot of the Gods, which has so much mass it's almost impossible to stop. He can also buff Tomb Guard up to insane levels and can actually make them decent at fighting other elite infantry. Just don't expect him to solo Kholek Suneater on his own, he's not cut out for that here.

*'''High Queen Khalida (Court of Lybaras):''' The queen of Lybaras has risen to take her place on the Asp Throne but somehow ends up taking a road trip to the southern edge of Lustria. You're surrounded by Lizardmen in the beginning who will absolutely wreck your early skeletons with ease, so abusing Khalida's archer buffs is a must. Fighting through Lustria will be a slog due to unfavorable terrain for your preferred units but if you're diligent with your diplomacy you can get Teclis or maybe even the Skaven to ally with you. You have limited routes to expand but your archer game is godlike and with time, you'll be able to break out of the position.

:: Khalida herself is billed as a duellist Lord but her animations and statline hinder her ability to perform that role. Instead, you should let her hang back with the archers and give them all poison to pincushion anything that gets close to death, and counter-charge anything that gets close to your homies. You can take her on a Necroserpent which will make her more mobile and let you keep up with her buffed Necropolis Knights (if you get that far).

*'''Grand Hierophant Khatep (Exiles of Nehek):''' Having taken his oath of exile a little too seriously, Khatep finds himself on the west coast of Naggarond in some desperate quest to glean forbidden knowledge from the Dark Elf locals. Khatep's faction is by far the most magic-intense and if his day job doesn't convince of that then the massive Hierotitan that he begins with should. You have good tolerances to the terrain there unlike the other Tomb Kings factions but you will have to rely on your magic more to overcome the horrible quality of your troops compared to the Dark Elves. You will most likely have a small realm until you can tech up to your elite units but luckily for you there might just be enough contenders for Malekith's attention to the east to let you grow properly.

:: Khatep is one of the two caster lords the Tomb Kings have and like most caster lords he's squishy as fuck. Comes with a bound Vortex spell from the start (Sandstorm, which he can use three times per battle). Take him on a skeletal horse to improve his mobility but you may also elect to put him on a Casket of Souls, which curiously enough makes him the only artillery lord in the game. Due to the slow speed of the Tomb Kings forces, you should try to let the enemy come to you - that way you can fuck them up with your buffed casters better.

*'''Arkhan the Black (Followers of Nagash):''' The black sheep of the Tomb Kings, Arkhan the Black returns to Nehekhara to find his big daddy Nagash only to be slapped down by Settra by turn 50. His faction starts on the western coast of the Southlands surrounded by the Bretonnian crusade factions, Dwarfs in the mountains, and sneaky Skaven to the southeast. The upside of your faction is that you have additional limited access to the Vampire Counts roster to give you some proper fast troops like Dire Wolves and Hexwraiths. You also have diplomatic bonuses to other Vampire Counts factions in the game but that hardly matters when they're getting massacred by Settra before you can even get to them.

:: Arkhan is the other caster lord of the Tomb Kings but unlike Khatep he can actually dish out a beating with his sword. He gets the Lore of Death from the start which will greatly aid your battles with the Bretonnians and later the Dwarfs. He also has access to his own unique Skeleton Chariot mount that ignores terrain. All these assets make Arkhan a versatile lord with no real downsides, but no real upsides either.

==Units==
===Generic Lords===
*'''[[Tomb King]]:''' The only generic Lord the Tomb Kings have, which sounds disappointing but is somewhat alleviated by the fact you can get unique custom vanilla Tomb Kings via your research tree. Nevertheless, the average Tomb King is a mediocre combat lord that exists to buff your up army and little else. However, once you unlock their Warsphinx mount they become true terrors on the battlefield, able to take out almost any infantry blob by the simple action of walking through them. Just don't let them die and you'll be fine.

===Heroes===
*'''[[Tomb Prince]]:''' Your combat-oriented hero, and a solid one at that. Good close combat stats accompanied with the usual FUCK HEUG shield that all Tomb Kings warriors wield. Can be taken on a horse or a chariot.

*'''[[Liche Priest]]:''' Your basic caster hero, and in the lens of how the Tomb Kings work, bloody important at every stage of the game. May be taken with the Lores of Light, Death, Nehekhara, and Shadow, the last of which is unlocked by acquiring the appropriate Book of Nagash. ALWAYS take them on a horse, helps with their mobility greatly. As for which Lore to take, if in doubt take Light, but tailor your choice depending on your potential adversary. Nehekhara Lore is exclusive to Tomb Kings and is very useful to them as a whole.

*'''[[Necrotect]]:''' Even if you only have a single Construct in your army, take this hero. No exceptions. Your Necrotects heal and buff them, which will be key to getting the most of your stony boys. Use it as a combat unit once it runs out of healing. On a chariot he's a better combat unit than a Tomb Prince as Necrotects are anti-infantry, which is also what you'll be using chariots against.

===Infantry Units===
*'''[[Skeleton Warrior]]s:''' Your basic infantry. Due to the mechanics of the Tomb Kings, all your units have no recruitment cost or upkeep but come with unit caps and slow acquisition to temper your growth. Not these guys. You can recruit an unlimited number of these guys from any settlement at any level. Does that make them good? Sure. Should you use these guys? Hell no. Instead, you should be using...

*'''[[Skeleton Spearmen]]:''' These guys. The basic Tomb Kings infantry is there to hold the line for as long as possible and that added Melee Defense from being spears will keep these guys in the fight longer. An odd quirk is that due to their massive shields they have some of the best missile resistances in the game for their tier.
**'''King Nekhesh's Scorpion Legion (ROR):''' Despite only gaining Poison the Scorpion Legion are one of the more popular Tomb Kings RoRs due to their ability to sandbag big enemies extremely well while your monster snipers fire over their bony heads.

*'''[[Nehekhara Warrior]]s:''' Your mid-tier infantry and the guys who are actually meant to be dealing damage. Unfortunately due to their lack of shields, they get shot up easily. Try to avoid using these guys if possible - if you can't, use them to counterattack anything that is pressuring your frontline.
**'''Usirian's Legion of the Netherworld (LoL):''' Fixes the low armor problem by giving them Ethereal, making them a fairly durable frontline and damage-dealing unit in the early campaign. Of course, that makes them super vulnerable against vortex spells, but Tomb Kings infantry will suffer all the same so there isn't much difference.

*'''[[Tomb Guard]]:''' Your real elite infantry, but they suffer from low armor values that greatly holds them back from being a true frontline. They can easily mulch mid-tier infantry from most factions but will fail hard against real elite infantry.
**'''The Khepra Guard (ROR):''' A mix between Nehekharan Warriors and Tomb Guard, creating a unit that's good on the offense as they are on the defense. They do lose out on shields so try to keep them away from missile fire.

*'''Tomb Guard (Halberds):''' Previous unit but arguably more useful and important. They have Armor-Piercing and Bonus vs. Large plus the characteristic tough melee defense the Tomb Kings infantry have. Again let down by low armor but can fuck up any monster or cavalry unit if given the chance.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''[[Skeleton Archer]]s:''' Your only choice for foot archers and while they are subject to unit caps you'll get boatloads of these guys from merely having the basic barracks buildings constructed. Decent range but anaemic damage - no Armor-Piercing means they will have to rely on sheer weight of fire and caster buffs to kill anything.
**'''Blessed Legion of Phakth (ROR):''' Extra range and Armor-Sundering. They can often be the point men for the rest of your archers so that they can snipe key targets off the field in short order. Put Khalida near them for truly ridiculous levels of debuffing archer fire.

===Cavalry===
*'''[[Skeleton Horsemen]]:''' Fast, poor armor and easily spammable. Despite their availability, they're not all that useful aside from long flanking maneuvers to threaten enemy artillery.

*'''Skeleton Horsemen Archers:''' Actually useful mounted skirmishers that have exactly the same range as your foot archers but a much lower model count. A good pair of these can easily buy more time for your artillery and ranged units to shoot at the enemy.

*'''[[Nehekhara Horsemen]]:''' Your proper cavalry, but due to having swords excel more at diving into the rear of a unit and staying there to butcher the enemy than cycle-charging to victory. A niche unit that can potentially cause headaches for your opponents but their average defence can cause problems for you too.
**'''Storm Riders of Khsar (LoL):''' Like Tomb Guard on horses. Much stronger melee stats combined with the great speed that Tomb Kings light cavalry have.

*'''[[Necropolis Knight]]s:''' Monstrous cavalry has never looked so beautiful. Armor-Piercing and Poison, count as constructs and have the high armor that comes with being constructs. The only downside is their relative slowness compared to other heavy cavalry counterparts.
**'''Venom Knights of Asaph (LoL):''' As if these serpentine juggernauts needed to be any stronger, this version of the Tomb Kings heavy cavalry punches harder to make your tomb-robbing enemies pay dearly.

*'''[[Necropolis Knight]]s (Halberds):''' Heavy lancers in all but name, excel at deterring monsters and another cavalry from getting anywhere near. They do lose their shields so be aware of missiles.

===Chariots===
*'''[[Skeleton Chariot]]:''' The signature unit of the Tomb Kings, and your stand-ins for shock cavalry. Despite their prominence to the Tomb Kings they are considerably fragile which makes cycle-charging extremely important for getting the most use out of them.

*'''Skeleton Archer Chariot:''' See the previous unit, except now with some light skirmishing ability. Keep in mind chariots have difficulty maneuvering around quickly so in some cases it may be better to get Skeleton Horse Archers for easier micro.

===Construct Infantry===
*'''[[Ushabti]]:''' Your basic constructs and your main assault troops. High armor, decent damage, once again keep those Necrotects nearby to keep them in tip-top shape. Retain their value well into the midgame and are fairly mobile.

*'''Ushabti (Great Bow):''' Ushabti with big fuckoff bows that act as the Tomb Kings' idea of self-propelled artillery. Very mobile, strong missile damage with low number of shots that excels at sniping cavalry at very long range and making mincemeat out of monsters. Can also fight decently in melee if required.
**'''Chosen of the Gods: (ROR)''' Before the Skaven beat them with their mortars of certain doom, the Tomb Kings had the best light artillery in the game in the form of these guys, whose attacks are transformed into AP cluster bombs that punch right through shields to eviscerate enemy infantry.

*'''[[Sepulchral Stalker]]s:''' Excellent monster-hunters with a short-range AP magical attack that can soften up monsters and gib cavalry before they close in, not that they'll want to because the huge halberds these monsters carry will carve them up in short order. Fragile against regular infantry and missiles, but thankfully they have Stalk and Vanguard so it's easy to keep them hidden.
**'''Eyes of the Desert (ROR)''': Stalkers with poison ranged attacks. It's not a huge upgrade, but your ideal engagement with Stalkers is for the enemy monsters/cavalry to be charging right at them when the snakes are braced. The poison slows those charging enemies down giving you time to chip away at their health before they crash into you wall of halberds.

===War Beast===
*'''Carrion:''' Your only source of flying and a crappy one at that. On most difficulty levels, they'll be beaten by artillery crews in melee, which says everything you need to know about Carrion.
**'''The Flock of Djaf: (LoL)''' An actual improvement over the baseline Carrion. Better health, better leadership, better everything. On top of all the stuff baseline Carrions have they have armor-piercing attacks and a special Death From Above bombing attack the LoL can execute on ground forces while airborne.

===Monstrous Constructs===
*'''[[Tomb Scorpion]]:''' This thing is one of the best units in the game and it's easy to see why. Obscene Armor, Vanguard Deployment, Armor-Piercing, Anti-Infantry, but most importantly it laughs at anti-monster tactics. Anti-Large infantry? It has unique and often-triggered burrowing animations that lets it avoid damage while still delivering the pain. Tarpits? Said burrowing animations make the monster come out in a different place from where it burrowed. Missile fire? With its Armor and Vanguard Deployment the enemy won't have time to damage it and might even fire right before it burrows. The only thing that can give it a hard time are other monsters.

*'''[[Khemrian Warsphinx]]:''' The Tomb Kings' resident danger kitty that strolls around the battlefield causing havoc wherever it goes. High mass, high anti-infantry AP damage, and pounce attack animations lets the Warsphinx blast through halberds and go wherever it damn well pleases. Tomb King lords can take them as mounts.

*'''[[Necrosphinx]]:''' THE monster-slaying monster in the game with a wide array of traits specifically designed to let the Necrosphinx mulch other large monsters with ease. Has unusually low Leadership so keep a lord or hero nearby to keep them in the fight.

**'''The Sphinx of Usekph (ROR):''' turn the monster killer into a greater monster killer. Higher stats with magic and Flameattacks to punish Regenerating monsters. On the same note not recommended against monsters with flame resistance like high elf phoenixes.

*'''[[Hierotitan]]:''' An unusual large single construct that, despite being magnificent in almost every regard, is really only suited to a select number of army compositions. Gives a generous boost to Winds of Magic, in addition, its bound spells has FRICKIN EYE LASER BEAMS as a basic attack and is the perfect instrument for terrorizing any poor foot soldier that gets in its way. On the flipside is horribly slow and usually a [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX|priority artillery target]] for your enemy.

*'''[[Bone Giant]]:''' Your other heavy artillery piece that excels at noscoping monsters and cavalry from a terrific distance. Has problems with lateral tracking so may feel frustrating to use at times. Despite its large size does only decently at melee so try to protect from enemy melee as much as possible.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Screaming Skull Catapult]]:''' Your main artillery piece and boy does it put in a lot of work for a simple <s>stone</s> skull thrower. Shots have a good splash radius and also cause leadership debuff on top of being magical. Can potentially send low leadership mobs routing after a couple of salvos.
*'''[[Casket of Souls]]:''' An even more brutal infantry-shredder for the Tomb Kings, with substantially higher missile damage and the ability to fire at any target it damn well pleases - literally. Buffs your Winds of Magic as well which is a nice bonus, and has unusually good armor that can let it tank some damage from a flanking unit if necessary. Don't look too close at it during battles if you've entomophobe.

==Multiplayer Strategies==
The Tomb Kings bring a healthy amount of diverse strategies and army compositions to the table and are only held back by a few glaring weaknesses that, to be fair, also affect other undead factions. Your weakness to fire and other magic can hinder the cohesive frontlines you are wont to build; your snail's pace infantry means either getting shot up easily by enemy artillery or a very defensive playstyle with artillery of your own to hold your ground. Tomb Kings can mix and match many tools to get the job done but finding that sweet spot will be your greatest challenge.

====Faction Counterplay====
A list of all the other factions in the game, alongside their various strengths, weaknesses, and best strategies you have to combat them.

*'''Beastmen''' - Leave the Tomb Guard at home; most likely the Beastmen will bring lots of ungors and your skeletons can handle them just fine. They'll also bring Centigors with throwing axes and possibly Ghorgons to fight your constructs, so invest in some Skeleton Horsemen who can whittle down their low-armor hides with arrows as they try to get into position. If any big monsters or cavalry do threaten your ranged units Sepulchral Stalkers can provide a nasty surprise for them.

*'''Bretonnia''' - Poor Bretonnia, having to fight a faction full of cheap AP anti-large undead blocks with monsters that will easily chew up their glorious knights. The Tomb Kings are positively terrifying in this matchup as you have plenty of tools to make those Bretonnian knights regret looting your tombs. The only real problems are their cheap flaming Longbowmen and hard-hitting Trebuchets, but even then it's not like they can threaten your constructs that badly. Your opponent may attempt to push home a charge on a weak flank or cycle-charge your infantry into oblivion - don't let them get away with it! Pin them down with Net of Amyntok or your Ushabti summon and punish them suitably.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Just give up. Chaos Dwarfs will destroy your lines with their superior artillery, and good luck relying on your constructs to get anything done if the chorf player knows how to screen their blunderbusses. Also all your heals will be be worth jack shit with the absurd amount of fire damage they have. Probably better to just hope your opponent doesn't know how to play the game. If you're intent on playing this out, maybe get a Bone Giant to snipe their artillery, Settra on his chariot, and try a mass chariot rush? Tomb Scorpion might also be mobile enough to break into the ranged stuff without getting eviscerated, and Ushabti greatbow RoR could put pressure on ironsword or fireglaives if they don't get melted by Lore of Hashut. In campaign try cowardly cheese tactics with your liche priests and necroknights. In multiplayer, just try to get in a little trolling before you die horribly.

*'''Grand Cathay''' -

*'''Dark Elves''' - Like the High Elves the Dark Elves have easy access to the Lore of Fire, which is going to be a problem for you. Their ranged units almost all have AP crossbows, which is a big threat to your constructs. Unlike the High Elves the Druchii have middling range on those crossbows, which means you can outzone them. They frequently bring Dark Riders with crossbows instead of ranged infantry, so invest in some Skeleton Horsemen Archers who will outrange them and have basically no armor to pierce so all that AP gets wasted on them. Otherwise go wide and cheap with your skeletons, same as with HE. Dark Elves rely a lot on overwhelming the enemy with their Murderous Prowess army ability, and aren't as good in a war of attrition, which is exactly what you want to give them. Thankfully their only big monster with fire damage is the Hydra. Your Necrosphinx, Stalkers, or Necropolis Knights with Halberds will trade well against all Dark Elf monsters except maybe the Kharibdyss, but the sphinx will definitely hold its own. Caskets and Bone Giants are still your friends here; your Bowshabti have the same vulnerabilities to the Druchii Bolt Thrower that they do to the HE Bolt Thrower, so maybe consider leaving them at home. Just shut down those AP missiles and for the love of Ptra watch out for Burning Heads.

*'''Dwarfs''' - Despite the wall of armor and artillery rape that daunts the lightly-armored skeletons of the Tomb Kings army, you have plentiful AP to deal with them. Your artillery is top-notch for dealing with Longbeard/Hammerer lines with their big splash radius projectiles while Tomb Scorpions again can quite easily deal with the lower model count regiments. Just be extremely careful of Giant Slayers and the Dwarfs' own AP artillery because they can be quite damaging against a construct-heavy comp. Don't ever bring Tomb Guard to this matchup, your infantry are mostly there to get killed so that your real heavy hitters like Necropolis Knights or Tomb Scorpions close in. Chariots will also have a hard time here with the general mass of Dwarf units making it hard to disengage after charges.

*'''Empire''' - In many ways, you are similar to the Empire in strategy but while you can send massive constructs their way to massacre at will, they will host a plentiful number of AP missile infantry and artillery to get rid of them. Your cavalry comps are about equal but the Empire's is more flexible while you still have the sheer threat of a chariot flank charge on their infantry to royally mess up their day. You will have to be more aggressive than usual to ensure the Empire doesn't exploit their artillery advantage to the fullest - bring Tomb Scorpions to attack from unexpected angles and horse archers or chariots to mess with their threat assessment. Khemrian Warsphinxes (with proper micro) are fantastic for crushing the Halberdier line the Empire will most certainly throw at you and don't be afraid to employ your own excellent artillery options to either snipe out their artillery or soften up their infantry for maximum rape.

*'''Greenskins''' - In contrast to the dorfs the Greenskins are relatively light on armor which means your regular archers can actually make a dent in them. Tarpit heavily with basic Skeletons and counterattack with any manner of construct you see fit - regular Ushabti work magnificently against many Greenskin infantry and a single Khemrian Warsphinx can be a massive headache for your opponent since the Greenskins lack a viable Anti-Large option. A duo of Ushabti Greatbows with one being the RoR version with shrapnel shot arrows can be a gigantic threat here since the regular one will be able to make mincemeat of any monsters the Greenskins dare field and the RoR one can be reliably used to snipe out elite infantry, and both can also serve as regular Ushabti murder machines if needed.

*'''High Elves''' - This is not a good matchup for you, primarily because the High Elves have a lot of easy access to fire damage, including the Lore of Fire. Burning Head can annihilate a front line of even Tomb Guard, as all your infantry have relatively low armor values. As a result you'll want to go super wide with skeletons and rely on quantity over quality for the infantry fight. Bolt Throwers, dragons, Sisters of Avelorn, all will threaten your constructs and lords with plentiful AP and fire damage. You do however have a lot more artillery options, so you may want to consider outranging them. Ushabti Greatbows are very vulnerable to Bolt Throwers so Caskets and Bone Giants might be better options. You'll want one or two anti-large constructs like the Necrosphinx or the Stalkers to deal with dragons and phoenixes going after your back line, but don't over-invest in them. Your best bet is to overwhelm the relatively fewer numbers of the Elves while shooting them to pieces.

*'''Kislev''' -

*'''Khorne''' - You're fucked. With flaming attacks out the arse and numerous high-AP anti-large units, You're the easiest picking of skulls to offer to the Blood God. Your skeletons are just food for Bloodletters and dual axe Khorne warriors, and your constructs will be shattered by Halberdiers, Minotaurs, Skullcrushers, and Bloodthirsters. You have nothing that can outrun their hounds and you'll lose the melee fight, so your only remaining advantage is range. Skeleton Archers, unless supported by the Blessed Legion of Phakth will accomplish nothing, it's all about your artillery, Ushabti greatbows, and Bone Giants. A Lore of Light mage with Net of Amyntok will ensure your Ushabti and Bone Giants will shoot down any Bloodthirsters, and they can reliably pick off cavalry before they charge you to death. Skeletons on their own won't hold the line long, so the best supporting construct is by far Tomb Skorpions, whose animations help them stay alive in combat; any larger construct will just be an easy target for the numerous anti-large options Khorne brings to the table. Of all the contenders in the Southlands Thunderdome, Skarbrand is by far the biggest threat to Settra, so try and get rid of him as soon as possible.

*'''Lizardmen''' - Lizardmen have access to a fair few tools that can make combating them a bit of a challenging prospect, but you do have a few select units that can and will ruin their game-plan if positioned carefully. Skeleton Spear won't win any fights against the Saurus or even Skink front lines, but they'll hold the line until the bitter end. Considering all the Fear/Terror the bigger monsters toss around, their ability to tarpit things cannot be undersold. Whilst they do so, this is where your key players will come in; Ushabti Greatbows, Sepulchral Stalkers and Necrosphinx Colossi. Ushabti Greatbows are the ideal and go-to choice for your monster-hunting needs and will safely outrange a majority of anything the Lizardmen will typically have on tap to retaliate with and aren't totally helpless in a fist fight. If you're feeling like setting up a good ol' fashioned Monster-Mash, Necroshinx Colossi can generally wreck the bigger beasties in a straight duel, just ensure no (Ancient) Salamanders are getting free shots on it while it does so. Speaking of, Salamanders, Solar Engine Bastilodons and Fireleach Bolas Terradons will be some priority targets.

*'''Norsca''' - Like the Beastmen Norsca will try to flank you with lots of speedy warhounds and monsters. Unlike the Beastmen, Norsca has no artillery and pretty weak range overall. Punish them from a distance with Greatbows then soak up their infantry charge with cheap skeleton hordes. Unfortunately this is another army with Lore of Fire so watch out for Burning Heads on your front line and Fireballs aimed at your characters. Despite their limited range Norsca has a lot of ways to dish out anti-large damage, so leave the big melee constructs at home in most cases and focus on ranged units. Thankfully most of your ranged constructs can at least defend themselves a bit in melee. Double Bone Giants is a solid option, they'll kick the crap out of Throgg, mammoths, Fimir, and most other Norscan monsters. If you're having trouble with Skin Wolves getting into your back lines a unit of Sepulchral Stalkers might help a bit, if you have the funds for them.

*'''Nurgle''' - Pincushion time. While skeleton archers shoot wimpy arrows with little AP, they do shoot a lot of them and Nurgle has little armor.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''' -

*'''Skaven''' - Thank God, someone who doesn't have Lore of Fire. Expect tons of Clanrats and Skavenslaves, which you should counter with tons of Skeletons. Since all of your infantry cause fear you will probably win the wet noodle front line fight. Chariots will also help mow down tons of rats. Bring a few speedy units like Carrion or Skeleton Horsemen to shut down Skaven artillery and weapon teams. If you bring Ushabti Greatbows expect them to get focused down by Jezzails, though they may do some good work before crumbling. Tomb Scorpions can sometimes be useful due to haw difficult they are to pin down with ranged fire. The AP blasts of the Casket of Souls will tear through weapon teams.

*'''Slaanesh''' -

*'''Tomb Kings''' - The good news is you have Great Bows and Sepulchral Stalkers to deal with whatever constructs they bring. The bad news is... well, ''they'' are also Tomb Kings. This may be a race of who can shut down the other's big lads before they do the same. As with a lot of undead vs undead matchups a lot will depend on who can snipe the other's lords and heroes first.

*'''Tzeentch''' - Go light on infantry and heavy on constructs, Tzeentch doesn't have much of a frontline and he will effortlessly delete your mobs with the considerable amount of fire damage he has at his disposal. Bow Ushabti will be your best friend to punish cycle charge barrier abuse and force Tzeentch to close the distance.

*'''Vampire Coast''' - Leave the big artillery and constructs at home, unless you need one as a Distraction Carnifex. The Vampirates can absolutely outshoot you in an artillery duel. The good news is their front line of zombies is basically made of wet tissue paper. This is the perfect time to break out the Tomb Guard, who will march right over the Zombie Pirates. For your ranged core you want to bring mostly archers, who will outrange handgunners or deck mobs, but keep a couple of skeleton spears in the back line to fend off hounds and bats. Chariots are excellent at running down Vampirate ranged units while Skeleton Horsemen can intercept their hounds. Consider bringing some Carrion to shut down the enemy artillery ASAP. One uncommon but dangerous counterpick the pirates might bring is Queen Bess. The Queen is expensive enough that it'll cut down their other ranged options, but if the player guesses correctly that you are bringing skeleton hordes the Queen's shots will quickly reduce them to bonemeal. If she does show up spread your front line as wide and as thin as possible to minimize the damage. This is the rare time it's useful to have one unit of Bowshabti or a Bone Giant as they can shoot Bess but her shots aren't as good against large targets. Otherwise you'll have to tie her up with horsemen and birds or focus fire her with archers. Watch out for Luthor Harkon, he's a very common lord pick and he will definitely try to assassinate your lord and characters.

*'''Vampire Counts''' - The Counts are renowned as a rush faction and you will have to weather the onslaught the best you can. Liche Priest with Banishment will be super useful here as well as your rapetastic artillery. For once your Nehekharan Warriors can reliably duel Grave Guard without fear of being shot up, but do be aware of the Winds of Death spam the enemy Vampire lord will likely throw at them. Sepulchral Stalkers (in particular the RoR version) can be amazing here with their ability to counter-charge any monster that gets close and reliably slaughter them.

*'''Daemons of Chaos''' -

*'''Warriors of Chaos''' - Break out the Great Bows and go to town, they're equally good at shooting down big monsters and heavily armored Chaos Warriors. You'll want a few light and speedy units to fend off their Marauder Horsemen but otherwise the name of this game is crushing your opponent with heavy constructs and swarms of skeletons. The Necropshinx can take on Shaggoths, the Tomb Scorpion can tear apart Marauders, and the War Sphinx will just prance around like the big happy kitty it is. You can't bring all of these, but pick one or two plus the Ushabti and you'll be in a good place. As always Burning Heads and the Lore of Fire will be your biggest threat. That and Kholek. Bring Necrotects.

*'''Wood Elves''' - They're probably going to throw Dryads at your front line, go really wide with Glade Riders to get into your flanks, and use Waywatchers or Deepwood Scouts to avoid your artillery. Bring at least some artillery anyway to soften up their front line. They have no fire magic so Tomb Guard will easily take down the weakened dryads and push after the archers. Skeleton Horsemen and Skeleton Horsemen Archers will help zone out their light cav and skirmishers, but if they push through eventually a unit of Stalkers can help protect your back line. Once their archers are visible concentrate your fire on them, they're usually the biggest threat. On the off hand chance they bring a dragon or other large monster (trees aren't out of the question, you don't have Lore of Fire either) having a Necrosphinx in reserve can be very useful, though you probably don't need both a sphinx and the Stalkers.

==Campaign strategies==

===General tips===
* '''Global Recruitment will win you games''': The optimal start for any Tomb King is to fight whatever army is on your doorstep them immediately go into either your starting settlement or enter Entombed stance, either way you want access to Global Recruitment to spend the first 2 turns simply filling your army with troops ASAP in fact this is more important than fighting your starting enemy, if you have to choose one then choose global recruitment. Global recruitment takes twice as long but doesn't cost anything because you're playing Kangz, which is huge. Do this after a pyric victory has wiped out most of the units in your army too and you'll refill your armies rapidly. Otherwise, it will take you too long to fill your armies and they AI will curbstomp you

* '''Always build a resource building if you can''': The Tomb Kings's Mortuary Cult means that you will need access to at least one of each ressource building if you want to access the full range of things to create, parts of your victory condition requires you to craft things too. Which brings us to...

* '''Trade deals are your friends''': Let's not mince words, your economy is ''shit'', and while you don't pay upkeep or recruitment costs, your buildings are very expensives. You'll gain money raiding and fighting, but trade will also be an important part of your revenue stream. Also, it will give you access to resources you may not produce at the moment (good luck making wine in the middle of the fucking desert).

* '''An army full of trash units is better than no army''': You may have hit your best units' cap with your current armies, but that's no reason to not recruit another one as soon as possible and fill it full of skeletons spearmen/warriors, since you have no recruitment or upkeep costs whatsoever. Even if you don't need it for fights, you can always use it to raid, as bait for your other army in Ambush stance, to maintain public order, to drown the enemy in bodies, ...

* '''Slow and steady win the race''' : You won't expand quickly. Whether it's because you need to wait to recruit more units in global recruitment, or until the place you've conquered is properly built up before pushing forward, this is not a campaign where you will be taking a city every turn. Tomb Kings rebellions are ''nasty'' if you let your Public Order get too low, so you'll also have that to keep in mind before moving on to conquering your next city.

* '''Keep your starting construct:''' While everyone in the games start with a high-tier unit in their army, you can usually manage if you lose them. Not so much here, in line with the above points. Each Legendary Lord start with a construct in their army (Khatep with a Hierotitan, Arkhan with a Tomb Scorpion, Settra with a Khermrian Warsphinx, Khalida with Sepulchral Stalkers). You will not be able to replace them for a ''long'' time if you ever lose them, what's with Tomb Kings' incredibly low growth rate and money problems, and they are incredibly useful until you reach tier IV.

===Specific campaigns advices===
====Settra====
* Early on in the campaign you can get decent value from sword and board skellies when fighting other Tomb Kings or TikTaq'to's skinks, as the mosh pits are decided by morale victories more often than not.
* Conquering Zandri should be a top priority, since it gives you quick and easy access to a port that you can utilize for trade with factions that are half a continent away. And as mentioned above, trade is your life blood.
* The same goes for Galbaraz on Mortal Empires, which unlocks a unique building at tier 3 that gives a whopping 1000 gold per turn. The Badlands in general for full of amazing unique buildings for the Tomb Kings.
* You have to decide very early on if you want to let the Errantry War factions live or destroy them, as Repanse is the only one not on friendly terms with you. After she confederates them, your western flank will have serious problems, unless you ally them.
* If you have a spare army, send it to raiding duty at Nagash's Black Pyramid, which yields a nice 300-500 gold for free each turn. The Sentinels are hardcoded to never retaliate, so there is no harm whatsoever in doing so.

====Khatep====
* The Sisters of Twilight are your best friends early on. Get a trade deal and non-agression pact with them. They'll help you in keeping Morathi and/or Malekith away from you for a bit, and be of great help when you want to take the fight to them.
* (Mortal Empires only:) The Sisters and Alith Anar may declare war on each other at some point, but they should leave you alone (and sign peace at some point). Between them, they'll keep Morathi busy long enough for you to focus on Malekith.
* (Mortal Empires:) Your very first turns should spent rushing south to grab the south settlment of your starting province, otherwise it'll be snatched by the Sisters and/or Alith Anar, leaving you with you one fewer town and no provincial order.
* (Vortex:) No Alith Anar to help you here, so you're gonna need to beat up Morathi yourself. You can rush toward Quintex immediately or complete your province then rush to her if you want, but you need to take her out fast.

====Khalida====
*(Mortal Empires Only) Try your best to be friends with Kroq Gar. You do NOT want to be fighting Saurus spam early and he will secure your southern border for you so you can focus on Queek.

====Arkhan====
* See the above about taking it slow? With Arkhan you'll be even slower, because you combine the Tomb Kings' slow growth with the fact that everyone hates you.
* (Mortal Empires) Now that Repanse has taken over the minor faction Bretonnians to your north, Arkhan is looking at what may be the single shittiest start position in the game. Either tech into stuff that can fight the Bretonnians ''fast'' or settle in for a few dozen turns of waiting for pop growth to bring you monsters. Your big early speed bumps are going to be Repanse and Henri; it's going to be a while before you have anything specialized for messing with tough Lords. Consider picking up an early Tomb Prince and speccing him out as a hero duelist.
* Get a Casket of Souls ASAP. It'll be useful against the Bretonnian chaff you'll face early game, and ''incredibly useful'' if/when the nearby Dwarfs declare war on you.

{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven

2023-05-19T17:03:15Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{Topquote|Rikka-rak! (Kill-slay!)|Game battle chant for Skaven}}
==Why play Skaven==
*Because you are a backstabbing bastard that cares little about the lives of your very numerous subjects, your basic infantry are literally slaves which you will sacrifice in droves to win a slight tactical advantage.
*You like bringing down classic high fantasy tropes with the power of raw industrial might, like Saruman, if Saruman was high on warpstone, which your characters certainly are.
*Talking about it your characters are a mix of different degrees of Dick Dastardly, Starscream, Frollo, the Brain, Dr. Evil and Zapp Brannigan, with more than a generous dose of the Nazis for good measure. (Except for Queek and Goritch, who are totally ax-crazy).
*Even your most basic Skaven is by all standards batshit insane and CA's Voice Acting is spot on.
*You are an opportunist that takes advantage of other factions being distracted and like making plots, just imagine the previously mentioned villains if they actually didn't have to lose due to the heroes' plot armor.
*[[DOOMWHEELS]]!!!
*Skaven are entirely unique to Warhammer, from their cool s(k)avenger ramshackle constructs, eviler-cult techno-sorcery to their pants-on-head crazy characters and their right-on-spot OST in no other setting is there anything quite like them, you will enjoy playing as them while cackling madly as you bring down your enemies in the must underhanded way possible YES-YES!
*[[Awesome|IKIT CLAW HAS FUCKING NUKES]]!!

===Pros===
*'''Disruption''': From summons to cheap skirmishers and tarpits, no other faction in the game is as good as Skaven at disrupting your enemies strategy. You have harassment with Eshin units, Wolf Rats and Brood Horrors, a ton of summons and powerful magic and the most powerful ranged arsenal in the game. Skaven are the bane of any faction that likes to stick together and profits from synergies in their rosters like Vampire Coast and Cathay due to how many ways they have at their disposal to fuck with those synergies and nullify them.
*'''Numbers''': Even at the highest tiers, you will outnumber your enemy easily. Even higher tier infantry units outnumber every enemy unit and you have the units with the highest base model count in the game. What is more, you can even summon more troops through spells and special abilities, you can literally bring 3 or more additional units of various tier degrees even when having your stack already filled to max capability, only Vampires Counts could dare to match you in terms of how many extra-bodies you can throw at the enemy.
*'''Fast Infantry''': Your basic infantry may not be the bravest, toughest, or killiest. But an average movement of over 40 speed means they can keep up with the likes of beastmen and wood elves and makes them particularly well suited for closing the distance with enemy gunlines and running down broken enemies.
*'''Firepower''': Your ranged units are easily unsurpassed by any other faction, this goes for your missile infantry as well as your artillery. Skaven have the strongest ranged roster in the entire game, (suck it, Elf-things), and don't necessarily need a lot of micro to make the most out of them. Lolwut cannons and magic fireballs you say? Here be gattling cannons, portable flamethrowers, anti-materiel sniper rifles, biological ammunition artillery, chemical cluster mortars, arc-lightning weaponry and tactical nukes!
*'''Ambushes''': Your normal movement stance on the campaign map lets you ambush enemy armies on the attack.
*'''Cost''': Everything you have is extremely cost-efficient and your melee infantry in particular is dirt cheap.
*'''Under-Empire''': You can establish hidden bases all over the world, siphoning other factions income into your pockets as well do some really crazy shit with this mechanic.
*'''Flexibility on the campaign map''': Skaven have by far the most tools on the overworld to shift the odds the AI throws at you in your favor, and being a proper Skaven player, you weren't really interested in a fair fight anyways.
*'''Sooo much DLC''': Skaven are tied with the Lizardmen for having the highest number of supplemental DLC Lord Packs out of every other faction in the game. With a grand total of 3 separate packs, each introducing a handful of other units to further supplement your forces, you won't ever find yourself wanting for diversity.

===Cons===
*'''DLC is mandatory''': The big issue. The "The Prophet and the Warlock" DLC is absolutely mandatory to make your faction work well on the battlefield; your roster will lack essential units like Ratling Guns and Warplock Jezzails without it.
*'''Sooo much DLC''': A continuation of the first point; you need to purchase three separate DLC Lord packs if you want access to the entire Skaven unit roster. You can just get by with ''only'' "The Prophet and the Warlock" if you ''just'' need solid workhorse units, but those other AI Skaven factions will taunt you with all the shiny toys you didn't get around to buying. And let's be real here, Thanquol is coming in game 3 and there's no way we're getting him for free, so with potentially 4 DLC across 2 different games you'd best be prepared because the Great Horned Rat needs your wallet.
*'''Morale''': Get used to hearing "BACK UNDERGROUND!", "SCARPER! FLEE!" and "SH-SHAMEFUL DISPLAY!" because Skaven Leaderships is generally quite low. Most skaven infantry will break before their counterparts from other factions will.
*'''Bad Melee''': You aren't going to be winning a straight up infantry fight against... well anybody with decent infantry to be honest. Even your elite rats only match up to other faction's mid tier infantry. Combine this with their horrible leadership and Skaven infantry won't accomlish much on their own.
*'''Slow Economy''': While many of your baseline troops are dirt cheap, your crazy weapons are not and your economy needs some time to get going and you will be overshadowed in terms of money by most other factions in your general vicinity. Special attention needs to go to your food economy, which is easily one of the biggest pitfalls an unexperienced Skaven player can fall into. Once you have some provinces under your belt, you can start bringing in the cash.
*'''Nonexistent Air Force''': Though you aren't totally helpless against aerial units, thanks to your plethora of missile units, you're not exactly able to contest the skies. With absolutely no flying units of your own, you will need to keep one eye peeled on the sky. Even units like Harpies and Fell Bats can cause some mayhem if they manage to swarm your Ratling Gunners while units like Pegasus Knights and Ripperdactyls will eviscerate anything they manage to dive onto. Perhaps one of the biggest threats, however, will be the enemy spellcasters mounted on Dragons/Eagles/Griffons/Terradons who can rather easily juke incoming fire while dropping vortex spells all over your forces. You'll need a plan to deal with them if you don't want to take massive casualties.
*'''Hard to play''': You need at least a basic grip at how the game works to play Skaven, they punish mistakes heavily. Your troops may be numerous and dirt cheap, but have little staying power and will rout at the first glance of danger. Add to this mechanics like the Under-Empire and Skaven Corruption, which need constant attention to make the best use out of them.
*'''Challenging Campaign Starting Settlements''': Your starting positions (aside from Ikit Claw) put you in opposition of factions that have a lot of tools to counter your strengths, particularly the Lizardmen or Dwarves (or both, in some cases).

==Universal traits==
*'''Verminous Valor''': The Leadership of Skaven Units depends stronger than other factions on how many Skaven are left, and will regenerate faster after breaking if the unit has more models left.
*'''Scurry away!''': Skaven units get a speed bonus when their leadership is low (including when routing). This is both good and bad; on one hand, they can quickly escape most pursuing infantry, recover then rejoin the fray in record times. On the other hand (particularly if near battlefield edges), they may full on abandon the battlefield long before their morale regenerates due to how quickly they move.
*'''Strength in Numbers''': When HP is above 50, skaven units are slower, have +6 leadership, and +8 melee defense. (Not universal across the roster, but close. Every infantry unit, melee and ranged unit has it. Entities like characters, Monsters/monstrous infantry, and artillery do not have it)
*'''The Menace below''': THE universal Skaven ability and one that is easily underestimated. It summons a unit of clanrats on any position on the map you wish. The rats will stay on the map for 60 seconds, after which, they die. The times you can use this ability depends on the Skaven corruption in the region the battle is fought in. Before the battle, you can increase the number of uses for a price of 3 food each. Never underestimate this ability, it's utility value is enourmous. That High Elven archer regiment that keeps eluding you? Throw rats on them. That scary looking Bretonnian Cavalry charge? Throw rats at them and negate their Charge bonus. That bloated corpse that could devastate your front line? Throw summoned rats in. The ability to summon sacrificial units ''for free'' is extremely powerful, be it to harrass skirmishers or missile units, bog down cavalry and elite infantry or just to have something expendable against suicide units. It's also an extremely potent counter to enemy artillery, such as Trebuchets, Hellstorm Rockets and the like. Since they have virtually no native combat skills of their own, your clanrats can actually cripple and kill many such artillery teams; a much safer and more efficient option for dealing with them. ''Update'': Has received a considerable nerf in the update for The Twisted and the Twilight. Its cast time is now a massive 5 seconds, allowing most competent players to fully avoid it, but since the ability doesn't have a hitmarker, it still retains a lot of usefulness. Honestly, the nerf probably just came to deal with the extreme amounts of cheese exploiters gained out it.

==Legendary Lords and Subfactions==
*'''[[Queek Head-Taker]] ([[Clan Mors]])''': Queek of Clan Mors starts in the Southlands in both campaigns and as well, has a pretty rough start. You are surrounded by factions that absolutely hate you and have a lot of tools to counter your strengths; it doesn't help that your economic base isn't that good (other than, let's say, Ikit Claw)and you get minor penalties if you don't control Karak Eight Peaks on Mortal Empires. That being said, if you are familiar with the game and aren't shy of taking a gambit (i.e. expanding as aggressively as possible early on), you will find Queek's Campaign very much to your liking. Important to note is that the Penalties for not having Karak Eight Peaks are not nearly as crippling as they are for Skarsnik and Belegar Ironhammer.

:: Queek himself is a slightly improved Warlord with some unique boons. He excels as a melee fighter despite not having access to any mounts and stomps most enemy Lords and Heroes with relative ease. Add to this that he is the only legendary lord with a reliable escape ability and you can do a lot of nasty things to not-Skaven-Things. He buffs up Stormvermin by a good amount, as well as cutting their Upkeep in '''half''', so Clan Mors Armies tend to stack a lot of Stormvermin, which never is a bad idea. Starts out in the Vortex Campaign near Not Capetown and to the south of Karak Eight Peaks in Mortal Empires.

*'''[[Lord Skrolk]] ([[Clan Pestilens]])''': Skrolk leads Clan Pestilens in the overcrowded clusterfuck that is Lustria. Same problems as Queek in the early game, although the game is a bit more generous with early expansion opportunities. He basically has the same pitfalls as Queek, with the significant disadvantage that he starts the game pitted against Lizardmen, which are easily one of the faction that counter Skaven the hardest. Important to note is that Pestilens, as its name says, likes to play around with Plagues, and you actually benefit from catching it, giving you unit discounts, growth boosts and upkeep reduction.

:: Skrolk himself excels at Spellcasting and little else, but maxing out your Lore of Plague should be a top priority. He also gives nice boosts to all kinds of units that are associated with Clan Pestilens and starts with two Plague Monk Regiments, which will carry you through most of the early game.

*'''[[Tretch Craventail]] ([[Clan Rictus]])''': Tretch starts in fucking Naggarond of all places surrounded by most of the Dark Elves, Alith Anar right on top of him, with no prospective allies nearby except for maybe Grand Hierophant Khatep over the mountains and Cylostra Direfin to the south. Everyone hates your guts, and considering his special campaign rules (gain public order for breaking diplomatic treaties as well as a hefty melee attack bonus in battle) it's not hard to see why. You are a vanilla Skaven faction in every other regard, and Rictus is probably the hardest Skaven start in Vortex if not counting Queek. He does however start with the most top-tier units out of any other Skaven LL (Stormvermin, Death Runners and a DOOMWHEEL) which will easily let you expand quickly.

:: Tretch is in many regards an unremarkable Warlord, but he does gain his special rules from the old tabletop in the most faithful way possible - his iconic ''Stay Here, I'll Get Help'' rule returns as an active ability that will massively buff the Leadership of whatever units that are close by while granting Tretch himself stealth to save his own skin. Anon says Tretch is an unremarkable Warlord, and in multiplayer battles he is, but he's downright hilarious on campaign - his skills give his army +30% casualty replenishment, missile resistance and speed for Clanrats and Stormvermin, and Tretch himself gets regen and has a base SEVENTY melee defence. Although overshadowed by other Skaven LLs, Tretch can be just as infuriating to deal with as any other boss-leader, yes-yes. He also excels in campaign battles because of his ability to Vanguard Deployment his entire army, an ability only shared by [[Vlad von Carstein]].

:: In immortal empires, Tretch has become Skaven Sigvald. Between his tiny model, charge defense, sky high melee defense, and unique item that gives 40% damage resist if losing a combat, Tretch simply will not die. And he's also somehow picked up Kislev's by our blood ability, so he can't be leadership routed either. All this for a cost barely higher than a vanilla Skaven warlord. The other legendary lords may have flashier campaigns, but Skaven multiplayer belongs to Tretch.

*'''[[Ikit Claw]] ([[Clan Skryre]])(DLC)''': Comes with the "The Prophet and the Warlock" DLC, which, if you play Skaven, you should own anyway, so we could as well Ikit include as a Vanilla lord. Forget about the game telling his Campaign being hard, Ikit has by far the easiest start and can snowball out of control extremely quickly. Clan Skryres Campaign comes with features that are unique to them, first of all is the Forbidden Workshop, which lets you boost all Clan Skryre Units (as in Ratling Guns, Doomflayers, DOOMWHEELS etc.) with ridiculous buffs that make them even more powerful and gives you access to Doomsday Rockets, which are in essence, tactical nukes. Ikit Claw and Clan Skryre start the game in Skavenblight, squished in between Tilea and Estalia, and start the game at war with the latter. Interesting to note is that the AI rarely, if ever, attacks Skavenblight and the city itself has good protection from outside threats due its location in a toxic swamp alone and the ludicrous size of its garrison. Why this campaign is considered difficult by CA standards is beyond me. To top it all off, Clan Skryre also has exclusive access to the Doomsphere Under-Empire building which will wipe out any settlement above it in a truly glorious fashion.

:: Ikit himself packs the strengths of both Queek and Skrolk into a nice Skaven-sized-Package without possessing the weaknesses of either; his animations make it really hard to actually land a hit on him, he has a good amount of HP, high armour and a flamethrower. If that's not enough for you, he can also use the Skaven Lore of Ruin for even more damage, and if that is still not enough, you can stick him into his personal DOOMWHEEL (Although it's not recommended, a Doom-Flayer is the much better mount option). And even if that's not enough, he can unlock "Second-Wind Serum" skill, which activates every time he casts a spell and heals him for a flat number of points. Yeah, he is pretty busted and outright broken at times. You're still not convinced? He also happens to have some of the best voice acting and quotes of all characters in the game ("Hm-hm, forgot pesticides" "''Biggest'' Brain of all rats, yes-yes!")

*'''[[Deathmaster Snikch]] ([[Clan Eshin]])(DLC)''': Coming in with "The Shadow and the Blade" DLC, which brings the third great clan of the Skaven into the game along with three new regiments to round out both the Eshin and Skryre rosters. Snikch's campaign is intertwined with the other DLC Legendary Lord of his pack (Malus Darkblade of Hag Graef) and is centred on the race for control of the daemon Tz'arkan, so you won't be participating in the race for the Vortex. Instead, Snikch gains exclusive access to Shadowy Dealings, a set of unilateral campaign actions that involve sending out Snikch and his lords to murder, sabotage and infiltrate other factions in the classic Eshin way. What makes the Shadowy Dealings bonkers is their final, ultimate scheme - ''Plunge into Anarchy'', which '''permanently assassinates the leader of any faction (even a major one) and immediately sends all of their settlements into revolt.''' All of Lothern confederated? One click and they're all gone, just like that. Thankfully the scheme is on a 100-turn cooldown but it doesn't make it any less obscene.

:: Snikch is the legendary assassin we've all come to expect - stealthy, unbelievably fast and undeniably deadly up close. Stack those Weapon Strength buffs on him and watch as he one-shots almost every other Legendary Lord in the game, and for certain all of them if you give him the Sword of Khaine. In terms of army-wide buffs he does grant your slinger troops Armour-Piercing on their projectiles which is very good in the early to midgame against most of his neighbours. On the flipside you have increased purchase cost for every other unit that isn't a slave or Eshin, which you'll need to fix via the Clan Contracts system.

*'''[[Throt the Unclean]] ([[Clan Moulder]]) (DLC)''': The final Legendary Lord for the great clans of the Skaven has arrived, and oh boy is he a piece of work. Throt the Unclean has arrived with new units for the monstrous-minded player along with some interesting new mechanics. Like Snikch, Throt isn't going after the Vortex and instead thirsts for Queen Ariel of the Wood Elves, whom he believes that if he can nom her, his Black Hunger will be cured. To assist in this endeavour Throt gets access to the Flesh Laboratory which can give your infantry and monsters powerful individual stacking boosts at the risk of making them unstable. If a unit becomes too unstable they are liable to blow up Bloated Corpse-style in battle.

:: Throt is a different beast entirely for the Skaven lords and he packs a variety of monster-buffing abilities that let him crush through any opposition that gets in his way. To begin with he has Regeneration which makes him the tankiest Skaven lord so far, and that's not even including him being able to mount a Brood Horror, which will also make him the fastest Skaven on the battlefield. Befitting one of the greatest Packmasters of all time he can heal and buff monsters on the fly with his many abilities and can even summon a unit or two of Rat Ogres on the field to RIP AND TEAR as he pleases. His stats and his Creature-Killer also make him a nightmare to deal with for Monster- and Cavalry-heavy factions because the Weapon applies a Bonus vs. large buff on all allied units around him. If your enemy is Bretonnia or the High Elves, you pick Throt.

==Units==

===Lords===
*'''Warlord''': Your generic frontline melee Lord. Sufficiently armoured, but not very tanky, he struggles a lot against most enemy lords and even some heroes. What makes him a little worthwhile (but not much) is the Bonecrusher mount, effectively making him monstrous cavalry.

*'''[[Grey Seer]]''': Your caster Lord, in almost any case preferable to Warlords. Can choose between Lore of Plague and Lore of Ruin. Most notably is that, regardless of your Lore choice, Grey Seers have exclusive access to The Dreaded Thirteenth Spell that summons Stormvermin for additional crowd control and staying power as well having exclusive access to the Screaming Bell mount, which is just awesome in general. CA even added loud bell sounds whenever you cast a spell or use the special ability that comes with it, a short melee buff for all units on the entire map.

*'''Warlock Master (DLC)''': A pimped up Warlock Engineer, he provides less utility than the hero, but makes for it by being really good in combat and having much easier access to spellcasting (but let's face it, if you pick a Warlock Engineer for spellcasting, you're doing it wrong). Can be put on a Doomflayer or a DOOMWHEEL for extra Dakka. A very good hybrid lord, he can basically do anything. Don't expect him to last long against enemy Lords, though.

*'''Master Assassin (DLC)''': A step up from the generic Assassin hero who found some extra time to command an army of his own. A much preferable frontline melee Lord that can actually maybe kill the opposing lord and put the hurt on their heroes. Befitting a rat ninja he gets no mounts but somehow can lead an army of Clanrats without blowing his cover. Keep him around some Death Runners or Gutter Runners, he'll be able to keep up with them and apply his stealth tools to them.

===Heroes===
*'''[[Plague Priest]]''': Arguably one of the best heroes in the entire game. He is your primary sorcerer that has access to the Lore of, you guessed it, Plague. Plague Priests make pure ranged doomstacks of Ratling Guns, Plagueclaw Catapults and Warplock Jezzails work. Formidable fighters when put on a Plague Furnace, their speciality is summoning a crapton of Clanrats (and Plague Monks) to your side and having access to the best AoE damage spell in the Skaven arsenal.

*'''Warlock Engineer''': You're starting to see a trend here, in that your Lords are mostly mediocre but your heroes pretty damn good. You don't get a Warlock Engineer for their spellcasting (though a warp lighting here and there doesn't hurt) but for their other yellow skilltree that transforms your already great ranged weapons into unholy monstrosities of death. Ballistics Calibration makes your artillery laser-accurate and it buffs the range and missile strengths of your weapons teams (i.e. units you would use anyway at any time once they are available). His bonuses [[awesome|'''do fucking stack''']] (seriously, a Warlock Engineer +2 Ratling Gunner Doomstack is some of the most hilariously overpowered shit in this game), but one alone is goddamn powerful and in a pinch, you can even comfortably use him to stall enemy cavalry. He is that good.

*'''Assassin''': Your go-to choice for getting rid of enemy agents on your turf or hanging around your armies doing things you'd rather like them not to be doing. On the battlefield they have an excellent array of stealth items and abilities that support getting in nice and close and wrecking generic lords as well as other heroes before vanishing without a trace. Excellent base melee attack means they will get their targets most of the time, try not to let him get surrounded because his defence is sucky. But just in case you need to get him out of there in a hurry, you've also got...

*'''Eshin Sorcerer (DLC)''': Comes with the Shadow and the Blade DLC alongside his big daddy Deathmaster Snikch. Said DLC introduces the Lore of Stealth exclusively to the Skaven, which in turn is wielded exclusively by the Eshin Sorcerer. The Lore of Stealth is designed to supplement the weak initial siegecraft of Clan Eshin as well as enhancing their playstyle, but in many ways is almost functionally similar to the Lore of Ruin that Grey Seers have. The standout spell is Veil of Shadows which is a non-damaging stationary vortex that can unblob dense crowds and either let your Assassins or other heroes escape, or let your rat-fu infantry easy access through a defended gate.

*'''[[Packmaster]] (DLC)''': Befitting the arrival of Clan Moulder to the game, Packmasters provide sorely-needed support to the various monstrous beasts of the Skaven. They provide ongoing buffs to monsters much like how Necrotects do to Tomb Kings constructs, but also have a couple of useful Wolf Rat summons that can easily give your army some cheap flanking on demand. They can also be taken on Brood Horror mounts, allowing them to zip around the battlefield at the fastest speed known to Skavenkind.

*'''[[Ghoritch]] (DLC)''': Ghoritch is an absurd beefcake of a legendary hero. For one his big armour stats and good morale combined with his raw weapon strength make him an infantry lawmower; even Phoenix Guard don't stand a chance against him in the long run. Second is that he, being a Northman transplanted into a Rat-Ogre, also shares a lot of Norscan traits, most importantly the one that increases a fat bonus for his combat stats the longer he is tied up melee, making efficient counterplay against him difficult, because he also happens to move at Mutant Rat-Ogre speed.

*'''Chieftain (FLC)''': Budget Warlord that does a surprisingly okay job at being the anchor for your frontline and fits rather well into melee heavy armies. If the lord is killed he'll take command of the army, giving a map-wide Leadership boost. It's not enough to counter the immediate penalty of losing the lord but after that wears off it'll be enough to counter the permanent morale loss. Has Access to the Bonecrusher mount.

===Infantry===
*'''[[Skavenslave]]s''': Cowardly, flimsy, expendable, cheap. Skavensklaves form the healthy base of any early game Skaven army. You send those guys in to die, not to do damage and to keep the enemy away from your weapons teams. Skavenslaves are by far the most efficient option to do just that. Can come with Spears if you want to give them more staying power against cavalry, but they are Skaven, do you really care if they die?

*'''[[Clanrat]]s''': Just a tier above Slaves, with the same attributes, albeit a bit more costly. Basic Clanrats without shields are not worth your time, you're better off just using Skavenslaves. Clanrats with shields will be your bread and butter for the early game, just don't get attached to any one unit of them.
**'''Clan Vulkn Tailslashers (RoR)''': Flaming attacks with fire resistance doesn't add much to the chaff role Clanrats are supposed to play but that do make a good companion unit with Warpfire Throwers since they'll be able to shrug off some of that friendly fire(heh) while pinning down the poor sods who are getting magical napalm'd.

*'''[[Stormvermin]]''': As "elite" as melee Skaven can be. In contrary to Clanrats and Slaves, they actually have staying power (due to being armoured) and good leadership for a rat. Take them with Halberds but as with the other frontline options, don't expect them to move mountains. Your strengths are elsewhere. Fairly big unit size for an elite unit which is a mixed bag. On the one hand big target, on the other hand you can use them to bog down enemy cavalry.
**'''Council Guard (RoR)''': Unbreakable halberd-wielding rats of doom that also have Guardian for protecting your Lords and Heroes on foot. Common auto-include for many of the Skaven's Legendary Lord armies.

*'''[[Eshin Triad]]s (DLC)''': Eshin ninja Stormvermin with Armor rending attacks. A very odd unit that comes with some downsides and all the same weaknesses Stormvermin has. If you don't play as Sniktch, forget about them. Their most mind-boggling weakness is their extremely low model count of just 75 models even on the highest settings. As if that wasn't enough, they are subpar at best even against most other factions early game infantry and lack the abilities and speed to make sneaky hit-and-run tactics you can do with Gutter Runners or Death Runners feasible. All of this wouldn't be as bad if they had 160 models, but alas, they don't.
**Eshin Triads aren't nearly as bad as anon makes them out to be, although they remain very niche unless you're playing Clan Eshin. While Death Runners will blend through infantry, Triads will rip open cavalry and monsters with ease and can keep up with other Eshin troops. If you try to use them like Stormvermin, they'll die very quickly. Let Triads run with your Eshin troops, to give a nasty surprise to any cavalry that tries to trample over your rats.
**'''Iksha's Triads (RoR)''': Improved Triads unit that gains the special ability ''Doppelgang'', which will spawn a fake copy unit of itself that deals no damage and can be moved around freely. Great for feinting and luring guarding units away from your intended target. Of dubious usefulness against the AI that sees through this deception.

*'''[[Death Runner]]s''': Whoo boy, those guys are really interesting. Probably the highest damage output a Skaven melee unit has, at the cost of a relatively low unit count and being overall very flimsy. That said, they can easily outclass even some elite units and are outright devastating against chaff. Their quick movement speed tends to push them towards a cavalry role, where they are best used.
**'''Visktrin's Death Squad (RoR)''': Faster, tougher Death Runners with their Duck & Weave passive ability, granting them some Missile Resist to boot too.

*'''[[Plague Monk]]s''': They trade armour for raw damage, but unlike Death Runners, can actually take a beating due to a high model count. Still, they cave easily against missile and skirmisher troops, so be prepared to have an answer to that. Their high cost both in recruitment as well as upkeep won't justify their use as mainline infantry, even though their morale holds up pretty well and they come with Frenzy.

*'''[[Plague Monk Censer Bearer]]s''': Same weaknesses as Plague Monks, but come with Great Weapons and magical attacks. Great for stalling enemy elite units, but need to be kept save from enemy missiles. Their attacks also inflict a leadership penalty on the enemy, which make them a good flanking unit to quickly cause routs.
**'''Brightscab's Plaguepack (RoR)''': Wish your clanrats wouldn't piss themselves when some skeletons crash onto your lines? Well this RoR is for you - the Plaguepack grants Immune to Psychology to all nearby units, stopping them from terror-routing just long enough to actually get some fighting (and most probably dying) done.

*'''[[Warp-Grinder]]s (DLC)''': More of an utility unit than something you would straight up use in a fight. Their bonuses against large and AP damage have some merit, but don't rely on them to do any meaningful damage in prolonged combat. They can bring down walls and gates with ease, something to keep in mind during sieges.

===Missile Troops===

*'''Skavenslave Slingers''': Best used as a suicide screen on your flanks where they can absorb charges, chase off ranged skirmishers, and huck rocks into the enemy line. Can do a surprising amount of damage if ignored for an extended period of time. And if your opponent orders a 500 gold unit to chase your 200 gold slingers for half the game, that's a win-win for you too, yes-yes.

*'''Night Runners''': Your fast and maneuverable skirmisher unit that also comes with Vanguard Deployment. Good at harassing the enemy backline and best used in that way. Come in Hybrid and Slingshot varieties.

*'''Warpfire Throwers''': Where the fun begins. Ridiculously high damage output, solidly armoured. Need positioning to work right, but will absolutely demolish anything that you point them at. They are surprisingly strong in melee against infantry if not deployed in a thin line because the back row can use their flamethrowers at point-blank, but not against cavalry as they'll pierce till the back row.
**'''The Doombringers (Ikit's Workshop)''': Takes their interesting ability to murderkill infantry in melee with point-blank warpfire to its logical extreme; the Doombringers gain Stormvermin-levels of melee attack and defence on top of being Unbreakable. Put them in the middle of your line in sufficient ranks and watch that unit of Chaos Chosen get destroyed in short order.

*'''Ratling Guns (DLC)''': You liked Fall of the Samurai? Then you are going to love these guys. They are machine guns in a late 16th century setting. Not terribly accurate, but with a high rate of fire, slowing enemies down, good range and a whopping 18 shots per volley. Did we mention that they have 36 models on large unit size settings? These should form your main gun line and are accessible pretty early on. Ikit Claw's Workshop gives them tremendous bonuses, the first one making it essentially impossible for them to run out of ammo.
**'''Teeth-Breakers (RoR)''': Concealment Bombs on Ratling Guns; for the discerning commander who likes to flank and enfilade for juicy kills.
**'''Death Dealers (Ikit's Workshop)''': Increased range and ammunition, matters less in Ikit's faction with their unlimited Ratling ammunition cheese but potentially good counterplay against Sisters of Avelorn when buffed with Warlock Engineers.

*'''Poisoned Wind Globadiers''': Essentially grenadiers. They lob their toxic gas over your units heads and are pretty good at doing it. They have a lot of positives over Warpfire-throwers. They have a slightly larger range, can fire indirectly and deal armour-piercing single target damage, Ikit Claw also gives their projectiles bonus vs. large. The most important difference between them and their upgraded brethren, the Death Globe Bombardiers is that they hit single models, reducing friendly fire casualties (as if you care about that) and generally being more accurate.

*'''Gutter Runners''': A straight upgrade from Night Runners, fulfill the same niche, but also come with poisoned shots. Set themselves apart by actually being decent melee combatants, sitting comfortably between Clanrats and Stormvermin in terms of strength while being not nearly as expensive as the latter.

*'''Death Globe Bombardiers''': Straight upgrade from Poisoned Wind Globadiers, but even more deadly. Their purple balls of death deal enough damage to kill any infantry model in a single hit, deal armour piercing AND bonus vs. large damage and all of that as AREA. OF. EFFECT. DAMAGE. Used correctly, they easily rank amongst the most deadly units in the game by far and destroy big blobs of infantry with ease. One salvo is usually enough to send any unit (apart from Chaos Chosen, perhaps) into a rout. Just make sure that you set up at a good angle, as Skaven as it is to kill your own troops alongside the enemy, Death Globe Bombardiers can deal a frankly disgusting amount of friendly fire damage. A use of The Menace Below or a squad or two of Skavenslaves are decent sacrificial options if you need some meat to slow down a priority target.

*'''Warplock Jezzails (DLC)''': SNIPER RATS. Long range, excellent accuracy, low rate of fire. Best used against single entity units or enemy lords and heroes, but easily have a place in most army builds. They also have Shieldbreaker attacks and unusually good armor, allowing them to tank missile fire considerably well. As of immortal empires, they gain piercing shots, making them better at shooting ranked infantry compared to WH2.
**'''Natty Buboe's Sharpshooters (RoR)''': Gains Stalk and Snipe, allowing them to pick off anything they please while being completely hidden. Very strong in both campaign and multiplayer, since they actively make counterplay against them difficult.
**'''Eye-Takers (Ikit's Workshop)''': Exchanges Shieldbreaker attacks for Blinding, reducing melee stats and accuracy. As if the Skaven needed more ways to cripple their enemies' ranged units...

*'''Poisoned Wind Mortars (DLC)''': Poisoned Wind Globadiers, but with range. In spite of this deceptively simple premise, these guys rank among the deadliest units in the game. Sporting a range that makes High Elven archers blush with jealousy (and actually is more comparable to artillery pieces) they send a big red flag to anyone who might think it is a good idea to just turtle up and sit the bombardment out. Well that and a horrible barrage of mustard gas of course. Static frontlines will crumble in short order when confronted with Poisoned Wind Mortars and while their generally low accuracy might suggest a weakness, it actually helps you to lock an area down where enemies can't through without suffering horrendous losses in the process. In drawn out battles, it might be advisable to keep automatic firing off for them, since they don't have that much ammo and your tarpits won't last that long if they also get shelled by your own troops, even if the Horned Rat might smile over such depraved tactics.
**'''Avalanche Mortars (RoR)''': [[Rape|POISON WIND CLUSTER MUNITIONS]]. '''The''' most overpowered ranged unit in the game, able to delete entire infantry regiments in a single salvo with ridiculous AoE damage that surpasses most regular artillery.

===Monsters & Chariots===

*'''Rat Ogres''': Strikingly similar to Greenskin and Chaos Trolls in a lot of respects; they move surprisingly quickly, pack a certain punch but can't take a beating and have awful leadership. They are useful for harassing archers and other units without armour and certainly have their place in the early game unit roster but become obsolete relatively quickly. Phase them out for Doomflayers as soon as you can. ...unless you're playing Clan Moulder, that is. With Throt as your boss, Rat Ogres become some of the most terrifying and cost efficient monstrous Infantry in the game and armour smashers and that's even before we count in mutations. You can hardly go wrong with Rat Ogres as your mainline as Throt.
**'''Pit Fighters of Hell's Deep (RoR)''': Gains Norsca berserker, making them a greater threat in sustained combat with the bonus of physical resistance and melee attack.

*'''Doom-Flayers (DLC)''': Your go-to choice for cavalry until the late game. Surprisingly durable and, unlike many other chariots, can withstand prolonged combat. They pack a whole bunch of that sweet AP goodness and are the bane of almost any Dwarfen unit, barring slayers.
**'''Dwarf-Thing Menace (RoR)''': As if the Doom-Flayer couldn't get anymore disgusting, this RoR variant adds Armor-Sundering to their attacks on top of their already-high Armor Piercing so you can rip up those high armor mobs with reckless abandon.
**'''Blackhole Flayers (Ikit's Workshop)''': Causes Fear and Brass Orb results in a Doom-Flayer squad that will in all probability rout everything it touches.

*'''DOOMWHEEL''': The DOOMWHEEL is pure Skaven awesomeness. While being a little on the frail side, it moves quickly and can absolutely terrorize the enemy backline if it gets the chance. Warlock Masters and Ikit Claw can also use a DOOMWHEEL as mounts, keep that in mind.
**'''Wheelz of Dooom (RoR)''': A DOOMWHEEL with extra shots per volley, allowing it to shred enemy infantry even more effectively.
**'''Warpfire's Wheel (Ikit's Workshop)''': Regeneration on a DOOMWHEEL ironically makes this spinning piece of Skaven awesome a better DISTRACTION CARNIFEX than the meaty mutant you're supposed to use.

*'''Hell Pit Abomination''': Your big fat DISTRACTION CARNIFEX. It takes a whopping buttload of damage despite having little to no armour and melee defence, but has decent regeneration and causes fear. One Abomination alone can easily tie up multiple enemy regiments in prolonged melee combat while your Ratling Guns and Globadiers do the actual work. And even if it dies, it explodes into more Skavenslaves that tie up the enemy. Have fun. What? You want more? Fine. Throt's inherent bonuses on everything that is a Clan Moulder creature make them surprisingly viable as an offensive unit, and if you start to throw mutations in, Abominations become walking engines of destruction. Vampiric regenration plus undeath and additional melee attack? Oh yes, please.
**'''The Thing Thing (RoR)''': A big upgrade to the Abomination's monster-killing capacity, with the temporary boost of the Fluid Injection, can put serious damage on most big things.

*'''Wolf Rats (DLC)''': The skaven get their very own Wolf Unit for giving archers hell. Much better in a lot of ways than their equivalents of the Chaotic and Vampiric variety and come in two Versions: Poison and Regular. Poison Wolf Rats are premium infantry munchers with a surprising amount of weapon strength and poison; they're usually your unit of choice when dealing with most backline units except armored ones - that's where the regular variant comes in. With magic ''and'' AP attacks at the expense of pure weapon damage, armour gives them little trouble, however you should keep in mind that their lower weapon strength might contribute to them being tied up in melee for way longer than they (and by extension, you) like. As hinted before, the Poisoned variant is much more desirable and actually much more effective at their jobs.

*'''Mutant Rat Ogre (DLC)''': Think of him like a mini-Ghoritch. He's absurdly quick on his feet, and dishes out the pain HARD. His animations frequently break any units formation that have him surrounded, and to top it all off, his health pool isn't too shabby either. If you're playing as Clan Moulder, Mutant Rat Ogres work the offensive counterpart to more defensive Rat Ogres; they take the beating and the Mutant charges in to dish out damage. He's also surprisingly viable as a counter to single entity heroes and lords, something Skaven have struggled with before The Twisted and the Twilight dropped.
**'''Morskittar's Hellion (RoR)''': Calls down Warp Lightning to bombard the enemy, letting it chew through enemy lines with greater ease, while also increasing the cooldowns of the abilities of the enemies it hits, making it effective against infantry and lords/heroes alike.

*'''Brood Horror (DLC)''': Moulder's high speed heavy hitter. Brood horrors are quick, cause terror and have a ton of AP damage. They are rather squishy and don't have great morale, so they should have a Master Moulder on hand for support, but used effectively they can be a rather effective Lord-buster. Use them like they're a single-entity shock cavalry: charge in, stick around for about 15 seconds tearing people's heads off, then move on before they can muster any real response.

===Artillery===

*'''Plagueclaw Catapults''': The more inaccurate, but more potentially damaging artillery piece. It lobs packs of toxic sludge over great distances. The one great strength that both Skaven artillery pieces have over enemy artillery is that their crews are surprisingly large, giving them a bit more staying power against direct charges by cavalry and melee infantry. Plagueclaws are best used against the more infantry-centric factions, as their greater AoE capabilities help a lot with thinning out hordes and enemy archers. Their projectiles also cause an extra leadership penalty to units they hit on top of the normal penalty for being damaged by artillery, causing many enemies to flee before they even get close.

*'''Warp Lightning Cannon''': Basically a great cannon with a lot more ZZZAP and much less of a hassle to micromanage. It fires directly, but isn't bound to a high position to do meaningful damage and believe me, it will do damage. Three regiments of these things will obliterate all but the biggest of monsters in short succession and still retain a lot of firepower against hordes, especially when the enemy is all clumped up in one space.
**'''Ikit's Zzzzap-Zzzzap!''': Though ''Zzzzap!'' is not a particularly useful debuff unless you really hate all those mages on monstrous mounts, you'll almost certainly want this Warp Lightning Cannon variant for its absurdly high missile damage.

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies/General Battle Strategies===

Skaven were for a time one of the most difficult factions to play in MP before their first and then third DLC, but with the full suite of their Weapon Teams and monsters now available they're a force to be reckoned with and have many answers to many of the other factions. While you will never win a stand-up infantry fight against anyone that's not what wins you games - it's your ability to turn every battlefield into a twisted version of Omaha Beach, and you're the rats manning the machine guns.

*'''Beastmen''': Unusually, the Beastmen have similar leadership problems as you do but they make up for it by having a lot scarier monsters than you do, as well as having the ability to summon them into the middle of your gunline. Fortunately for you that means you have the range and damage to easily break their problem units before they can reach you, and you will NEED to fuck their leadership up before your lines clash because again, their base infantry will fuck your up handily. They also have some very annoying skirmish units that will require some attention but luckily you have both similar and superior units to counter that.

*'''Bretonnia''': Bretonnia are fucking fast with their many cavalry options and even their piss infantry will beat your frontline with sufficient time. They will almost certainly flank you hard so it's important to stock up on Skavenslave Spears and wolfrats to tarpit those precious Knights while you cut them up with your artillery and Ratling Guns. The two-punch combo of Ratling Guns and Warplock Jezzails works magnificently here, the Jezzails able to thin down their numbers before the charge and the Ratling Guns will mow them down when they get in range. Throw some Warp Lightning Cannons in for extra shredded cheese. In the case of that odd infantry build with Foot Squires and Pilgrims, bring your best tarpits (Clanrats with Shields will do just fine) and go to town on them with Globadiers, Warpfire Throwers, and Poison Wind Mortars.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''Chaos Daemons''': 'Hey what if we had more mobile irondrakes' 'or could bring khorne rapeletters with slaanesh as backup' Chaos daemons will be the bane of your existence. the only thing you can count on is that he WON'T bring any nurgle units

*'''Chaos Warriors''': Ungodly amounts of armor, infantry that walk right over yours like they're made of nothing, and monsters that deal ridiculous damage. Sounds like a massive pain, right? Not! Remember that you are the Skaven - to fight at range is the most desirable way of fighting and you have some of the best projectile weapons in the game, and on top of that they have some of the best Armour-Piercing capability in the game which means those slow-ass metal hunks they call Chosen will eat warpstone-lead and poison gas like it's the Battle of the Somme redux. You can kite really well against WoC and believe me you want to be kiting lots against Chaos.

*'''Dark Elves''': The Dark Elves represent a faster, killier version of the High Elves and for the Skaven, that's worse news. Lucky for you their durability is much less which means that even your stompy rats like Rat Ogres and Abominations can get some solid work done against their infantry setups. Just watch out for their Shades with Great Weapons and Darkshards who like most archer infantry will rip up your rats if they're even slightly out of position, and the big bad monsters like War Hydras that will inevitably make a beeline for the centre of your line. Blow holes in them with Warp Lightning Cannons as usual.

*'''Dwarfs''': Your arch-nemesis in the mountains has just as good artillery as you do and they can trade really well with your foot ranged because they have better armor and leadership than you do. Don't let them chew up your heavy hitters for too long! Your upside is that a hell of a lot of your roster has great AP and will easily mulch through their lines with proper tarpitting. Flank them hard, abuse your ridiculous magic and don't be afraid to send the occasional Doomflayer or Rat Ogre mob in to put more pressure on their Longbeards. Be wary of Miners with blasting charges and Firedrakes, they can easily interrupt your flank play or the advance of your tarpits with their ungodly amounts of fire damage.

*'''Empire''': The Empire can field a lot of different builds against you so you can never know what exactly they'll throw at you, but their artillery like Hellstorm Rocket Batteries and Mortars will mess up your day if they get the chance to fire. Spread your troops out, bring in some infiltrators or with Vanguard Deployment or Rat Wolves and keep an eye on their fast movers, shut them down with Ratling Guns if they come too close. You can very easily back-flank the Empire with proper micro, and a good Assassin or two with Runner support in the rear can really fuck up their game plan.

*'''Grand Cathay''': Cathay will outrange you and has enough chaff and armor to stand against most of what you can put out. Dwarf's greatest weakness against you was the lack of mobility but cathay's turtling AND mobility AND magic will be really tough to beat. Also if your opponent brings 'yin' lore of magic and starts sending your artillery shots right back at you you're in deep shit-shit.

*'''Greenskins''': While orcs and monsters may seem like the scariest threats, you really need to keep your eyes peeled for goblins. You have the firepower to turn a mob of orcs into swiss cheese before they can haul their asses into melee, but wolf and spider riders can hit you unexpectedly fast and hard. You should also remember that greenskins can fill there WAAAGH! meter from any melee combat, so throwing skavenslaves at them can actually benefit them in the long run. Not that you should avoid throwing chaff at the enemy entirely, but its better to withdraw from combat if at all possible.

*'''High Elves''': Not an impossible matchup, but it largely depends on what the Elves field in their army. Your big advantage here are your numbers and the liberty of being able to just choose targets. Therefore, fight as any proper Skaven should do: Dirty! Use Howling Warpgale against those dragons, pin the Elven Cavalry down with Ratling Guns and decimate their Spearmen with Globadiers or Mortars. If you know how to make use of Tarpits, this will be going well.

*'''Kislev''': Ratling guns,Ratling guns,Ratling guns. playing the missile game against kislev's low-armor and relatively poor numbers units is your greatest strength, kislev's unbreakable 'by your blood' only comes into account when they're in melee making shredding them from range even more enticing

*'''Khorne''': Khorne powers up by killing your infantry. you have a lot of infantry. you can't outrun the bloodletters with the majority of your units so at best bring gutter runners and pray he didn't bring too many furies. bring what weapons teams you can and try and have a frontline of heroes or rat ogres

*'''Lizardmen''': Lizardmen are the bane of your existence. They are easily able to bring everything to the table you don't like: Scary monsters, flying units, ''lots'' of powerful AoE magic, and decent cavalry. Saurus Warriors easily chomp through your Slaves and Stormvermin and their abundance of giant fuck-off dinosaurs makes sure that your already subpar frontline has a hard time. A match against Lizardmen often means rapid redeployment and singling out key targets. If the opponent is bringing Skink Priests or a Slann, make sure that your front line is sufficiently spaced out to minimize their vortex spells. One key advantage you have over Lizardmen is your great arsenal of ranged firepower; make use of your range and your numbers to keep the big things busy. Warplock Jezzails are invaluable, as well as Warp Lightning Cannons.

*'''Norsca''': Similar ordeal to Lizardmen, however their cavalry option mostly either suck or are vulnerable to tarpitting. Their monsters are scary but mostly unarmoured and their infantry will thrash yours with very little trouble. Don't even think about bringing Moulder beasts to this matchup, Norsca has no shortage of Anti-Large Options and their monsters are much more powerful than yours. However, at long range, you have a strong advantage. Kite their infantry, keep their monsters busy and snipe them with Jezzails or Warp Lighting Cannons. Ratlings have no trouble tearing through Marauder hordes. The best way to win this matchup is to keep the scary things away from your gunline.

*'''Nurgle''': If you can't win this just uninstall. Nurgle has great issues with manuvering giving loads of time for your ranged arsenal to rip him apart, howling warpgale can completely stonewall his flying units giving easy targets for ratling guns. Demolish nurgle's flying units and since every unit in your roster is faster than any non-flying unit in Nurgle's arsenal you can just run around the battlefield re-setting up your units and shredding his infantry. a very easy matchup.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': You've got a lot of options here. ogre's high mass monstrous infantry can only do so much if you bring enough skavenslaves. ratling guns and jezzails will shred through the low-armor ogres. your biggest threat is gorgers. swamp the ogres with chaff and rip them apart. i wouldn't reccomend the kiting game with gutter runners as sabretusks and gorgers WILL outrun and eat them.

*'''Slaanesh''': Oh boy, this is not great for you. Slaanesh's monsters, chariots, and cavalry all clock in at around 100 speed, including their lords. Their infantry is a about half that, close to Deathrunner speed. They will close the distance with you blisteringly fast. Once up close they are going to have a lot of leadership debuffs and armor piercing. Your infantry won't hold against them and the armor on your weapon teams means both jack and shit. If you bring any kind of ranged units you had better protect them very well. Assume your back line is going to get swamped. This might be a good battle to bring in the Moulder monsters. Slaanesh's AP means nothing to their lack of armor and with Throt and a Packmaster around you can keep their leadership a bit more stable. Some Eshin skirmishers might be helpful too but only as a distraction -- Slaanesh will easily run them down.

*'''Skaven''': Skaven excel at disruption and that also applies to other skaven. Bringing artillery and weapon teams is very risky, they're not going to accomplish much if the crews are getting pelted to death by gutter runner slingers or blended by doomflayers. Consider leaving the big guns at home and beefing up your infantry/monster game instead.

*'''Tomb Kings''': Watch out, Tomb Kings can move unexpectedly fast with a lot of chariots and monsters, and will hit your front lines a lot faster than you would like. The monsters are the biggest threat, and you can focus them down pretty quickly, but any TK player with half a brain will bring a Necrotech to patch up any injuries their constructs may have, so make sure you finish each monster before moving on to the next. And keep an eye out for their catapults, they cause even more moral damage than normal artillery and can quickly shatter the enemy rats.

*'''Tzeentch''': Flamers,Flamers,Flamers bring jezzails and take them off the field as fast as possbile, bring strong magic to blast through barriers and resistances and bring rat ogres and other mobile units, making sure tzeench never has the option to put up his barriers after the first engagement is critical.

*'''Vampire Coast''': Free fodder for your Ratlings. No really. You have the best ranged arsenal in the game at your disposal, it has better range than anything on foot the Vampire Coast fields and the Vampirates are also very slow. While many of their units cause fear and terror, if any unit reaches your frontline, you're playing Skaven very, very wrong. Get Ratling Guns, some Warplock Jezzails against the big stuff. Clanrats should do well enough against their frontline barring Depth Guard. Keep an eye out for Mornguls; they have stalk, vanguard deployment, and move surprisingly fast for creatures with no legs. And if they do manage to hit your lines they have enough regeneration and anti-infantry damage to rip straight through your chaff and devour the big guns you were protecting.

*'''Vampire Counts''': The mobility of the Counts makes large gunlines and artillery a dangerous proposition, since Vargheists and Terrorgheists care very little about what may be going on on the ground and you can cast Howling Warpgale only so often. Luckily for you, the Twisted and Twilight happened and brought with it a scary arsenal of mutated horrors that match those of the Vampires. This is one of the few matchups where Stormvermin and Plague Monks can truly shine, as the Vampires Skeleton Hordes and Zombies stand no chance against them and Halberds have little trouble to come out on top against Black Knights, Blood Knights, and the like. Stormvermins better morale also helps out against the fear every unit of the Counts cause. The occasional Chieftain and/or Mutant Rat Ogre helps a lot of with the Vampire Lords themselves, especially when the Chieftain sits on a Bonecrusher. You might also want to bring a Warlock Master for magic damage against Mortis Engines and/or Hexwraiths.

*'''Wood Elves''': Wood Elves are... complicated for you to deal with. In a straight ranged duel, you have the advantage; though they have very powerful and flexible archers, they lack any and all artillery to contest yours. Warplightning Cannons are great for sniping the giant, slow-moving Treemen and the Plagueclaw Catapults will chunk any of their infantry quite quickly. A combination of Ratling Gunners and Warplock Jezzails will deal terrible damage to a significant majority of their infantry as they get in range, though once they get ''too'' close you will start to have problems. As a glass-cannon faction, Wood Elves melee infantry can butcher vast swathes of your infantry at record speeds and are fast enough that kiting them will prove difficult even in ideal terrain. Death Runners and wolfrats are your best melee infantry unit against the unarmored elves, though they'll evaporate against War Dancers and Wildwood Rangers. Units like your Rat Ogres, Hellpit Abominations and Doom-Flayer will kill virtually any elf-thing you point them at, but the abundance of spear units in their front line will still deal not insignificant damage to them in the process. Beware their eagles and cavalry; they're extremely fast and can effortlessly flank your units to get at your vulnerable ranged back line. Keep a few units of Stormvermin in reserve to block these charges.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General Advice===

*'''Keep an eye on your food level:''' If you're lacking food, raid your neighbours and fight as many battles as you can... without losing. Don't overuse Menace Below or taking a settlement at a higher level. The latter in particular eats a LOT of food, and the debuffs from being at low food levels (and the lack of buffs from being at high levels) may well cancel out the benefits of starting a settlement at a higher level, plus you may not even have the money to fill all the building slots you unlocked early. Skaven generally grow very fast anyway.

*'''Secure nonaggression pacts where you can:''' Skaven have an incredibly weak early game (ME Skryre arguably excepted), with Eshin especially lacking effective access to a lot of powerful units until you can get your clan reputations up. If you have potential opponents on multiple fronts, play the rat game: secure a nonaggression pact with one, take over the other, then stab the first in the back later. Otherwise, YOU may be the one getting stabbed in the back while you're busy cleaning up one of them.

*'''Play dirty:''' Abuse ambushes (Ancient Cunning in the blue skill tree is amazing and you should get it for every lord), manipulate other factions with diplomatic treaties that you break when it's convenient for you, troll enemy armies that can't use the Underway by tunneling across a mountain range... in general, don't play fair, or you're not a real rat. Everyone hates you anyway, so it's only fair you hate them right back.

===Campaign Specific Advice===

===Mors===

*'''Befriend Numas:''' This Tomb King faction is directly to the west of your starting location in ME, and they usually won't get wiped out for quite some time to come - so becoming friends with them means you will have one less flank to worry about for a while at least. Plus, as Tomb King opinion of you ''increases'' instead of decreasing as your empire level goes up, they'll be all too happy to trade and help out your weak early economy once you start taking a few settlements. An alliance might not be the best idea though, as Daddy Settra may shoot you dirty looks over it (assuming he doesn't get wiped early).

*'''Secure the mountain range:''' Push south afterwards and take the mountains from the greenskins and dawi holding it. With Thorek having been added recently, this became a bit harder, but also more rewarding, as his defeat trait gives the defeating lord more AP damage for '''his entire army''', which makes subsequent battles with the stunties MUCH easier.

*'''Clanrats are your friend:''' Don't underestimate these little buggers. Unless you're playing on higher difficulties, filling an entire army with Clanrats with 2-3 Chieftains backing them up is a surprisingly viable tactic, and Queek can buff them quite heavily - and with your Clanstone, you get lots of extra AP damage to get through dawi armour. Make sure to take the red lord skill that buffs them if you go for this, as well as rushing the upgrades in the top left of the tech tree.

* '''Immortal empires''' In immortal empires you start 1 region away from skarbrand. not province, REGION. prepare for assrape. more seriously rush walls as quick as you can and expand towards lybaras and kroq-gar as you don't have ANY options to counter khorne's basic bloodletters until tier 3 and 4.

===Pestilens===

*'''Don't forget about plagues:''' With other rat factions, plagues are more of an unfunny gimmick as they can backfire on you quite heavily, but this is not a worry with Pestilens as they are even ''buffed'' by catching plagues. And this is almost a necessity against the lizards you fight in early game, as it will be very difficult to grind through Saurus otherwise until you get weapon teams. Plan out your offensives alongside plagues if you can.
*'''Take it slow:''' You are surrounded by enemies on all fronts. Itza is ready to come knocking at any moment, Teclis may decide he needs some rat slippers, and that is just the tip of it. Be ready to be attacked by anything, and everyone at any point.
*'''Undercites are extra useful'''* Besides the general uses, Clan Pestilens as a unique undercity building that spreads an endless plague so as long as the undercity remains undiscovered. This can allow you to easily screw over entire provinces and buff your own. Using this on the city of Itza can make life much easier.

===Skryre===

*'''Just do it:''' In Mortal Empires at least, this is one of the easiest starts in the game. Skavenblight has a capital-tier garrison on its own, on top of costing a lot of movement to reach and causing attrition to most of your enemies. Just expand in whatever direction you please, honestly - going west and north into Estalia and then Bretonnia is the most common move, but you may need to deal with Khazrak on the way. Going east and taking Tilea may also be worth it as it's a very profitable province - just be wary as you may need to fight Belegar and the asrai if you do.
*'''Unite with important clans:''' Ikit's starting position, in Mortal Empires at least, is very convenient in the sense that it shouldn't take too long to reach other major clans to establish alliances(and confederations later). This can be achieved rather easily by hiring assassins and sending them out to whichever clan you need. Be warned tho, due to starting positions on the map, clan Pestilence and Riktus end up being destroyed around 15-20 rounds into the game. Sending the warlock engineer, that you get at the start, to seek out one of those clans (Preferably Pestilence) to establish relations early and bribing them into confederation can serve you well in the long run. Clan Moulder is a bit on the opposite, in terms of confederation timing. Due to some unfixed bug, if you confederate their faction '''before''' Throt reaches rank 5 and completes his "Whip of Domination" quest, completing this quest as only other faction will result in Ghoritch spawing as a member of the clan you've already confederated, without the ability to take him in.
*'''The more engineers the better:''' bonuses provided to your weapon squads by warlock engineers '''stack'''! Don't hesitate to hire several for an army, if you aim on using more than a few weapon teams. One of the best formations for Ikit due to his discounts is 1/4 engineers, 2/4 weapon teams and 1/4 meat shield. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7WnhDvGh-Y While one can go as far as filling their entire squad with engineers], you're very likely to end up in a battle you simply can't win.

===Rictus===

*'''Everyone hates you:''' To an even greater degree than other rat campaigns. In addition, your starting settlement is nowhere near as defensible, and you have Malekith/Hellebron in the north as well as Alith Anar and the Sisters of Twilight expanding from the south. The rule about nonaggression pacts applies double here - secure whatever flank you can, then expand in whatever direction you're left with. Yes, you get a Public Order boost for breaking treaties, but this is a stupid gimmick that does nothing but bait you into unfavourable situations.

===Eshin===

*'''Skirmish tactics out the ass:''' Both in Total Warhammer II and III, you start out surrounded by factions (High elves and Dark elves in TW2) (Dark Elves, Cathay and Ogres in TW3) that will absolutely trounce you in melee. However, because Clan Eshin is able to construct its military building at Tier 1 (Every other skaven faction need at least Tier 2 settlement to construct it), you're pretty much encouraged to hire Night Runners and Gutter Runners. The only thing they have that can catch your infantry is cavalry or monsters - if that happens, just let them eat whatever regiment they focus on while you keep skirmishing with the others. To avoid this happening, hire Eshin Triads that are available from "Den of Secrets" building (Tier 3). Remember, all rats are expendable.

*'''Do clan missions whenever they are available:''' Getting your reputations up is absolutely critical, as not only does this make it much easier to confederate, but it also gives you powerful campaign map bonuses (like each of your armies producing food for maxing Pestilens reputation), but they are ''always'' a net reputation gain unless the reputation you'd gain is maxed out already. You can recruit 1-2 Master Assassin lords and then disband them right after recruitment - they can be used to perform clan missions, but they don't need to be on the map to do so, and while they are in the pool and not on the map, they don't even cost you anything.

===Moulder===

*'''Packamsters are essential:''' Having a packmaster in an army that has moulder units is a good addition, but for a factions that specializes in them, packmaster is a must have. While, by themselves, they are a comparatively weak unit with bonuses against anti-large, the skills they can accumulate with experience make them worth while. Right out of the gate, their passive perk "Running with the Pack" provides small regeneration up for to 3 moulder units, that are currently fighting. Around 5 levels in, they can unlock “Tide of Death” and “Tide of Pox” skills, which gives them an ability to summon a pack of wolf rats with AP and a pack of poison wolf rats once per battle. Both skills can be leveled up again to gain another stack for each. Somewhere around level 13, they can unlock skills to decrease upkeep and increase replenishment rate for moulder units. At level 16 they get a brood horror mount, which makes them a great combatant, due to passive regeneration, speed and health pool provided by said mount. Last, but not least, with enough points invested in their combat skill tree, they can unlock "Shock Collar" ability which gives a +24 Melee attack and a +16 Leadership boost as well as "Immune to psychology" perk for a limited time to any moulder unit including themselves (provided they have a brood horror mount)

*'''Purchase mutagen upgrades early:''' There are several mutagen upgrades in the moulder lab, that give you several random mutations of the specific tier. A nice upgrade indeed, but to make use of it, one must have those preferred mutations unlocked by applying them to any squad/monster at least once. Don't hesitate to mutate your favorite monsters in early game, since mutagen accumulates rather quickly with frequent battles. In addition to that, a special upgrade can be purchased, that applies mutations to any skavenslaves squad purchased with a drawback of being unable to recycle them if they come out faulty.

*'''Don't hoard mutagen:''' Unlike warp fuel from Ikit campaign, mutagen is generated at a somewhat stable rate. However, one cannot stock up more than a 100 points of it. Otherwise, anything beyond that cap will start deteriorate, if left unused. While the storage capacity can be doubled with an upgrade, it won't be available until somewhere mid game.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen

2023-05-19T16:59:30Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{Topquote|Sar Sotek!|Game battle chant for Lizardmen}}
This is the tactics page for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Lizardmen.

==Why play Lizardmen==
*You love the parts of Jurassic Park where the dinosaurs eat everyone.
*They're [[awesome|aztec dinosaurs riding dinosaurs]] into battle. Some of those dinosaurs also have magical lasers strapped to them.
*You want to be a master of the arcane, but you don't want to wear [[High Elves|foppish headgear]] or have a racial lifespan only in the [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|double digits]].
*You'll have a nearly fearless army that's more likely to fight to the death before they turn tail and run.
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMwpC70di2w Do you want to see what one of these does to your enemies?]

===Pros===
*'''A Multitude of Monsters''' - The Lizardmen have the largest diversity of massive monsters in the game at their disposal. Between the various Bastilidons, Stegadons and Carnosaurs you can field, you won't be wanting for big beasties.
*'''Intimidating Presence''' - Unsurprisingly, the average man will struggle to keep calm and collected when facing down a stampede of hungry carnivorous dinosaurs many times his size. Virtually every monster and cavalry unit in this army inspires fear and terror in the mortal hearts of men; a few well timed Carnosaur charges can break and rout forces not outright immune to psychology. Conversely, this also renders your monsters immune to fear/terror effects as well.
*'''Resilient Frontline''' - Saurus Warriors, even unshielded, are among the most durable baseline infantry units in the game. Though their damage output is rather low, their good armor and leadership will ensure they'll hold the line. Most non-AP grindfests will tend to work out in your favor on virtue of that alone. Of course this isn't even mentioning how tanky higher tier units like the Temple Guard or Kroxigors are.
*'''Mastery of Magic''' - With the notable exception of High Elves, Lizardmen have reliable access to more schools of magic than any other race. Slann and the mighty Lord Kroak offer not only some of the most reliable casting in the game, but have consistent access to the otherwise elusive Greater Arcane Conduit skill. Your skink priests are no push overs in magical matters either and are very cost effective options for when slann [[heresy|just aren't your thing]].
*'''Flexible Artillery''' - Where most other factions have to slowly wheel siege engines into place and are vulnerable to attacks in melee, Lizardmen give no fucks. Due to their solar engines and ballistae being strapped on the backs of mighty Bastilidons/Stegadons, they can easily reposition themselves and hold their own in melee combat. Additionally, where the actual artillery models of other races can actually be destroyed, the ballistae and Solar Engines will remain fully intact so long as the creature bearing it remains standing.
*'''Cavalcade of Cavalry''' - Cold Ones, Horned Ones, Terradons and Ripperdactyls, oh my! Though not as fast or as effective as some other faction's cavalry, you have a very diverse selection of fast-moving dinosaurs that can outflank enemies and flexibly adapt to the variety of terrain you may find yourself in. Just don't expect your cav to top any particular charts when compared against any faction that specializes in them.
*'''Predatory Senses''' - As your army consists heavily of predatory animals that excel at sniffing out prey, your enemies will be hard pressed to remain hidden from them. Enemies that rely on stealthy abilities like Stalk are revealed to you far more quickly than others, giving you far more time to react to (in battle) ambushes than other factions.
*'''Poison Aplenty''' - Many of the weapons wielded by your skinks are poisonous, inhibiting the mobility/combat performance of enemies afflicted by their noxious attacks. Despite poison no longer dealing constant damage like on the tabletop, their debuffs are still useful for weakening the enemy for your frontline troops. Thank to the recent update that removes any form of poison debuffs that can apply to the player units through friendly fire, skink's poison darts are even better.
*'''DLC Aplenty''' - You are tied with the Skaven for the honor of having the most DLC. You also have two FLC lords on top of all this, so between a grand total of 7 legendary lords and three DLC lord packs, you are the most supported main game faction in Total War: Warhammer II.
*'''Blessings of the Old Ones''' - Many of your units have "Blessed" variants available in casual multiplayer matches or the campaign. Blessed units are effectively pseudo-Regiments of Renown and every single one is given a buffed health pool and, where applicable, an increased model count per unit. Additionally, many of these blessed units receive additional passive abilities or upgraded stats to further their combat potential. What's better is, unlike Regiments of Renown, you can technically have as many blessed units as you want. The only downside (admittedly a big one) is that in order to acquire blessed units in the campaign, you must complete randomly generated quests that issue a set quantity of a random blessed unit upon completion. If you want an army of blessed carnosaurs, you're going to have to earn it. This is a complete non-issue in causal multiplayer matches, where blessed units are freely available for a very minor upcharge in cost compared to regular variants. Blessed units are unavailable in competitive games.

===Cons===
*'''Slow''' - A majority of the Lizardmen list, namely Saurus infantry, take their sweet time to cross the field. Though there are exceptions to this, such as the various cavalry and skink units available to you, this particular weakness is exacerbated by...
*'''Vulnerable to Range''' - ...their dearth of viable missile units. The only ranged infantry available to you are Skinks; particularly squishy infantry that, though nimble, have pitiful range and DPS against anything shielded and/or armored. Your more potent offensive options, namely Salamanders or Stegadons/Bastilodons, cannot fire while moving and are rather easy to tie down in melee. Defensively, though your Saurus are quite tanky and often come with shields, they are very vulnerable to being kited by ranged cavalry/infantry due to their rather slow movement speed. Additionally, all your units save for Gor-Rok are stuck with Bronze Shields (35% block chance), meaning that even when they're in a position to use them, you'll still be soaking a significant portion of the incoming shots all the same. The same can also be said about most of your monsters, with some minor exceptions.
*'''Limited Generic Character Usefulness''': This is a big one. Other than your magic characters (i.e. Slann and Skink Oracles which are pretty much good because they have magic), your other generic lords/heroes just don't stack up. When you compare them to the other factions' characters, they fall short in their respective roles, whether that's melee prowess, support utility, campaign map usefulness, you name it. Best to rely on your monstrous units and magic to fulfill their roles!
*'''Sub-par Air-Force''' - Though you have fliers, a luxury many other factions lack, they're among the weakest/slowest of them. Terradons, Ripperdactyls, and Coatls aren't ''bad'', per se, but they will lose if faced with the flying cavalry/monsters in their weight class from the likes of Bretonnia or High/Wood Elves.
*'''Expensive Roster''' - As you can imagine, breeding and training massive dinosaurs and mounting arcane instruments of war onto them isn't cheap. All of your high tier units can get crazy expensive both in initial cost and upkeep. Even the bog standard Saurus Warriors come at a premium compared to some other factions options, though this is only particularly notable in competitive multiplayer.
*'''Rampage''' - This was a much bigger problem in Game 2, where pretty much everything except for Skinks and Slaan would lose control and mindlessly charge the closest thing they could see. Game 3 has more or less restricted this issue to your feral monsters, letting your infantry keep their cool and do their jobs. That said, it's still a problem if your Carnosaur suddenly bolts into that nearby unit of halberds while your lords/heroes are otherwise occupied.
*'''Bland Campaign''' - Aside Oxyotl and ''possibly'' Tehenhauin, the Lizardmen have the most boring campaign mechanics of any of the game II races (including some of the game I ones). Their unique mechanic, the Geomantic Web, is a very passive and basic provincial buff that takes a lot of resources and time to properly build up to a level you'll actually notice the effects of and offer no benefit to provinces you don't ''completely'' control. Yes, losing that one minor settlement causes the provincial capital to shut off its Geomantic Pylon until you reclaim it. Additionally, without mod support, Lizardmen are among the most stubborn and oppositional to confederation. Fortunately, though it isn't a top priority for them, CA is aware that Lizardmen need their campaign mechanics updated to bring them up to modern standards. Hopefully that update comes soon.
*'''DLC Locked Content''' - Though a con for virtually every other faction in the game, this is a particularly notable one for Lizardmen. Many, if not most of the Lizardmen's better units are locked behind DLC lord packs. You'll need the Prophet and the Warlock for all units marked with DLC 1, the Hunter and the Beast for everything marked with DLC 2 and the Silence and the Fury for everything marked DLC 3.

==Universal Traits==
There are a couple of perks and abilities shared across a significant portion of the lizardmen unit roster, which will be mentioned here.
*'''Primal Instincts''' - A perk found on a majority of the lizardman roster (exempting lords/heroes and skinks), primal instincts will cause a unit with this ability to rampage out of control should their health drop to 20% or less. This can be a bit of a mixed blessing, as the rampaging unit will receive a +15% Charge Bonus and a +8 Melee Attack bonus and continue to fight nearby opponents in situations that any other unit would turn tail and rout. The bad news is that your opponent has more control over the rampaging unit than you do; rampaging units will single-mindedly charge at the nearest enemy unit, which your opponent can take to his advantage by using faster infantry/cavalry to kite the rampaging unit while his ranged infantry/artillery finishes it off. Of course, this is also factoring in that by the time these bonuses kick in, your Saurus unit or Carnosaur is typically on its last legs and won't last much longer anyways. Should the rampage end ''before'' the unit dies, they'll usually begin to rout from the field and will often be too far out of position for you to properly recover them.
::'''Warhammer III''' buffs Primal Instincts for Saurus Units; no longer causing rampage (thank god) while triggering much sooner (Triggering at 50% health as opposed to TWWII's 20%). When active, it gives Saurus units a +15% Charge Bonus, +10 Melee Attack and +5% Physical Resist buffs that remain active indefinitely so long as the Primal Instinct threshold has been crossed. This applies even to Saurus cavalry and since you can actually ''control'' them when Primal Instincts pops now, you can be far more surgical when taking advantage of these buffs.

*'''Cold Blooded''' - A targetable ability found on most lizardmen lords and heroes, Cold Blooded helps to counter the innate weakness in the lizardmen faction; their tendency to rampage. When used, Cold Blooded will snap a single unit out of a rampage (if they are currently doing so) and will temporarily buff their leadership. This ability can be used pre/post rampage as well, as the leadership buff can potentially prevent a rampage from occurring or can help prevent a tattered unit from routing once their rampage expires. As this ability has a somewhat lengthy cooldown an is only found on lords/heroes, care should be taken on when it is used and what it is used on. It can also be used on units that were forced to rampage by an ability or spell from enemy units, providing a unique bit of counterplay against such tactics that other factions lack.

*'''Predatory Senses''' - An ability found on all non-Slann/Skink units in your roster, this allows your units to detect hidden or stealthed units far sooner and from farther away than other armies (around 160 meters). This also disregards any faction/unit/terrain modifiers that enhance stealth, with the only exception being the ''Unspottable'' trait. With proper coverage, this can make ambushing or outflanking your forces extremely challenging to do discreetly.

*'''Aquatic''' - An ability found on all Skink infantry, Kroxigors (though their stat card doesn't mention the trait, they still receive the Aquatic bonus) and your Salamander/Razordon hunting packs, this not only allows them to ignore the usual penalties for fighting in water-logged environments, but gives them a 20% bonus to melee attack/defense when they do so. Considering non-aquatic infantry suffers a 20% malus to those stats when slogging around in the water, this can become a rather substantial combat buff for a significant portion of your roster (keep your Saurus dry). Potentially losing matchups will suddenly swing into your favor and that's not even factoring in your abundant poisoned weaponry and robust catalog of supportive magics to widen that gap further. As amazing as all that sounds... marsh and shallow water environments are rather few and far in between. Additionally, for the maps that ''do'' have swamped areas, coercing your opponent to willingly splash around with you is a battle all its own, one you're not likely to succeed in without careful planning.

*'''Quick Learners''' - Another Skink-exclusive ability, this greatly increases the rate that your Skinks gain ranks. This helps distinguish skinks against comparable chaff infantry since they'll benefit from rank-boosted stats much more quickly and, as such, makes them surprisingly effective early-mid game infantry. This perk also applies to units such as Terradon Riders due to having Skink Riders.

==Campaign Mechanics==
'''Geomantic Web''': Pretty much the only unique thing every Lizardmen faction (except Nakai) has, and it's a bit lackluster. Lizardmen have access to a special view of the global map that displays the Geomantic Web, with every region capital acting as a nexus point. Once you control an entire region, you can build up Geomantic Pylons in order to strengthen the Geomantic Web, which in turn offers gradually stronger perks (like an increasing percentage to building income, higher ranked recruitment, etc) the more you increase it. At the beginning of the game, these bonuses are quite small, but as you expand and enhance the Geomantic Web over the course of the campaign, these benefits can make a genuine impact on your economy.

There are a few problems with this mechanic, however. The first major one is that you receive ''no'' bonuses if you don't control the entire region. Obviously, this isn't a problem when you're surrounded by factions you were planning on killing off, but this becomes complicated if an ally suddenly captures that last settlement in a region before you could. If it was another Lizardmen faction, you could maybe play the long game and eventually confederate them, but otherwise you'd be forced to attack them in order to claim the region so that you can actually activate the Geomantic Web benefits. Warhammer III and mods have offered ways to purchase or trade settlements, but in many cases the AI tends to value each settlement they own far more than anything else you could offer them. This often leads to lengthy wars against what could've otherwise been a valuable trading partner and buffer against foreign elements that you'd otherwise have to deal with yourself. The second major problem with the Geomantic Web is that even if you build up a regional capitol to tier V and build the appropriate pylon, it does ''nothing'' without an adjacent region ''also'' having a tier V capitol and pylon. That's right, the strength of the Geomantic Web is reliant on multiple regions being entirely under your control and also having them fully built up. This can be a time and gold consuming process that forces the Lizardmen player to take it slow; Lizardmen economy tends to be on the low side of the spectrum, made worse by their fairly expensive unit roster and lengthy build/research timeframes. And of course, if an enemy army rolls in and claims one of your minor settlements, the Geomantic Web benefits for that entire region are shut off entirely, further stemming your growth rates. The third issue with the Geomantic Web; it's a very basic and uninteractive mechanic. Aside the baked in map-painter that is the (Im)Mortal Empires campaign, there's not much incentive or direction to build up the Geomantic Web besides using it to squeeze every last bit of gold or growth you can to boost your dismal economy.

'''Rites''': Much like most of the Warhammer II races, Lizardmen have access to special rites that, generally, grant them temporary buffs for the cost of some gold. While every faction has one or two unique rites, every Lizardmen faction has access to and must perform the ''Rite of Awakening'' in order to recruit new Slann lords. Fluffy.

'''Sacrifices to Sotek (Tehenhauin)''': Tehenhauin's unique focus, in addition to the Geomantic Web, is his crusade against all of Skaven kind. By gathering captives from battles, you can sacrifice them to Sotek to gain empire-wide boosts to growth or to recruit the Blessed variants of the Lizardmen roster.

'''Dedication to the Old Ones (Nakai)''': Nakai's main mechanic as a Horde faction. By capturing settlements and dedicating them to one of three Old Ones, Nakai can unlock faction-wide buffs to his hordes. He can also spend the accumulated Favor of the Old Ones to recruit Blessed Units or activate temporary buffs or bonuses for use in battle.

'''Visions of the Old Ones (Oxyotl)''': Oxyotl's special perk, Oxyotl can teleport across the entire Warhammer Fantasy world to specific targets once per turn in order to accomplish an issued mission for rewards. By completing these missions, he can be given several rewards (such as Blessed Spawnings, increased favor from fellow Lizardmen factions or temporary buffs for certain units), but the most prominent and consistent reward are special gems used to purchase Silent Sanctums. Silent Sanctums act much like Skaven Undercities in that they are built under any settlement across the map. Doing so gives Oxyotl vision of the province that settlement is located in (and can be upgraded to give him vision of all adjacent provinces as well) as well as two building slots that can give him anything from upkeep reduction to increased ammunition and missile damage. Additionally, one such sanctum can be upgraded to act as a teleport node, allowing Oxyotl's army to warp to that Silent Sanctum at any time (much like Oxyotl's capitol).

==Lords==
The scaly faces of the Lizardmen. With the exception of the Slann Mage-Priest, which outperforms even most Legendary Lords, the Lizardmen aren't exactly a character-centric faction. Their LL's are very pointy. Most of them are great on the battlefield (with either melee or magic prowess), but their army buffs vary in usefulness and their factionwide buffs are nearly non-existant, with only a couple lords like Kroq-Gar providing any whatsoever. It's very difficult to justify taking even Legendary Lords (let alone your generic lords, which are frankly terrible) over any flavor of slann mage-priest due to the sheer versatility the latter bring to your army, especially since you are not hurting for giant, single entity beatsticks to ram into enemy formations. Slaan benefit from star chambers in campaign, other don't, no contest, only use slaan if stacking chambers (which you really should).

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Mazdamundi''' - The last second generation Slann (lore-wise), Mazdamundi uses magic primarily from the Lore of Light to act as a hybrid support/offensive caster. The two main selling points of Mazdamundi over a generic Slann Mage-Priest are his stegadon mount Zlaaq and his signature spell ''Ruination of Cities''. Zlaaq allows Mazdamundi to actually engage in melee, something no other Slann can safely do, and makes him substantially more durable against most forms of attack. ''Ruination of Cities'', especially when combined with ''Banishment'', makes Mazdamundi an excellent AoE caster capable of tearing infantry focused armies to shreds with ease without chewing through your Winds of Magic reserve. These spells are limited however, being bounded spells, so make sure you wait until the right moment to utilize them. Additionally, don't put too much faith in them; as their movement patterns are random, these spells (particularly Ruination of Cities) can just as easily do nothing or even devastate your own forces as they can your enemies if you aren't careful.
::'''Warhammer III''' brings a few buffs to his toolkit; the barrier mechanic normally reserved for Tzeentch armies is now also granted to all Slann as well, helping mitigate the first few attacks against him. Additionally, to better represent the almighty toad's arcane prowess, Mazdamundi receives a 50% increase in range to all spells he casts. This turns him into a sort of magical artillery engine, as he'll have virtually no issues slapping that Banishment or Comet of Cassandora cast pretty much wherever he damn well pleases.

*'''Kroq-Gar''' - Your dedicated duelist, Kroq-Gar is an offensive powerhouse that shines when seated atop Grimloq, his faithful Carnosaur mount. Though expensive, Kroq-Gar/Grimloq can engage virtually any enemy type in the game effectively and is able to duel against many enemy lords and come out on top. Though a monstrous force on his own merits, Kroq-Gar is something of a glass cannon however and as a larger target is prone to getting mobbed by multiple units or getting focused down by ranged infantry/artillery. Another notable shortcoming is that he provides limited support for the rest of your army (a bit of a problem for all Saurus Oldbloods), and as such is not recommended for dino-heavy army builds, his bonuses to armor and leadership being less important than the healing abilities of Life Slann.

*'''Tehenhauin (DLC 1)''' - Your only Skink-Priest lord choice, Tehenhauin is something of a niche pick. He can deal solid enough damage against footlords/cavalry lords in a fight (particularly if on a Ripperdactyl) and is also capable of dealing notable damage to swarms of infantry (with his Lore of Beasts and/or with his Engine of the Gods), but he's extremely frail for a Lizardmen lord when unmounted. Never get the Fanatic skill in his skill tree; it only benefits skink units and they are pretty trash after the mid-game.

*'''Tiktaq'to (FLC)''' - Another somewhat niche pick, Tiktaq'to is a dedicated flier who excels in lists built with Terradons, Ripperdactyls and Coatls as the focus. Though mounted on Zwuup, Tiktaq'to is your squishiest (legendary) lord and lacks the support/damage options available to the others, but he's inarguably the swiftest of the bunch (which doesn't mean much compared to other flying lords and heroes). Under no circumstances is he a direct combat lord; against any duelist or large/monstrous lord he will lose handily. The only targets he can safely engage are dedicated casters, artillery and dedicated ranged infantry. Because of this, playing him requires far more finesse than what is required for virtually every other lord; even against targets he ''can'' engage effectively, prolonged combat will invariably whittle him down and may the Old Ones help you if he's surrounded while grounded. Keep a squad or two of Ripperdactyls close by to make up the difference in combat ability and to take advantage of Tiktaq'to's buffs. Also, his unique Epic weapon doesn't work if he is attacking a ground target in melee because its attack bonuses are only in effect when flying, so he's weaker than a Skink Terradon Rider when attacking ground targets UNLESS you swap out his weapon. When used in campaign, much of his value comes from his rather insane and stackable upkeep discount for flier units. Even on higher difficulties, it is extraordinarily easy to stack enough upkeep cost reductions to have a full Coatl doomstack damn near for free (until the Supply Lines penalties become particularly swollen, at least). Additionally, his unique rite gives all of his armies the ability to easily chase down fleeing armies or attack multiple settlements a turn which can be ''devastating'' to an enemy faction if used at the right moment.

*'''Nakai (DLC 2)''' - The largest and oldest of the Kroxigor Ancients, Nakai is an infantry mulcher who (thanks to his enthusiastic animations) will literally sweep his way through the thickest blobs of infantry. Nakai possesses a few notable traits over his competitors; his ability to grant perfect vigour to nearby allies ensures they're in peak form throughout the entire battle while his Miasma of Dispair can cripple enemies within his presence; a potentially nasty combo that can ensure your forces slowly but steadily chew through enemy frontlines. Unfortunately, Nakai has a few major weaknesses: As a large entity, he's vulnerable to anti-large weaponry (which does abound among baseline infantry) and is an easy, defenseless target for ranged units to snipe. He also struggles to properly duel opposing heroes/lords due to his size and janky animations making him lunge about haphazardly while they continue to poke him to death. Because of this, he tends to work best as a force multiplier for infantry builds.

*'''Gor-Rok (FLC)''' - Where Kroq-Gar is the spear, Gor-Rok stands as the shield. Gor-Rok is a dedicated footlord, among the slowest of them, but makes up for it through sheer, unbreaking resilience. As the only unit in the entire Lizardmen roster with a silver shield (55% missile block chance), Gor-Rok is able to shoulder his way through the kind of firepower that would fell a lesser Old-Blood on the approach. Gor-Rok can also stand neck-deep among hordes of angry infantry and walk out seemingly unscathed. When equipped with the ''Mace of Ulumak'', Gor-Rok can also prove a competent duelist in his own right, even if it's only in temporary bursts. Gor-Rok does falter against mounted/monstrous heroes/lords and is vulnerable to duelists with good AP values, though the Twisted and the Twilight patch has helped address the issue of him being staggered to hell and back. Never the less, Gor-Rok is a relatively cost effective legendary lord who can and will hold the line until the bitter end. His campaign starts with Lord Kroak fully unlocked and active, which makes his campaign among the easiest in the entire game, even on higher difficulties.
**Gor-Rok's rite will be changed in Immortal Empires, giving his units Barrier and immunity to certain debuffs, like Poison. Unlike Tzeentch, his version of barrier probably won't be as game-breaking because of how slow Saurus and that they do their best stuck-in.

*'''Oxyotl (DLC 3) ''' - The legendary daemon-slaying chameleon skink of Oyxl is the last legendary lord for the faction (at least for TWW2). As to be expected from any shape or form of a Chameleon Skink, Oxyotl is a rather cheap, stealthy character hunter who behaves somewhat like a Wood Elf Waystalker. Unlike Waystalkers, Oxyotl has a particularly nasty trick in the form of Master Predator; a toggle-able skill that reduces his movement speed in exchange for an increase in range, Snipe and the ability to remain undetectable unless the enemy gets extremely close to his position. Combined with his modestly powerful armor piercing missiles, this can quickly wear down most armored lords and heroes rather quickly if left to his own devices. Of course, as a reasonably cost effective LL, the drawbacks have to come in somewhere and for Oxyotl, that drawback is melee combat. While he has acceptable melee attack and defense, Oxyotl has no armor or damage mitigation tools at his disposal. Any combat lord or hero worth his or her salt can and will kill him in a hand-to-hand duel. Fortunately, he's fast enough that virtually no footlord can catch up to him unless you willfully allow it. He also struggles to deal with the rank and file and lacks any notable support abilities for his own forces, but that's fairly typical of the niche Oxyotl fills.

===Generic Lords===
Your generic lords aren't amazing in campaign compared to other factions, but can really shine in competitive multiplayer. In the campaign, you'll generally never want to get non-slann lords after turn 20(ish) because lizardmen Star Chamber buildings give 3 bonus levels to your slann lords, meaning they quickly outpace any other lord available. Any need for a melee lord can be filled by one of the many lizardmen heroes, who can also be easily recruited at higher starting level than the melee lords. You may still find the need to recruit cheaper stand in lords in case of an emergency, as the Rite of Awakening's cooldown is a notable hitch in acquiring more slann.

*'''Slann Mage-Priest''' - Your almighty magic toads, slann are dedicated mages who don't participate in fights directly, but wreak havoc upon your enemies from afar with their magics or supplement your forces with defensive/healing energies. Slann are among the precious few generic lords in the game who have access to the ''Greater Arcane Conduit'' ability which, when combined with their reliable casting, can allow savvy players to call upon vast reserves of the Winds of Magic long after lesser mages have tapped out of theirs. In addition to ''Greater Arcane Conduit'', each slann has access to Banishment as a bound spell as well as the ''Shield of the Old Ones''; a large AoE defensive buff that applies a 22% damage resistance modifier to all allied units within it's bubble. Understandably, for all their arcane might, slann are practically helpless if caught in a fight. They are the single slowest unit in your entire army and are quite chunky, making them easy targets up close or at range. To this end, you'll almost always want a screening unit of Temple Guard (or at least shielded saurus) to keep enemies from ganking them. Outside of that, there are four varieties of Slann Mage-Priests, each dedicated to a specific lore of magic:
**'''Fire Slann''' - When you want to burn the [[HERESY|heretic]] in holy fire for the Old Ones. Combined with their bound Banishment, fire slann are capable of mulching clumps of infantry wholesale and can even churn out respectable single target damage with their Fireball and Piercing Bolts of Burning spells. Fire damage is particularly useful against the myriad of enemies with regeneration, and practically mandatory when facing undead crises in campaign. Being able to buff an entire line of saurus with an upcast Flaming Sword/Cloak of Flame can turn the game in your favor.
**'''Life Slann''' - These guys are the MVP in any monster heavy list; though you have a few other options for healing (such as the Revivification Bastilidon, high slann and the newly added Skink Oracle), life slann are still the uncontested kings at it. If you want an army built on the back of beasts, a life slann is essential to keeping them in the fight. With a life slann, you can wipe away any damage your stack of monsters take during the routing phase of a battle, making them both tactically and strategically important. Pair one with a Revivification Bastilidon to very rapidly resurrect slain models in any infantry unit and bring back even the most tattered units to full fighting strength. Additionally, should you encounter blobs of infantry that pose a notable danger to your larger beasties, Life slann are able to slap down Dwellers Below to deal frankly startling amounts of damage to practically every non-flying unit caught within its radius.
**'''Light Slann''' - Light slann are fantastic supports for an infantry-heavy army namely due to two spells: Net of Amyntok and Birona's Timewarp. Like every other army, Net of Amyntok is an excellent tool for pinning down faster cavalry from the likes of Bretonnia or the Dark Elves so that your ''much'' slower saurus can catch up and engage them in melee (or to keep them still while your Salamanders incinerate them wholesale). Birona's Timewarp can turn the tide in a key engagement when used properly. Offensively, being able to cast Banishment much more frequently can also deal devastating damage to enemy infantry. That said, even your Greater Arcane Conduit will struggle to keep you topped off; the Lore of Light can consume your Winds of Magic quite quickly.
**'''High Slann''' - Similarly to light slann, high slann are a hybrid offensive/support caster. Unlike the Lore of Light, you do have access to minor magical healing through Apotheosis and have access to an excellent anti-flier vortex spell in Tempest (Net of Amyntok is superior in most cases, however). High slann offensively specialize in single target damage and can deal devastating amounts of it between the Arcane Unforging and Soul Quench spells, giving them a solid niche against duelist lords/heroes and larger monsters.
**'''Heavens Slann''' - Multiplayer only, the Heavens Slann is unfortunately the worst slann of the bunch. It's not that the Heavens lore is lacking nor is it the slann himself, but the fact that he faces strict competition against your Skink Priests of all things. A Skink Priest of Heavens, though lacking the Greater Arcane Conduit, is a much faster/smaller target by default and has access to several mount options that make him much more flexible offensively or defensively. Additionally, as a hero, you can take a more offensively focused melee lord or a slann attuned to a different lore for more magical variety. Even if you're only running one with nothing but the crest on his skinky-head, the cheaper price alone makes the Heavens slann a hard sell comparatively.
:::'''Warhammer III''': All Slann become a bit more defensible with the boon of their own personal barriers, a ''much'' needed buff to these fat frog's personal defenses. Of course, barriers will do little to assuage prolonged and unsupported melee combat, but it will help protect them from the stray blast or occasional skirmish.
:::'''Immortal Empires''': A minor nerf to the Slann, Star Chambers can now only ever be constructed in Province capitals, ''severely'' curbing how quickly you can recruit high-level Slann right out the gate. They can still be abused, though you now need to capture ''many'' more territories before you can crank out Slann on par with their Mortal Empires power level. The good news is, the Rite of Awakening is now free to use once unlocked and can be spammed on cooldown to try farming for second/third generation Slann.

*'''Saurus Old-Blood''' - Offensive duelists through and through, saurus old-bloods are flexible masters of combat who can lead on foot, on the back of a cold one, or atop a mighty carnosaur (you'll usually want one on a carnosaur). Compared to the kroxigor ancient, saurus old-bloods are less powerful in melee combat but can be much faster and have marginally better faction support skills. For the purposes of both Multiplayer and Campaign, you'll want to avoid taking Old-Bloods as your lord (unless you have ''no'' DLC content). Their role can easily be filled by Saurus Scar Veterans, who ''don't'' take up your only Lord slot for the army (and are, for all intents and purposes, identical sans Campaign skill trees). If you insist on taking an Old-Blood, take Kroq-Gar. Otherwise, a Slann or Kroxigor Ancient would be better suited for your needs.
::'''Immortal Empires''': Saurus Old-Bloods get some new life pumped into their battle-tested bones in Immortal Empires, at least when fighting under Kroq-Gar's banner. Universal 15% Upkeep discounts for all armies led by Saurus Old-Bloods and an additional +1% Weapon Strength boost for each level your Old-Blood gains make these guys your go-to beatsticks. Their discounted upkeep costs also make it easier to field ''more'' armies which, especially in the mid-late game, is particularly valuable as your empire's borders outpace your glacial economy's ability to upgrade settlement infrastructure in a timely manner. Slann are, of course, still quite valuable, though with Sacred Spawning Caverns and Temple Guard Barracks providing increased starting ranks to Old-Bloods and Scar-Veterans, it's hard to say no to these guys. At least when riding with Kroq-Gar.

*'''Red-Crested Skink Chief (DLC 1)''' - Your discount Lord and the one you'll want to take if you want to reserve as much money for your big beasties as possible. Of course, you could splurge a little to put him atop an ancient stegadon to scorch swaths of infantry with the Engine of the Gods (though if you're going to do that, you may as well spring for Tehenhauin so that you at least have access to the Lore of Beasts as well). The RCSC is a competent combatant equipped with poisonous, armor-piercing attacks that can make him surprisingly dangerous in a fight, though like everything skinky, he's a particularly squishy lord when unmounted. The best use you can put him to is boosting your heroes in a 'Pompous' trait-stacking lizardman hero army, which makes an already broken strategy even stronger.

*'''Kroxigor Ancient (DLC 2)''' - Baby Nakais for those who don't quite feel up for splurging on the big boy himself. Kroxigor ancients are quite literally just watered down versions of Nakai; though they won't grant perfect vigour to all friendly forces near them, they will still wade through most infantry due to their size and mass and put out such raw damage that most non-elite infantry will falter swiftly against them. However, just like Nakai, they are completely helpless at range, are vulnerable to AP and anti-large weapons and are ''slow''. In competitive multiplayer, though they are still a bit of a niche pick, they are much more attractive than Nakai due to their cheaper price and because they have access to the Amulet of Itzl, which grants the Kroxigor Ancient 66% damage resistance for a short time. This can give them enough of an edge to eek out against enemy duelists or to survive long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

==Heroes==
As said, the Lizardmen characters can be a little sub-par compared to other factions (with the exception of the Skink Oracle, see below), but their selection is surprisingly versatile, and the Lizardmen have some of the best ''mounts'' in the game, which really helps push their characters battlefield potential. The Lizardmen also have one of the strongest Legendary Heroes in the game: Lord Kroak. These guys are capable of dealing immense damage to your enemies and ''all'' of them (except Kroak) can be mounted on one of your massive dinosaurs.

===Legendary Hero===
You've only got the one, but he's all you'll need. Lord Kroak is your expensive but powerful offensive caster and forms the center of many army formations.
*'''Lord Kroak (FLC)''' - The first of the Slann doesn't let something as trivial as death inconvenience him, or keep him from kicking warmblood ass to the Old World and back. Lord Kroak is one of a very select few heroes in the game with access to ''Greater Arcane Conduit'' (which can be paired with another Slann's Greater Arcane Conduit), making him a fantastic force multiplier in a caster-heavy list just from being present. For better or worse, Kroak doesn't have access to any lore of magic and only has two notable abilities. But ''damn'' can those abilities turn the tide of battle. His only bound ability (other than the universal Cold-Blooded) is the ''Supreme Shield of the Old Ones'', an upgraded version of the regular Shield of the Old Ones that grants allies a 44% damage resistance while within it (and stacks with the regular version if you're really in a bind). The only spell(s) he has access to is his signature Deliverance of Itza (and its three varying strengths). Deliverance of Itza, ''the'' reason you're bringing him, can virtually delete entire units from existence with an efficiency only known to the Winds of Death spell, but it has a few major drawbacks. First, it is intensely mana hungry: you'll typically only get one or two DoI (III) casts per battle before you run dangerously low on magic. By relying on DoI I or II, you won't consume as much magic per cast, but the difference in damage dealt becomes very apparent. Secondly, there is a very lengthy and obvious tell for when the spell is cast; most competent opponents will be able to move their forces away from the blast before it goes off unless you manage to pin them down with supporting spells like the Net of Amyntok or simply bodyblocking them from all sides. Thirdly, this spell is virtually useless against single entities such as Lords/Heroes and giant monsters, meaning he'll do little towards more elite doomstack lists. Despite all these cons working against him, a well timed Deliverance of Itza can and will win you battles if you plan accordingly. The best part, it deals absolutely no friendly fire damage. [[Meme|You may fire when ready]].

===Generic Heroes===
In the campaign, all Lizardmen heroes benefit from the 'Humble' trait, which appears on Lords and Heroes at random. This lets you recruit them at 2 additional ranks higher than their default rank, with unlimited stacking potential, making them stronger and more versatile earlier in the game than heroes of other factions. In the late-game, you can disband Humble heroes as you build more Slann Star-Chambers, however these are expensive buildings for non-Hexoatl factions; for the 6000 gold needed for 1 Star-Chamber, you can hire at least 4 Humble heroes for 8 bonus levels. Of course, those extra heroes each take up their respective hero slots and will take a modest sum out of your income every turn and as such are less efficient in the long run compared to Star Chambers.

*'''Saurus Scar-Veteran''' - A step down from the Old-Blood, Scar-Veterans behave in much the same manner as your generic saurus lords. Vicious and powerful combatants, Scar-Veterans are built to brazenly charge into combat and deal bloody death to all who stand in their way. The real reason you'll want to take any Scar-Vets isn't for the saurus himself, however badass he may be, but for the carnosaur mount you can put him on. Though a more expensive version of the feral carnosaur, Scar-Vets are immune to rampaging (and can indeed stop others from rampaging thanks to their Cold Blooded ability) and have a slightly stronger statline, making them excellent all-round threats to whatever your opponent might be packing. These Scar-Vets are ideal choices for armies led by slann-mage priests; they won't be competing for Winds of Magic like the skink priests and will more than make up for the slann's melee deficiency. If you want to keep him cheaper, you can take one on foot to lead fellow saurus infantry into battle, or stick in on a Cold One to ride with the rest of your cavalry. A modestly popular tactic in Multiplayer is to take two of these guys on Cold Ones to act as hero/lord hunters.
::'''Immortal Empires''': Scar-Veterans, though still quite capable in every other Lizardmen subfaction, truly shine when fighting under Kroq-Gar's flag. +30% experience gain and +1% weapon strength per earned rank (max buff of 50%) can make these guys quite vicious very quickly. Since the Humble trait, the Star Chamber and Temple Guard Barracks rank boost effects stack, you can also recruit highly ranked Scar-Veterans ''very'' early on in the campaign (relatively, that is). It's to such a degree that you could very easily start cranking out freshly recruited Scar-Veterans on Carnosaurs with a bonus 18% or higher Weapon Strength buff right out of the gate. Put in an army lead by a Saurus Old-Blood for that 15% upkeep reduction and you have yourself a solidly cost effective doomstack that, post level 20, will just respawn back home if they ever bite off more than they can chew.

*'''Skink Priest''' - Skink priests are your humble, mortal casters. Cheap and nimble, these guys can easily outrun most footslogging infantry and are fantastically flexible mages that can fill any offensive or defensive holes your army might have. If mounted on a terradon, their speed will be unparalleled (for Lizardmen); they'll be able to rain magical death anywhere on the battlefield with ease and can quickly deliver support to your forces no matter how spread out they may be. Alternatively, you may mount them on stegadons or ancient stegadons to make them terrifying all-rounders, though their price tag will quickly reflect that. probably want to stick with the regular stegadon, great hybrid artillery and melee monster
**'''Skink Priest (Heavens)''' - The Heavens discipline is among the better offensive lores of magic in the game for the instant raw damage output it's capable of. Wind Blast and Chain Lightning will be your go-to offensive spells. Comet of Cassandora, though powerful, should generally be avoided due to how long its casting time is. Harmonic Convergence and Curse of the Midnight Wind are staples of support sets and can turn your saurus infantry into immovable walls of tooth and claw.
**'''Skink Priest (Beasts)''' - Formerly your worst discipline, the Lore of Beasts has recently received a bit of a tweaking to make it considerably more attractive and usable. It's still among the least potent of your available magics, but it is among the most flexible in utility. Wyssan's Wild Form and Pann's Impenetrable Pelt provide rather significant combat buffs (particularly when stacked) while Curse of Anraheir debilitates your enemies. Offensively, Flock of Doom is a fantastic and cheap chaff cleaner that affects any units that have at least one model within its 30m range. For your single target needs, The Amber Spear allows your caster to act as impromptu artillery should the need arise. Formerly ''the'' reason to take a Beasts caster was for the Transformation of Kadon; being able to summon up to two Manticores to flank enemy formations or dive into backlines can have a massive impact on the flow of battle, but a bump up to ''20'' Winds of Magic per summon makes it challenging to make much use of your other spells in multiplayer.

*'''Skink Chief''' - Your skirmishing duelist, skink chiefs cripple enemy forces with their poisonous darts so that your army can face weaker resistance. Skink chiefs are a force to be feared when mounted on a stegadon, allowing them to easily face down many enemy heroes/lords in a one-on-one fight. In the campaign, the ability to build skink chief capacity-increasing buildings in minor settlements means you can spam them across the map or stack up to 19 of them into an army, which can be hilariously broken depending on the traits and items you equip them with.

*'''Skink Oracle (DLC 3)''' - By far the best Hero for the Lizardmen, the Skink Oracle brings a cavalcade of well rounded offensive and supportive magic to the field atop a mighty Troglodon. And only on a Troglodon, so he's very much an "all or nothing" type of unit. The first major reason the Skink Oracle makes for a popular pick is the fact that he's your only non-Slann source of magical healing, potentially freeing up your Lord choice for a more offensive beat stick like Kroq-Gar or even a Kroxigor Ancient. Secondly, as a hero, not only does your Skink Oracle provide a use of Cold-Blooded for the rest of your forces, but his own Troglodon will never rampage. Magical prowess aside, this alone is worth considering the rather steep price-tag. Speaking of, the Troglodon allows the Skink Oracle to function as a mid-range anti-Monster skirmisher. Combined with a potential Fireball cast here or there, the Skink Oracle ''excels'' at chunking opposing Lords/Heroes, especially if they're atop a mount or naturally monstrous in size. Just don't have him brazenly lead the charge into melee combat, as he won't last terribly long in it. If your army would like to use a non-Lore of Life Slann or any non-Slann Lord for that matter (effectively any LL banner army), a Skink Oracle and a Revivification Bastilodon or two are excellent tools to keep your forces in tip-top shape so that they can keep doing what they do best.

==Units==
Many lizardmen units are available in standard and 'blessed' variants. Blessed units are only made available in the campaign by completing random timed missions, such as getting 1000 kills or winning 4 battles, but make up for their randomness and limited quantity by being free to recruit at any time in any army and by having at least one extra ability or superior stat over their contemporary counterparts. They aren't to be confused with Regiments of Renown, unique units recruited at max rank and limited to one instance per. In casual multiplayer matches with Unit Caps turned off, Blessed Units are recruitable for only a modest bump in price over their generic counterparts.

===Infantry===
Infantry provide the foundation of every army in Total War: Warhammer, and the Lizardmen are no different. Indeed, even the humble skinks have their place.

====Melee Infantry====
*'''Skink Cohort''' - Skinks armed with little macuahuitls and shields, skink cohorts are cheap chaff units primarily used to fill out rosters or to support your more expensive infantry actually doing the killing. Despite being shielded, these guys will die by the score due to their pitiful defensive statline if they face any frontline infantry head on and are one of the few lizardmen units prone to routing from leadership issues. Having said that, skink cohorts are among the fastest cheap infantry units in the game and are still rather decent combatants when fighting similar unarmored units and tend to win such engagements (namely against chaff or low tier infantry like Bretonnian peasantry or Vampire Count zombies). Indeed, their speed is invaluable for flanking enemies tied up by your saurus warriors and chasing routing enemies off the map. When pinching pennies, you can't argue with that. In campaign these guys can be skipped entirely for the javelin version instead as the missile attack for 10 extra upkeep per turn is leagues better than just having the club.

*'''Red-Crested Skinks (DLC 1)''' - Angry skinks wielding poisonous, armor-piercing warhammers. Red-Crested Skinks provide an invaluable source of early game/cheap melee AP damage and poison, though they're less effective against unarmored targets as a whole compared to regular Skink Cohorts. They lack both shields and armor and as they are simply skinks, they will die in droves unless they're taking refuge among the far burlier saurus warriors. On that note, RC skinks synergize excellently with saurus warriors, as they can simultaneously chew through armored units the saurus tend to bounce off of and further cripple these enemies with poison, allowing your much slower saurus to both catch up to and butcher them with greater ease. Just like skink cohorts, these guys are at home in watery environments and are easily able to outflank many slower infantry units.
**'''Cohort of Sotek (RoR, DLC 1)''' - Unbreakable angry skinks wielding poisonous, armor-piercing warhammers. These guys have a unique ability, ''Refuse to Die''. When active, no skink models can die (they can still take damage, however), which can maximize their damage output when taking sudden burst damage or ensure that they hold the enemy in place for a precious few more seconds. The fact that they're unbreakable really synergizes well with this perk, as it means that your opponent is going to have to commit to completely eradicating the unit (which, admittedly, isn't really ''that'' tall an ask all things considered). This can buy some of your other forces some precious moments to regroup should the tide be against your favor.
:::'''Campaign Note''': Auto-Resolve tends to value every flavor of Red-Crested Skink just slightly more than the dirt they stand on, so unless you are ok with them taking massive casualties or outright getting wiped out every time you click that auto-resolve button, you'll either need to fight your battles manually or pick up regular Skink Cohorts if you need chaff infantry to pad out your forces.

*'''Saurus Warriors''' - Saurus warriors are probably the first thing that comes to mind when one mentions the lizardmen, and for good reason. Resilient, determined and natural fighters, saurus warriors are one of the most durable base line infantry units in the game due to their high HP and armor and can hold their own even against the more elite infantry options of other factions (Note: they can fight a unit of chaos warriors to stalemate). Should they find themselves in a losing matchup, their naturally high leadership will keep them standing firm against the enemy far longer than their equivalents in other factions would, even if they lose control and rampage towards their inevitable deaths (in game II. They've since become far more disciplined in game III). To compensate, saurus are slow and are prone to being kited, so skink skirmishers/cohorts should be utilized to help pin down the enemy line until the saurus make it into combat. Saurus warriors are available in both standard and shielded variants, but the only reason to not get the shielded version is if you need every last gold coin you can rub together for your bigger monsters on a tight, competitive budget.
**'''Blessed Saurus Warriors''' - Shielded saurus warriors with an even higher base health and [[awesome|perfect vigour]]. These guys make fantastically cost efficient walls that will never tire no matter how hard they're pushed. In the campaign, they are one of the better frontline choices you can give your non-doomstack armies that can find a place even into the late game, so long as they manage to survive and rank up. Gor-Rok, if chosen as your initial legendary lord, can use his rite to grant further defensive bonuses and ''unbreakable'' to them (in game II. Game III replaces unbreakable with the barrier ability and immunity to hostile effects like Poison instead); they will never yield.

*'''Saurus Spears''' - Warriors equipped with anti-large spears for engaging cavalry and monsters. They're nearly identical to regular saurus warriors in every other way, though they do slightly less damage against regular infantry in exchange for their anti-large speciality. Like the warriors, they come in unshielded or, for a slight premium, shielded variants.
**'''Blessed Saurus Spears''' - Buffed up saurus spears with shields, the blessed variant of these saurus are dramatically inferior to their standard cousins since they lack perfect vigour. Instead, the bonus ability granted to them is Forest Strider, a perk that grants additional melee attack and defense buffs to them while fighting in forests. If you can lure cavalry and large monsters into forests, where they'll suffer additional penalties simply due to how forests interact with them, you can deal impressive sustained damage to them in short order. Unfortunately, this ability does nothing for them outside of forests and ''many'' battlefields will have a dearth of forest patches that you can fight in. Additionally, uncooperative opponents will generally avoid trying to engage your forces inside forests and trying to convince them otherwise may prove too time consuming for what it's worth. Regardless, they still have more health than the regular saurus spears. That's always a plus.
**'''Legion of Chaqua (RoR, DLC 1)''' - The Legion of Chaqua, thanks to their special ability, are able to provide themselves and all nearby allied units a surprising 44% missile resistance for a limited time upon activation. This is an invaluable skill to have on the approach, as many of your unshielded infantry and larger monsters are vulnerable to being focused down by the much superior ranged infantry found in other armies and can be further supplemented by a Slann's Shield of the Old Ones if necessary. Otherwise, these guys simply behave exactly as Saurus Spears are expected to.

*'''Temple Guards''' - The fearsome Temple Guards, renowned for their devotion to their Slann masters, stand ready to slaughter all who'd bring harm to their otherwise vulnerable charges. Temple Guard are the only "elite" infantry within the lizardmen roster, which is more a testament to how strong regular saurus are compared to the melee infantry of other armies. Speaking of how strong regular saurus are, Temple Guard fall short of them against unarmored infantry on the whole. This isn't to say Temple Guard aren't impressive; their heightened statline makes them less likely to budge than regular saurus are while their charge defense and bonus damage against large foes and predominantly armor-piercing weaponry lets them effectively face down a majority of late-game/elite cavalry, monsters and even armored infantry much more effectively than regular saurus. Unfortunately, this general prowess reflects heavily in their price tag and you'll struggle to field multiple units of these without heavily cutting into your other options.
**'''Blessed Temple Guards''' - Recolored Temple Guards, these guys are a slightly more offensive version of their default variants thanks to an increased charge bonus. This makes them significantly more well rounded and will allow you to more flexibly choose how you engage your enemies; do you brace and negate an incoming charge, or is the foe squishy enough where a counter charge would be more punishing? All in all a nice upgrade if only for the usual buff to their health blessed units receive.
**'''Star-Chamber Guardians (RoR, DLC 1)''' - Take Temple Guard and make their weapons also deal magical damage: you now have ''the'' most elite infantry unit available to the Lizardmen. Having magical attacks allows the SCG to engage many undead/demonic forces that utilize high physical resistance and cut them down with ease. SCG also serve as excellent bodyguards for lords (particularly Slann) due to their Guardian ability and when properly supported with healing magic, these guys will ''never'' die. Their only major weakness of note is prolonged anti-armor ranged firepower and artillery, but as they are armored and shielded and have a frankly gargantuan health pool, it will take a long time to fully whittle them down.

====Missile Infantry====
*'''Skink Cohort with Javelins''' - Skinks armed with little macuahuitls, shields and three javelins each. For pennies over a regular skink cohort, you can give them limited ranged support with poisonous javelins; a fantastic way to soften up an enemy unit for your front line infantry on the charge. With their speed, they can also easily circle about and pepper an opposing unit's backsides before charging in to cut off their escape while your saurus chew through them. Once they throw all their javelins, they're identical to the default skink cohort in virtually every way. Generally, if you're planning on taking skink cohorts at all, you should almost always pick these guys up over the standard versions (unless you ''really'' need every gold coin you can possibly scrape together for a specific competitive multiplayer build).

*'''Skink Skirmishers''' - Skinks equipped with little blowpipes and poisonous darts, and your first dedicated missile infantry. Skink skirmishers lack the sheer range available to most other factions and struggle to do damage against armored opponents. Instead, they should be used exclusively as harassers; their speed, ability to fire while moving and vanguard deployment options allow them to easily get into flanking positions and kite enemy infantry while inflicting poison onto them for when the rest of your army catches up. These guys will melt quickly if caught in the crosshairs of opposing archers/gunners and are pitiful in a fistfight, so you should only get one or two of these units at most, and only if you absolutely cannot afford taking chameleon skinks instead.
**'''Blessed Skink Skirmishers''' - Skink skirmishers with more health and an innate magic spell resistance. This extra durability is nice, but the spell resistance in particular isn't going to see much use due to these guys rather high mobility and any targetable spell an opponent ''could'' cast on them would be served much better against... literally anything else in your army. There's virtually no reason to bring these in Multiplayer (even if Blessed units are allowed for the match) and the only reason you'll want to recruit them in any of your Campaigns would be if you're in desperate need of reinforcements for a beat-up army you simply cannot afford to lose and you just ''happen'' to have some Blessed Skink Skirmishers to burn. The moment you are in a position where you can recruit/replace other units, these guys should be the first to go.

*'''Chameleon Skinks''' - Ninja skinks equipped with little blowpipes and poisonous darts. Though fewer in number than basic skink skirmishers, chameleon skinks are considerably more durable thanks to their flat 40% missile resistance and have a much easier time sneaking around enemies thanks to their Chameleon ability. This, along with their loose formation, can make them surprisingly effective at countering enemy archers. They otherwise fulfill the exact same harassment role your regular skink skirmishers do and deal a disappointingly low amount of damage against armored targets. Also, like skink skirmishers, they are unable to curve their shots well meaning they're less effective in siege battles than the archers of other races.
**'''Blessed Chameleon Skinks''' - Slightly swole Chameleon Skinks with twice the charge bonus (which is barely anything, especially combined with their rather tragic melee statline) and a few extra darts per skink. More ammunition is always welcome in a firefight, but it's hardly a game changer. Regardless, better stats do open up options and if you have a choice between these and regular Chameleon Skinks, may as well pick these guys.
:::Oxyotl's banner army in the campaign should almost entirely consist of these guys. Between the AP bonus damage, variant ammunitions he can grant them in addition to giving them perks like Snipe, there's almost no force these guys can't just shoot to death with relative ease. Siege Battles or battles featuring multiple enemy banner armies might become tricky, but that's why you always have at least a couple Skink Oracles or Skink Chiefs with Stalk to clean up shop.

*'''Chameleon Stalkers (DLC 3)''' - Angry ninja skinks with little blowpipes and [[what|explosive darts]]. Chameleon Stalkers fill the rather niche role of shock infantry for the Lizardmen. Each skink is equipped with two Precursor blowpipe shots that deal rather impressive burst damage against unarmored targets either on the charge or when falling back from a melee engagement. As they possess the same Chameleon ability their standard Chameleon Skink kin have, they do have a lot of wiggle room to get into an optimal charging position and can quickly fade away from the fray when things go south. Speaking of things going south, though Stalkers are reasonably decent at combat due to their poisoned attacks and mediocre stats, they still tend to lose against medium tier and above infantry or anything with armor. That said, even against armored infantry, much of the Stalker's value comes from the heavy formation disruption their Precursor Rounds cause, slowing down their targets and interrupting their charge so that you can take the initiative in the ensuing engagement. They can also deal decent burst damage against single entity units in a pinch, but this is generally an inefficient use of them.

====Monstrous Infantry====
*'''Kroxigors''' - Kroxigors, as to be expected from 9-foot tall crocodile men, are beastly armor-piercing anti-infantry blenders who can carve through lower tier units like butter and are sturdy enough to hold back more elite units for your more capable specialists. Though quite tanky and reasonably quick (compared to your saurus), they are still large (with the weaknesses all that entails) and very vulnerable to getting shot to hell and back or getting slammed by larger cavalry/monsters. While Kroxigors do hit damn hard, their total damage is divided between three subcatagories: Base, Anti-Infantry and Armor-Piercing. As such, they only really get the most bang for their buck when thrown against armored infantry. While they are able to tie up units that fall outside of those categories, they become dramatically less effective and ''will'' lose the grindfest if they aren't supported. Just like in the tabletop, they pair fantastically with supporting skinks to flank and tie up enemy forces or debuff them with poison to make them even more vulnerable to the kroxigors.
**'''Blessed Kroxigors''' - If you thought regular kroxigors were thick, you haven't seen these thunder-thighs strut their stuff. Though the standard health increase is all well and good, blessed kroxigors received a substantial buff to their charge bonus. This can make them surprisingly deadly cycle-chargers which, combined with their anti-infantry/armor niche, will let them crack massive holes in front lines.

*'''Sacred Kroxigors (DLC 2)''' - Kroxigors with [[power fists]]. These magical boxing gloves turn your kroxigors into all-purpose ass pounders who punch holes in armored foes effortlessly and tear through things with low magic resistance like so much wet paper. Much like regular kroxigors, sacred kroxigors get the most bang for their buck when supported by skinks (ideal) or saurus (when you don't want to move from that spot). Unlike standard Kroxigors, Sacred Kroxigors are much more well rounded offensively and will perform much more efficiently against opponents regular Kroxigors tend to struggle or stalemate against. Additionally, as the only non-RoR/Lord unit in your roster with Magical Attacks, these guys are your go-to melee force to deal with Ethereal units, Treemen and other high-physical resistance targets. Additionally, as Magic Resist is slated to change to only affect damage caused by Spells, Sacred Kroxigors will be very well suited to deal with the forces of the Dwarfs and Khorne going forward.
**'''Cohort of Huatl (RoR, DLC 2)''' - Sacred kroxigors with much higher physical resistance and straight up sunder enemy armor, allowing units like your saurus warriors to deal more damage to them.

===Cavalry===
Lizardmen cavalry are slow, for cavalry. They will never catch horse-mounted cavalry of other races, and it is risky to use them as a distraction if your enemy is using anything more than basic cavalry archers. Expect lizardmen cavalry to take heavy losses in prolonged combat, and learn to cycle-charge with them.

*'''Feral Cold Ones''' - A pack of clever girls, with no saurus riders. Feral cold ones are extremely speedy units (by lizardmen standards) that effectively function as light cavalry built for chasing down skirmishers, ranged back lines and artillery pieces. Their ability to cause fear also comes in handy for landing rear charges against a foe tied up in combat with your frontline infantry, as well as ensuring routed enemies leave the battlefield permanently. Unfortunately, their raw damage output is rather low and they themselves are particularly frail and prone to rampaging, which means a bad engagement will result in a swift end for them. They're cheap as chips though, so you can't complain too much over losing 'em.
**Being able to summon them after performing the Rite of Primeval Glory is really handy when facing off against Skaven artillery.

*'''Cold One Riders''' - Standard cold one riders are your first full-blooded cavalry option. Though significantly swifter than your infantry, cold one riders lag behind their competition in other factions and are particularly vulnerable to anti-large cavalry units because of this. In an ideal setting, cold one riders will serve as the hammer to the anvil that is your saurus frontline; decisive charges into the rear of enemy formations can deal heavy damage and can completely lock down ranged infantry or artillery. Being both armored and shielded gives them respectable staying power as well and allows them to remain in extended combat should the need arise. That said, like most cavalry, they truly shine when they're able to freely cycle charge to maximize their damage output and heavily abuse enemy morale.

*'''Cold One Spear-Riders''' - The name says it all; these are cold one riders with spears. This turns them into a dedicated anti-large cavalry unit that can deal not inconsequential damage to opposing cavalry, artillery and monsters. Unfortunately, in cav v. cav engagements, cold one spear riders will often fall short due to their below average speed letting many opposing options run circles around them. As such, they tend to work best when used defensively. When opposing cavalry buckles down to charge into your flanks, counter charge them with your spear-riders to either intercept or divert them from your more vulnerable elements. They do deal decent armor-piercing damage on their own right, but they'll often lose against more elite cavalry options and their strength quickly diminishes in prolonged engagements.
**'''Blessed Cold One Spear-Riders''' - Blessed cold one spears are extremely similar to the Pok-Hopak Cohort in the sense that they both don't run the risk of rampaging. This is a very valuable perk on a unit that will often find itself separated from your main army, especially when combined with their heightened durability. If you have a need for cold one spears and have access to these, there's literally no reason not to take them.
**'''Pok-Hopak Cohort (RoR, DLC 1)''' - Fearless and focused spear-riders, these guys are both immune to psychology ''and'' lack primal instincts, meaning you'll never need to worry about them rampaging or fleeing from enemy monsters. Additionally, the Pok-Hopak cohort is able to utilize vanguard deployment, giving them a tactical edge over their generic counterparts that cannot be underestimated. If you're thinking about taking a unit of spear-riders, there's literally no reason to not just take these guys instead.

*'''Horned Ones''' - Your only elite cavalry, horned ones are simply buffed up cold one riders, plain and simple. They are significantly faster than all of your cold one riders and as such are on par with the cavalry options found in many other factions. They pack a meaty punch with a rather chunky charge bonus to boot, letting them simply smash through frontline infantry as both hammer and anvil. You'll be paying for that swollen statline though, as they are one of your most expensive non-monster units out of your entire roster (they're even more expensive than some of your monsters).
**'''Blessed Horned Ones''' - Just like the blessed cold one spears, blessed horned ones won't rampage when caught unawares. Considering these are your elite cav units, you will ''always'' want to make sure they can get out of a bad engagement whenever you need them to.

*'''Terradon Riders''' - Javelin skinks riding Terradons and carrying stone bombs. While relatively fast for the lizardmen, terradon riders are among the slowest flying cavalry in the game, and are a fairly niche choice in battle. This niche can best be summed up as aerial harriers, ideal for sniping out artillery, mages or unarmored infantry or monsters (which is admittedly a bit of a rarity). Their attacks also apply Poison, which makes them a little more useful than their raw stats make them seem on paper and helps further support other units in your army. Additionally, they are quite micro-friendly since they are able to fire and move with their javelins and, with proper positioning, can drop a once-per-battle set of stone bombs to deal massive damage to clustered up infantry beneath their wings. That said, as fairly large, unarmored and slow moving targets with fairly pitiful melee stats, these guys can be very easy to snipe out of the air by decent missile infantry and are ''very'' vulnerable to pretty much anything else that is also in the air with them. In a pinch, they can also be used as rear-chargers to help route enemies or tie down missile infantry, but Old Ones help them if something points an extra long stick at them. If you're facing an infantry heavy army, Fireleech Bolas Terradons tend to net you better value.
**'''Pahuax Sentinels (RoR, DLC 1)''' - These special edition terradon riders are particularly nimble and have an innate resistance to melee and missile attacks that gives them ''far'' more staying power than any of your other flying cavalry. If only to serve as a distraction, these guys can be used in lieu of skink priests/chiefs in an attempt to waste your opponent's missile infantry/artillery ammo. Otherwise, use them to harass enemy units with poisoned missiles and to escort routing foes off the battlefield.

*'''Fireleech Bolas Terradon Riders''' - These are far better Terradon Riders than the base variant. While they no longer inflict Poison on enemy units, their fireleech bolas deal explosive fire damage, inflicting greater damage overall against infantry formations and fire-weak entities while dealing higher leadership penalties in the process. Like regular Terradon Riders, they also can fire and move, letting them more or less function as prehistoric bombers. They still carry stone bombs, which can be devastatingly effective when used in concert with a line of saurus warriors pinning enemy melee units or shutting down artillery, but just like regular Terradon Riders, they are fairly useless in melee and are terribly vulnerable to other fliers and ranged missile fire. If you're dealing with smaller, physically larger units (monstrous infantry or single-entity monsters) with low armor, Terradon Riders are more efficient against them.
**'''Blessed Terradon Riders''' - Blessed Terradon Riders, aside the traditional increase in health, only received one minor adjustment over their basic counterparts; speed. At a speed stat of 110 as opposed to the standard 90, Blessed Terradon Riders can manuever across the battlefield notably more quickly than any other unit in your entire army. Nice, for a unit designed to harass and waste/dodge enemy missile fire, but ultimately a rather minor selling point on an admittedly mediocre and situational unit.
**Fireleech Bolas can be used to game the AI, especially when you're facing off against the Chaos Invasion. Even having just three of these guys bombard the Chaos Hellcannons can save you a lot of grief, and you're not really going to miss them if they got shot down. They're also really helpful against Vampire Coast, as they're one of the few skirmishers you have that can raise hell against a zombie gunline/artillery.

*'''Ripperdactyl Riders (DLC 1)''' - The obsidian knife of lizardmen flyers. Ripperdactyls are your flying can-openers with a minor bonus against infantry and a ''massive'' AP bonus. Combined with their solid melee attack stat and Frenzy bonus, these guys utterly shred armored foot soldiers. Unfortunately, their non-existent armor, low melee defense, low model count and large size makes these guys terribly susceptible to counterattack. If they get boxed in, much less by anything with an anti-large bonus, you will be impressed by how quickly they die. Because of this, and the fact much of their damage is dedicated against armored targets, Ripperdactyls tend to be a bit of a niche choice in army lists not built around Tiktaq'to. None-the-less, they are much more effective than Terradon Riders at shutting down missile infantry formations and artillery platforms. Just make sure you are constantly aware of the tactical situation and only call them down when you can support them or escape before enemy reinforcements manage to pin them down.
**'''Colossadon Hunters (RoR, DLC 1)''' - Bigger, hungrier ripperdactyls with a penchant for bigger prey; an additional anti-large bonus can turn them into cavalry buzzsaws and can let them deal sickening damage to mounted enemy lords or cavalry and are the best/only option for fighting flying enemy lords/heroes on semi-even ground. Suffice to say, they're still very weak to anti-large weaponry themselves and will seldom win against combat dedicated lords/heroes in a "1"v1 fight. As such, they'll need support through terradon riders (for the poison) as well as additional ripperdactyls to stand an honest shot against such a foe, though they're still not guaranteed a victory. Should they lose, they'll still leave a hell of a mark on whatever cavalry/monster they were fighting and such scars could prove pivotal to bringing them down with the rest of your army.

===Hunting Packs===
*'''Salamander Hunting Pack (DLC 1)''' - A ''much'' needed addition to the Lizardmen's borderline vacant missile unit roster, Salamander Hunting Packs are a fantastic general use ranged unit and are among the better missile cavalry options in the game. Though they can't fire while moving like other missile cavalry options, they deal a rather frightening amount of flaming explosive damage per volley with not inconsequential AP and rather notable anti-large bonuses to top it off. Much like your other non-single entity heavy hitters, Salamanders can do some damage in melee, but they really should avoid it unless absolutely necessary. Terrible defensive values will make Salamander Hunting Packs feel every blow that hits their unarmored hides. If you want to keep them in the fight, make sure you have a few Saurus Spears or Spear Cold One Riders to counter enemy cavalry. They can fire over units and obstacles.
**'''The Umbral Tide (RoR, DLC 1)''' - Sneaky salamander hunting packs with perfect vigour and stalk, the Umbral Tide is able to covertly cross a majority of the battlefields you may find yourself on and can easily set up an ambush against unsuspecting opponents. Even after running from one end of the battle to the other and loosing every last fireball from their collective gullets, the Umbral Tide will still have a spring to their step should they join the melee fray. If you can only afford a single Salamander Pack, try to budget for these guys.

*'''Razordon Hunting Pack (DLC 2)''' - Razordons are your anti-armor missile cavalry. Unlike the Salamanders, who burp up one flaming projectile apiece, Razordons lob three spikes at a time when they attack. Though the damage per individual projectile is... well, pitiful, combined they can deal a rather staggering amount of AP damage that can either be divided among dense clusters of armored infantry formations or a single armored target. Additionally, Razordons are much more adept at lobbing their shots, giving them a bit of an edge over Salamanders in uneven terrain. Unfortunately, that's about where the good news ends. With a shorter firing range than Salamanders and utterly abysmal base damage on their projectiles ([[What|Chameleon Skinks have stronger missiles against unarmored foes than these guys]]) and no additional bonuses to speak of (fire damage, explosive damage, anti-large/infantry, nothing), there's generally no reason to take Razordons over Salamanders in general lists. Against the heavily armored forces of the Warriors of Chaos, Dwarfs or even other Lizardmen, Razordons might find a more valuable niche.
::'''Warhammer III''' Not only have these guys gained a better firing arc, enabling them to better fire spikes at targets over terrain/allied units, but the projectiles themselves now pierce through multiple entities. Currently, they're particularly powerful and can quickly mulch armored infantry with as few as two or three volleys.
**'''Amaxon Barbs (RoR, DLC 2)''' - Razordons with poisonous spikes and a flat 15% missile resistance, these guys aren't much to write home about. Yes, poison is nice, but you don't exactly need to dig very deep for alternative ways to access it. The missile resistance is a nice, if moderately more situational perk, but it's not a particularly notable resistance and it does nothing for potential melee engagements. In the event you need a razordon hunting pack for anti-armor firepower, you may as well pick these guys up, but only if you have the extra gold once you've established your core army roster.

===Monsters===
The big beasts and the creatures most opponents expect to face when fighting the lizardmen. Potent and powerful monsters, you have a dinosaur for every occasion; you'll simply need to choose the right ones. Beware of enemy tarpits if you don't have a high-level mage in your army; dinosaurs will take additional damage from their flanks and rear if they are surrounded and that can quickly wear them down.

*'''Feral [[Bastilidon]]''' - Your cheapest single entity dinosaur as well as your sturdiest. Feral bastilidons are effectively just a [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX]] that you throw into enemy frontlines to stir up some chaos, cause some fear and just generally soak damage while the rest of your army dismantles the enemy. These guys can still earn you some crazy value against armies that field a lot of chaff infantry, like Skaven, Beastmen or Bretonnia.
::'''Campaign''': These guys are your entry-level monsters, being recruitable basically from the start of the game. As tanky anti-infantry monsters, these guys can net you some crazy value against the early-game armies of other factions for cheap-as-chips prices.

*'''Solar Engine Bastilidon''' - Your first, cheaper artillery option. Solar Engines fire off a single missile that simultaneously blinds and burns enemy units, reducing their combat effectiveness and dealing bonus damage against anything that regenerates health naturally. These laser bolts have a lower maximum range, are relatively slow moving and are much easier to dodge than the smaller, faster, harder to see bolts fired by the stegadon, but they have slightly higher damage per shot and a larger splash radius when targeting groups of infantry. In another contrast to the stegadon, the beams fired by the solar engine deal flat magical damage, meaning enemies with high magical resistance will largely shrug off the damage dealt by the solar engine itself. The only ''major'' drawback of the solar engine is that the Beam of Chotek, though an armor-piercing missile (its unit toolbar does not show the armor-piercing icon), deals relatively low bonus damage against armored units and as such will become less efficient compared to the stegadon when targeting heavily armored monsters over formations of armored infantry. At the end of the day, when all else fails, there's still a fully grown bastilidon underneath that laser crystal. Keep in mind, like every ranged unit, firing their missiles depletes their vigour and should be taken into account if you're planning on sending it into combat.
**'''Blessed Solar Engine Bastilidon''' - Perfect vigour's value cannot be overstated on a melee capable monster that would otherwise tire itself out just from holding a laser cannon in place. The greater defensive value of the bastilidon compliments the increased health quite nicely and will allow the blessed variant to stay in the thick of it considerably longer than others of its kind.

*'''Revivification Crystal Bastilidon''' - Your only non-magical source of healing, revivification crystals are one of the few healing options in the game that not only restores a unit's health but also actually revives dead models; a perk that's particularly valuable on your elite units like kroxigors or temple guard. A revivification crystal pairs excellently with a Life Slann in infantry heavy lists as you can very rapidly bring a unit back from the brink to near pristine (or whatever their healing cap is, depending on how used and abused they are), or for ensuring crucial monsters (like carnosaurs and dread saurians) become virtually unkillable. They are of limited use in a dinosaur army if your lord isn't a Life Slann, as their minor healing ability is short-ranged and can only target a single unit with a relatively lengthy cooldown between uses. Additionally, and this is notable hitch, models don't start coming back to life until all the still living models have been fully healed up. This, consequently, makes it difficult to rebuild your forces if they're in active combat or taking damage from other sources. Having said that, they're still one of two sources of healing non-slann lords have access to and the only healing option that doesn't impose on your Winds of Magic reserve (which is still a plus, as other armies don't have such a luxury). As a bastilidon variant, it can also throw itself into combat with little fear. Pro tip: Don't click that "end battle" button; instead, use it to revive what you can and win the fight with fewer casualties.

*'''Ark of Sotek Bastilodon (DLC 1)''' - Functionally just a regular bastilidon, but with the ability to unleash an AoE burst of poison on all enemies surrounding it. As it's only a minor increase in cost over the feral version, the Ark of Sotek may be worth getting for the very minor amount of damage and extra poison it can apply to the invariable mosh pits bastilidons often find themselves in. Alternatively, you can get much more utility from the other two non-feral variants, and rely on your skinks to supply poison or your mages to deal burst damage to tarpits of infantry. In Campaign these boys are one of your mainstay units until tier 4 stegadons, with the lizardmens low growth and poor early-game economy the low-cost high reward of these guys can easily melt through tons of early game infantry, a must-get.

*'''Feral Stegadon''' - A wild stegadon, pure and simple. A living battering ram, stegadons are fantastic line breakers and are well rounded enough to survive the ensuing melee while dealing respectable damage in turn. Like all feral dinosaur variants, its only major weakness is a vulnerability to rampaging courtesy of its lower leadership. This is a forgivable flaw, considering how cheap they are and the fact that you can simply use Cold Blooded to snap them out of it definitely lessens the severity of an occasional rampage.

*'''[[Stegadon]]''' - A stegadon with a long-range ballista and skink handlers mounted upon its back. Stegadons serve as the second of your two artillery options and are arguably the best at dealing raw damage: the ballista is unerringly accurate and can easily snipe opposing artillery pieces, usually destroying the cannon/catapult models in question before they can get much usage. What's more is that, as it's connected to a single entity monster itself, the ballista is not vulnerable to these same tactics. Like Cygors or Steam Tanks, Stegadons compensate for the lack of firepower volume traditional artillery pieces can put out by retaining its long ranged assaults until it is either out of ammunition or has been killed. The stegadon's ranged attack generally struggles to deal significant damage to infantry formations due to the narrow projectiles and low splash damage (despite the bonus anti-infantry modifiers it gets). Regardless, the shot still deals incredible damage to heavily armored, single entity monsters (particularly a majority of mounted lords/heroes) due to their immense bonus AP damage. Even should you run out of ammunition or should your opponent try to tie it down in melee... it's still a stegadon. With skinks firing poisoned darts at everything surrounding its legs, it will put up just as much of a fight as its feral counterpart and then some. The only downside to the ballista is that firing it will drain the stegadon's vigour (even if it's standing perfectly still), meaning it'll likely perform less efficiently in any ensuing melee if it doesn't get a break between firing and fighting.
**'''Blessed Stegadon''' - Hoh boy, now we're talking. A massive buff to the stegadon's health will allow him to take significantly more punishment over the rest of his variants, but that's not really the main selling point here. The blessed stegadon is also gifted with perfect vigour; a massive boon to the offensive prowess of this beast. Being able to act as full blown artillery then rush into glorious melee combat to tear enemies a new asshole at peak performance is something no other faction can achieve remotely as effectively as these guys can. If a quest pops up in the campaign with these as a reward, you should do your damndest to accomplish it. They're well worth it.

*'''Ancient Stegadon''' - Where the stegadon does its best work from afar, the ancient stegadon needs to get up close and personal to do business. The howdah, though packed with significantly more ammo, is much shorter ranged and is primarily meant to soften up nearby targets for a follow up charge into melee. Ancient stegadons are somewhat tankier than other stegadon variants, though their limited range debatably renders them less effective offensively. In general, you should either spring for the Engine of the Gods or stick with a regular stegadon..
**'''The Thunderous One (RoR, DLC 1)''' - A beefed up ancient stegadon that calls down bolts of lighting every 20 seconds, the Thunderous One was made to wade into the enemy's front line and deal indiscriminate damage. Unfortunately, these bolts of lightning can and will deal friendly fire to your units. This can make it somewhat challenging to support its charge with infantry or cavalry, though allied single entity monsters typically won't mind the stray blast.

*'''Engine of the Gods Ancient Stegadon (DLC 1)''' - Is all the gold armor embedded into your ancient stegadon not quite flashy enough for you? Just give it the ability to call down an orbital bombardment to glass swarms of warmbloods in the name of the Great Plan. The Stegadon itself is, functionally, an Ancient Stegadon. It behaves identically like one and has the exact same statline, but once you get to its abilities, things start to get interesting. It has two supporting abilities, Arcane Configuration (Winds of Magic Power Recharge rate boost) and the Portent of Warding (a 5% Ward Save for all allied units within 40m). These effects make EotG Stegadons fantastic supporting units simply from their presence alone. And yes, this applies to EotG Stegadon Mounts, so your Skink Priests have access to their own personal WoM batteries. The third, and debatably the main reason you're considering this ornate beast, is the Burning Alignment active ability. Though limited to only two uses, the Engine of the Gods can deal devastating damage to infantry focused lists if the Burning Alignment is used at just the right moment. It's particularly effective when fired into choke points or along your enemy's frontline ranks when they're tied up with your forces. Thankfully, the Burning Alignment ability is extremely accurate for (what is functionally) a wind spell; so long as you aim carefully and don't wander your lizardmen into it's path, you can drop it right in front of your forces with little fear.

*'''Ancient Salamander (DLC 1)''' - A single giant salamander, tempered with age, experience and able to melt opponents with extra spicy hellfire. Ancient salamanders are more durable than their lesser hunting pack kin and are more reliably able to survive the occasional melee scuffle, though it generally shouldn't participate in it. Instead, the ancient salamander truly shines when paired with fire slann, salamander hunting packs, fireleech bolas terradons, or solar engine bastilidons thanks to its ability to render enemy units flammable with its own fireballs. This flammable effect greatly improves the damage dealt by flaming attacks and when executed properly and will burn through most infantry-focused armies with terrifying efficiency.

*'''Feral Carnosaur''' - An offensive machine, the apex predator of Lustria (you know, conventionally) and a signature monster of the lizardmen, the carnosaur is a ferocious beast that specializes in hunting other monsters, skaven weapon teams, and artillery due to their innate anti-large bonuses and armor-piercing capabilities. They're considerably frailer than stegadons and bastilidons defensively, though they are much swifter and tear through most enemies far more quickly due to their much higher attack. When funds are too tight to take a Saurus Scar-Vet or Old Blood on a carnosaur, a feral version with proper support won't steer you wrong. Just make sure you keep a leader or hero with Cold-Blooded on standby in case they get a little carried away.
**'''Blessed Feral Carnosaur''' - The blessed carnosaur. Formerly the pinnacle of lizardmen might (the dread saurian says hi), blessed carnosaurs have all the anti-large, armor-piercing wrath of the regular carnosaur supplemented by a much more rounded defensive statline. Additional health and magic resistance makes the blessed carnosaur surprisingly survivable against a myriad of generic threats and allows it to commit to fights that regular carnosaurs would hesitate towards. They are still just as vulnerable as any other carnosaur to getting mobbed or picked apart from regular armor-piercing weapons and absolutely will rampage in a bind, so don't get reckless with your charges.
**'''Geltblöm’s Terror (RoR, DLC 3)''' - A Feral Carnosaur that never rampages and is blessed with both Vanguard deployment and the Strider ability, enabling it to keep up to speed in any terrain. Vanguard deployment and rampage immunity is a fantastic combination for a Lizardmen monster designed to fight other monsters, but don't get reckless.

*'''Feral Troglodon (DLC 3)''' - A Troglodon without a Skink Oracle to keep it in check. Troglodons are in essence a hybrid between an Ancient Salamander and Carnosaur in that they're able to burp up potent poisonous spit that's extremely effective against large targets. Troglodons are quite possibly the first real "skirmisher" single entity monster introduced: though they're quick for ground-bound dinosaurs, they should generally only engage in melee as a last resort or with ''heavy'' support because they are not designed to put up much of a fight. In a direct melee engagement against most other combat monsters, Troglodons tend to lose pretty handily. Their low leadership also tends to cause them to rampage quickly when caught up in a brawl. However, if they focus on kiting and sniping their targets rather than charging them, they can do frankly sickening amounts of damage.
**'''The Pale Death (RoR, DLC 3)''' - A Feral Troglodon that can buff itself and nearby allies in melee whenever it uses it's Primeval Roar, giving them a rather substantial Melee Attack bonus for a short while. Though a buff of 24 Melee Attack is certainly an eyebrow raiser, it only recharges when the Pale Death is actively engaged in melee combat. For 60 seconds. On a creature that's prone to rampaging at the drop of a hat, this is a very risky commitment without a Lord/Hero nearby to keep it in check.

*'''Feral Dread Saurian (DLC 2)''' - The single largest monster in the game, dread saurians are nigh uncontested in raw damage output and are more than capable of killing every other unit in the game in a straight fight. Unfortunately for you, your opponent will be able to field ''far'' more units than your dread saurian will be able to deal with at once and most of said units will likely be picking it off at range. As a massive, lumbering behemoth, dodging even slow moving projectiles is well and truly beyond the dread saurian and it will take tremendous damage on the approach. Even once it arrives in melee, the sheer volume of bodies capable of surrounding it and poking it with anti-armor/anti-large sticks will wear it down quite quickly. Their size also provides another source of jank whenever they get bogged down by hordes; they'll struggle to properly path their way through the crowds (it doesn't help that the Dread Saurian also has relatively low mass considering it's literal size) and their attacks, while lethally brutal, also tend to miss depending on the terrain it's fighting on. They are also prohibitively expensive and will eat up a significant portion of your funds, meaning the rest of your army will be extremely limited in number. Ensure you have a proper supporting mage (a life slann is essential) if you're bringing one.

*'''Dread Saurian (DLC 2)''' - The single largest monster in the game, now wearing a howdah filled to the brim with skinks. A modest price bump from the already exorbitant feral variant will grant the regular dread saurian a higher leadership, ranged attacks and poison. There's little reason not to go ahead and splurge for these upgrades, feral or not the dread saurian will be the centerpiece of your army which you'll do everything to keep alive.
**'''Shredder of Lustria (RoR, DLC 2)''' - The single most expensive beast you could ever field, and boy does he do work. In addition to all that a dread saurian can bring to bear, the Shredder of Lustria is stacked with the full complement of veterinary stat buffs and a leadership debuff for all enemies surrounding it, a perk that, when combined with the innate fear and terror dread saurians cause, will make most enemy infantry run the ''fuck'' away very fast. If that weren't enough, the Shredder of Lustria also encourages all nearby allied troops, buffing their leadership. After all, who wouldn't be inspired by seeing the apex of lizardmen might devouring any and all who oppose the Great Plan? Speaking of the Great Plan, you're going to need one: considering how much money you're sinking into this puppy, you're going to need to really budget the rest of your army carefully.

*'''Coatl (DLC 3)''' - Previously a relic of a long lost bit of Lizardmen lore, the Coatl makes a rather striking return as the premier Lizardmen flying monster. The Coatl, though packing two casts of Urannon's Thunderbolt and one cast of Lesser Chain Lighting as bound spells, is designed more as a source of support for ground-bound allies. Infact, the main draw to the Coatl isn't its combat capabilities (which are mediocre at best), but for the fact that it grants all allied units under its wings Stalk. Yes, everything from that unit of Red-Crested Skinks to that Dread Saurian doomstack becomes invisible and untargetable until they're either far too close to do anything about or the Coatl "lands" or dies. As a faction desperately starved of long range missile units, this is a massive boon for protecting your high-value targets on the approach. Once the Coatl has safely delivered it's charges into battle, it still can serve as an excellent disruptor of backline units, Snipe artillery or single entity monsters with thunderbolt or punish a large blob with lesser chain lighting. Just be careful: even your Terradons move faster than this thing and its size does it no favors when trying to dodge missile fire.
**'''Spirit of Tepok (RoR, DLC 3)''' - A Coatl that has Banishment and Shield of Thorns as bound spells instead. The option to lean more heavily into a support role does suit the Coatl quite well, though this largely depends on what lord choice and focus your army has. If you brought a life slann or a skink priest, a regular Coatl might get you more mileage.

==Tactics==
Lizardmen are a very versatile faction when viewed over the entire campaign, however there will be times when your army composition and thus tactics are limited depending on the progress you've made in developing your empire. Your greatest limiting factor will be money; be it in single-player or multiplayer, many mid-high tier units will cost a fortune and you will invariably have a lower unit count compared to other armies. You will need to carefully consider the faction you're currently facing when forming your armies.

===Multiplayer Strategies===
So, you want to show the world a Great Plan, and TED talks aren't getting it done? You might think of the Lizardmen as just another 'big monster' faction in multiplayer, but you're limiting yourself if you think that way. The scalies have a surprising amount of options within their roster. From super wide infantry builds to kite builds built around chameleon skinks, to more mobile cavalry-centric strategies, the Lizardmen can be quite a versatile opponent. The thing you're pretty much going to universally struggle against however is factions that are heavy on the ranged play. You need to think carefully about your army comp and lord choices, then bring the Great Plan to the four corners of the Earth (or multiplayer lobby, or whatever).
====Faction Counterplay====
A list of all the other factions in the game, along side their various strengths, weaknesses and best strategies you have to combat them.

*'''Beastmen''' - Highly mobile and capable of dishing out impressive damage, the Beastmen are among the fastest armies in the game (only rivaled by the Wood Elves and Slaanesh). This can be difficult to deal with, as the only infantry you possess that can potentially keep up with them are your Skinks. Skinks...generally aren't a great pick against Beastmen. They're slower still than a significant portion of the Beastmen roster and will die quite quickly due to their lack of armor and defensive stats. Skink Skirmishers/Chameleon Skinks are a minor exception, as between their poisonous missiles and the Beastmen's lack of armor, they'll actually deal respectable damage to them. Otherwise, the stalwart Saurus (Spears) will be your best frontline unit; solid charge defenses, shields and anti-large bonuses will stop any rush in its tracks and the Beastmen's complete lack of armor means that they'll take the full brunt of their attacks. Your monsters USED to be fantastic here, but with the addition of the anti-large regenerating Ghorgon, they are a much more risky proposition. Seriously, this thing will beat the pants off of pretty much any monster you bring to the table, and its surprising mobility means that your slow-moving infantry will have a hard time tarpitting it. Shredder of Lustria builds and monster mash builds which used to be hilariously effective against the Beastie Boys are now quite dangerous to bring. Without being able to overly rely on your monsters, it's going to be up to your characters and magic to be the game-changer.

*'''Bretonnia''' - The end-all, be-all cavalry faction, Brettonia has access to some of the strongest mounted soldiers in the game. Their peasantry, though feeble, isn't to be underestimated in sufficient numbers and can still do notable damage through their archers and pikemen. That said, your Skink Cohorts can easily best any peasants they (effortlessly) pin down and a unit or two of kroxigors will ''evicerate'' any foot soldier unfortunate enough to meet them in combat. Bretonnians will also struggle to hold their lines together from the sheer amount of fear/terror your monsters can cause. However, their cavalry (particularly Grail Knights) won't falter from fear alone and are renowned for their devastating charges. Brace units of temple guard (or saurus spears, if you're cheap) to mitigate their damage and box them in before they have a chance to pull back. A light slann with the Net of Amyntok can shut down Brettonian cavalry ''hard'' and should heavily be considered as your lord for this matchup.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''Dark Elves''' - The general battle plan here can best be summarized with "Grab a bunch of ranged and 2 Solar Engines and defend them at all costs because otherwise you have no way to deal with Dark Rider Crossbow and Scourgerunner spam." Seriously, those damn Anti Large missile chariots were pretty much designed to fight you. A pure melee monster rush isn't going to work otherwise you will just get kited into oblivion. Have the solar engines shoot them from afar and see if you can get you Chameleon skins to slow them down so your Cold One riders can catch up to them. Your dino cav is better than their dino cav, take advantage of that. Mazdamundi is also great for nets to lock down cavalry and get them ready for a pounding. If you can get rid of all that mobile ranged, the infantry fight should fall in your favor in no time.

*'''Dwarfs''' - Dwarfs tend to form nigh impenetrable walls of armorclad infantry and are one of the few factions capable of holding the line better than you. AP weaponry is a must, so mixing Red-Crested Skinks among your Saurus can help chew through thicker formations. Kroxigors, particularly Sacred Kroxigors, will be your best infantry can openers in this fight. Despite their innate spell resistance, your offensive magics can still work wonders against most dwarfen infantry, so a heavens skink priest or fire slann wouldn't be amiss in your army here. Beware of their Giant Slayers; though fragile, they will deal terrible damage to any armored cavalry or monsters they can get their grubby dawi mitts on. Skink skirmishers/chameleon skinks can easily outpace slayer units and whittle them down with their poisoned missiles, though they'll do absolutely nothing against any of the armored infantry. Terradon riders are virtually untouchable to their ground bound forces with a special shout-out for the Fireleech Bolas variant, but you'll absolutely need to take down any Gyrocopters contesting the skies if you want to get your money's worth. Lastly, you'll want to destroy any artillery they bring before turning your attention to the rest of their forces; Ripperdactyls can easily flank and shred such devices, though you'll need to draw away any screening units if you want them to survive the aftermath. Lastly, this is one of the few matchups where Razordons are a more attractive mid-ranged option than your Salamanders.

*'''Empire''' - Karl Franz brings a relatively balanced roster to the table, with plenty of long ranged anti-armor firepower and cavalry that'll run circles around yours. With the sheer volume of AP [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] units and artillery, this is a faction you'll generally want to leave the Saurus at home for. Skink Cohorts with shields are for once a rather reliable pick for your frontline, with Red-Crested Skinks and/or Kroxigors diving in once you've tied down the missile units that otherwise threaten them. Additionally, your Terradon Riders can actually be quite effective in this matchup, particularly in shutting down Grenade Launcher Outriders. A Skink Priest of Heavens with Urannon's Thunderbolt and/or Comet of Cassandora is a rather cost-efficient answer to units such as the Steam Tank and Artillery Platforms, though regular Stegadons can punch holes through them if you can keep them safe. A Slann Priest with Light Magic and the Net of Amyntok coupled with a squad or two of Salamander Hunting Packs makes for an excellent cavalry deleting squad, but you'll absolutely need to shield them with your own cavalry or at the very least some shielded Saurus Spears.

*'''Grand Cathay''' - Go fast and hard into cathay's lines. Cathay brings a good amount of options against single-entity units with accurate grand cannons and iron hail gunners amongst others. The largest you should go is an ark of sotek or two to mass-poison damage cathay's entire packed formation. Go full offensive with saurus and try to briefly contest the skies to disrupt the artillery and missiles on the charge. in general it's a poor matchup as while the other 'monster race' in the ogres is great against cathay it's simply a matter of price. ogres can beat cathay with a lot cheaper units than you can bring with kroxigors filling the same role as ogre bulls but 2.5 times the price. Unless your units get major discounts in multiplayer for immortal empires it's not a good time

*'''Greenskins''' - Hordes of expendable Goblins and Ork Boyz make up the rank and file of the Greenskins. Despite having a particular focus towards mobbing you in melee combat, the Greenskins have a fairly diverse roster capable of performing decently well at ranged combat or skirmishing with their relatively diverse cavalry options. As the coup-de-grace, Greenskins also have access to several monstrous units between their selection of (river) trolls and Arachnarok Spiders that can mulch their weight in infantry. However, there are two major weaknesses to the Greenskin roster: they typically have ''terrible'' leadership (especially their expendable Goblin and Troll units) and a majority of their roster is unarmored. Saurus units will typically stand firm on the front lines while your Skink skirmishers will actually do some solid work while easily outpacing the sluggish Ork Boyz, but you will ''need'' to watch out for their Cavalry. Fireleech Bolas Terradons and Salamanders will have a field day against their infantry as well, especially against the fire-weak troll units who will crumble rapidly in the face of their flammability and terrible leadership. On the note of leadership; your pantheon of Jurassic beasties will have the time of their lives against the Greenskins. Their lack of charge defense, anti-large, and low leadership means that a Carnosaur or two will bowl through their ranks largely uncontested. However, keep an eye out for Black Orcs; they're one of the few armored infantry units in the Ork roster, are armor piercing and are immune to Fear/Terror. Red-Crested Skinks are a decent budget option to deal with them, though you may prefer to kite them with Razordon Hunting Packs instead.

*'''High Elves''' - Lizardmen will have some trouble countering High Elf flying monsters, particularly phoenixes. Your ranged units aren't going to get the chance to take them down in the air, so you have to rely on catching them when they drop down to attack and that can be tricky if you're running an all-dino army. At the same time, if you're using saurus then you will take some heavy losses from archers and cavalry if you commit them all to tarpitting the phoenix. Chameleon Skinks are an excellent pick against archer heavy builds; their lose formation coupled with their innate missile resistance will make them extremely hard to take down at range while their chameleon skin will let them dip in and out of combat with relative ease. Sisters of Averlorn are a priority target if present on the field; a Skink Priest of Beasts may be considered if only to summon manticores to tie them down. Additionally, the Legion of Chaqua should strongly be considered as a core part of your frontline; the ability to grant multiple units around it a 44% missile resistance is too valuable to ignore.

*'''Khorne''' - Don't bring Skinks to this matchup. Barring Chameleon Skinks, Skink Skirmishers if you want to be cheap, all of your Skink Infantry will do little more than feed their skulls to Khorne's throne before they get an opportunity to do anything meaningful. A pricy saurus front line is definitely worth it here, potentially supported by Kroxigors. For once the 'engine of the gods' stegadon's death-beam will actually be useful as the stegadon itself can knock about units and the death-beam being magic and AP will counter any infantry khorne can bring. Bring saurus, bring magic and your anti-large carnosaur. A very good matchup in your favor.

*'''Kislev''' - Kislev is a relatively fearless foe for you, a nice change of pace for mere mortal men. Their higher tier infantry is generally able to out-trade yours, Tzar Guard (especially the Great Weapon variety) can and will gradually carve their way through regular Saurus lines while Streltsi and Ice Guard will prove quite competent at dealing with your forces at range. Fortunately, your sheer versatility means you aren't wanting for options. Even if they're a bit slower, your Cavalry will generally outclass Kislev's, barring any War Bear Riders they may have brought. Even regular Cold One Riders will make a fantastic hammer to the anvil that is your Saurus and even a losing matchup against their stronger Tzar Guard will quickly turn in your favor with a rear charge or two. Of course, aside their War Bear Riders, Kislev's monsters can't hold a candle to yours. Once you shut down some of the ranged AP Missiles, your dinos can wreak terrible havoc upon the enemy lines. Razordons are particularly effective right now, though Salamanders can be used to efficiently deal with the more monstrous enemy units. Terradons are almost always a never-pick however as since in essence every single kislev unit has a ranged attack that is more than capable of dealing with them terradons are free kills for even kossars.

*'''Lizardmen''' - This...should be a no brainer in concept, though countering opposing lizardmen can be somewhat difficult to execute. Anti-large units in some shape or form are an inarguable must; cold one spear-riders accompanied by saurus spears can surround and pin down enemy monsters in a relatively cost-effective manner. Red-crested skinks are an ideal infantry choice due to their poison and armor piercing bonus coming into play against a majority of the lizardman roster. Salamander hunting packs and ancient salamanders are fantastic all-rounders that can deal terrifying damage across the entire board. Your main objective should be to focus down any slann mage-priest or skink priests present on the field, followed by any other lord/hero keeping potential rampages in check. If there is an opposing slann, avoid clumping up your infantry to reduce the threat of a banishment and/or any other vortex spell devastating your frontlines. Regular stegadons are fantastic monster snipers who should focus fire on major threats like carnosaurs or dread saurians before anything else.

*'''Norsca''' - These guys are pretty much Warriors of Chaos with a little bit of [[Space Wolf|wolf]] thrown in. Like the Warriors of Chaos, they have a relative lack of missile units but unlike the Warriors of Chaos, are considerably less armored as a whole. However, they more than make up for it with their mobility and plentiful sources of anti-large, which can be seriously dangerous for one of your central strategies. Saurus Warriors as such are substantially better at holding off the bulk of their front lines while Temple Guard are a fantastic answer to their Skin Wolves and Trolls. You need to be on top of your positioning however, as Skin Wolves and Ice Wolves can run circles around your plodding infantry. Skink Skirmishers are also fantastic for dealing chip damage and applying poison while staying well out of arm's reach for a majority of their forces. (Ancient) Salamanders are also a superb choice, as are Fireleech Bolas Terradons as general damage dealers. Stegadons and Carnosaurs will likely be your go-to monsters, as a pair of Carnosaurs can typically take down a War Mammoth, at least in theory. Caution should be exercised against War Mammoths in particular, as they are one of the best monster units in the game. Considering the fact that half your list is made of monsters, that's saying something. No Norscan worth his salt will allow you to freely target down the crown jewel of his army, so make sure you commit well and truly to the fight.

*'''Nurgle''' -Nurgle has no anti-large, bad armour piercing, relies on outlasting his enemies, has almost no ranged firepower worth mentioning, has incredibly poor armour, is ridiculously slow, hates fire damage, and is mediocre in the air-game. Basically, everything Nurgle hates is something you have plenty of while Nurgle has precisely zero counters to your playstyle. You almost can't lose this match-up it's so one-sided.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''' - This is a fairly balanced matchup depending on what you bring. Saurus spears are the obvious pick here and try to avoid skink units entirely unless you want to give the gorgers free food. Carnosaurs with their anti-large are an obvious pick here and going for a stegadon with or without a hero on the back is great for counterplay against leadbelchers.The scariest thing ogres can bring are rhinoxes or their artillery. Essentially settle in for a large-on-large slugfest.

*'''Skaven''' - An iconic matchup, the skaven are everything the lizardmen aren't. Massive hordes of cheap, cowardly cannon fodder will fill the ranks of many skaven lists purely to get in the way of your Jurassic might and their rickety engines of war. Aside delaying the inevitable through piles of bodies, the ratmen have precious little in the way of durable front line units and will typically fall apart when thrown in the grinder. Rather, Skaven will rely on their wide array of artillery and arcane firearms to rain warpfire upon the hapless masses (friend and foe alike). Ratling Gunners are notorious for their ability to rapidly shred infantry, cavalry and monsters alike while their jezzails excel at picking apart single entity monsters, lords and heroes from halfway across the battlefield. Any frontline infantry you have you'll want shielded. In general, skaven are modestly quick on their feet, so you'll want a selection of cavalry or skinks to catch up to and tie down their missile infantry. Chameleon Skinks are generally a strong pick against skaven due to their missile resistance and for once can do respectable damage due to the relative lack of armor in the skaven roster. Skink Cohorts will typically win in a straight fight against Skaven Slaves or Clanrats, though against anything more elite you'll want saurus or kroxigors to deal with them. Your monsters will also have virtually free reign should they manage to make it into melee, though you'll want to ensure any artillery or missile infantry are well and truly tied down before you let them loose.

*'''Slaanesh''' - Much like the Dark Elves, this matchup falls considerably in their favor. Speedy infantry, cavalry and chariots ''all'' packing AP damage makes a front line of Saurus undesirable. However, unlike the Dark Elves, Slaanesh [[/d/|comes]] up short in the ranged game; your Chameleon Skinks, Skink Skirmishers and even both Terradon Riders will prove quite valuable at whittling away Slaaneshi daemons, though exquisite care will be needed for your skink infantry; even with poison debuffs, Slaaneshi units are ''damn'' fast and will still be able to chase down and tie up your Skinks without screening support. Other options include your trademark dinosaurs; despite packing AP damage, Slaanesh is not generally kitted with a diverse Anti-Large roster and may struggle trying to hold back your high-mass monsters from tearing through their ranks. When it comes to your Terradons, take a care. Slaanesh will usually pack some Furies to help defend the skies and though Furies won't win against any of your other monsters, your Terradons aren't most other monsters.

*'''Tomb Kings''' - There's not a lot a basic skeleton army can do to lizardmen. Unit for unit, saurus are just better and skinks will be more maneuverable. An all-dino army can destroy ushabti and higher-tier units with ease, provided you've picked the right dinos (stegadons). However, this is not a reason to be complacent - the Tomb Kings roster has some very deadly Anti-Large AP units on their roster that will make very short work of your dinos. Of particular note are the Ushabti Greatbows and Necrosphinx; the former are dedicated monster snipers and the latter is absolute murder against other single-entity monsters. Try to mob these units with your infantry or try to make them irrelevant with magic, because the high innate armor and mass these units naturally have will mean they can and will be able to move around the battlefield with impunity.

*'''Tzeentch''' - The key against Tzeentch is to get into melee quick and hold their units in place; Tzeentch daemons, even with their Protoss-like shields, aren't built for combat and will either try to do all their work at range (something you ''desperately'' will not want to combat them at) or by cycle charging before you get a chance to crack their shields. This is one of the rare matchups your Cold One Riders can actually excel at; they're rather decent in combat and can engage the enemy far sooner than your standard Saurus or Skinks can (and will likely/hopefully suffer less casualties for it). Additionally, Chameleon Stalkers can safely sneak up to vulnerable flanks; open up with a rather explosive burst of their own and start chewing through Horrors before they get much opportunity to return fire. Try not to contest the skies if you can, though Ripperdactyls will likely best most of the units they'd be fighting in the skies... they'll be outnumbered substantially ''and'' move much more slowly. They'll be lit up far before they can ever catch up to anything.

*'''Vampire Coast''' - In terms of punching through these undeads' lines they're even easier than their Vampire Counts brothers with very little in the way of durable infantry to hold back your Saurus killing machines. Where you will have to watch out is their ranged units - they have one of the cheapest gunlines in the game and it's even harder to break open their protectors because they're all undead and can't run. Their monsters will tarpit your dinos but rarely kill them, but without proper maneuvering you will be munching on polearm zombies all day while their undead musketeers and cannons fuck you up. Abuse magic hard and don't let them bog down your dinos, keep them constantly rolling through the zombies until you can trample over their gunners. Be very wary about Necrofex Colossi, not only can they kite your dinos but they can also put substantial hurt on them if not checked quickly.

*'''Vampire Counts''' - If there's any faction in the game more stunted in the range-game, it's the Vampire Counts. Hordes upon hordes of meat-shields often form the rank and file of many undead lists while the lords and heroes do all the heavy lifting. You'll want to avoid clumping your units up or getting bogged down by the fodder, as a single Winds of Death can delete your entire frontline if you allow it. Kroxigors will make short work of any infantry the Vampire Counts send your way and Sacred Kroxigors in particular are extremely valuable against the ethereal units that might otherwise threaten your physical forces. Additionally, Skink Skirmishers will prove a frustrating thorn in your opponents side as they kite any non-cav across the field and back. Typically you'll want to focus on bringing down any characters the Vampire Counts field, as they quite literally hold the army together. Without their leadership and magic support, many of the undead will quickly crumble against the might of your superior soldiers. Fire damage is particularly useful in this regard, so Salamander Hunting Packs, Ancient Salamanders, Solar Engines and Fire Slann can quickly incinerate many of these lords and heroes (in the case of the Slann, they are also fantastic at dealing with ethereal heroes).

*'''Daemons of Chaos''': Expect to see a roster comprising mostly of Slaanesh and Tzeentch daemons. If this is the case, you're in for a rough one. If your opponent decided to focus on Khorne or Nurgle forces... well, hopefully you enjoy the borderline free win. Regardless, this can be a tricky matchup to properly plan for, so just try to take a balanced list. With a slight focus against Tzeentch/Slaanesh, of course.

*'''Warriors of Chaos''' - Another faction almost devoid of ranged options, the Warriors of Chaos is almost dedicated to advancing a wall of steel and meat from one end of the map to the other. Many of their units are armored and/or shielded and as such, armor-piercing units will be your friend against them. Take a few units of Saurus (Spears) to hold their units in place while you have some Red-Crested Skinks chip away at them. Spears are strongly suggested due to the relative abundance of large/monstrous units within their roster; they might not win against them, but your spears will go down fighting much harder than your regular warriors would. Take a unit or two of Ripperdactyls to shut down any Hellcannons they might've brought to the table. Take no half-measures with them either; they're unbreakable so you ''will'' need to completely wipe them out if you don't want to be bombarded the entire match. Otherwise, some (Sacred) Kroxigors, Razordons and Stegadons are fantastic damage dealers and a Skink Priest of Heavens or a Fire Slann can delete large chunks of their infantry at a time with proper placement and timing.

*'''Wood Elves''' - Wood Elves are a flighty foe and one of the hardest for your army to actually pin down. Their relatively cheap access to long-ranged anti-armor missile infantry will pose a massive pain in the ass and their basic frontline infantry, the Eternal Guard, can hold their own surprisingly well against your monsters courtesy of their spears. In a rare twist, a front line of skink cohorts will prove more effective than your saurus against wood elves; they're quicker still than many elven infantry options and can further hinder their combat effectiveness thanks to their poison. Chameleon skinks will prove invaluable at harassing enemy archers and can kite a majority of their infantry with relative ease. Now when it comes to dealing with their tree units, I have one word for you. Fire. (Ancient) Salamanders can deal with dryads, tree kin and treemen with laughable ease and will prove just as effective at dealing with the rest of the wood elf roster, though you'll absolutely want a contingent or two of saurus spears to screen against Wild Riders. Wood Elves are also a rare instance of being a faction with ''less'' artillery than you (hint, they have none). Solar Engine bastilidons can heavily discourage their archers from setting up and will do bonus damage to any tree units they shoot. Lastly, many Wood Elf units are capable of vanguard deployment; keep an eye on your surroundings once the battle starts to ensure you aren't caught unawares.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''S/S-'''

Though you aren't the undisputed king of Domination, Lizardmen are absolutely positioned as one of the top factions for this game mode currently. A very flexible faction with many options, you have excellent early game presence in the form of skinks. Your quick-footed infantry chaff will easily contest objectives due to their higher capture weight compared to the expendable chaff infantry other factions might field and will have a much easier time getting to them shortly after the game begins. Particularly any of the skirmishing variety that you vanguard deployed. Speaking of, Chameleon Stalkers/Skinks are still excellent skirmishers and harassers who can dive in and disrupt outlying forces, making objective contesting a painful nuisance for ill-equipped foes. When it comes to holding the line, your Saurus infantry is as durable as ever. When supported by regular skinks, it will take a concentrated effort if not a full hard counter in order to shift your forces off of an objective. This is made even more challenging due to your rather plentiful healing options; Life Slann, Skink Oracles and even Revivification Bastilidons are fantastic for keeping your forces in the fight. Even more so if further supported by any Slann's Ward save nope-bubble that they can plant down on any objective to thoroughly lock it down. This isn't even really getting into your single entity beat-sticks; Kroq-Gar can prove the equal of lords such as Be'lakor with the right support and Lord Kroak can still Deliver Itza hard enough to evaporate enemy blobs with frightening ease.

At the end of the day, your sheer versatility affords you ''far'' more flexibility in dealing with the highly varied factions you'll be facing while still being able to focus on defending objectives. Yes, there are still some factions you'll generally struggle to deal with, but you will at least have a couple tools to handle them while you hold your ground. This is something some of the other factions (like the Dwarfs or Vampire Coast) cannot quite claim.

A particular note, if you're going up against one of the other top-tier factions in this game mode, such as Nurgle or Vampire Counts, bring fire. A Salamander Hunting Pack or two, a Fire Slann and ''maybe'' a Fireleech Bolas Terradon Rider can more efficiently stymie those factions regenerative strengths while further exploiting their innate flammability. A Burning Head or Firestorm will incinerate most of their blobs while dealing moderately little to your armored Saurus lines while Salamanders will also prove quite potent against the larger monsters/chariots supporting them.

===Campaign Strategies===
In the campaign, be it the Vortex or Mortal Empires, the biggest concern lizardmen have is obtaining a consistent source of income; skinks will only carry you so far in the early game and sacking settlements will only provide a quick short-term boost to your treasury. Your economy generally lacks bonuses, especially compared to other Warhammer 2 factions, though you won't be as constrained as, say, Wood Elves or Beastmen, and expanding the Geomantic Web and getting upkeep reduction skills will go a long, long way. As such, if you aren't playing as Hexoatl it is imperative to get the city as soon as possible for its landmark, which reduces upkeep on the lizardmen's most powerful units. Most other landmark buildings add some bonus to several unit chains, such as additional damage for skinks or more defense for saurus warriors.

Lizardmen research is locked behind building completion; many important technologies cannot be accessed until a specific, often mediocre in mid-early game, building is built in one of your settlements. Generally speaking, it is better to unlock research to start improving your weaker units rather than focus on your economy in the early- to mid-game. You simply won't be generating much revenue from economy buildings until the Geomantic Web is expanded and upkeep is reduced. However, that also means you need to be smart about what buildings to construct in your limited settlements; depending on how much money you have coming in through battles and sacking, it may be worth it to construct something just to unlock research and then destroy it to make room for something you genuinely need.

Despite skinks being largely cannon fodder after turn 75, the skink Spawning Pool building should be built in every minor settlement so that you can hire as many Skink Chief heroes as possible. Not only are they the faction assassins, which help lizardmen remove otherwise troublesome heroes that would be difficult to snipe on the battlefield, they can all get stegadon or ancient stegadon mounts. These are functionally equivalent to the generic version but come with extended range and bonuses to damage. It is possible to have two full armies of just Skink Chiefs by the Chaos invasion, if you so wish, and it is even more OP than the standard dinostack. Skink Priests also have access to these mounts, but increasing their recruiting slots is much more difficult.

Once you start becoming established and have a few provinces under your belt, it is imperative to begin constructing Star Chambers in every province you can afford to do so. Each Star Chamber boosts the starting rank of all newly recruited Slann Mage-Priests by 3 levels and all new heroes by 2. Yes, this stacks all the way up so that you can recruit max level Slann every 10 turns. Each Star Chamber also offers a small but lucrative bonus to all income for the whole Province, which helps to address your stone-age economy and extends enemy sieges by an extra 3 turns, potentially granting you just enough time to save the city should it fall under attack.

===Mortal Empires/Vortex===
With the advent of Immortal Empires in the third game, this will admittedly feel like a lackluster experience compared to it. Having said that, if you feel like sticking to the "OG" experience or don't quite want to pick up game III yet, here are some tips and tricks. In general, if you're starting as one of the factions starting on your home turf of Lustria, you're going to feel quite cramped.

====Mazdamundi====
*'''City of the Sun''' - Big boss Mazdamundi starts with a couple nice things going for him; As the proud owner of Hexoatl, late game Dino-Doomstacks can become particularly affordable. Additionally, he can expand south relatively freely due to a province's worth of abandoned settlements ripe for the plundering/taking. Not everything is as bright as his city's namesake suggests; A permanent -10 diplomatic penalty to all Non-Lizardmen factions can make diplomacy somewhat problematic. This is exacerbated by the fact that Mazda starts directly south of the Dark Elves and has a cluster of aggressive Vampire Coast and lizard-hating Empire colonists barring his access to the rest of Lustria. After you secure your initial holdings, you should weigh your options carefully then commit to eradicating one threat at a time if you can help it. Wiping out Morathi's Dark Elves is the more challenging prospect; their abundance of Armor Piercing weaponry (melee and ranged) can make early game excursions north particularly brutal. This is made worse by the climate incompatibilities, where growth and replenishment are dramatically hindered. On the other hand, Morathi's capital city does provide some rather significant bonuses to your research, income and public order (reduction of penalties from corruption). Should you choose to go south, you'll have a much easier time and will be able to meet up with several other Lizardmen factions you can trade/confederate with.

====Kroq-Gar====
*'''The Last Defender''' - Starting in the ass-crack of the southeast, Kroq-Gar has a bit of a rough start. His only legendary lord neighbor, Tiktaq'to, is still a veritable hike through Vampire/Tomb King infested deserts and Skaven/Ork-filled mountains. You do have two other generic Lizardmen factions nearby, but they often get wiped out within the first 20 turns by either Vampires, Tomb Kings or Malus Darkblade, if you don't do the job for them. To get to the rest of your Lizard brethren (who actually matter), you're going to have to carve a path of bloody carnage across the literal length of the map. There are a couple of ways to go about it, however. If you focus your efforts, you can shove off the coast above your capital city and take the Dragon Isles province directly to the north. If you head north quickly, you can snag a veritable batch of handy Legendary Lord traits that'll turn Kroq-Gar into a particularly potent duelist and secure a number of relatively isolated, defendable provinces before you press westward. If you'd rather focus on pressing west initially... prepare for the long haul. You'll want to keep a banner army stationed either in Charnel Valley (where Clan Mors starts) or in Devil's Backbone (where the Court of Lybaras starts) to help defend against Ork or potential Dark Elf incursions.

====Tehenhauin====
*'''Lllllet's get ready to RUMBLE!''' - Brace yourself, you're deep in the Lustria-Bowl. Tehenhauin has the roughest start of all your lords, even including Horde-faction Nakai; though he has one potential ally to his immediate south, he has Vampire Coast, Dark Elves, Skaven and expansionist Empire folk surrounding him on all sides. Worse, you're effectively stuck with Skinks for infantry until you can make progress on your Skaven genocide quest. To this end, you're going to want to either focus on pumping out a flood of Skinks or focus on building your Beast Lairs to try to pump out some monstrous units to compensate for your lack of early-game muscle. Taking out the Vampire Coast first is strongly recommended, as not only do they spread vampiric corruption, but all of their settlements will provide you with valuable ports. From there, you can put the screws to the Dark Elves and Skaven to the south and claim some valuable land and sacrifices for Sotek.

====Tiktaq'to====
* Perhaps the most... bland campaign, Tiktaq'to just kind of exists in the middle of the Southlands, caught between some Tomb Kings, a random Empire faction and a fair few crusading Bretonnians. If you want, you can focus on allying with the Tomb Kings initially. They can provide a reasonable source of Trade income and provide a buffer against the burgeoning Greenskin-tide while you clean up the Bretonnians and Empire. Additionally, if you focus on sweeping east, you can get a solid point of entry into Lustria.

====Gor-Rok====
*'''The world is your Itza''' - Despite being solidly in the Lustria-Bowl and being a Saurus-dedicated, exclusive footlord, Gor-Rok is basically guaranteed supremecy due to beginning the game with Lord Kroak ''and'' starting with Itza as his capitol. Tehenhauin will often end up confederating with you pretty early and without much fuss due to the various Lustria-Bowl contenders beating the piss out of him. You'll likely want to focus your initial expansion down south to clear out the Skaven and secure the various resources found on the southeast coastline before pushing north to clear out the Vampires. Once you control the majority of Lustria, you effectively have free reign to set your sights anywhere you feel like conquering.

====Nakai====
* Formerly the most wayward of the Children of the Old Ones, Nakai's start in Albion effectively tries to throw you against the forces of Norsca for a majority of your early-mid game. After some research, he's admittedly geared for it; natural Snow and Chaos Attrition immunity courtesy of your unique tech tree grants Nakai a lot more flexibility for engaging the northern Chaos factions and despite not controlling any of the settlements he captures, the Defenders of the Great Plan generate a ''ton'' of Untainted corruption. Though this won't really benefit you personally much, your allies (or fellow players on Co-Op campaigns) will find traversing the north considerably less threatening. Having said that, due to being a Horde faction, you're perfectly free to just abandon Albion entirely and find new stomping grounds to start your Campaign in.
In immortal empires he's even more lost starting in fucking cathay. But he does get a proper stegadon as a starting unit so that's a big bonus

====Oxyotl====
*'''Deep in enemy territory''' - Aside Nakai and ''potentially'' Tehenhauin, Oxyotl has the most unique (and arguably best) Campaign. His initial start is a bit rough, being awkwardly sandwiched in the far north between the rapidly confederating Dark Elves to the west and the pugnacious Norscans to the east. Though his universal climate habitability is a (necessary) godsend, he'll find it somewhat difficult to defend and expand his home territory. If you can, try to focus down the Dark Elves once you secure your home province. Oxyotl's particular playstyle actually counters Dark Elves to a degree and if you can nip Malekith in the bud before he confederates the rest of his misbegotten kind, you can spare yourself a late-game headache and get a hell of an infrastructure set up with all the unique building chains found in Naggarond. Just make sure you keep a couple standing armies in the region for the Chaos Invasion.
*'''Don't neglect your missions''' - This is because, unless you want to get constant debuffs, buff random enemy armies into the stratosphere or cause the Chaos Invasion to happen way ahead of schedule, Oxyotl's army is going to be consistently busy warping around the map doing missions rather than naturally expanding your home territory. He can warp back to the capitol and any one Silent Sanctum of your choosing freely (which you can establish in any settlement you've laid eyes upon at least once), but only once per turn and he does not regain any of the movement/actions spent prior to the warp. However, many of the missions Oxyotl needs to undertake often involves him razing or capturing enemy settlements, so you'll often find yourself with various holdouts sprinkled across the map. Just make sure that you get a banner army or two to defend your capitol if you can help it; things get ''extremely'' messy once the Chaos Invasion starts.
*'''Your Silent Sanctums''' - Your other unique mechanic is a game-changer for the Lizardmen. Functionally, they're similar to Skaven Undercities; you can construct unique buildings to benefit any of your forces within the Region it was established, as well as any other regions neighboring it. This can include granting your forces permanent vision on everything within those regions, a flat 20% upkeep reduction for all of your forces within the area or even a random chance to deal damage to enemy forces happening by. Whenever you amass 8 gems, you can construct a Silent Sanctum in any settlement any of your characters have personally seen. One key function truly unique to Oxyotl is that you can actually construct a building that allows Oxyotl's army to teleport there at will. You can literally teleport a full Stegadon doomstack right next to an enemy faction's capitol city if you so desire. Suffice to say, Silent Sanctums are extremely useful and worth investing in.
*'''Take Albion!''' - If you can afford the excursion, send Oxyotl or a generic banner army south to Albion and claim it. Several unique buildings in Konquata provide rather substantial financial boons and, especially when coupled with a specially kitted out Silent Sanctum, can serve as a rapid recruitment center for your efforts in the Old World. You're the only Lizardmen faction within a reasonable distance who can actually make use of these unique buildings and an early capture can prove to be a rather profitable investment for your economy.

===Immortal Empires===
It's here, the biggest Total War map to date, spanning effectively the entire Old World and then some (only a few less than fleshed out regions such as Nippon are excluded). The Lustriabowl has for the most part calmed down, a majority of the non-lizardmen factions have set sail for greener pastures and with the inclusion of the entire southern half of the continent, what factions that remain now have some breathing room. Having said that, this season, it's time for the Southlands Thunderdome to kick off! While Gor-Rok and Tehenhauin can breathe a sigh of relief, Kroq-Gar and Tiktaq'to are now sandwiched in with factions from damn near every walk of (un)life; Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings, Daemons of Khorne and Tzeentch, Dwarfs, Orks, Skaven, High Elves, Empire, Bretonnians, the list goes ON.

If you're playing as Gor-Rok, Tehenhauin or even Mazdamundi, don't get too comfortable in Lustria however. Dark Elves in the form of Rakarth have set up shop on the western coast of Lustria, Clan Pestilins has borderline free reign of the south-eastern coastline, Markus Wulfhart continues his colonial ways in northern Lustria alongside his new-found Bretonnian buddy Alberic. The Vampire Coast is, in fact, still infested with the Vampire Coast and a few rogue factions of daemons muck about in central Lustria. Though it won't be ''quite'' as chaotic as before, given the extra breathing room, you'll still need to remain vigilant if you want to kick all the warm-bloods out of your homeland.

One notable change is the Rite of Awakening; it no longer costs any gold to use, so once you unlock it, there's ''no'' reason to not immediately use it to spawn in a Slann for your recruitment pool. Enact that shit every single time it pops off cooldown.

====Kroq-Gar====
*'''Scar-Veteran Doomstack Simulator''': Kroq-Gar probably got the biggest buff/change transitioning from Mortal Empires to Immortal Empires among lizardmen. The first notable perk is that his faction has been ''heavily'' re-tooled to focus on Saurus; specifically Old-Bloods and Scar-Veterans. Faction wide, Saurus Spawning pools now grant additional perks beyond the ability to recruit Saurus units and, at 4th tier, will grant an additional +2 recruit rank for Scar-Veterans. This stacks with both the Humble trait and Star Chambers (which now, unfortunately, can only be constructed in province capitals), letting you ''very'' quickly start cranking out high-ranking Scar-Veterans on Carnosaurs. If that weren't enough, all Scar-Veterans and Old-Bloods gain a 30% boost to experience gain and get an extra 1% Weapon Strength per rank they have (capping out at a [[/d/|+50% weapon strength buff at max level]]). The Last Defenders did lose their universal -10% upkeep discounts, but it's slightly made up for since Old-Bloods gain a -15% Upkeep reduction for their banner armies, encouraging you to run them as Lords for your more expensive doomstacks. Though by no means should you forsake taking a Slann here and there.

:Kroq-Gar himself downgraded some of his personal buffs, comparatively. Gone are the leadership and armor buffs for Stegadons, Bastiladons, Terradons and Carnosaurs. Instead, Saurus and Cold-One Riders gain a 25% experience gain buff and his former -50% upkeep reduction for Saurus and Cold One units has simply dropped down to the fairly standard -15% universal upkeep reduction all his Old-Blood units get. Much more versatile than before, though.

:Speaking of the scaly lizard, he starts on the eastern coast of the Southlands, smack dab above Teclis (for now). Teclis makes for a decent defensive ally if you so wish and a valuable buffer against the southern Chaos forces such as Kairos. Almost invariably, you're going to be forced upwards in your wars; smaller Skaven infest the Kingdom of Beasts province and Khalida is often prone to declaring war against you once you work your way north. Immediately following Khalida, you'll likely draw the ire of Clan Mors and be drawn straight into the Karak Eight-Peaks race, oddly enough.

:Should you sail northeast, you can evict Ku'gath from the Dragon Isles for a nice footstep into southern Grand Cathay and the Darklands. Anyone who's played enough of Mortal Empires might be so inspired for a fresh change of scenery.

:Heading directly west to meet up with your lizard brethren is also far more tenable, now that you don't need to fight your way through an entire desert's worth of Tomb Kings. You'll still need to secure your starting province, but as the Golden Tower now stands as a convenient mountain pass, you can meet and greet Tiktaq'to extremely early in the campaign. His starting region offers a nice launching point into your ancestral home, where you can ideally encounter Tehenhauin clinging to life on the bottom cape of Lustria. Should you wish to actually expand there for all the unique buildings and legendary lords ripe for confederation, you'll need to make sure you don't neglect your Southlands homelands.

====Mazdamundi====
*'''Immortal Empires''' - Probably the biggest change from TWWH2 is the expansion of Lustria and the separation of North and South <s>America</s> Lustria. Warhammer Mexico has been tweaked a little bit, with Skeggi and the coast being their own province. Skeggi is more challenging now since they can spam Marauder Champions, meaning you'll be tied up with them a bit more than before.
**Cylostra is now further north, next to Alith Anar, but you'll still have to deal with Rakarth, Wulfhart, Bordelaux, and of course, the Awakened. Most of these guys, and especially Rakarth, are packing lots of anti-Large, so you'll want to plan your armies ahead: Carnosaurs and Temple Guard can deal with Rakarth, but you'll want some artillery to deal with Wulfhart.
**North of Hexoatl is still the same clusterfuck, and you'll want to appease the Sisters of Twilight so that you're not dealing with a war on two fronts; their AI is stupidly annoying, and they will break non-aggression pacts with you if your relations hover even slightly above neutral. This anon recommends trading any settlements that you capture from Morathi to them in exchange for a fee, which can net you 7-8k in gold and some goodwill. Any settlement north of the Fallen Gates is useless to you anyway, and because Wood Elves have terrible settlement defense, as soon as Morathi takes them back, you can do it all over again and farm gold, allegiance, and positive relations.

====Tehenhauin====
The Cult of Sotek got a minor buff with the reworking of their sacrificial pyramid. Regiments of Renown now unlock normally, while sacrifices can be spent to acquire powerful Blessed units. In addition, the updated character UI makes swapping Tehenhauin's unique banners and ancillaries very convenient and a little more useful.

Tehenhauin starts in the southwest corner of Lustria and will need to move fast to prevent Rakarth and Lord Skrolk from getting too established. Generally, Skrolk will expand further and faster, taking most of southern Lustria from the minor faction to your east. Rakarth will have few targets for expansion and will declare war on you fairly early, whereas Skrolk will ignore you until he completes his conquest. However, Skrolk is likely to be easier to defeat early on and taking his territories will give Tehenhauin some safe territory to develop since Gor-Rok will be to your north and there's little to no chance the AI will cross the ocean from the Southlands. Then you can build up the resources you need to defeat Rakarth armies of darkshards and spearmen, which are far more difficult for Tehenhauin's early-game armies to deal with. Humble heroes and skink chiefs on stegadons can be very useful at that point.

Once these two threats are dealt with, it's up to you whether you'll finish off the remaining minor factions in Lustria (Spine of Sotek Dwarfs, Tower of Dusk, Bordeleaux Errants, Luthor Harkon) or ally with them to get some unit variety. If you head north, Markus Wulfhart still can't be negotiated with and you'll have to destroy him if you want to reach Hexoatl. You may find it more interesting to head east and reach <s>the Southlands</s> Mordor, where Tiktaqto and Kroq-gar should be clinging to life as the Vermintide bears down on them. But be wary; heading to the Southlands means you'll likely meet Kairos and will need to deal with Changing of the Ways if you don't finish him off. Luckily, his defeat trait is useful for Tehenhauin.

Alternatively, using the new sea lanes will bring you to Grand Cathay and Nakai the Wanderer. Most of the territory available will be yellow, whereas Lustrian and Southlands territories are green, but the areas of Cathay you can conquer/confederate will be almost completely secure from future attack as long as you maintain good relations with Zhao Ming and Meow Ying. Nakai tends to be fairly easy to confederate once you've gotten 3 or more armies, and while he's not a stellar legendary lord he is one of the best fighters available to the lizardmen.

Tehenhauin can meet Oxyotl very early in the campaign, however all of Oxyotl's territory will be red. It's probably better to leave him independent rather than confederate him, as the AI cheats will allow him to defeat all the Chaos factions in the Southern Chaos Wastes far more easily than the player can, and none of that territory is worth anything to the Cult of Sotek. Of course, this could all be a moot point considering how hard it is to confederate Lizardmen in general.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves

2023-05-19T16:56:03Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{Topquote|Skulls for Khaine! Blood for Khaine!|Game battle chant for the Dark Elves. [[Khorne|Why does it sound familiar...]]}}
{{Topquote|Sa'anishar! (Shields and spears!)|Slightly more original game battle chant for the Dark Elves.}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Dark Elves.

==Why Play Dark Elves==
*Because you'd like your elves to take their arrogance to the next level and just start murdering people for the crime of not being elves.
*Because you believe that everything looks roughly 1000 times better when covered in spikes.
*Because you enjoy the inherent power fantasy that comes from playing a big spiky asshole out to conquer and enslave.
*You like a versatile unit roster with some serious killing power.
*Because being the good guy is just so boring sometimes.

===Pros===
*'''Flexibility''': One of the Druchii's biggest strengths that really can't be understated. While a lot of other factions are forced into a single tactic, the Druchii have more battlefield options than pretty much any other faction in the game, even the High Elves. While they are best at offense thanks to Murderous Prowess, their wide selection of unique units and powerful characters means they can also play defense, kite, use a heavy monster focus, combined arms, and all-around whatever tactic you can think of.
*'''AP for Days''': If you're playing Dark Elves and having a hard time with armoured troops, you're playing them wrong. A large chunk of the roster has majority AP damage, so armor should be the least of your concerns.
*'''Solid Range''': While you may not be the shootiest of factions, the Dark Elves are more than capable. They are fully capable of melting enemy units before they close to melee with the right build.
*'''Anti-large''': The Druchii are renowned for their beast-hunting prowess, and it shows in the game. Most of your unit archetypes have at least one solid anti-large option, whether it be monsters, infantry, or chariots.
*'''Mobility''': You're not as good at it as the Asrai, but Dark Elves have some of the best light cav and missile chariots in the game, if not ''the'' best. Combine that with infantry like Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter, and you are able to get around the battlefield pretty damn fast. Light Cav tactics are a favorite among Dark Elf players.
*'''Powerful Lords''': When it comes to lord options, you are spoiled for choice. Most of their lords are at the very least decent and some like Malekith can carry an entire army to victory if given the time.
*'''Strong Heroes''': While you aren't quite the Vampire Counts when it comes to character prowess, your heroes are still very, very good. Death Hags and Masters in particular provide great utility on the battlefield on top of powerful melee stats, and Sorceresses, like all elven casters, are a hero you really can't go wrong with.
*'''Strong Economy''': Your economy is god-tier, and this is even before you bring in trade. Raking in high numbers of slaves all but guarantees that your cash flow reaches insane levels which you can further boost by abusing the Master hero who reduces slave decay to the point that they literally cannot decay anymore. Combine this with the extremely generous discounts on Black Arks and your pockets will never be empty again.
*'''Naval Supremacy''': An often overlooked, but still important feature is that your Black Arks can dominate the oceans of the world and keeping your homeland secure from any threats. The only faction that rivals your naval power are (big surprise here) the Vampire Coast.

===Cons===
*'''Frail''': Okay, so you don't have it as bad as the Wood Elves, since many of your units are bringing actual armor to the fight, but you're still a glass cannon rush faction. Running into a faction that can simply outlast your burst of melee damage once Murderous Prowess proccs, can and will give you a lot of trouble.
*'''Limited Range''': Their ranged units aren't bad, in fact, Darkshards and Shades are extremely good, but they don't shoot very far. Even some [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] units will outrange you, and most factions will get one or two shots off before you get in position.
*'''Lack of Healing''': You're the only Elven faction with no multi-target healing. The only thing you have is Soul Stealer, which only heals the caster. Combine this with your low health pools, and your units will die a lot faster than their tanky statline might lead you to believe.
*'''Expensive''': Not as much as High Elves, but still pretty pricey. Expect to be outnumbered most of the time.
*'''Poor Public Order''': Being the quarrelsome lot that they are, Dark Elves suffer from a multitude of public order penalties (especially once you have a lot of slaves) and don't have a lot of tools to counter them; managing it can quickly devolve into a frantic nightmare, particularly on high difficulties.
*'''No Encampments''': If you are away from your territory, you can't recruit new guys while encamping. This can be offset somewhat with Black Arks, though that's not an option in regions far from the coast.
*'''Temperamental Economy''': You make a ton of money when your slave count is high, but your income will nosedive if you go a couple turns without winning battles. This problem is exacerbated in Immortal Empires where slave decline is % based across your entire empire. True to lore, your economy will crumble the moment you run out of enemies.
*'''Powercreep''': Dark Elves really haven't had the best transition from game 2 to 3. The rework to your slavery system made it way less interactive and a ton of different campaigns got bumped up in difficulty. Building Black Arks is still fun but they require a huge investment. They're certainly one of the factions on the radar for a potential update.
*'''DLC''': Scourgerunners and Supreme Sorceresses are some of your best units. They also cost extra. As with most Non DLC factions, you will need to pay extra money to be consistent in multiplayer.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Murderous Prowess''': A passive, army-wide ability that gives all units on the map considerable offensive bonuses after you hit a certain threshold of kills (usually around 30-50% of the enemy force). Hard to time right and difficult to control, but extremely effective regardless. Seeing your Corsairs, Shades, and whatnot go into overdrive for 90 seconds is a scary and satisfying spectacle to behold. For a few units, the effect lasts 120 seconds instead of 90. Good in WH2, but terrifying in WH3 where Murderous Prowess also regenerates 1% vigor per second. Watch your entire army get a second wind and go from exhausted to fresh when it triggers.
*'''Slaves''': You get slaves by raiding, winning battles, and looting/sacking settlements. Slaves go to your cities to do the crapwork and are gradually worked to death turn by turn. The Druchii can make a hell of a lot of money by capturing slaves. However the more slaves you've got the harder it is to control them, which leads to unrest.
*'''Black Arks''': A special kind of campaign unit that acts as one of the two true "navies" in the entire game, Black Arks can only exist on the water but they are essentially floating garrisoned cities that can also let your other armies recruit and exchange from them. A powerful incentive for any Druchii player to adopt the raiding lifestyle and an excellent tool for mobile defence across Naggaroth's extensive coastline.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Malekith]]''': Warhammer's rendition of Darth Vader with severe mummy issues arrived on the scene, and he doesn't mess around. This dude is among ''the'' best Legendary Lords in the game bar none. A monster of a Hybrid LL, he is everything the likes of Azhag the Slaughterer and Arkhan the Black wish they could be. He punches hard, gets a Dragon relatively early on and his spellcasting doesn't disappoint either. His economy buffs are ridiculously strong, boosting an already ridiculous economy. His buffs to Black Guard and Dragons are also very useful. You can hardly go wrong with Malekith.
*'''[[Morathi]]''' : Morathi is a ''very'' weird animal (There's gotta be a sex joke in here somewhere). Unlike many other Legendary Lords, her skill tree is the only one in the game where you actually get to make meaningful choices, as she can alternate between ridiculously powerful spellcasting and good backline harasser, both paths are viable. What sets her apart from other Caster Lords as her spellcasting is concerned is that, like Teclis, she doesn't specialize in single Lore and her pool of spells draws from the Lores of Dark, Death, and Shadows and favors all-out offensive spells from all of them. Arguably the second-best Caster Lord in the game, just behind Teclis. Unfortunately her campaign mechanics are badly broken, she has to spread corruption but doesn't get public order benefits from it, only downsides. This makes her campaign more difficult than you'd expect simply due to serous public order issues. They even nerfed the building in quintex that made the public order manageable for no apparent reason. With Immortal Empire's she now spreads Slaanesh corruption and her public order issues have been fixed, she can also recruit both regular and Exalted dDemonettes from her public order building. which is a nice step in the right direction. They forgot to make them affected by her red skill/techs as usual though. Honestly she is just begging for a dedicated rework to make her into a hybrid faction at this point, it would be awesome to see a true cult of Slaanesh faction. I don't know why they didn't give her the cultist of Slaanesh hero given that they are literally Dark Elf cultists. They did unfortunately significantly nerf her enchanting beauty and her weapons debuff abilities so she cant tank melee stats into the ground just by existing anymore, despite other lords like demon princes having aura's of similar power in campaign. Bizarrely they also removed her -50% upkeep for hero's, I guess someone was convinced her faction was too good, despite none of it being super strong or unique (vampires get -50% hero upkeep and way more from bloodlines).
*'''[[Hellebron]] (DLC)''' : Hellebron exists in her own little niche. Barely armored like Witch Elves, but really, really bloody fast and a buffmachine for your already busted murdermachine frontline. She excels in prolonged combat, preferably against lightly armored chaff and will rack a high kill count very quickly but will cave against elite units and other single entity monsters or characters.
: Get a unique campaign mechanic of her vitality slowly draining way and have to progressively sacrifice more slaves during the Death Night to keep the faction buffed instead of Debuffed, but also create a new stack of frenzied elves to attack [[Ulthwe]].
*'''[[Lokhir Fellheart]] (FLC)''' : Lord of the [[Black Ark]]s. He is a cheaper blender lord in comparison to Hellebron, being a well-armored Infantry blender while on foot like a Vlad von Carstein without magic. CA also gave him his own Dragon mount which only make him better than a Dread Lord on dragon when he pops his attack buffs.
:the Druchii pirate lord starts in the thunder dome that is Lustria but can have a lot of freedom by starting with a middle settlement that is a Black Ark.
*'''[[Malus Darkblade]] (DLC)''': An unremarkable lord until he lets the daemon take over, and then he is a melee powerhouse. Using Malus in combat is like burning a candle wick, his Tz'arkan form and abilities are powerful but drain his hit points so know when he should be in daemon or Malus mode. He does have Resistance and Healing in combat so he won't burn out as fast in a fight. Switching to daemon mode restores all his health and vigor and makes him unbreakable so it's best to wait until the last moment before switching.
:in campaign his battle with his inner daemon is a game mechanic, with having a possession meter, giving you greater campaign bonuses while Malus is mostly in control, but as Tz'arkan slowly takes over, he gains greater battle prowess but at the cost of large penalties to your empire. You control the possession by drinking a potion that gets progressively more expensive until you finish his storyline to make it free. Tz'arkan will also offer an additional quest to increase the possession but with very good payoffs. For your start position, you get a Black Ark in the Southern Land, in addition, have your traditional Druchii hold, [[Hag Graef]], that you can sell for a lot of money but have to listen to [[Malekith]] (which will be an AI) or make it harder by having to run and protect the dame place yourself while also declaring on the big cheese. -disappointingly he is actually more effective if you confederate him then if you play as him, confederated he gets the benefits of full possession with no downsides. making him insanely tanky. His faction benefits are actually more of a hassle than they are helpful.
*'''Rakarth (FLC)''' Your man you pick if you want to go for a full monster build. He comes with heavy armor and Anti Large to deal with enemy big monsters while also providing buffs to his own beasties. He will also have a Scourgerunner for skirmishing, a Manticore and a Dragon for a straight up brawl. He serves as your best counter to mounters, with his whip being able to strip Fear and Terror from monsters (leaving said monsters susceptible to fear and terror) and armor that gives him buffs as enemy monsters are around him. He's also being voiced by [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Ramsay Bolton]].

===Generic Lords===
*'''Dread Lord (Melee & Ranged)''': Your two generic lord with one focused on melee and has a shield while the other is a hybrid that focuses on shooting. In multiplayer, their ability change to help them buff their respective areas, Sword & Shield having buffs to melee attacks and debuffing enemy damage, while Sword & Crossbow supports other crossbows unit while also being a sniper, and gives a burst bonus to Ld. Note that the lords have almost identical melee stats once you put them on a black dragon and the melee lord looses her shield when mounted on one while the ranged lord keeps his ranged weapon. at high levels i cant see much reason to use the melee version instead but she will be better in melee until they get the dragon.
*'''Supreme Sorceress (DLC)''': Makes a Sorceress as a lord for money-saving cost. Somewhat feeble in combat until she levels up enough to get a black dragon mount, after which she fights better than many dedicated melee lords. Student of the Dark Tower is an amazing skill, providing lower cooldowns, reserves, and miscast reduction all in one. These girls are pretty much your best generic lord in a faction with already pretty strong lords.
*'''High Beastmaster (DLC)''': Your monster hunter Lord. Though he looks like a chronic masturbator, he can fill a surprising amount of battlefield roles. Not as tanky in melee as a Dread Lord but deals a good amount of anti-large damage in addition to his burst of additional weapon strength. Also is supportive by giving a single unit a big buff as they charge into melee (don't yet specify anything except can't be used on characters, so go crazy on an Executioners charge). Can Come on a Scouregrunner Chariot(roll though everyone while armed with a ballast) or ride a Manticore which has proven to be cost-effective flying monsters. Can give a big boost to cold ones and monsters in campaign as well as recruiting them faster. If running cavalry or monster stacks, likely your best option. The big MA/MD/ and charge boost they give colds ones really makes them preform better.

==Heroes==
*'''Death Hag''' : Single-entity Witch Elves dialed up to 11. Death Hags excel as extremely vicious infantry blenders with a lot of speed of behind them and, as an added bonus, a variety of buff abilities that make them even deadlier. They tend to get the shorter end of the stick against dedicated duelist characters and their only mount option consists of the Cauldron of Blood, which, to be frank, is a waste, since it sacrifices offensive power and speed for more durability, something that Death Hags with their high Melee Defense don't really need. - I’m not sure what the above was talking about, death hags kinda suck on foot like most foot heroes, the mount is good vs infantry and makes them actually pretty tough plus buffs nearby units. Always mount in campaign, foot may have more use in multiplayer I guess.
*'''Sorceress''' : Caster bitches in the flavours of Death, Dark, Shadows, Beasts, and Fire. Better than most other caster types, and Morathi has some great factionwide buffs for them.
*'''Khainite Assassin''' : Good on campaign map, terrible in an actual fight. To expand, Khainite Assassins get high assassination chance, and are really useful at deleting enemy characters from the game. This is exacerbated by some good hero action buffs from techs, and from a few lord skills. Their passive ability increases the amount of slave income in the province they are in, which sounds useful on paper, but isn't really needed since Dark Elves make all the money they could ever want after a while. Their 'scavenge' ability can help armies pick up more money in the early game as well. In battle, they're a dedicated character duelist meant to sneak around the back line with their vanguard and stalk, and kill enemy high-value stuff with a powerful short-ranged missile attack and pretty good melee stats. Honestly though, in melee they kind of underperform vs other duelists, and they're pretty squishy on top of it all. Their ranged attack is... fine, I guess? But it's super slow to reload and very short ranged. This is on top of the fact that they DON'T GET A MOUNT which really limits their mobility, and therefore their usefulness in battle. Seriously, these guys are tailor made to be flying around on manticores or something! Even a freaking horse would increase their usefulness incredibly. As it is, they'll probably get surrounded and killed off pretty quickly. Death Hags and Masters are really, really good heroes, and will fill every battlefield role that you could want, while Sorceresses and your regular missile units can provide crazy ranged utility. Keep these guys for killing off enemy heroes and scouting other provinces on the campaign map.
*'''Master (DLC)''' : Tyrants in Training who never graduate in game to Dreadlords :(Masters are your tanky Dark Elf hero. You can’t really overuse these, they are amazing. Ap anti large heavily armored high stat combat monsters with great mount options, the guardian skill, easy recruitment from a tier 3 building, the ability to reduce slave decline to zero if stacked, access to martial names of power granting incredibly powerful bonuses, easy to recruit at level 9 and up in any 4 city province. A doom stack of these with the regeneration or hunger/frenzy skill name of power and access to the extra melee attack army wide or leadership reduction traits is probably the campaigns deadliest hero doomstack, rivaling or beating Isabella vampire stacks or lizardmen hero spam. Really, really good heroes. And easier to spam then any comparable hero. Recommend cold one for ground duty (extra armor and ap) or Pegasus for flying (fast and flying with good charge but no shield). Foot is ok too but generally mounts are more than worth it for mobility alone. Immortal empires removed their role in the slave mechanic but they are still extremely stong melee hero's, probably use them in your armies exclusively now.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Dreadspears''': Your most basic spearmen unit in the DE roster. They're... alright? They lack an offensive punch and High Elf Spearman performs better at the job they are supposed to be doing, being to hold the line to stop enemy cavalry punching through to your precious archers. They work fine in the early game, as well as being cheap, but don't rely on them for too long. stats are even better with Immortal empires now.
**'''The Hellebronai (RoR)''': Dreadspears that are a bit better in general with poison attacks.
*'''Bleakswords''': The offensive counterpart to Dreadspears. With the release of immortal empires they are now surprisingly very solid and killy basic infantry, there's a lot more reason to use them over spears now and they are going to be a very cost effective chaff unit in both multiplayer and campaign.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs''' : ...These guys. Oh, these guys. Frail as all hell, but worth it. Corsairs should make up the majority of melee troops of your midgame armies as soon as they become available. Their raw damage output as well as their armour (having a value of 90, putting them on the same level as dwarf warriors!) makes them a solid frontline and they will cut down all basic infantry used against them with ease and surprising speed. Their easy availability combined with a reasonable price make sure they are always a good choice, especially against horde-centric factions. One glaring weakness is their lack of AP damage. - whoever wrote the above likes corsairs way too much, they’re good but non synergistic with usual dark elf campaign strategies of crossbow spam. And they aren’t worth using after the early game. You can honestly never use them and just go dreadspears/bleakswords and darkshards and usually do better in the early campaign. I hear they are nice in multiplayer, but campaign wise meh.
*'''[[Witch Elves]]''': Talk about glass cannons, Witch Elves are a really weird bunch. They have no armour, but (try to) compensate for this with 20% physical resistance and a 5% ward save after you research technologies. In exchange, they excel in melee attack and apply debuffs to enemy forces attacked by them. The debuff in itself is very unique, as it not only debuffs enemy melee stats but also sends them on a rampage; causing them to stay way longer in a fight which they otherwise would be comfortable with. This is especially useful against all elven factions, since you can lure their expensive specialized elite tropps in matchups that they are not equipped to deal with (i.e. Swordmasters against a Hydra or a Dragon) and ''reliably keep them there''. Well at least as long as your Witch Elves survive the encounter, which, given that their only defense is a meager 28 melee defense and a 5% ward save, might not be that long. no real reason to use them unless you just need/want the rampage ability. sisters of slaughter are much better.
**'''Sisters of Singing Doom (RoR)''' : Schizo witch elves with slightly improved melee stats, a steep cost markup, and fear/terror. Generally not worth it, they still cause rampage on hit which is the last thing you want when you're trying to scare a unit away. Save some money and bring vanilla witch elves if you want to rampage enemies or a Manticore if you want to terror bomb them.
*'''Sisters of Slaughter (DLC)''': They wear even less clothes than Witch Elves do, yet are more resilient. Their extremely high melee defense and their 20% physical resistance make them surprisingly tough. As one of the few resilient Dark Elven melee units, their job is to hold the line and grind down other infantry where their poisoned attacks, melee defense, and bonus vs. infantry lets them reliably come out on top. In addition, they have a unique passive that boosts their melee defense and physical resist even more if they are losing their current encounter, which makes them surprisingly viable as a tarpit against enemies like black orks who would otherwise dumpster them. Competes with black guard as your best frontline infantry. Keep in mind that their high melee defense doesn't protect them from missiles or impact damage from enemies on the charge. Back them up with dreadspears or black guard so they don't become the red paintjob on an enemy chariot.
*'''Executioners''': The offensive counterpart to the Black Guards, your ol' reliable murderers of heavy armoured elite troops and anything in between. They won't last long, but kill everything in their path. Frail, especially against missiles, but as a Dark Elf player, you're used to that. I don’t recommend these, they’re fragile, slow and they have weirdly low melee stats compacted to your other elite units. You can replace these with cold one dread knights even. Seriously with the change to primal instincts dread knights have massively higher stats especially with beast master lords skills. And otherwise fill the exact same role but do it better and faster. they got a slight buff and immune to psych so that's something. if you insist on using them, the Name of power khaine marked gives them 15% ward save and reduced upkeep, which is actually very solid.
**'''Blades of the Blood Queen (RoR)''' : Gets frenzy + an aura that gives physical resistance to nearby heroes + lords. Very skippable since their stats are low for an elite infantry unit and your lord will probably be on a mobile mount instead of hiding with the infantry.
*'''Black Guard''': Extremely beefy, these are your dedicated elite line holders and monster slayers. Remember murderous prowess makes them into an absolute force of destruction. And they have very good stats, the only downside is knowing that they’ll never be as awesome as Phoenix guard. Even if they can be offensively much deadlier the survivability of Phoenix guard is insane. they received stat buffs and murderous mastery with immortal empires so are even better now.
*'''Daemonettes''': Exclusive to Morathi's campaign. basically way better witch elves for the same cost, but not effected by red skills or techs because they always forget to do that.
*'''Exalted Daemonettes''': Also exclusive to Morathi's campaign, actually a really good option, they are like way better executioners with no armor, hold the line with sisters of slaughter and flanking with these will be potentially extremely strong. throw in morathi's debuffs and a Bloodwrack shrine and you should destroy any infantry in the game frightfully quickly. Really you can argue that the dark elves much more well-rounded roster actually uses exalted daemonettes better than the Slaanesh factions.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Darkshards''': Basic Dark Elf ranged unit and all and all pretty darn good for the entire game. Indirect fire with pretty good AP makes them very useful, especially when focusing on firing key targets into oblivion. For a little extra, you can get these guys with shields which makes them excellent in an arrow exchange, which is important given [[High Elves|who one of your biggest foes is]] always go shields.
**'''The Bolt-Fiends (ROR)''' : The cool thing about these guys is that they degrade and nullify shields.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs (Repeater Handbows)''': A mixed bag, making up for the relative lack of skirmish units in the Dark Elf roster. Surprisingly mobile and difficult to catch, their biggest strength is easily their flexibility. Nice vs skaven early on.
*'''Shades''': Don't let the low model count discourage you, Shades rank among the best Missile Troops in the game. The high rate of Fire, high damage output, and even decent in melee, especially with greatswords. Actually not really that much better than dark shards if you just use them as archers, much more expensive for only slightly better ranged performance. However if combined with a shadowdart name of power lord can be as good or better than sisters of avelorn. 210 or more range, crazy ap, and better in melee than the sisters by a large margin due to AP and anti infantry. Even with all that taken into account you need a specific name of power, some later technologies, and the red skill tree to make them as good/slightly better than the sisters. And they cost 50% more upkeep with great swords than sisters do. Which really just shows how op sisters are in campaign.

===Cavalry===
*'''Dark Riders''': Your extremely quick light cavalry, comparable to most other units of their class. One key feature is that they are actually fast enough to chase down most other missile cavalry. If your micromanagement skills hold up, Dark Riders can terrorize the enemy backline very efficiently and do so at the highest speed any base game cavalry unit offers, but they get vaporized the instant their charge bonus wears off, so will need to keep the cycle charges going. One of those units you should probably not use in campaign but can be good in multiplayer.
*'''Dark Riders (Crossbows)''': Ranged harassment cavalry. As using repeater Crossbows, they fire two shots of primarily AP damage. As always Useful to annoying poke an enemy to death but also those higher armor units that are normally resistant to those shenanigans. (most other factions only get close-range hand axes or more squisher handguns).
**'''The Raven Heralds (ROR)''': Rather distinct from their vanilla Dark Riders, these guys ride Dark Pegusii and can fly around the battlefield. Usually passed up for vanilla crossbow dark riders since the raven heralds have fewer models and vanilla dark riders already have the speed to stay out of trouble.
*'''Doomfire Warlocks (DLC)''': Really, really weird hybrid unit. In melee they have actually pretty good attack with magic and poison and charge, plus an aoe melee attack animation. They also have 40% physical resist to help keep them alive. One key advantage they have over comparable light to medium cavalry is their ability to fling around the Doombolt spell from the Lore of Dark and Soulblight from the Lord of Death as bound spells. A unit of these is pretty much always useful if nothing else, plus they look great. They lose access to their bound spells if they drop below 50% HP, so fire them off early so you don't lose them later.
**'''Slaanesh's Harvesters (ROR)''' : Doomfire warlocks with a slightly increased statline that replaces doombolt with soulstealer to drain the HP from single entities. While they're usable in campaign, they're completely unusable in multiplayer where they're more expensive than Grail Knights and Demigryphs.
*'''Cold One Knights''': they were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait.
*'''Cold One Dread Knights''': They were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in total warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait. The dread knights aren't going to be the go-to over the regular ones but they are a solid unit now.
**'''Knights of the Ebon Claw (ROR)''':

===Chariots===
*'''Cold One Chariot''' : A chariot pulled by dinosaurs. They're pretty much meant to be your anti-infantry melee chariot, and they have ap and an ok charge bonus which is nice. They also have a small ranged attack, but don't go using them as a missile chariot, that's what Sourgerunners are for. These guys are overshadowed by Scourgerunners due to the sheer amount of utility and killing power the former brings to the table, but as a melee chariot they can be decent especially in Malekith's army.
*'''Scourgerunner Chariot''' : One of the best units in your roster, Scourgerunner Chariots are your jack of all trades chariot, that has a special boon in being on the very few ranged units in the game that get a bonus vs. large on their ranged attacks. Their key advantage is that they also move at Dark Rider speed, which makes them extremely difficult to catch or even hit, and in a pinch, they can even reliably dispatch basic missile troops and infantry, thanks to a bonus vs. infantry. Bring 3-4 of these guys and have them work as a team, and they can swing battles for you.
**'''The Ravagers of Rakarth (ROR)''' : A scourgerunner chariot with poisoned attacks and a persistent AOE ability that slows down all enemies around it. Get one if you plan to use multiple scourgerunners to delete isolated monsters/infantry.

===Artillery===
*'''Reaper Bolt Thrower''': Essentially identical to the High Elf counterpart (in spite of the significantly more badass name), the Reaper is likewise probably not going to be winning any prizes for the best artillery piece. Alright, it does hit a bit harder and has a smidge less range, but this is not something people would notice much in most situations. Nevertheless, it remains a useful and versatile addition to a Dark Elf army. Just don't go in expecting a WMD. Like the repeater, they possess two firing modes and can be particularly useful for sniping enemy artillery. In short a decent, if not exactly exceptional, artillery unit.
*'''Bloodwrack Shrine (DLC)''': A Bloodwrack Medusa with a Go-Cart. Despite being described as a chariot don't use it as such, it's too slow to pass through a unit. Use it more like a Mortis Engine or Grail Relique, and you'll find it's a surprisingly versatile unit with support ability, decent melee stats, and even a ranged attack. Provides +7 MA and -7 MD to nearby allies/enemies respectively. Similar in purpose to the high elf frost Phoenix but offensive. Quite effective if you want your melee units buffed. Plus ok ranged damage from the Medusa herself.

===Monsters===
*'''Harpies''': Harpies fulfill essentially the same role as war hound and fell bat units. They're intended to be fast-moving harassers best used to hunt down or disrupt enemy missile units and artillery crews. When used in their intended capacity they can get some work done, just don't expect them to do much against anything with actual staying power. Even some of the sturdier archer units can prove a bit too much for them. If you're up against an opponent with a heavy focus on ranged firepower they can be a valuable addition. However, sending them in unsupported against basically anything else is a good way to end up with a whole lot of dead bat-ladies. Rakarth makes then a lot better, giving them bonus Melee Attack as well as a smidge of AP damage.
**'''The Crows of Khaine (ROR)''': Basically Harpies with Fear and the ability to regenerate when fighting. Surprisingly tanky because of it, just watch out for units that counter them.
*'''Feral Manticore''': Surprisingly good backline harasser. Manticores make Harpies pretty much obsolete and make for great mid-tier carnage against everything that doesn't have a bonus against large. They are very susceptible to Rampage, so take care of them. Manticores are best taken in groups of 2-4 in order to kill targets fast enough that they don’t die themselves. Paired with a flying master they can make a fast deadly Air Force for cheap which can act as a single unit killing gank squad. Can usually staggerlock foot heroes. And usually outfight other aerial units short of dragons or heroes.
*'''War Hydra''': One of your standout units, there are lots of nasty surprises with the Hydra, which acts as your standard frontline melee monster. One of its core features is its flexibility; it's effective against a lot of targets and can reliably hunt down infantry thanks to its speed and breath attack. It tends to get the short end of the stick against other monsters and anti large. In campaign you can get these 25% cheaper from a klar karond building. Super cheap and easy to spam regenerating monster.
**'''The Chill of Sontar (ROR)''' : Same regenerating monstery goodness as a normal hydra, though it replaces its flaming breath in exchange for one that slows down whatever it hits.
*'''Kharibdyss (DLC)''' : OMNOMNOMNOM. A Hydra on steroids, trades the regeneration factor and flaming breath for poisoned attacks, anti-large, and lots of AP goodness. Works best against armoured monsters, so if the enemy brings big scary beasts it can go toe to toe. If you want to blend infantry though, you’re better off with the Hydra.
*'''Bloodwrack Medusa (DLC)''': Combination monster and short rate direct fire artillery. Can delete chunks of elite infantry very quickly. These snake waifus have really great utility, but need to be micro'd well to reap the rewards. They aren't like most monsters in the game, so don't send them into melee and forget about them. Their speed, powerful ranged attack, mass and charge bonus means that you should be using them almost like a chariot. Have them blast infantry from range, charge into melee for a short time, and then escape to do it all over again. Got a pretty decent buff to their melee stats in Immortal empires to make them a more well rounded pick.
**'''The Siren of Red Ruin (ROR)''' : Same as a normal Medusa, but gains a AOE ability that causes moderate damage to all enemies around her.
*'''Black Dragon''' : Evil Dragonny Goodness. Roughly equivalent to a moon dragon in terms of killyness and retains the devastating breath attack, high mass, and good mobility that other dragons have. More difficult to use than high/wood elf dragons dark elves don't have the lores of magic to heal it.

===Rakarth Campaign Units===
*'''Feral Cold Ones''' :
*'''Explosive Squig''' :
*'''Giant Wolves''' :
*'''Sabretusk Pack''' :
*'''Feral Bears''' :
*'''Feral Mammoth''' :
*'''Feral Stegadon''' :
*'''Feral Carnosaur''' :

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===
Long, Long ago in the distant times of 2017 Dark Elves where one of the top factions in the game with their massive amount of AP, powerful Lords and flexible army. Unfortunately after years of being beaten with the Nerf Bat they have fallen from grace. As of the Twisted and the Twilight patch they are considered low tier they really only have one viable tactic, relying on Scourgerunners and Crossbow Dark Riders. Now just because they are considered low tier doesn't mean you can't win with them as they still have some favorable match ups. As of right now, you are a bit of a one trick pony so you may have to get creative.

*'''Beastmen''': Fighting a bunch of naked goats calls your AP specialty into question, but you have quite a few ways to make this matchup work if you're clever. Witch Elves will trade well into any infantry the beastie boys bring, and while they won't beat Bestigors, making them rampage into your lines where they can't sustain themselves can give you quite an advantage. Dark rider crossbows, usually an auto-include in most Dark Elf builds, are much more risky here due to Ungor raiders and the inherent speed of the beastmen army. You'll have a harder time getting value out of them. On the other hand, Scourgerunners throw a big middle finger to any monsters the Beastmen are foolish enough to bring (the one notable exception being the Cygor, which can be quite difficult to deal with if you don't shut it down early), so bringing some of your own monsters can be good way to clear out the remaining support.
*'''Bretonnia''': Their cavalry and airforce outclass yours, and that's where all their funds are going to be, so you'll be stuck playing the battle on their terms. Witch Elves to rampage those expensive cav options are going to be a good idea, and this is one of the few times where spending a bit extra for some Black Guard can be super valuable. Masters and Beastmasters can be great against cavalry as well, and are worth considering.
*'''Chaos Daemons''':
*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Dark Dwarves vs. Dark Elves. To show the stunties who the superior edgy splinter faction is, you're going to have to deal with their ranged prowess. At the time of this writing, Chaos Dwarves have only been out for a little while, so the following is subject to change as new strategies come out, but at the moment this seems like a quite interesting matchup, though I'd say the druchii have a slight edge. Both factions rely on momentum, have armor and ap, and great character choices. However, broadly speaking, they have the ranged advantage while you have the melee and mobility advantage. You'll win the chaff fight laughably, as dreadspears, bleakswords, witch elves, and sisters will run rampant over their nasty skulkers and orc/goblin fodder, but with blunderbusses, the ironsworn bombs, and their great artillery, on top of lore of Hashut which is great at blob destroying, your infantry is gonna get shot to hell even with good micro. *If* you micro them well and avoid ranged fire as much as possible, Dark Rider Crossbows can do a lot here. They are always a great tool in your arsenal, but here they can provide a ton of utility with their mobility and ability to target big monsters as well as armored up infantry, and even cycle charge artillery crews in a pinch. Now, a good player will know this and be looking to swarm you with bull centaurs and wolf riders, so make sure you have units to screen. The oft-maligned Cold One Knights w/ lances (STILL in need of a buff imo) will trade very well with bull centaurs and k'daai, and they have some ranged protection as well making them a good niche pick. In terms of characters, Malus is probably going to be your lord of choice here as frankly he has been a monster since the advent of Warhammer 3, and can take any lord the Dawi'Zharr can offer in a melee fight. Lore of Shadows or Dark is also a useful tool for dealing armor piercing damage and grinding down ironsworn.
*'''Chaos Warriors''': What used to be a stomp in your favor is now a bit more balanced with the IE update. Dark Elves of course are specialists in dealing with slow-moving heavily armored factions, but the Chaos Warriors now have a few tools you need to watch out for. Some fast fliers, like doom knights, might give you a hard time since they're difficult to shoot and pack quite a punch. Valkia and Azazel don't have much in the way of utility, but are small hitboxes flying around the screen and are great at dueling even your awesome spiky lords. They can also try going super wide use hellstriders and low-armor infantry to keep you on your toes, while backing up with elite stuff. To counter this strategy, remember that you're one of the very few factions that can meet the Warriors on their own terms and win. Forget the skirmish and ranged stuff and just go full tin-can opener with Executioners and Witch Elves/ Sisters. This matchup is tougher now, but make no mistake, it's still well in hand for a smart druchii player.
*'''Dark Elves''': This mirror-match can actually get pretty interesting. I wouldn't bother too much with Scourgerunners here. Both players probably aren't going to be relying on their big threats to win the day, and even if they do, your ap missiles can give even a Hydra a hard time. Victory is probably going to come down to smart ranged play and good use of elite infantry. Harpies are a good choice to tie down Darkshards, and use your Dark Rider Crossbows to take out and Black Guard or Executioners on the field. Dark Riders with lances or shields can also be a good choice to get into that terrifying crossbow line.
*'''Dwarfs''': Sure, you could try your usual skirmish tactics, you have the heavy AP to pierce your opponent's stunties. Unfortunately, they have the firepower to shut down a lot of your ranged units before you can get close enough to return the favor, and rune of slowness can be disastrous, tarpitting key units at really inconvenient times. What is a much more interesting build that doesn't play into the Dawi's strengths is a heavy metal melee rush. You're one of the VERY few factions that can reliably cut through all that armor with ease, along with Chaos Warriors and Slaanesh. Bring a couple executioners, bleakswords (Blades of the Blood Queen RoR can be a powerhouse if used right), and maybe a Master, and spread yourself out so they can't take advantage of their range advantage. Bring a couple skirmishers/chariots to shut down their artillery, but don't focus too much on ranged power or monsters. As for lord choice, Lokhir on foot is a good option for dueling any single entities, or crossbow dreadlord for his armor-piercing ranged options. If you want a magical lord instead, the Lore of Dark magic is great here, with cheap ap spells, or soul stealer to nuke the slow dwarf infantry blobs.
*'''Empire''': In campaign, this is a highly interesting and very fun matchup since both armies have such flexible rosters. In multiplayer though... you got your work cut out for you. Even with some slight improvements to cold one knights, they just won't stand up to Empire heavy cav, and you'll have a hell of a time trying to lean on your infantry while they're being cycle-charged by demigryphs. They can also keep up in the skirmish department, with pistoliers and outriders doing their job competently. Harpies can deal with them, but require some micro. Putting your money into a hero goon squad, and perhaps relying on magic to get some ranged damage in, either with Morathi or a sorceress hero, can be an unexpected tactic that might pay some dividends. You'll rip them apart in melee, but the approach is really what will determine the battle.
*'''Grand Cathay''': You'll win an infantry grind easily, and you should be able to chunk through the Terracotta Sentinels and sky junks with your ranged no problem. Their mobile artillery and solid lord choices and be tough to deal with though. I'd recommend Malus on Spite or Malekith on Seraphon with Soul Stealer (though the latter is quite expensive). Remember, the Cathayan army has to stay together to take maximum advantage of their harmony bonuses, so while they have skirmishers, they are quite limited and you'll be able to mop them up. That also means that with your faster-than-average army, you'll be able to pick and choose your engagements quite well. Don't spend too long on the approach though, that artillery is no joke, and watch out for missile mirror dickery.
*'''Greenskins''': Flex rosters? Benefit from prolonged melee combat? Aggressive infantry and magic? Fast movers and skirmishers? Yup, these two armies share quite a few competencies. While the greenskins are more resilient, they're also lower leadership, and much worse at taking out large threats. This is one of the matchups where an infantry grind won't automatically go in your favor. Executioners might trade well with even Black Orcs, but bringing elite infantry here is just asking for them to get blown up with doom divers and Rogue Idol shots, or bad nasty skulker trades. Their monsters usually have a ridiculous amount of hp, but you're one of the best factions in the game at shredding through it with your crossbows and Scourgerunners. Just remember they have good skirmish power too, and you don't want to waste your ammo on a bunch of spider riders. In a pinch, a Kharybdiss can also help quite a bit at dueling lords and monsters, and the boyz lack a lot in the way of ap ranged or anti-large to shut them down. You might further consider bringing a monster or Lore of Fire to counter Trolls who with their missile and magic resist are hard to shut down.
*'''High Elves''': The Asur cling to tradition! This is a pretty balanced matchup that will test both sides' knowledge and micro. You will destroy them in the infantry grind, especially because by the time Murderous Prowess pops, most of their units will be damaged enough to lose their martial prowess. Furthermore, Scourgerunners will kite any dragons or other monsters they bring into the End Times (but watch out for Bolt Throwers!). What you're really going to have to worry about is their heavy cav, since Dragon Princes will flatten your forces without good Scourgerunner play, and archers which outrange yours. Light cavalry is the best way to zone out the archers, and ap volleys and skirmishers are a good way to lessen the impact of their heavy cav. If you're confident in your anti-large capability and shutting down any Sisters of Avelorn, a Hydra can really do a lot for you with it's missile resist and regen. Play to your strengths, use murderous prowess well, and Malekith will be chilling with his feet up on the Phoenix Throne in no time!
*'''Khorne''': Just shove a spiky arrow up Skarbrand's ass and call it a day. Fighting slow, heavily armored factions is well within the druchii wheelhouse, and while Khorne isn't exactly plodding in pace, you're faster than them by a mile. What you're going to have to watch out for is War Hounds that are super fast and can tarpit your stuff. The Dark Elves can be quite a threat in melee if they choose, but Khorne can out-fight even your best troops, so don't challenge them on their own terms, just lean into your skirmish and missile potential and you can carry the day.
*'''Kislev''': You'll need to win and win quickly, since Kislev's best shot at winning is simply outlasting you. You more than match up in the infantry department at least stat-wise, Kossars and Streltsi won't be able to outfight your bleakswords in a vacuum but By Our Blood makes them a surprisingly hard nut to crack, and trades that seem favorable might end up going the other way. You actually out-range most of their ranged troops as well, except when it comes to Ice Guard. If they're dumb enough to bring an Elemental Bear or other big threats, you have plenty of ap to challenge them. Ice magic can slow your skirmishers down, only for their own skirmishers to make up the difference. They are one of the few factions that can actually stand up to you in the kite game, so you want to lean into the rush element of your army, and make good use of Murderous Prowess.
*'''Lizardmen''': This is one of the matchups in which you shine. All their armored dinosaurs are extremely vulnerable to your wide selection of AP troops, with a special shoutout to Dark Shards and Shades. Lizardmen lack missile infantry beyond their rather frail Skink Skirmishers, though their Chameleon Skinks will prove particularly annoying due to their missile resist and loose formations. Scourgerunner Chariots will run circles around the Lizardmen and, with proper positioning, can easily slip around their screening units to chunk the bigger Artillery Stegadons/Bastilodons that could potentially retaliate against your ranged forces. Try to kite them as much as you can, whittle down their frontline before sending in your Executioners and Blackguard to clean up.
*'''Norsca''': Hmmm, look at that, another quasi-rush faction with big monsters, killy infantry, and a lot of anti-large? Unfortunately for the Norscans, the Elves are the superior race and they'll have a hard time proving otherwise. You're spoiled for choice when it comes to killing their big monsters, so most Norscan players who know what they're doing probably won't bring them. Rakarth is quite expensive, but on Bracchus or even a chariot, he can do a ton against their monstrous infantry and single entities, though he'll have a hard time out-dueling Wulfrik or Throgg. Flaming Sword of Rhuin is another great boon to dismantle Skin Wolves and Trolls. Your infantry is quite evenly-matched, but your advantage comes in with Murderous Prowess and Witch Elves that can rampage key threats when it procs.
*'''Nurgle''': While this may seem initially easy, given your excellence against slower factions, don't get cocky. If you aren't smart with your matchups and blow your load with Murderous Prowess too soon, Nurgle will just outlast you. The only infantry you have that will be able to take out Plague-bearers quickly are Executioners, and you probably don't want to be bringing elite infantry against Nurgle anyway. Fire sorceress is absolutely essential here, since your units' low base weapon strength and Nurgle's lack of armor means that you won't be as damaging as you usually are against other factions. Scourgerunners will still do very well against Great Unclean Ones, Pox toads, or any other large threat, while the Hydra can be fantastic for clearing out infantry with it's flaming damage and breath attack. Also, with their limited range and slow movement, this can be quite a good matchup for a Bloodwrack Medusa or the Siren of Red Ruin. Malus or Morathi are probably your go-to lords here.
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This is a matchup that your sadistic legions dream of, i.e. a one-sided slaughter in your favor. Rakarth on a chariot or on Bracchus really shines with his absurd anti-large capabilities, and him or a beastmaster can really do work for you with a bit of micro. Malus is also great at punishing monstrous infantry. Your elite infantry gets a rare spotlight here, since halberd/spear spam lends itself extremely well to trading with the ogres, especially when murderous prowess pops. Even Dreadspears will do some serious pushing above their pay grade, with Black Guard of Naggarond turning things up to 11. Scourgerunners are also a huge boon against low-model count large hitbox ogres. They might try to bring some scrap launchers to put pressure on you, so a bolt thrower or some dark riders can deal with that. Honestly, your Dreadspears and Darkshards will have a field day killing anything they can get their hands on, you can pretty much take a nap until the Ogres get an update.
*'''Skaven''': Those filthy rats! This is definitely a matchup in your favor, but don't get complacent! The skaven are one of the few factions to have as many AP ranged options as you do (in an equally wide roster), but where you rely on elite infantry and SEM's to make up the difference, the Skaven rely on drowning you in numbers and using their summons and magic to force the battle in their favor. You're fast enough and killy enough to buzzsaw your way through whatever the Skaven throw at you, but a savvy Skaven player will know this, and will try to take advantage of your squishiness instead. Rat Ogres and Brood Horrors can be quite a threat if you're not careful, and their summons can tie down your archers during valuable moments. For an unorthodox build, try bringing Morathi on Sulephet, 2 manticores, and some Witch Elves, maybe even Sisters of the Singing Doom, to terror-bomb important units. Your hero core is fast enough to get to their ranged threats, and Morathi's combination of magic is everything the skaven hate.
*'''Slaanesh''': Under Malekith, the Dark Elves have been fighting Slaanesh cults for centuries, and here you finally get a chance to show it. Both factions have ap out the ass, and both will find it difficult to apply that ap effectively, but your ranged and infantry options are far more flexible when it comes to taking on lower-armor threats. Also, your anti-large will be able to easily take down their chariots. Your flying lords and heroes should have no problems, and this is also a great matchup to bring the Raven Heralds RoR, since they can mostly just sit there and rack up points on anything valuable as long as you keep it away from furies. The one thing they really have going for them is speed. Make sure your ranged stuff is well protected and screened by your infantry, and you should have no trouble. Unfortunately, your strategy is somewhat reliant on gaps in their roster, so as Slaanesh gets more DLC and updates, your advantage in this matchup is likely to fray.
*'''Tomb Kings''': Tomb Kings have a large flexible roster, but they don't excel greatly at any one strategy. Instead of your usual missile cavalry, consider relying a bit more on your missile infantry like Darkshards or even Shades to poke holes into their constructs. The Tomb Kings skirmishers are a living (undead?) joke most of the time, but they can be annoying here since you need to be selective about where you're sending those ap volleys. A Reaper Bolt Thrower or 2 can be quite good to zone out any Bone Giants or Great Bow Ushabti, two staples of the TK roster. Remember though, when it comes to artillery, you're definitely outclassed. I'd recommend against bringing a monster, since yours are pretty slow and vulnerable to getting shot up by Sepulchral Stalkers. If you want one though, Kharybdiss is probably the best choice as it's the only monster that can give the mobile anti-large contingents of Necropolis Knights, or even the Necrosphinx a run for it's money. Lore of Fire of course is a must here, which leaves your lord choices a bit limited. Supreme Sorceress on a Manticore or Malus can be good picks, but it really depends on how you want to build.
*'''Tzeentch''': You're fast enough to keep up with Tzeentch, and you'll need that speed to get into melee. Don't rely too much on your ap, since their biggest threats are going to be low armor ranged troops and Doom Knights. Use your light infantry and cavalry to keep up the pressure, especially when murderous prowess pops. Don't bring Doomfire Warlocks or anything else that relies on physical resistance. Big Dragons are probably going to get shot out of the sky, your Hydra is vulnerable to fire, and Tzeentch has very few large threats for your Kharybdiss to munch on (also it's very slow), so just leave the monsters at home.
*'''Vampire Coast''': There's no other way to say it, you'll just have to rush super hard. The Coast monsters will get shot up by your skirmish power, but if you can't get into melee without getting shot half to hell, it won't matter. They'll try to drown you in zombies and summons, so make sure you have a fire sorceress for that wave-clearing potential. Corsairs (melee or handbow variant) can be pretty useful here as well, with their speed and high armor. Death Hags on foot can be a standout hero choice here as well, as she is fast, fantastic at grinding through infantry, and (if she can get into melee) can deal with any Coast hero except maybe a Mournghoul Haunter (which you should be filling up with your ap arrows anyway).
*'''Vampire Counts''': You can definitely make full kite work here, and it probably is the most meta tactic, but it can be risky. The Counts are very fast and deadly with their cavalry and lord options, plus kiting all day isn't the most fun matchup ever. For a slightly less powerful, but much more fun matchup, consider a monster mash to make things work. The Hydra can be extremely survivable here with it's regeneration and fire damage, while the Kharybdiss is great for dueling any Varghulfs or lords on zombie dragons. Hellebron on a cauldron can be great for mulching infantry and dueling the Vampire counts' slower threats. You'll win the infantry grind with 0 effort, and you have plenty of dueling options, but their cavalry and fast movers are the true threat of the night lords. If you can screen your Darkshards well enough, getting them tarpitted with Dreadspears and shooting them might work, but it's tough with their bats and wolves moving as fast as they do. If you're confident in your micro, rampaging them with Witch Elves is also an option, but tricky to pull off. Scourgerunners are also great here. Lore of Shadows caster + Malus Darkblade can be a potent combination as well, nuking any Blood Knights or ethereal units caught out of position with Pit of Shades while Malus is a melee monster who has a chance to take on even Vlad in combat with just a tiny bit of support.
*'''Wood Elves''': What do you get when you cross two glass cannon factions? A lot of broken glass I guess. Unfortunately their shooters and cav are just way better than yours, and they're fast enough to keep away from all but your speediest threats. If the opponent has any braincells, they won't be bringing any tree spirits, seeing as they'll be turned into paper by your ap. No, you'll be dealing with full Vietnam, and the only way to stand a chance is with your fast movers. Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Corsairs, these should be the core of your infantry, with some Dreadspears to protect them with their shields. Morathi on Sulephet is a great small target if you avoid the fire arcs of their ranged threats, and your light cavalry will have to put in some serious work. Doomfire Warlocks would be quite good if the Wood Elves didn't have so much magic damage, but as it is it'll be up to your dark riders/chariots to win their key engagements.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''B-'''

They can actually be quite strong in domination, but they need a skillful player to take the game. Scourgerunners are highly mobile and can get good trades, good AP and monsters is always valuable, they have plenty of cheap, cost effective infantry, and of course their lord choices are almost all excellent. However, unlike other fast factions (e.g. Vampire Counts) the druchii tend to run out of steam in this game mode without a real way to sustain themselves. Also, Murderous Prowess is awful, as it procs way too quickly to be useful in a longer fight (actually, CA has patched this, Murderous Prowess now has a higher threshold, so it procs at an appropriate time. It still isn't the big force it is in land battles, but at least it doesn't proc in the first 5 seconds of the battle). They're still very squishy, and tend to get run over by other factions heavy cav and monsters if you aren't on top of your game. With some practice though, they can be a very fun pick. One additional note is that lore of Dark Magic is awesome in this game mode, with special mention going to Soul Stealer, a great way to punish blobs on points.

===Campaign Strategies===
Focus on economy in a few good provinces with 4 cities (Hag Graef, Naggarond, Ghrond, Quintex, Har Ganeth, etc) put income, slave pens, and then black roads or special resources on every city/town. Then put all slaves here. Add 3 or 4 masters to reduce slave decline to zero and you have the strongest, easiest, and fastest to grow economy in the game bar none. Can field near unlimited armies of doom stacks. There you go, you win.

Actually, the most prosperous slave province for the Dark Elves is Yvresse owing to the unique Tower of the Warden building which generates 50 gold per 100 slaves. With a maximum slaveholding capacity of 15500 slaves, combined with the multiplicative effect of slaves on base province income and the ability to stack slave income multipliers through heroes that are essentially unlimited, it surpasses any Druchii province in gold-generating potential. Proving, once again, that Naggarond sucks. This wealth is also why it is viable for certain Dark Elf factions to abandon their starting capitals and conquer Ulthuan instead.- while that may be more profitable technically, it’s irrelevant. Any proper slave strategy give’s effectively unlimited money even in just the dark elf lands. Conquer Ulthuan first or not, either way you won’t need for money with even a little strategy.

Unfortunately they heavily nerfed the Slave system in immortal empires, the jury is out still on how good their economy is after the massive nerf, you now have to spend slaves as a global resource on your economic buildings and commandment. Will update as we find out how bad the nerf is but its already clear its going to be dramatically weaker than before. After playing 80 turns I can confirm the economy is still strong as long as you rapidly expand and keep fighting but slaves decline possibly too fast from buildings, and slave pens aren't that useful, all they do is increase capacity and give a tiny 5 slave per turn income, whereas a leveled economy building consumes 40 per turn, so only constant fighting and sacking will be able to keep your slave population up. The public order penalties for slaves are basically gone now. assassins can now generate 10 slaves per turn by staying in your provinces instead of boosting slave income, but that is a waste of them. In general all the buildings or skills which give slaves per turn are completely useless, they are way too weak to keep up with the cost of buildings, you either have to constantly sack other countries or be continuously conquering territory.
Don't Bother with Slave markets or any building that give slaves per turn, the rate of gain can never keep up with the consumption and increasing slave capacity is useless. Having a large stockpile of slaves is actually more or less pointless, you only need 150 slaves to trigger the bonus income at the end of your turn and you don't get any meaningful bonuses for having lots of slaves. you can have a slave consumption of 1000-2000 per turn and all you need to do is get above 150 remaining after the decline before the end of each turn and there is no downside. So slave markets and any special buildings that increase capacity or give a few slaves per turn should just be skipped, this is bad design by CA but it at least frees up your building slots. overall the dark elf income is still extremely strong it just not as strong as before. Unfortunately once your empire gets large enough it will become almost impossible to trigger the bonus income because you can easily end up with -4000-5000 slaves per turn which will be impossible to keep up each turn. Fundamentally as your empire grows amounts of slaves decline per turn increase quickly but your ability to capture slaves remains largely fixed, unless you can simultaneous sack 4-5 provinces a turn (every single turn) it will be impossible to keep up slaves late game, and the slave buildings do nothing to help this. Unfortunately I feel like they failed to playtest the new mechanic adequately as it becomes almost completely useless late game.

===Campaign Specific===
I wrote this section a while back, before the release of Immortal Empires, so much of this information is outdated. For example Malekith appears to be a much more difficult campaign with Valkia's new start that's right on top of him, Morathi isn't very viable in melee anymore, and Malus', Lokhir's, and Rakarth's campaigns all have new starts. I'll update this section eventually (though if someone else feels inclined to update, go for it), but in the meantime, take the advice here with a grain of salt as most of it is applicable to Mortal Empires only.
====Malekith====

*'''Beware Hellebron''': Malekith's campaign is generally pretty easy (and very fun!), but it can really depend on what Hellebron does at the start. Usually you can get pretty powerful early, build up diplomatic relations and just confederate her, but it's not unknown for her to just straight up declare war on you, which can really send your campaign down shit swamp. Furthermore, she can actually out-recruit you, making it next to impossible to confederate her. One strategy is to just rush to Har Ganeth immediately after securing Naggarond, while another is trying to out-recruit her in turn. Just ignoring her CAN be fine, but Har Ganeth is a good early game province, and you don't want to risk a civil war with her.

*'''Don't spend too long in Naggaroth''': Look, I get it, Naggarond's a great place with fine tourist attractions, but conquering Ulthuan as Malekith can and should be done fairly early in the game, because it takes a loooonnnggg time to take over all those provinces settlement-by-settlement. You definitely want to get Ulthuan conquered before the chaos invasion rolls in, as they basically spawn right on top of Naggarond, and constantly fighting them until someone knocks off Archaon on the other side of the map can be a huge pain.

*'''Tyrant is the way to go''': Malekith has OPTIONS and almost all of them are good, but if it's your first campaign, Tyrant can really bring your slave economy to the next level. More money -> more stacks -> Druchii supremacy, baby!

====Morathi====
*'''The start. Oh god, the start''': Yeahhh, there's no getting around it. Morathi's start is a bitch and a half (kind of like Morathi herself!). She's surrounded by enemies who hate her guts, and one mistake here can spell doom for your campaign. Here's the thing though: she actually has all the tools she needs to deal with it (She's an incredibly strong legendary lord, and tier 1 Dark Elf units like bleakswords and darkshards are awesome even into the late game), it can just be tough learning the first few times around. You need to be EXTREMELY aggressive in consolidating your starting province, as the Ss'ildra Tor can just out-recruit you if you leave them alone long enough. Once you do that and deal with Alith Anar though, everything gets easier so have faith!

This is valid for Mortal Empires, your start in Immortal Empires is actually pretty chill. You may even have the chance to ally with Mazdamundi pretty early on if you fight the minor Skavens on the west and gift the frog some cities. Alith Anar also fucked off up north so you can consolidate your starting provinces and build up easily before starting to rape Ulthuan.

*'''You can use her in melee!''' A mistake I see a lot of players make is using Morathi as you'd use a typical caster lord, i.e. keeping them at a distance and shying away from any fight. If you do this though, you aren't getting her full value. Her unique weapon combined with one of her unique skills (Enchanting Beauty) can lower enemy melee attack by 18 and defence by 9 JUST FOR BEING NEAR HER. She can basically use her darksword as a strap-on to peg enemy melee stats. Be careful how you use her, because of course she isnt going to outduel dedicated melee combatant characters, but these passive abilities combined with lore of shadows make her great for absolutely dumpstering enemies that your units are having a tough time dealing with.

====Hellebron====
*'''Unpaid interns''': Hellebron requires a constant influx of slaves to keep active, which means that you are going to have to be ultra aggressive throughout your campaign, more so than other druchii factions who can just sit back and let their slaves do all their work for them.

*'''Malekith''': It's harder (though not impossible!) to confederate Naggarond than vice-versa, and pissing off Malekith can really become a problem, since he usually skyrockets to strength rank 1 after turn 20 or 30. One strategy is just to leave for Ulthuan right away, but this can be very challenging. Rushing Naggarond is also an option, but you can also ally with them, which is what I'd recommend for less experienced players.

*'''Blood Fleets suckkkk''': Remember how the Greenskins WAAGGHH worked before their update? Theoretically it was a way to encourage aggressiveness and movement on the campaign map. How it actually worked was that they'd spawn AI controlled armies that would allahu-akbar themselves upon the nearest settlement. Wellll, Hellebron's voyages basically have the same idea and it's honestly worse because you can't choose where they spawn. Just don't rely on them to do any heavy lifting.
====Lokhir====
*'''Pillaging the East:''' In Immortal Empires, Lokhir now starts on the Cathayan edge of the map, just south of Villitc, seperated by an impassable (to you of all people) river, and the Great Bastion to the West. The entire Eastern half of Cathay is full of rivers and deltas so you can raid deeper into Cathay.
**'''Black Arks are "free:"''' Lokhir doesn't need to sacrifice to Mathlann to start a Black Ark in IE, so combine that with their absolute loyalty, cheap upkeep, and the many rivers of Cathay, you'll be taking a few of these.
*'''The Blender King''': Ah, Lustria. Let's see, the lizards hate you because they don't want a dark elf caravan on their land. Teclis hates you because he doesn't like your stupid face, the Dwarfs still bear a grudge, and Harkon hates you for... stealing all his treasure, I guess? Packing up and leaving for Ulthuan on turn 1 can actually be a pretty viable strategy here. Lustria-bowl honestly sucks for you, but if you're intent on doing it, allying with the rats can secure your western border, and allow you to focus on Teclis at the start, which takes one of the major pressures off your campaign.
*'''The Black Ark King''': Black Arks are awesome and should be your main method of recruiting units to your armies, especially in the early game. BUILD THE GROWTH BUILDING FIRST! You'll get to those higher tiers so much faster, and can laugh over the corpses of your enemies when your tier 5 dread knights are running over red-crested skinks.

*'''What to do with Karond Kar?''': Lokhir's campaign is pretty weird, because his unique item requires taking over the city of Karond Kar which is wayyyy in the middle of assfuck nowhere compared to where you start. You don't really want to manage a split empire in Warhammer 2, so taking Karond Kar by force isn't really advisable. Luckily, he now has a quest line that allows him to confederate Karond Kar remotely. I'd recommend confederating with them, and then just selling all the buildings and abandoning the province. Keeping it generally means dealing with High Elf DEATHstacks every two turns, along with Wood Elves and Taurox if he's still alive which will really make you want to deepthroat a cactus.

====Malus Darkblade====
Malus is a fan-favorite character, and CA honestly did him pretty dirty, which is kind of upsetting. His campaign is very difficult especially at the start, and he slightly boosts cold one knights, a notoriously cost-inefficient unit. He is a monster on the battlefield, but ''it's pretty much always better to play as another dark elf faction and confederate him'', since he gets all his battlefield strengths and none of the weaknesses. If you insist on playing his campaign though, keep these tips in mind:
*'''SNIKCH MUST DIE!''': Snikch must die unless you like having 30 million filthy rats coming over the border to take your land and deflower your sorceresses (oh, who are we kidding? There’s no such thing as a virgin sorceress, they literally worship the goddess of massive orgies). Sometimes you can even make a non-aggression pact with Imrik to focus on Snikch which I definitely recommend. After killing him, you can slow down a little, and pick off your enemies one-by-one, but it's an absolute miserable campaign experience if you allow Snikch to get his shit together.

*'''Black Arks are essential''': You start with a Black Ark and you NEED it to get past Malus' cancerous early game. You probably aren't going to have the money to spend on potions at the start, which means your troops will replenish at the speed of a glacier. A Black Ark can help a lot with this problem, and can provide a good base to recruit from.

*'''Keep your alliance with Malekith going''': Keeping your alliance with Malekith alive allows you to cheese the 'Tz'arkans whispers' mechanic a little bit, since the unique quests might be to declare war on a faction you don't care about halfway across the map. The rewards from these missions can be quite powerful, so complete as many as you can.

====Rakarth====
*'''Ulthuan''': Rakarth's starting place in Albion offers him a variety of options in theory. however, you're kind of forced into attacking Ulthuan which sucks. Once they discover you (which happens very early in the game), they will start sending stack after stack after you, and trying to expand eastward or southward just becomes unviable. Sure, Morathi can sometimes get super aggressive and start conquering Ulthuan early taking some of the pressure off you, but it's a gamble that sometimes doesn't pay off.

*'''Rakarth only for beastpen armies''': Beast pens areeee... interesting? The thing is, the only boosts to monstrous units from the beast pens come from Rakarth's army skills. For your generic lords, it's better to stick to your tried and true druchii units, unless you're in an emergency and need units fast.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves

2023-05-19T16:51:40Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{Topquote|Galri Asur! Galri Asur! (Destiny of the High Elves!)|Game battle chant for High Elves}}
This is the general tactics page on how to play [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Fantasy British]] in [[Total War: WARHAMMER]]. This assumes you understand the basics of the games and if not, [[Total War: Warhammer/Tactics|here is the general tactics page]].

==Why Play High Elves==
*Because you want an excuse to act like a snobby prick.
*You like armies that don't really have a field where they are particularly weak in, and are just solid all around.
*Because you probably played them on the tabletop and this is the closest thing to 9th edition we will have til [[Warhammer: The Old World]] comes out.
*You have a high tolerance for silly headgear.
*MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS!!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Versatility''': An all around very well balanced roster. If the Empire is a Jack of all Trades, you are a Queen of all Trades.
*'''Range''': Their range units can dish out a hell lot of damage. Their cheapest archers can out range and kill a lot of elite skirmishers in a shootout. It also means that they can land the first blows of battles.
*'''Martial Prowess''': Their passive ability, Martial Prowess, gives you 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack as long as you are above 25% HP. This make you by far the most durable of the Elven factions, unlike your edgy or hippy cousins, most of your units can actually take a hit or two. To some people, this ability was poorly adapted from the tabletop rule, for the tabletop stated the ability allow the HE to strike first no matter how injured they are, making it more of an offensive ability than a defensive one. Either way, this ability could use some rework.
*'''Magic''': You currently have access to the most lores of magic in the game, having all the generic ones and a unique one for your own.
*'''Cavalry''': Dragon Princes are some of the most cost effective heavy cav in the game. They won't beat Grail Knights, Blood Knights or Demigryphs, but damn they are sturdy (due to their physical resist and fire resist) and having high charge bonus. Even Silver Helms aren't bad for the price, and Ellyrian Reavers are some of the best light cav in the game.
*'''Fire''': A hell of a lot of fire damage, from dragons, RORs, mages and mages who RIDE DRAGONS, you will laugh at anything weak to fire.
*'''Air Superiority''': With Dragons, Phoenixes, and Eagles it is not hard to gain control of the skies if you decide you want to invest into it.
*'''Infantry Specialization''': A lot of their units are specialized to go after certain targets, and some of them are the best at it. Rangers are great chaff cleaners, Swordmaster win against any non ROR infantry unit one on one and Phoenix Guard are expert monster killers.

===Cons===
*'''Cost''': High Elf units are expensive. Their units cost more than just about any other unit in the game at their respective tiers, as even your basic spears and archers refuse to march unless their rations include filet mignon covered in caviar. You will likely go in heavily outnumbered.
*'''Reliance on Healing''': Due to how their passive works, a lot of their fighting ability relies on keeping Martial Prowess up. If it goes away, their units got from being very good for their price to being very NOT good for their price. For most factions healing is recommended, but for these guys it's almost required.
*'''Compact Formations''': In real life, compact formations help with army cohesion, keeping troops organized and providing a solid fighting force designed for fighting efficiency. In this game all compact formations do is leave you more vulnerable to artillery and damaging spells. This is especially bad for the High Elves since this means you are very susceptible to mass artillery barrages or magic taking out your Martial Prowess. Keep an eye out for cannons and wizards.
*'''Lack of AP''': You don't have that many armor piercing options, and the ones you do have tend to be on the expensive side. Because of this high armor might be a problem for you. Can be mitigated with a Lore of Metal mage with Plague of Rust.
*'''Low Health Pools.''' An issue with Elves in general. They are categorized with expensive costs, high stats, and low health. This doesn't really make you a glass cannon army because a lot of your units are pretty resilient, but you probably aren't going to out grind the likes of the Dwarfs, Warriors of Chaos or Lizardmen.
*'''Lack of Difficulty''': Aside from Imrik in Mortal Empires and Eltharion in Immortal Empires, High Elves aren't really known for having particularly difficult campaigns. They all have strong starting lords, powerful early units and they usually all have easy access to Ulthuan, making for a more casual easier setting. If you want a challenge in your campaign and aren't interested in Imrik or Eltharion, perhaps look elsewhere.
*'''DLC''': Unfortunately, a lot of their best units are locked behind DLC. The Queen and the Crone are needed for Alarielle and Sisters of Averlorn and The Warden and The Paunch are needed for Silverin Guard, Rangers and War Lions. If you want to win consistently, you may have to spend extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Martial Prowess''': Your standard High Elf passive ability. When you are above 25% HP, you gain 12 melee defense and 2 melee attack, making you a lot tankier and able to hit just a bit more often. This means that High Elves can hold a line for a surprisingly long time, as even their offensive infantry can hold for a while. Sadly, this comes with a reliance on healing, as if a unit's HP gets too low, they get a sizable stat debuff. Make sure your high tier units have some form of sustain, either through magic or passive abilities.
** Just to expand, this trait is super good, it pumps High Elf Spearmen to Melee Defence 50 (38 base), which is incredibly good when we look at how melee combat works in the game:
Unit Chance to Hit = Base 40% + (Melee Attack as % + Charge Bonus as % - target's Melee Defence as %)
::An Orc Boyz unit costs 450, has MA 28, so they have a chance to hit of only 18% (40+28-50), they cost 50 gold less but the Spearmen have 37% (40+22-25) chance to hit back. A very strong unit like Saurus Warriors with shields have only a 19% (40+29-50) chance to hit and cost 800 gold to the Spearmen's 500 gold. If these units charge the spearmen they do better with their charge bonus applied, but otherwise they're tarpitted once that's gone. The requirement of being above 50% health might seem offputting, but on units like Spearmen the trait helps sustain itself.

*'''Martial Mastery''': An upgraded version for elite units. Supplies 8 melee attack instead of 2, meaning they can pump out way more damage. Comes with the same weakness though, so make sure you are getting that healing as units with this trait are usually expensive.

*'''The Sword of Khaine''': Less of a trait and morelike a campaign mechanic. The Sword of Khaine is a balls-out broken OP epic weapon for any Lord that is lucky enough to pick it up. In includes absurd bonusses to Melee Attack and Defense, Armour, HP, Regeneration and a unique Vortex spell that even surpasses Doomsday Rockets and Wind of Death in terms of Damage and grows in power as long as it is in your posession. However, it comes with some harsh downsides. First amongst all is that you need to actually draw it from the Shrine of Khaine in the North of Nagarythe, you can alternatively wrestle it from the cold, dead hands of any opponent whw happened to have it. Secondly, and much more important is that the sword eventually causes your faction to descend into something that is little better than a bunch of maniacal lunatics, reflected in-game with harsh penalties that get worse as time goes on. The corruption of the sword is however not permanent; your Lord can choose to return it to the Shrine of Khaine at each additional step of Corruption; if you choose to return it, the penalties vanish and the Sword respawns at the Shrine of Khaine, where it can be picked up again. Important to note is that, while only the elven factions can actually draw it, ANY faction can claim the Sword if they defeat its current wielder, which is a terrifying prospect should it fall into the hands of characters like Grom the Paunch, Ikit Claw or Settra, all factions that have much less trouble at keeping their public order up and/or field cheaper units than the Elves do.

==Lords==
Your Elf bois (and gals) who shall be leading your forces into battle. You have quite a few to pick from so let's get into it.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''Tyrion''': The best duelist in the first two games according to player tests, being able to defeat in 1v1 every other Lord or Hero. High armor, high speed and high armor piercing makes sure he can lay the whooping on whatever you need him to and stay out of harms way. Feint and Repose increases his already considerable dueling might and Sunfang allows him to almost insta-clear any chaff around to get to his desired targets. And if he does get low, don't worry! Heart of Averlorn has a chance to bring him form near dead to almost 3/4ths HP. His main drawback is the fact that he can only use a horse as a mount, meaning getting to the targets he wants can be hard.

*'''Teclis''': The wimpy nerd who can destroy an entire city if he sneezes too hard. Your main magical lord, who can do a little bit of everything you want a mage to do. He's got damage, lock down, buffs, debuffs and is an all around great utility mage. His Potion of Charoi gives him 4 healing potions with damage resist so he's not completely screwed if he's caught out of position. Still a character that is squishy and shouldn't be in the melee fight. Or at least he was, until CA decided to give him an Arcane Phoenix for some reason. After being given a monstrous mount, his main weakness went away and he became one of if not THE best mage lord in the game, his only real weakness being his ungodly high price tag.

*'''Alarielle (DLC)''': Your other caster lord. Where as Teclis is a utility mage who can go a bit of everything, Alarielle focuses more on defensive buffs and healing. With an eagle mount she can stay out of harm's way and she give AOE immune to Psych and magic damage, making Vampire players cry. She also has a variety of defensive items that can really.... Oh, who are we kidding? If you're picking Alarielle as your lord you're picking her for The Star of Avelorn. Considering how important healing is for the High Elves, a magic item that can give OVER 2000 HP IN HEALING is invaluable for elite focused armies. "What's that Mr. Star Dragon? You're almost dead!? Well, here's a healing bomb, go beat up the bad people." This ability can turn a battle from a sure fire loss into a win if used at the right moment. She's been considered one of the Asur's best choices since she came out. And totally on her own merit and skill, not because she has one of the most broken magic items in the game.

*'''Alith Anar (FLC)''': Alith Anar checks in for Nagarythe. This man is a bolt thrower with legs, and can chunk down targets from a considerable distance. However, unlike a lot of archer lords and heroes, he lacks a form of net, which is part of the reason those lords are so viable. Turns out a lot of people are going to be running in Alith Anar's lobby. (He's voiced by Dylan Sprouse if you're wondering about the Zack and Cody jokes.) As such, you almost have to lock yourself into the Lore of Light for Net of Amyntok to get the most out of his. Also, his lack of mount options makes it hard for him to get away when he is eventually discovered. He works best in full on kite builds with shadow warriors and archers since he gives a lot of buffs to range, including missile resistances and reload skill, though overall is still considered a niche pick.

*'''Eltharion the Grim (DLC)''': On paper, Elf Batman has a lot going for him. As a Hybrid Lord with the Lore of High Magic, decent melee stats, and an automatic barrage of missiles every few second you'd think he'd be a good bunker buster. Hell the guy also has a sword that gives him 44% physical resistance and his helm can make units unbreakable and straight up stop them from dying. You'd think he'd be an amazing tanky lord with a lot of utility. Unfortunately, he has the exact same problem the had on the table top, that being his price tag. Even when you strip the less useful stuff down he can cost close to 3,000 points, which sadly doesn't justify many of his cool abilities. He DOES have a cool combo with Phoenixes, as due to his helm stopping units from dying he can guarantee a fiery rebirth, but that's about his only gimmick.

*'''Imrik (FLC)''': The Lord of Caledor is what you'd expect him to be; a pompous, punchable prick on a giant fuck off dragon. His Dragonhorn grants melee attack and speed map wide when used, meaning unlike other High Elf lords you want to play offense when you pick this lad. Lord of Dragons give a massive debuff to attack and defense and he can instill fire weakness on his lance. He also has some pretty decent healing in the Armor of Caledor, the only caveat being it immobilizes him while healing, but he can still fight if something is in his face. Generally Imrik is fairly straightforward, point him at something, drop his buffs and debuffs, and watch as he beats the shit out of it. Granted you are paying for his ungodly statline at over 3,000 points.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Prince''': Your generic melee lord, coming with most of the what you'd expect out of a melee dedicated generic lord. Has some weapons and abilities that give him some good self buffs, and some abilities like Stand Your Ground that most generic lords have. His issue is the lack of any real buffing abilities to help his army, no magic no nothing, which makes it easy to overlook him. Granted, anything that has a Star Dragon for a mount will be useful in some way, though it asks why you aren't just getting a normal Star Dragon for cheaper. If you put him on the Star Dragon, give him his weapon buffs and treat him like budget Imrik he ''kinda'' works, but honestly you're better off with the Dragon Lord.

*'''Princess''': Don't let those bitches at Disney taint your mind, this princess doesn't take shit from nobody. She sacrifices some melee prowess in exchange for a bow, which makes her way more useful than her Prince counterpart when on monstrous mounts as you get a Star Dragon that shoots arrows at people. She also has some really good buffing abilities, focusing on helping archers, which is good for 90% of High Elf builds. She also comes with an armour piercing magic missile ability for helping dish some damage at long range. Oh, did we mention she's cheaper than the Prince? She serves a similar role to Alith Anar only she actually gets mounts so she can stay out of harm's way when she needs to. The lack of magic holds her back from being top tier, but overall a very solid pick.

*'''Archmage (DLC)''': For you Saphery fans, Archmages fulfill all your magical needs in the Lord slot. These ladies come with the usual mage stuff, Arcane Conduit and one of the Lores of Magic, though she can pick between any of the generic ones and Lore of High Magic, giving her the highest variety of any generic mage lord in the game. Her mounts are also cool, choosing between a horse or chariot for ground support or an eagle or Moon Dragon for aerial dominance. Her magic items include an increase to power recharge rate and armor that when activated gives her stalk and unspottable. Yup, you can give a goddamn dragon stalk and unspottable, it's as hilarious as it sounds. Granted a Moon Dragon isn't as nice as a Star Dragon, but it's good none the less. All in all, she's about what you'd expect from a High Elf mage lord, and probably the best generic choice.

==Heroes==
Sadly, no Legendary Heroes for the Asur, guess Korhil and Caradryan didn't get an invite. Still, they have pretty good options.

*'''Noble''': The minor nobility of Ulthuan and your melee heroes. Halberd wielding Anti Large fighters who generally act as bodyguards when you bring a squishier lord like Teclis. When on a horse, 2 of them plus your lord can serve as a good goon squad to help take out specific targets. They also act as decent mage killers and are overall pretty cheap by hero standard. Chariots are also handy for Dwarfs. Overall, not a bad pick if you need something to protect your mage lord on a horse, though the lack of Guardian means they aren't the best heroes in the game at that job. Or don’t ever use them in campaign, Because you need them spamming gather influence every single turn. Use a handmaiden instead.

*'''Mage''': I mean... it's what you think it is. She's your generic caster hero and is about what you would expect. She has every generic lore plus High Magic, Arcane Conduit, and will get her ass clapped in melee. The chariot mount option does come in handy if you're fighting Dwarfs or any faction that struggles with Chariots in general. If you aren't picking a magic lord, you pretty much have to grab one. Note to Dragon Mage fans that Fire Mages get access to a Sun Dragon mount, because CA figured making making a whole different mage hero just to give it a Dragon would be redundant. As useful as you'd expect a mage on a dragon and Fire is a great lore, though she becomes expensive and a massive bullseye for missiles. Campaign dominance usually wants you camping as many mages as possible with economy boosting traits in your most profitable province. So optimally use archmage lords and camp the rest. - they removed this strategy in immortal empires, I guess use them in your armies now if you want.

*'''Loremaster''': Sadly, these pointy eared Jedi got demoted from Lords to Heroes in the jump from Tabletop to Game, though they can whoop ass none the less. One of very few Hybrid Heroes, they have good casting along with good Melee stats. The variety of spells allow them to heal, do direct damage and buff troops, giving him some good variety. The combo of Spirit Leech plus Armor Piercing Anti Infantry damage can make them decent duelists when fighting foot lords. What screws them over is their lack of mounts and cost to recruit, so be wary of that when using them. Can be a good mage substitute if you use yours to boost your economy. they are good jack of all trade heros.

*'''Handmaiden (DLC)''': The bodyguards of Alarielle, and your sniping heroes. With flaming, magical armor piercing shots, they can lay a bit of damage on a target given they have the time to shoot. Of course, she's squishy and of the three melee heroes she is probably the worst fighting up close. She has anti large, thought a Noble can do that plus armor piercing. She also has some passive abilities and items that can buff archers, so in a fully dedicated range list she can do a bit of help. Overall though, you may as well go with a Noble, he'll do everything she does better. - the above is only true in multiplayer. in campaign where nobles are better used to gain influence you should probably only handmaidens as your primary combat hero. Especially since they boost archers and sisters of avelorn doom stacks are objectively the cheapest, strongest armies high elves can field. (Dragons stack may be stronger but cost 2-3 times as much, and come online much later and slower). In campaign they also have a skill to give a boost to public order factionwide (sure, it's just a +1 per Handmaiden that has the skill, but since you're going to want to recruit them anyway...)

==Units==
Lords and heroes are cool and all, but a faction can't win without their units. Let's see what the Pointy Ears got.

===Infantry===
*'''Spearmen''': Your standard, tier one Infantry, armed with spears and shields. They are what they say on the tin. High Melee Defense and low Attack means they are used more for holding the line rather than outright killing their opposition, unless they are fighting straight up chaff. At 500 points, they are hardly what one would consider "cheap" compared to what others can brings, so swarming isn't exactly the plan with these guys. Also with only 40 armour, they will be chewed up by any missiles not hitting the shield. As with most spear units, they have Charge Defense against large and Anti Large, so they are great light cav killers. A go to pick in a lot of match ups.
**'''Scions of Mathlann (RoR, DLC)''': Same as above, with slightly better stats and give an AOE 12% ward save. This can help keep your front line going just a little bit longer, though the short range and the fact that people enjoy distancing their units to avoid the risk of spells killing them is means their usefulness is a bit limited. Certainly one of those "better in campaign" units.
*'''Rangers (DLC)''': Your tier one chaff clearers from The Warden and The Paunch. Your cheap (by High Elf standards anyway) tier one offensive infantry. Dual swords gives them a nice bonus vs infantry, meaning they are great for clearing out enemy chaff such as Goblins and Skavenslaves. While you may look at their 30 armor and grow concerned, their loose formation and their 20% physical resistance means they can take more missile fire than you would expect an unshielded unit of that tier to take. They are also decently fast by infantry standards, so they won't be soaking up fire for too long anyway. Granted, they are going to get trounced by anything mid tier or higher or anything that has a decent armour value. You want to be bringing these guys against factions that throw in unarmored trashed to bog you down, like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''White Lions of Chrace''': I don't know if the King's Court faced some serious budget cuts or whatever, but man these guys have fallen on some hard times. [[Derp|These bodyguards of the Phoenix King are mid tier infantry that go down to mid to elite tier units form other factions]]. Jokes aside, these guys got a bad wrap but they aren't AS bad as people say, you just can't use them as a front line (Unless you're fighting Dwarfs). They have great AP values and good armor with missile resist, so they're hardly useless. Use them as support for your spears to cut through enemies and they can do some work. It's understandable CA didn't want to give the High Elve 2 elite great weapon units, but the fact the King's bodyguards got reduced to mid tier left a sour taste in the mouth of lots of High Elf fans.
**'''The Puremane Company (RoR, DLC)''': More or less the same as above, only with better stats and new abilities. These guys have -30 armour sundering, which only further helps them as a support option for a cheaper frontline without AP. They also get the guardian trait to protect Lords and Heroes from harm, so they at least now actually act like bodyguards. Great against heavy armour like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos, they will not only do lots of damage, but support others in doing damage as well.
*'''Silverin Guard (DLC)''': Now THIS is a staunch line of spears. These guys are to normal Spearmen what Longbeards are to Dwarf Warriors. Just a better, sturdier and more expensive alternative. Great defensive stats and magic resistance means that cutting through these guys is not going to be easy to anyone but dedicated armour piercing and/or strong anti infantry units. Their main use is to give a massive middle finger to any rush faction, and watch as they try to slam their heads against this wall to no avail. Of course, they are a much more expensive frontline than normal spears, so you will have less resources in other parts of the battlefield. Despite that, they are still a fantastic choice and can hold forever against the right opponents. the switch from agic to spell resist does make their resistance less useful versus demons than you would hope, but it still helps if the enemy brings offensive spells so that's something.
*'''Swordmasters of Hoeth''': Now we're getting into the big guns. These guys but White Lions to shame, and stat wise can take on any other non RoR infantry 1 one 1 and win. Combine fantastic stats with an armour piercing anti infantry bonus and they will lawn mower their way through any infantry they come across. Plus, they even have a missile block chance, which allows them to mitigate missiles, which is usually the best way to fight great weapons. However, they are expensive, and most competent enemies know how scary they are. Because of this, a lot of people bring monstrous infantry to deal with these guys, which is not something they enjoy fighting. They can earn you a lot of profit against infantry, but if your enemy burns them down before they fight anything, that's 1250 points you aren't getting back.
*'''Phoenix Guard''': The Anti Large alternative to Swordmasters. With a large 30% physical resistance, fear and charge defense against large, they are tanks through and through. They can hold the line and carve apart monsters with fairly little issue. Their lack of shields does leave them vulnerable to AP missiles, however, so watch out for that. magic attacks are a lot more common in immortal empires so be careful, their physical resist isn't quite as reliable.
**'''The Keepers of The Flame (RoR, DLC)''':Even better Phoenix Guard with magical attacks and The Mark of Asuryan. What that does is when a model dies, it explodes, and deals damage to enemies around them. This makes them much better infantry killers than normal Phoenix Guard, as an explosion will probably drag a model or two with them.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Archers''': It's all in the name. Fellows with bows that have a whooping 180 range. Only Waywatchers out range you, meaning you can get some easy free fire on most enemy units before you come under pressure. Lack of AP aside, a great unit. Of course, you need to protect these little bastards as they are crap in melee. They also come in a "Light Armour" varient that give cost 50 more cold for 30 more armour. Given the fact that the DPS is the same and they'll die is light cav sneezes on them anyway, most people just go with the standard version.
**'''Talons of Tor Caleda (RoR, DLC)''': Fun unit if you love playing with fire. Not only do they do Fire damage, but they also imbue a fire weakness. Team these guys up with some Sisters of Avelorn and watch whatever they're shooting get blown to smithereens!
*'''Lothern Sea Guard''': Another non AP archer unit, but one who trades a bit of range for a spear. While they don't have the sheer oppressive firing range of normal archers, it means you don't have to babysit them nearly as much. If a light cav shoots them they will laugh as they turn in the horse pelts for new boots. Granted, you'd rather they not be fighting light cav because you want them shooting, but hey. They can even serve as a front line, especially if you pay extra for the shielded variant. A great hybrid unit that can fulfill all kinds of roles and are useful even with no ammo. Upkeep is about the same as sisters of avelorn, ask yourself are they ever really better than just more sisters? Generally the answer is no. Kinda a trap option because they fight slight worse than basic spearman and shoot slightly worse than basic archers. Not bad just overshadowed.
**'''The Storm Riders (RoR, DLC)''': These guys really wanted to become Shadow Warriors but unfortunately grew up in the pleasant city of Lothern and not the shithole that is Nagarythe. One day they said, "fuck it, we can do skirmishing better than them!" They can't. Vanguard and fire while moving is nice but you want these guys stationary to help with your lines, so it seems pointless. They do have that fear though, which can come in handy.
*'''Shadow Warriors (DLC)''': They have the same range and damage output as normal archers. You're paying extra for vanguard, stalk, fire while moving and better melee stats (not like you want them throwing hands with anything stronger than Clanrats.) They ok are if you are really into the kite game, and want to use mobile skirmishing to blast the enemy to pieces. Granted with only 22 Melee Defense they aren't that good in melee, and honestly in most match up archers will do the same job for cheaper. They have a nice niche, particularly against factions with shit infantry, but aren't a staple by any means. Don't bother with them in campaign honestly, the only faction that would want to use them has the better shadow-walkers instead.
**'''The Grey (RoR, DLC)''': No point in taking these guys over normal Shadow Warriors. All they get is snipe and a banner that makes them unspottable. Save your cash.
*'''Shadow-Walkers (FLC, Nagarythe Only)''': Not much to say about these guys, they're just better Shadow Warriors. The poison they have is cool. a good option for campaign.
*'''[[Sisters of Avelorn]] (DLC)''': Feast your eyes and despair, for your gaze upon one of the best archer units in the game. With 180 range, massive armour piercing, magical and fire damage and the ability to fight in melee makes them one of the best overall units the High Elves have. Anything they shoot turns to dust, and they can create a firing line that can make [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] factions jealous. Also, they are pretty damn good in melee, able to hold off cav charge until reinforcements come and can tear apart chaff that is thrown their way. Their big failing is their high price, meaning you will have one or two on the field at a time if you want to invest in anything else. Used wisely, and these lovely ladies can win games all by themselves. In Campaign, where financial concerns become laughably inconsequential, their price-tag becomes a complete non-issue. Objectively the most op and cost effective unit on the high elf roster. for comparison they are 50% cheaper than greatsword shades from the dark elves and about the sam upkeep as lothern sea guard with shields. Now that magic resistance only affects spells they lost their one weakness pretty much.
**'''Everqueen's Court Guard (RoR, DLC)''': These even better ladies come with encourage and The Banner of Avelorn for more magic recharge. Want your troops to hold out longer? Want more magic in your pool? These ladies got you covered.

===Cavalry===
*'''Ellyrian Reavers''': Light cav that can put on pressure like very little light cav can. With vanguard and great speed they can run rampant across the battlefield, preying on skirmishers and artillery alike. Granted, they are about as durable as tissue paper, so don't expect them to last if they come across actual resistance. Still, as far as light cav goes, this is one of the best options currently in the game.
*'''Ellyrian Reaver Archers''': Skirmisher cav that can still whack people in melee. Their bows can give out a good stream of damage over time and give enemies an aneurysm. Plus, despite their primary role being ranged warfare, they are honestly pretty good in melee, they'll actually beat Dark Riders with shields in a head up engagement. Not that you need to, because with 360 fire and fire while moving, they can punish anything that tries to chase them down.
**'''Heralds of The Wind (RoR, DLC)''': Not much to say about these guys. They're the same as above but with way better melee stats. This means they can serve both purposes as skirmisher hunter and ranged damage. Solid RoR all around.
*'''Silver Helms''': If you want something that punches more punch that Reavers but don't want to invest all that money in Dragon Princes, this is a solid pick. Very sold mid tier cav option meant to ride around and slam into the backs of enemies. They will lose to pretty much all elite cav head on, so watch out for that. They come with a shielded version as well, which you should honestly grab whenever you can.
*'''Dragon Princes''': of course, why settle for 2nd best when you can have the best. These boys do Caledor proud, being just as fast as Silver Helms and having better stats in virtually every department. They also have physical and fire resistance, meaning as long as they aren't fighting anything with magic damage they can be one of the more resilient cav units in the game. Granted, their lack of anti large and armor piercing makes them not the best against other heavy cav. Instead, these guys focus more on charging into the rears and flanks of enemy infantry and taking them down. Keep them healed up, and they can put armies on their back.
**'''The Fireborn (RoR, DLC)''': Well, now they have fire damage and anti large, so sorry Skaven players, if you thought throwing a Hell Pit Abominations would kill them you were mistaken. Now they're cavalry killers, and wreck lightly armoured monsters or one weak to fire.

===Chariots===
*'''Tiranoc Chariot''': The first of three chariots, and one focused on skirmishing. The magical arrows are cool and can help against physical resistance, but it's not like the High Elves are missing in that department. The bonus versus large also helps versus lightly armoured troops, though they won't do much against heavy armour. They have a niche, but really this is a unit that you can certainly skip in your army if you want to.
*'''Ilthimar Chariot''': Same issue here to be honest. People grab chariots for hard hitting armour piercing infantry blending. A chariot this expensive without armour piercing is never going to be useful. There's honestly nothing they can do that a unit of Ellyrion Reavers or Silver Helms can't do better, at least the Tiranoc version can shoot magical arrows. Widely considered one of the worst units on the roster, and one you can easily skip.
*'''White Lion Chariot (DLC)''': Now THIS is a chariot unit! These cat lovers have that AP that the other chariots are sorely missing. While they do give up some armour in exchange, the ability to mulch Dwarfs and Chaos Warriors into paste is more than worth the trade off. Plus, they don't care about losing armour that much because they gained missile resistance, so shooting them won't get rid of the quickly. Finally, they cause fear because, you know, it's a chariot pulled by fucking lions. Has the same flaws most chariots do, being a lack of ability to fight in sustain melee, but easily the best option of the chariots here.

===Artillery===
*'''Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower''': The only artillery piece these elves have, and not one that will be winning any "Best Artillery" awards soon. Not to say they're bad, the ability to cycle through anti large single shot and anti infantry multi shot makes them a bit more versatile than most artillery units. Plus, they can be good for sniping out other large artillery units, like War Lightning Cannon or Queen Bess. Of course, they won't win any shootout with Dwarfs but for the price it will probably get the job done so long as it's protected. If given the choice between targeting monsters or elite infantry it's better to pick the latter.

===Monsters===
*'''Great Eagle''': This giant bird is a relatively cheap flying unit that can provide some decent mage hunting and is a fairly accessible source of fear. The best thing it offers is its speed, and can be used to get from different points of the battle when needed. Granted, these guys are squishy, and will lose to most monster units. Honestly work best as mounts for mages you want to keep out of the fight, acting as a distraction to missile units (being able to easily dodge most ranged assaults) or to escort tattered, key enemy units off the map.
*'''War Lions of Chrace (DLC)''': War hounds on steroids, these thing can provide a lot of killing power. They are fast, have decent stats and have armour piercing anti infantry damage. This equates to a lot of dead skirmishers, but also dead mid tier infantry if they are able to support infantry. A missile resistance will protect them on the way in form archers, and they have strider to help them ignore penalties from trees. Plus, fear is never a bad thing. Pretty solid choice all around, and serve as great flankers and artillery hunters.
**'''Rahagra's Pride (RoR, DLC)''': These mighty kitties come with a Mighty Roar ability, lowering leadership and speed. If they attack from the flank, they can pop this to potentially cause a mass route and make sure ideal targets don't escape. Great for low leadership armies like Skaven or Beastmen.
*'''Flamespyre Phoenix''': The first of three magic birds. This fire one has fear and terror, good stats all around, and is mainly focused on chaff clearing. All Phoenixes have an ability where they get a ward save when the magic pool is above 50%. It has ten uses of a bombing type attack where it drops down fire bombs on the enemy to blow them to pieces. Not great against armour, but can deal with blobs pretty well. Also has Fiery Rebirth; if it gets too low it has a chance to either die outright or to come back to life with significantly more HP, which in the right scenario can turn a fight. You don't want to rely on this to win though, as it may not happen. Still a decent monster.
*'''Frostheart Phoenix''': The icy bird, gets more armour from all the ice crystals clinging to its feathers. Trades the fire bombs and rebirth ability from the previous phoenix in exchange for better overall stats and a good debuff ability. Blizzard Aura causes a decrease to overall enemy weapon damage and melee attack. Elven spearlines will appreciate this, as it will allow them to hold out for even longer. Granted, losing the chance to be reborn sucks but still considered an overall better pick than the fire bird.
*'''Arcane Phoenix (DLC)''': The last bird and the best of them all. Comes with even better stats, regains Fiery Rebirth, and gains Emberstorm. This allows it to face plant into the ground and create a stationary vortex that burns anything around it. Great for clearing our low armour, it can demolish blobs of infantry. It's an expensive little chicken (seriously, it costs more than a Moon Dragon) but one that certainly wins fights in the right scenarios.
**'''Omen of Asuryan (DLC, RoR)''': This birb does everything listed above and also gives Immune to Psych in an AOE. Not the best thing for a race that doesn't really suffer from leadership problems but still nice to have.
*'''Dragons''': With 3 goddam choices I figured we'd make a general listing then split them off. Dragons have crazy ass stats but aren't something you should just throw around willy nilly. They can be fragile and will often lose to elite anti-large units and monsters. It's the breath attacks that make these guys scary, and each dragon's breath serves a different purpose. A well placed breath can win you the game, and a bad one can blow it away. BRING HEALING TO KEEP THEM IN THE FIGHT!!!!!
**'''Sun Dragon''': The weakest and cheapest of the dragons. Their breath has a greater spread but deals less AP damage. Will destroy light-armor infantry blobs.
**'''Moon Dragon''': The median dragon but don't let that fool you, as most non-HE dragons have stats on par with a Moon Dragon. It's a good budget choice if you can't afford Star Dragons yet, isn't as fragile as Sun Dragons, and has a breath attack that deals good AP damage with a decent spread.
**'''Star Dragon''': The strongest dragon in the game and widely considered the best unit on the roster. If played well can absolutely demolish whatever you throw it at, just so long as you're wary of AP range and anti-large. Their breath has a much narrower spread than the others but also deals far more AP damage, making it idea for roasting single-entity opponents like lords, heroes, or other monsters.

===Campaign Exclusive===
*'''Dryads (DLC, Avelorn Only):''' Only available if you are playing as the Avelorn subfaction, which locks you into Alarielle as your only Legendary Lord choice (Not that anyone would complain). One of the better tier one infantry, with good stats for the price, physical resistance and fear. Keep them the hell away from fire, for obvious reasons. Pretty good offensive choice, but honestly you can get the same job done with Rangers and their a bit easier to come by.
*'''Tree Kin (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': Continuing Alarielle's tree fetish, these guys serve a tanky defensive role. They can help spears hold the line longer and instill fear to make them run off faster. Immune to Psych and high physical resistance means these trees aren't going anywhere. Granted, fire will put them down fast, so keep that in mind if your enemy has lore of fire. They also won't do much damage to their enemies, so don't expect them to buzzsaw through any form of enemy.
**They're cheap, quick to recruit, and are tanky against everything except for Tzeentch. You can put a couple of these guys in front of your Phoenix Guard or Swordmasters and have them eat the charge, then have your elves deal the damage by walking through them. You don't even have to be Alarielle to benefit if you have an alliance with Wood Elves

*'''Treeman (DLC, Avelorn Only)''': The ents are marching, but they're much less impressive in this setting. The tanky stats, good armour piercing and magic damage are nice, but they are way too slow to be of much use. Any skirmishing force can burn these guys down, especially if they have fire. If you are running a blob faction with a ton of healing they can work, but at that point just get a Dragon

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
If you're playing High Elves, you already think you're better than everyone else, and you want to prove it! Fortunately for you, you have a very well rounded roster that can be used in a myriad of ways to take out a variety of opponents. You have the obvious strengths in your ranged, but you are also strong in terms of cavalry, monsters, and healing. However, the high cost of your army means that you will be outnumbered in many of your match ups, and AP is something you need to pay a premium for. And while you're the tankiest of the Elven factions, that really isn't saying much. That said if used well you can cause havoc. Here is how you can assure domination against the inferior races! Keep in mind this is assuming you bought both High Elf DLCs because if you haven't you may struggle a bit. Yeah, multiplayer can be pay to win, sorry.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': You got enough range to poke down their lack of armor, the question is can you protect it all against their flanking and vanguard shenanigans? Kite builds tend to work best here. Get a relatively cheap frontline (trust me, with Minotaurs and Chaos Spawn you do not want to lean on infantry to win) to hold them in place so your Reaver Archers can begin their poke. Make sure to get some cheaper melee cav to screen for the horse archers, preferable Silver Helms. You generally aren't going to see the Ghorgon or the Jabberslythe in this match up since both are very prone to getting shot by missiles. Tyrion is a surprising solid pick, as Sunfang can melt any Beastmen infantry but Bestigors and they mutants have such a hard time catching and killing him.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This has historically always been one of your hardest match ups. Don't even think of relying on cavalry, Grail Knights will fuck up Dragon Princes and run amok. Silverin Guard act as a good deterrent against heavy cav and can beast most Bret infantry aside from Foot Squires, and Lothern Sea Guard can at least do something against knights if they are charged. Teclis with nets and enfeebling foe will also play big for you to stop and debuff heavy cav. Use bolt throwers to take out cav models and finally, the Star Dragon can carry if well supported, as Bretonnia tends to struggle with big armoured monsters.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': This is a tough one for you. Shaggoths beat Dragons one on one and are cheaper, making it a bit unfair for you. You still want to bring a star dragon to burn shaggoths down with breath attacks, and a couple swordmasters can help burn through that heavily armoured infantry. You can use Teclis on the pidgeon to help the dragon in melee or Alarielle to help keep it alive. Aside from that, grab basic spears and archers and just try to take down those damn shaggoths.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': A true lore rivalry matchup, which is actually pretty balanced. Remember, the Dark Elves share many of your same strengths and weaknesses, but the longer the battle goes on, the rougher it will be for you. Murderous Prowess, while important in other matchups, can be absolutely game-changing here since your Martial Prowess disappears as your units get more damaged, which kind of forces you into a quasi-rush game. Scourgerunners are the bane of your existence, as they can kill anything you bring to the table. Bolt throwers are the best way to deal with them, and if you can do that Dragon Princes are free to run rampage across the Druchii. You will never win an infantry grind or a skirmish fight here, so leave your expensive infantry options and units like Ellyrian Reaver A'rchers and Tiranoc Chariots at home. However, you do have the advantage in Heavy Cav, range and magic variety, so make sure you use it! Also, a Star Dragon is always good to help deal with any big beasties that might get thrown your way, but the druchii have plentiful sources of anti-large so you need to be on point with your micro if you bring one. Bring a couple basic archers to shoot down their skirmish cav and short range before they get a chance to rip you apart.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Is Chrace your favorite kingdom on Ulthuan? Well, this match up is a perfect chance to rep the Lion Boys! White Lions are amazing here, with AP and missile resistance at a decently affordable price. Bring a few archers or eagles to deal with Gyrocopters and reavers or war lions to deal with artillery and you can score a decent amount of value. And of course, no build against the Dwarfs is complete without AP Chariots, and White Lion Chariots can destroy Dwarfs. Any Dwarf player who picks the stunties against you either think they are way better than you or are new and don't understand match ups yet. (Seriously, this is so one sided it makes you wonder how the High Elves lost the War of the Beard.)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The big question in this match up is going to be "how the fuck do you deal with knights?" Demigryphs will eat Dragon Princes 1 on 1 so similar to Bretonnia, don't rely too much on your heavy cav. One tactic that has become popular is to bring a single Lore of Metal caster with Teclis, net them, cast plague of rust and shoot them down with your archers. Phoenix Guard can also be useful here since they can tear up state troops and knights with fairly little problem, but they have to worry about guns. In that case, archers can be used to shoot their guns down or Reavers can be used to run them over. The infantry fight shouldn't be an issue unless they brings Greatswords (which are rare) it's the mobile aspects and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] that will end up giving you headaches.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''': Dragon Princes are going to be your friends in this match up. They will run over any Cathayan cav (except for the Longma RoR, so make sure you have some way to take them out like tempest and missiles) and are quick enough to dive into the back line and silence those guns, cannons and crossbows. Which is a good thing, because you need to shut down that backline ASAP. If left unchecked a Fire Rain Rocket or Crane Gunners will tear your army apart before they can do anything. Yes, your ranged infantry will out range theirs but A. most of them have heavy armor and shields so your arrows will just doink right off and B. their artillery is very good at turning Archers into Elf Salsa. Get those Dragon Princes and maybe some Spears or Silverin Guard as support and make sure those guns are dead. Rangers and White Lions should trade pretty well into most Cathayan infantry, while being spread out or missile resistant enough to endure some pounding on the way in. Archers can be used to pick off artillery crew or gunners once your close enough or to harass the backline, though you got to make sure they don't explode before they can do anything. Imrik is a decent choice in this match up for more than just Miao Ying memes, as he can out duel the Dragon Siblings and if supported by a life mage he can be a menace that Cathay can't really get rid of. Granted he's expensive and has a big hit box so if you don't think you can keep him safe from missiles or can micro him well, an Archmage will never not be a bad choice. Recommended Lore Choices are Life to keep your army alive, Metal to deal with all the armor, and High for Tempest to deal with Longma if you see some.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Ok after The Warden and The Paunch this became a hard one for two reasons. One, Stone Trolls give a a massive middle finger to everything you love to do with their magic and missile resistance. Two, now that WAAAGH! is an army ability and not a lord ability, Arcane Unforging can't put it on cooldown anymore. If you want to rep the Asur against da boyz, Silverin Guard will be your friends. They can hold against anything but Black Orcs or Arachnaroks, and the best way to deal with them are with either Swordmasters or Plague of Rust and missile fire. In terms of missiles I recommend Lothern Sea Guard because then you don't have to worry about the abundance of flanking the greenskins love to bring against you. Also, Dragon Princes will run over any cav that the Greenskins bring so one or two of them can help worth wonders (the Fireborn especially, since it can help with them pesky Stone Trolls).

*'''High Elves''': Honestly, this match up boils down to "Who can micro their Dragon Princes better." Since it's a mirror match up it is 100% even, assuming both sides bought the DLCs. Don't bother with Dragons, you'll be fighting a ton of missiles and Dragon Princes have a crap ton of fire resistance anyway. Some AP in the front line can help so White Lions could be used to break through the front line and help your mounted lads get some easy hammer and anvils. Also, as usual heals are paramount, so bring Alarielle or some form of healing in order to keep your army on top. If your enemy's Martial Prowess runs out before yours does, you are going to be in a VERY good position to dominate the map.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne| Khorne]]''': Again, take the game 3 matchups with a grain of salt right now, since Immortal Empires isn't out yet. However, this will probably be a slightly easier matchup for you. Usually when you're facing the uncivilized Chaos barbarians, you will need to lean heavily into the skirmish game, and it's no different here. Don't even think about trying to fight them on their own terms. With some other factions you can rely on your anti-large and holding power somewhat, but this is not an option with Khorne because of your inherent squishiness. Whenever they make contact with any of your units, your guys will be unwillingly donating to the worlds largest blood drive. This means just forgetting about your high-tier infantry and SEM's. Khorne isn't terribly slow, but you can generally rely on the roadrunner strat to pay some dividends. Flesh Hounds can be a P-R-O-B-L-E-M here, as they're very fast, have great weapon damage, and have physical and spell resist all on top of causing fear. The best way to deal with them is probably with your archers. Speaking of archers, Sisters of Avelorn are likely going to be a HUGE DEAL in this matchup with their armor piercing and magical attacks. Skullcannons may be a problem here, though bolt throwers should theoretically be able to zone them out. Finally, there's the lord/hero choices to consider. You generally won't be able to outduel them, and almost all Khorne units have spell resist, which flies in the face of one of your major playstyles. This means your lords and agents will need to be playing the support game. Tyrion probably won't be able to outduel Skarbrand, but on Malhandir he's fast enough to pick and choose his engagements and provide much-needed support against Khorne's high-value melee stuff. Alarielle with her heals and net of Amyntok can be great, but you'll need to keep her out of reach of furies. Just don't bring Teclis. That squishy nerd probably hasn't seen a gym in his entire life, and his magic damage and spells will have all the explosive power of a wet dookie against Khorne's spell resist. Alith Anar or a Princess might be good lord choices here because of their ranged attacks, but we will have to wait and see what strategies emerge when Immortal Empires drops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev| Kislev]]''': White Lions are going to be very good to bring here. They trade very effectively against all Kislev infantry except Tzar Guard and due to their missile resistance they can get in without taking too much damage. Streltsi and War Sled will tear apart the furries so bringing things like Silver Helms, Reavers or the Dragonborn to lock them down and stop them from shooting should allow them to get into the backline if needed. The big thing you will have to worry about is their Cavalry and Bears, and you should never take a straight cav on cav fight unless it's Reavers VS Dervishes because you will likely lose in any other cavalry encounter. For a backline I would go with Lothern Sea Guard so that when the cav inevitably get their hands on them they can at least fight back somewhat effectively. Kislev does have a decent amount of armor so your missiles aren't exactly going to completely rip them a new butthole, but that's why Plague of Rust can be very strong here. Any kind of metal caster with Plague of Rust will allow you to lower the armor of high value Kislev units like Bear Riders or Tzar Guard and allow your archers to actually put some hurt on them. Of course, against such a cav heavy faction spears are a great idea so a unit of Silverin Guard or two could be a good way to round out the roster. They can fight the cavalry and their decent armor and shields will allow them to soak up the enemy missile fire. As long as you can keep the bears and cav under control you can turn any battlefield into the Battle of Narva (only you don't have cannons... or guns... or Swedish people... Ok, it's nothing like the Battle of Narva but you know what I mean!)

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Anti-Large and AP will be your bread and butter against the children of the Old Ones. The first major weakness of the Lizardmen is their speed. Skinks aside, their foot soldiers will advance at a rather trudging pace. This, coupled with the relative lack of ranged options in the Lizardmen roster, will give your many ranged units plenty of time to rain hell upon them with impunity. Sisters of Averlorn in particular will decimate Saurus lines (even with shields) due to their solid AP damage while Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can put some severe hurt on the bigger beasties they'll be bringing. Keep an eye out for Chameleon Skinks; though they're little more than an annoyance to your armored units, they can pop into your back lines unannounced, deal not insignificant damage to your unarmored infantry and will absorb missile-fire from dusk 'till dawn. For all flavors of Skinks, use Rangers to skin them with laughable ease. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are ideal for tying up Lizardmen cavalry and monsters, though you should spring for Sylverin Guard if you have the coin to spare. Lastly, if there is a Slann Mage-Priest leading them, try to focus them down. Slann (especially Life Slann) are often the single source of support magic in the entire army and taking them out of the fight early can ''devastate'' the Lizardmen in the long run. No half measures though; Slann are surprisingly tanky and can often endure combat long enough for reinforcements to rescue them while they heal off the damage you dealt. If you aren't able to burn them down quickly and efficiently, then you shouldn't commit to hunting them down. If you neglect to pay attention to the rest of the Lizardmen army while you obsess over the fat frog, you will pay dearly.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': Good news, you have plenty of ranged assets to take out the lightly armoured troops of the north men! Bad news, they have a shit ton of flanking and skirmisher killers, along with strong line abilities that will make your neatly organized frontline cry. It's fairly similar to what you bring against Greenskins to be honest, Silverin Guard to stop the rush and Lothern Sea Guard to protect yourself incase they get into your backline. There are two main differences. One, lighter cav tends to be better to keep up with the more mobile army of Norsca and to catch out skirmish cav and their anti large range. The other is a Star Dragon should be brought to help burn down Mammoths, though be sure to keep that damn thing save from any Anti Large that comes your way. As usually, bring heals.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Immortal Empires won't be out until August at the earliest (groan) though given what we know so far this seems like a good match up. Nurgle tends to struggle against factions that can heavily poke him from range, and you have the longest ranged basic archers in the whole game. Rangers will also be pretty cost effective in this match up, as they can deal with Nurglings without much in the way of issues and Silverin Guard or basic Spears can hold the Plaguebearers and Forsaken in place long enough for your archers to start poking them down. Nurgle will inevitably bring Furies and Plague Drones as those are going to be the best units to dive your archers with, so bring Alarielle to Tempest them in place. Her healing won't be able to keep up with Nurgle healing but it should be enough to keep your front line in the fight. By far the biggest issue you are going to run into is the Soul Grinder, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Nurgle players bring more than one to keep your archers honest. Get your Cavalry or Monsters to dive those things to at least keep them from firing so that your archers can bring down the rest of the army. Finally, expect a Herald as the enemy lord and if they do bring a Great Unclean One.... just shoot the fucking thing and watch it melt.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Hooo boy, your pointy ears are the ogres' nightmares. Your tier 0 infantry can just trash around their entire melee roster, with plentiful cavalry to shutdown their backline or flankers, shit loads of missiles that outgun theirs and flying monsters, it's an extremely one-sided match up. Seriously it's to the point that in an ogre kingdoms campaign it's better to autoresolve or bring a shitload of armies to defeat a singular high elves force.
Either the player facing you is getting cocky, or very new to the game and doesn't know what he is doing. Either way, fighting the ogres is gonna be a field day for you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': The rats are one of very few factions that can out range you due to their weapon teams and artillery, and if you're outranged, you're a sad pointy ear. Bolt Throwers will help a ton, because not only can they use multishot to help clear away chaff, but more importantly they actually win in shootouts against Skaven artillery. Because of the massive models Skaven artillery have, bolt throwers have an easy time shooting them and getting them destroyed, making the unit useless and forcing the rats to come to you. Rangers will tear through pretty much any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, so that should be your frontline. As far as mobile aspect, due to the sheer number of ranged units coming your way, quantity beats quality. Go for Reavers and Silver Helms over Dragon Princes since they can cover the map more and the loss of one unit won't hurt that much. Side note, this is pretty much the only match up Alith Anar is useful in, since he can easily snipe artillery and large characters without much fear of counterattack.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': ...Fuck. This one isn't going to be pretty. They'll easily be able to dive into your backline, murder your archers and flank you, meaning a lot of your elves' souls will become some Daemonette's new favorite butt plug. One of the upsides of this match up is that since they have no missiles or strong fliers, a Dragon can get breath attacks off without much issue. So one should be brought for breath attacks and cycle charging, just keep them away from Soul Grinders and Keepers of Secrets. As for your infantry, get as many spears as you can, I'm talking Spearmen, Silverin Guard and Lothern Sea Guard. Not only because they're your most effective holding units, but because Cavalry and Chariots will be plentiful and that sweet anti large will come in handy against all that low armor. Investing in Cavalry might not be the best idea, but if you're going to go for Dragon Princes or Silver Helms, Reavers have no missiles to go after and will get run down by Seekers and Hellstriders. You will want a flying general to keep them as safe as possible. Imrik comes with a Dragon, though you would prefer to have your mage wrapped into your lord so I would recommend Alarielle or Teclis for nets. Just try your best to lock Slaanesh down, if you can pin their units in with mass or Net them with Teclis your Lothern Sea Guard should get good value.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': BOLT. THROWERS. ARE. YOUR. FRIENDS!!!!! They help deal with a ton of things that the Tomb Kings love to give your trouble for, like Ushabti Great Bows, big constructs or a Casket of Souls. If you can effectively defend your artillery and take out the dangerous ranged tools the skellies love to bring, you have two options on how to completely wipe them. One is combining bird Teclis with a Flamespyre Phoenix, using flight to pick your targets and engage on your terms, as well as taking advantage of the fire weakness. The second is Phoenix Guard, which can mulch anything the Tomb Kings throw at them if they don't have to worry about the AP range. Since Phoenix Guard tend to be risky if you don't deal with the ranged, Rangers are also good since they can trade up against most Tomb King Infantry. Scorpions tend to be common since they can easily dodge missiles and their animations make them hard to catch. In that case, high mass cav can pin them in place and you can shoot them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''': At least on paper this actually seems like a pretty solid match up for you. Your lord choice should be Alarielle, though all the fire damage will reduce her healing so you may just want to grab someone with tempest. Watch the Furies die in a tornado and trap down the Lord of Change, Doom Knights, and Chariots for your archers to get easy shots at. Considering how your missiles out range theirs by a lot, picking down the barrier shouldn't be too hard. Basic Archers will probably do the trick but if you're scared you can't pick off all the fliers Lothern Sea Guard will also be a solid choice. While the rework to Magic Resistance means they won't be reducing Daemon damage, Silverin Guard will still probably be a great choice as they will be able to hold against most Tzeentch units and resist their spells that they will inevitably bring. Finally, Dragon Princes are going to be an absolute nightmare for Tzeentch to deal with due to the fire resistance shrugging off a lot of the damage that their units can throw at you. Honestly the unit I an see being the biggest problem for you is the Soul Grinder as it can fight your infantry up close and shoot your cav from a distance. Once you wipe the floor with the rest of the army though, you should be able to overwhelm it and drag it down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Rangers beat every infantry but Depth Guard, and honestly you probably won't see much Depth Guard anyway. There are two ways Pirates like to play this match up. A gun build with lots of flanking dogs, bats and mortars to deal with archer spam, and crab rushes. In the case of the former, Keeping Spears in the back to help secure the backline from dogs and bats while your cav (Preferably reavers) hunt down the artillery can help your archers rip them apart. As for the latter, bring a metal mage with plague of rust and shoot them down. Your really want to invest in range against these guys as they tend to struggle against a ton of shooting, so protecting them and finding ways to deal with their armored stuff is how you play this. Don't bring too much big stuff like Dragons, they will probably get shot out of the sky.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': They're a rush faction, so they can be handled in a similar way to Greenskins and Norsca. Get some Silverin Guard to hold against their infantry and cav and some Sea Guard to get a hard to crack shooting line, and be ready to bunker down. You have an obvious ranged advantage, so they will have to come to you. A Star Dragon and Alarielle can be devastating if handled well, since Star Dragons eat terrorghiests and Alarielle brings so much to this match up from Immune to Psych and magic damage to deal with ghosts and other physical resistance. Be sure to bring Tempest, as Vampires love to bring scary fliers to the battlefield and if you can lock it down you can shoot them or get some easy engagements with your Dragon and Flying lord. As long as you have good ground support, they shouldn't be able to harm your fliers too bad.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': One of the few other factions whose missile infantry can rival yours. Wood Elves are a very skittish faction that will endeavor to avoid engaging in prolonged fights in no small part due to how fragile they are. Wood Elves have virtually no armor and only their Eternal Guard has access to shields, so ranged attacks are (ironically) quite effective against their missile infantry. For their infantry in general, Rangers will make quick work of them in a fight, but you'll want to beware of Wardancers. Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard are crucial for intercepting Wild Rider charges; get a mage with Net of Amyntok to shut them down and allow your spearmen to box them in for the kill. Wood Elves also find themselves rather lacking in the artillery department (as in, they have none), so a few Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers can go a long way during the opening stages of the battle. Now, as far as the angry trees go, bring a matchbox. Fire damage and anti-large will quite literally burn through them, so a Fire Mage and/or Sisters of Averlorn will do you wonders. Lastly, you'll want to secure your back lines. A significant portion of the Wood Elf roster is capable of Vanguard Deployment and you do ''not'' want Dryads, Wild Riders or Waywatchers getting into your squishy infantry early into the fight.

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

You might not notice just how pricey your units are in campaign, but OH BOY you will notice it in multiplayer. High Elves don't really have any super strong cheap units, which kinda sucks since Domination is usually about building wide in order to spread the field and collect points, and a lot of High Elf units aren't strong enough to justify their price. A High Elf Spearmen unit is pretty decent at holding the line and scaring off cavalry but when an Empire spear unit can do the same thing for half the cost you feel pretty bad. You're gonna have to rely on winning the fight, then start taking objectives once you have a massive points lead, so one or two big monsters like Dragons or Phoenixes might be a requirement in order to win the fight hard enough that your opponent can't fight you for points, but fast enough so that they can't just hold the points longer than you. Honestly, pray that you get a DLC that gives you strong units or get another cost buff in multiplayer cause otherwise Asur performance in Domination will make you sad.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General===

High Elves have an image of being one of the easiest races to play in campaign. While yes, Due to their powerful lords and strong economies they tend to lean a bit more on the easy side, that doesn't mean you will never come across any difficulty while playing them in Vortex or Mortal Empires. In this section we will go over the general tips about how to handle a High Elf campaign, followed in more depth by the specific subfactions themselves and how they differ from each other. Let's go over the generic traits all High Elves have first:

'''Influence''': Probably the most important mechanic the High Elves have, and the one that connects back to all of their other ones, is '''Influence'''. The Elves are political animals and as such need some kind of leverage or favors in order to make headway in anything they want to do. Influence is a special currency you get for completing missions, building certain buildings, doing hero actions and through random events on the campaign map. This offers you two major ways to spend it, one being stronger lords and the other being Intrigue at the Court. The first way revolves on how you recruit lords and heroes, as each one has a certain amount of influence you have to spend in order to recruit them. Lords and Heroes that cost 0 influence have shitty traits that hurt your campaign, ones that cost a relatively low amount have more standard traits, while the most expensive have straight up OP ones. For instance, there's a 60 influence trait for Archmages called Incendiary, which gives a +100% weapon strength, +100 charge bonus and flaming attacks. This may sounds pointless on a mage character you want to keep out of melee until you realize she can ride a fucking dragon at some point. This can get you some ungoldy powerful lords if you build up influence.

The other thing you use Influence for is '''Intrigue at Court''', which further reflects the politcalness of Elves. With this, you can improve or destroy relations between any two factions on the campaign map that you know. It's similar to what the Empire has, only while they can only do it between two Imperial factions, you can do it between anyone. This means you can puppeteer the map in anyway you like. Want to declare war on a faction but they are allies with someone you have a Non Aggression Pact with? Pump some influence and now they hate eachother. Want to confederate that one stubborn faction on Ulthuan? Keep spending Influence and you'll win them over eventually. You can manipulate diplomacy to start wars and alliances between whoever you want. 90% of the time you'll be using this to get other High Elves to confederate with you easier.
*The best time to ask for a Confederation is after your target has suffered a military defeat. If you see them lose two armies in the same battle, they are more likely to agree to Confederate.
**You can also confederate with High Elves by dealing with their most dangerous threat, which is now visible to you in the diplomacy screen. By winning victories against the faction that's currently curbstomping them, you can win enough goodwill for them to confederate with their armies intact.
*Since Influence is so important, here's an easy tip to get a ton of it:
**Recruit a Noble. Don't worry if he has a bad trait, he'll never be used in combat.
**Send him to a city that's owned by a faction you won't be friendly with anyway, like Dark Elves or Norsca
**Keep spamming the '''Secure Influence''' option, it will give you 1 influence every turn for 5 turns.
**Level up Secure Influence every chance you get, you get an extra point for every level up, and rinse and repeat.
**If you keep doing this you will be drowning in influence.
*In addition, im Immortal Empires, there is now a general alliance mechanic that lets you recruit units from factions you have a defensive/military alliance with, which is good for <s>[[AWESOME|bringing fucking Dinosaurs to tear shit up]]</s> souping with allies to shore up weaknesses, and quickly recruit units in exchamge for "allegiance." Basically, the more you help them out, the more benefits you get. That being said, you also can't just use positive opinion gained from Intrigue at the Court to spam pacts and alliances, because if you spend too much time ignoring your ally and not fighting their biggest threat, they'll break the alliance and withdraw their forces from your stacks

'''Research''': Their tech tree is kind of stupid. The research is locked by different stages and you need to construct different buildings in order to get access to all of them. This means building things you'd rather not in order to finish the research tree. You even need to get all tradeable resources in order to completely finish the tree. Just complete what you need to complete and you'll get through it fine.

'''Buildings''' you'll want in every major city:
*'''Ampitheater''': Your public order building, just make it to make sure rebels don't spring up anywhere. It's also makes money and isn't too bad at it on top of that.
*'''Tower of Mages''': Gets you more Mages and Loremasters, along with more research rate and access to more stages of research.
*'''Blessed Grove''': Gets you more Handmaidens and Sisters of Avelorn. A fun agent and one of your best units.
*'''Dragon Keep''': The Dragons are nice, but you really want this for the +1 Lord Recruit rank. Being able to get lv20 lords from the start instead of leveling them up there is so nice.
*'''Elven Court''': More Nobles, which means more Influence. What more do you want.

'''Units''': Basic Archers and Spearmen are ridiculously effective, and wil be able to handle most of what the game throws at you until pretty far in the game. If you don't know what to put in your armies, four Spearmen, five-six Archers and two Bolt Throwers are a pretty good base that you never can go wrong with.
*Silverin Guard cost more gold and upkeep, but will hold the line for much, much longer. If you can afford them, take them, but they're useless unsupported and won't kill anything much faster than regular Spearmen.
*Great eagles are also some very good early-tier units that are helpful in emergency stacks. Just a couple can tear up artillery or interrupt cavalry charges, while still being disposable.

===Campaign Specific===

====Tyrion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''J-just play the damn thing''': Look, Tyrion's campaign is designed to be the "baby's first Total Warhammer campaign." You start with one of the best cities on the map, are surrounded by friends, have fairly weak enemies and are on an isolated continent. Now this isn't a bad thing, but it results in the campaign having very little challenge for experienced players. As such, don't worry too much about it. You'll probably unite Ulthuan and attack the Dark Elves in Naggaroth to complete your campaign objectives and after that you can do pretty much whatever you want.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Morathi is eventually going to attack Ulthuan and since Auto Resolve freaking loves her she's going to take quite a few provinces. Since you are going to be trading with most High Elf neighbors, use this to your advantage to expand. Take any territory that Morathi takes yourself and confederate the factions that she weakens during her expansion. Once you control the majority of Ulthuan you can sail over to finish her off and confed Alith Anar if he is still alive.

*'''Don't do Blood of Anerion at higher difficulties''': Look, I know it's fun to give Tyrion the Sword of Khaine, max out the Blood of Anerion tree and watch him slap his dick across the face of everyone he fights but trust me at higher difficulties it isn't worth it. The public order penalties will stack with what you get with difficulty level anyway and you will start having rebel problems early on. The other tree will improve your economy, public order and relations, which are much more useful than making Tyrion more of a beatstick than he already is.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Noctilus and N'Kari''': Remember the point above with Morathi? Yeah this is the same thing only with Noctilus and N'Kari. Chrace, Cothique, Caledor and Tiranoc will eventually fall to these factions and you will need to deal with them to get them back. Alarielle and Eltharion will deal with them eventually, but you would rather have that territory yourself.

====Teclis====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Invest in Anti Corruption''': You will be dealing with Skaven and Vampires in your campaign, so something to deal with all of that corruption will be nice. This is especially true in Mortal Empire where you start right next to Skrolk and Luthor Harkon. The Lustriabowl is stupid enough as it is, and getting rid of all that corruption will help you get through it.
*'''Don't bother too much with the Lustria Bowl.''' The more you expand into Lustria the more bullshit you will have to deal with. The Lizards are generally friendly with you and make good trade partners, so once you secure the Eastern Coast from Skrolk, Luthor and Lokhir, see if you can try to confed with Ulthuan. Yes, it's the more boring way to play but unless you want to reenact the Vietnam War but with Lizards it is the more practical way to do things. Of course if you're playing the Vortex campaign..... yeah you're kind of stuck. Good luck.

=====Immortal Empires=====
*'''Immortal Empires''': You now start in the Southlands, starting in the Fortress of Dawn where you are surrounded by Skaven, Lizardmen, and the Daemons of the Southern Chaos Wastes who will eventually sail up to attack you. Kroq-gar can makes a good ally, and you can even turn Khalida around using the Intrigue At Court feature.
**Teclis' stated aim was to "support the beleaguered elves of the south," But the islands of Tor Elasor are so fucking far away from anyone else that in most games, they wont need the help unless someone accidentally stumbles upon them. (sea lanes seem to only be for going from one extreme end of the map to another, there isnt even a sea lane to enter the grand canal between the two blank spaces that is Ind and Khuresh)
*'''Roast the Turkey''': You're gonna want Kairos dead ASAP for two reasons. 1. Killing him is one of your victory conditions for a short campaign and 2. He will troll the shit out of you with the Changing of the Ways. Once you deal with your starting enemy get a decent army together, sail down south, pop the Rite of Isha and take him out as fast as you can. Trust me you don't want to deal with him when he pretty much controls all of the Southern Chaos Wastes.

*'''TikTaq'to Hates You''': I don't know what Teclis did to make the flying lizard so mad but he is going to declare war on you the second he sees you. You'll be dealing with his army of fliers for a large chunk of your time in the Southlands since he expands quickly and Autoresolve loves him because he spams skirmisher flyers and dinos; you'll do fine with Eagle Claws and archers. I would also recommend taking out the Zlatlan Lizards as your neighbors so you don't have any awkward tresspassing as you go up to fight him. If you want a Lizard as your friend go for Kroq-Gar, even after you take both of them out he stays pretty friendly with you.

*'''Colonize Lustria''': The north of the Southlands is mostly Desert and Mountains, neither of which are very good for you. Once you reach the border of the desert you're going to have to look for more lands to take over. Confederating the Tor Elasor Elves is not only good for getting you close to a sea lane to Cathay, it also gives you 3 of the 6 cities you need for winning the long victory. After that, your next obvious target is Lustria since not only does it have another 3 cities you need it is mostly jungle which is perfect for you to settle in.

====Alarielle====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Sword of Khaine''': The Sword of Khaine is held just north of your start, so of all the High Elves, you have the easiest access to it. You might even have to fight it if you don't defeat the Scourge of Khaine fast enough. It depends on you if you want to take it, because Alarielle isn't remotely any good in melee, so while her attacks will do tons of AP damage, you're still worrying about getting DPS'd in a duel, and anyone who kills Alarielle will be really, really difficult to beat if they manage to take the Sword from you.
**The diplomatic penalties and the public order debuffs also make controlling Ulthuan a chore, and that ''stacks'' with the penalties for losing Ulthuan provinces, so if you lose provinces due to a blood fleet attack or to an end game crisis, you're looking at the very real possibility of rebellions all over the donut.
**You can always confederate with her simpboi Tyrion and have him take the sword and go off to war while Alarielle sits in Ulthuan and [[/d/|"increases growth"]], but that's no fun, is it?
*'''Get Ulthuan under Asur control ASAP''': You get penalties to public order and money when there are something other than preppy pointy ears on the donut. As such, you got to make sure to go out of your way to kill anything non High Elf on Ulthuan. Once you do that, you're in the clear to steam roll the campaign, as you get massive bonuses once Ulthuan is united.

*'''Use Morathi to your advantage''': Same as Tyrion really, only it's easier for you to take advantage of it. Once Morathi takes some provinces on Ulthuan make sure you're there to sweep them up.

*'''Fortify against Blood Fleets''': Hellebron is going to send blood fleets to Ulthuan and you are probably going to have to deal with them. They will aim for the Salvation Isles in Vortex and at the Shrine of Khaine in Im/Mortal Empires. Keep these locations fortified and smash the armies they send at you before they can do any extreme damage to Ulthuan.
**It will be a bitch and a half dealing with the Blood Fleets in the early game, as their stacks are teeming with tier 2 and tier 3 units. They aren't impossible to beat with a garrisoned or ambushing stack, but if you get caught unprepared, you will take heavy losses. And '''no one''' will help you against them unless they're already at war with Har Ganeth themselves. Alith Anar now starts in Karond Kar just south of Har Ganeth, but because his AI already has its hands full with Malekith, they won't easily join the fight against her unless she makes the first move.
=====Immortal Empires=====

====Alith Anar====

=====General Tips=====
*'''Do Assassination Missions when you can''': They're a very good source of money and influence that can really help you out, though the big problem tends to be getting to your target. Obviously, you shouldn't bother doing them if they're asking you to kill an ally or someone on the other side of the map, but if it's someone close and in a faction you have no interest in being friends with by all means go at them. Especially if you have your special hero that never fails assassination attempts.

*'''Fight dirty''': with your ambush stance, heavy focus on skirmishing and guerilla fighting and underworld stance, you're essentially a Skaven faction in an elf suit. Use this to your advantage and always try to go for ambushes and drowning the enemy in arrows.

*'''You can play tall''': your faction is tailor made to play with a tall economy, between reduced global recruitment times and Alith bonuses. Fortify 1 or 2 province's and expand only when is really worth. Send Alith Anar deep into the enemy territory and you'll make tons of money by just fighting and looting/razing. Sell extra territory to your allies and have only a few provinces uber developed, then go around the world helping allies or fighting the end game scenarios. It can give a very different (and fun) approach to the usual boring middle and late game High Elves campaigns.

=====Mortal Empires=====

*'''Kill Morathi ASAP''': You want to do this for three reasons. One, she spreads Chaos Corruption which will eventually come to bite you in the ass, so you may as well get rid of her before it spreads too much. Two, it's inevitable that she will invade Ulthuan and disrupt your main trade partners and confederation targets. Three, her main settlement is one of the richest in the game, which will heavily improve your economy.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*'''Beware of Be'lakor''': As soon you'll take some cities in the east province, Be'lakor will usually declare war and start send stacks of daemons and Norscan. Abuse your OP ambush chance to deal with them, and try to send a stack to claim or raze Albion as soon you can to end the constant headache.

*'''Unusual Allies''': You're deep into enemy territory, surrounded by Dark Elves, Be'lakor annoyance and fucking Taurox will soon start his rapetrain your way. Ally the wood hippies is a gamble: in some campaign is beneficial as they expand like cancer, while in others they don't ever leave their fucking tree. One way to secure a flank is to ally with Cylostra - pretty doable if you take and gift some cities on the west and grease the fat cunt with money. Khatep is another willing, if weird, ally you can grab early.
**This way you can secure the west front and focus on clearing the Linkin Park fanbase. As a fluffy bonus you can make a Death Archmage spooky stack with Cylostra ghosts and Khatep skeletons.

====Eltharion====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''Get ready to fight a lot''': Part of this is because of the prison mechanic, which incentivizes you to fight a lot of otherwise very one sided battles. This is because while it is possible to get a prisoner in Auto Resolve, it's low so you're better off just fighting it out and capturing them manually even if it is a two stack army vs your griffon knight stack. The other part is because eventually every green bastard in the Badlands is going to want to mount your buttcheeks over his fireplace, so expect a ton of stacks coming at you.

*'''Mistwalkers stacks are Eltharion only''': There is one big reason for this, he's the only one who can buff them. The Mistwalker units don't get buffs from the Red tree, so generic and other Legendary High Elf lords can't buff them. Eltharion does have a skill that buffs them, so while they're useful in all your armies, Eltharion is the only one who can effectively doomstack them.

*'''Consolodate Forces''': In Mortal Empires you have a dual start, one on Ulthuan and one in the Badlands. With your split forces, it can be a bit hard in the early game to get started. Your main focus should be to get all of Yvresse under control so you can trade with your fellow High Elves and get an economy going. Once that is done, use your money to focus on either taking all of Ulthuan or expanding in the Bad Lands. You can do both, and to win you need provinces in both, but you'll be splitting up your forces doing so.

=====Immortal Empires=====

====Imrik====

=====Mortal Empires=====
*'''MURDER SNIKCH!!!!!''': More of a Mortal Empires problem, but one that is REALLY important. Unless you want never ending rat stacks against you, you need to kill the Rat weeb as soon as possible. Once you take the first dwarf settlement, take your army and kill Clan Eshin immediately. trust me, you will be saving yourself a lot of head ache in the future.

*'''Prepare to have no money''': Your are going to have a grand total of 0 trade in the early game because of how trade works. You can only trade with a faction if they can directly get to your capital by sea or land, meaning having a port or a settlement with a road to your main city. Since the ocean you start by is blocked to the rest of the world, and you are surronded by people who hate you, trade is not happening early one. Even when you do confed your way back to Ulthuan, your capitol doesn't change to Caledor so you can't trade with the other elves. Yes, you can cut back on Dragon money, but only cowards do that.

*'''Find those Dragons''': Once you start collecting the Dragons, you start to become stupid strong. Early on it's ok to just use their events to collect money and favor (especially if you want to confed Caledor the best way possible) but once you have a strong army there is no reason to not go after them. Once you collect one, all the others come in much easier.

=====Immortal Empires=====

*Imrick gets a bit of a vacation in IM with Sniktch, Grimgor, and Malus all moving far far away and trade no longer being restricted by geographical boundaries. You also get a decent amount of elbow room to stomp minor AI factions until your borders brush up against Ghorst, Kugath, Queek, Tretch, and/or Greasus. The real test will be when CA introduces Chaos Dwarfs to the Southern Darklands since high elves don't relish fighting enemies with lots of guns and armor.

==DLCs==

In this section we'll go over the DLCs for the High Elves and determine whether or not they're worth buying.

*'''The Queen and the Crone''': Because of course you're going to have a Lord Pack against your main rivals. Alarielle and the Sisters of Avelorn are the highlights of the DLC, both being core units in campaign and multiplayer. It also comes with the Handmaiden, a decent hero in campaign with nice buffs and Shadow Warriors, your mobile kiting archer unit. The biggest problem with this DLC is the lack of content compared to Lord Packs that show up later, as you only get two units and a hero option. Compare that to what other factions get later on and it does feel bare bones. Alarielle's campaign itself isn't bad but the mechanics are a little bland compared to other DLC factions and it does lean on the easy side once you kick the non Asur off Ulthuan. All in all a decent pick if you love the High Elves and are only interested in campaign but if you're tight on money you can hold off on it. If you play multiplayer though it's a must buy as Alarielle is arguably your best lord and it gives you a ton of good options.

*'''The Warden and The Paunch''': In many ways the opposite to the above in which it adds a ton of content and gives you great campaign options. The big Lord here is Eltharion, who has a fun campaign where you get to roleplay Batman and throw thousands of Greenskins into your own Arkham Asylum for cool buffs and bonuses. Other units include the Archmage, giving you a lord level mage and a collection of units to fill the holes in your army. Rangers offer good early game offense and Silverin Guard finally give you a mid tier defensive infantry option. War Lions and Lion Chariots offer good mobile AP and Arcane Phoenixes are great lord/hero duelists and blob killers. Honestly this is one of the better Lord Packs in game 2, giving you a ton of good content (especially if you also like Greenskins) and a pretty good campaign. Easy recommend.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca

2023-05-19T16:47:08Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{Topquote|[[Tzeentch|Change!]] [[Nurgle|Rot!]] [[Khorne|Blood!]] [[Slaanesh|Defile!]]|Game battle chant for Norsca, shared with Warriors of Chaos}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of [[Norsca]].

==Why Play Norsca?==
*Because you don't need no sissy armor to serve the dark gods!
*You favor an aggressive play style with a lot of good large units and ways to fight large units.
*You just love viking bad guys.
*FUCKING MAMMOTHS!!!!!

===Pros===
*'''Monsters''': You have a wide variety of beasties that can fulfill a variety of roles. From monstrous infantry, cavalry, fliers and Mammoths, you have one of the widest variety of monsters in the game.
*'''Anti Large''': Not only do you have a ton of monsters, but you also have a lot of ways to kill them. A good chunk of your units have the Anti Large bonus, meaning you shouldn't have much in the way of issue with dealing with monsters or cavalry.
*'''Hard-Hitting Infantry''': Your infantry tend to hit pretty hard for their price point, so you can get in a ton of damage on the front line very fast. If they get in on the right target you will be able to cause quite a bit of damage.
*'''Mobility''': You have a ton of fast movers and speedy characters, meaning you can get around the battlefield pretty quick and wrap around flanks.

===Cons===
*'''DLC Faction''': The pre-order bonus faction for the second Total War: Warhammer game, or a $10 tax to any/everyone who didn't pre-order it. Potentially a petty mark against it, considering that even the base game factions have DLC packs, but at least the base game factions are freely playable even aside that.
*'''Limited Range''': Your missile doesn't go very far and you can only get a single unit of artillery, the melee is where you belong.
*'''Lack of Armor''': These boys believe that nice pectorals and flowing hair make a perfect substitute for armor. They are wrong. You can get shredded by missiles and artillery, so watch out.
*'''No Heavy Cav''': You have marauder horsemen and some monsters that can fill the role, but it doesn't quite replace the impact heavy cavalry can have on the field. This means you are missing out on some mobile hard-hitting power.
*'''Campaign is shit in WH2''': You will get swarmed by every other faction on the map and you have a hard time holding any territory, not to mention trying to expand into the Old World or Naggarond. The Norscan campaign was designed around the climate mechanics in Warhammer 1, which 2 completely abandoned. Thankfully in Warhammer 3, Norsca is no longer bound to the coastline, and they got some touch ups to make them less painful to play.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Rage:''' The signature ability on most of your humans, which lets them step up from their Warriors of Chaos brethren. Overtime while in combat, the unit gains buffs to melee power and weapon strength help it in sustained fights. but when it goes through all of the 4 tiers, they lose it all, so they have to disengage and start again.
*'''Berserk:''' An ability like Rage but with additional melee defense to help them stay in the fight.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
It's worth mentioning here that the Norscans have the ability to force any other Norscan faction leader into a confederation, provided you beat them in a battle. Considering how everyone starts clumped together in the northern edge of the map, You'll usually end up with both legendary lords under your control very early in the campaign.
*'''[[Wulfrik the Wanderer]]:''' The face of the race and a dedicated character duelist. He comes with three things that makes him incredible. First of all, the dude gets to ride a friggin war mammoth, which allows him to rampage across the lines of infantry and flatten all in front of him. Next is his ability Hunter of Champions, which allows him to severely debuff the speed and stats of enemy characters which makes it easier for him to beat the shit out of them. Finally is Seafang, or as it's known, "The Lore of Boats". This summons his ship which acts as a line spell and flattens anything it hits. This not only makes him great at character killing but also a great infantry blob killer.
:: In the campaign he is focused on enhancing Marauder and Mammoths units. Almost universally regarded as the better choice for starting a campaign because his focus is on your most basic units and your most powerful ones. Even if you prefer Throgg in combat, you can quickly force him into a confederation and reap the benefits of the World Walker tribe.
*'''[[Throgg]]:''' The Troll King and a dedicated battering ram. He does a lot of damage up and has regeneration, allowing him to brawl with most other lords without fear. However, he is a large target and as such is vulnerable to ranged attacks and all manner of anti-large weaponry. He also has 3 uses of a fairly accurate and long ranged Copious Vomit attack for some minor sniping ability. In the campaign any army he leads is completely immune to attrition, making him a good leader for a spearhead force to plunge into dangerous terrain.
:: His campaign gives bonuses to trolls, wolves, and non-mammoth monsters. Sounds good, but those are all specialized units meant to supplement a larger army of marauders. His greatest strengths are his physical combat prowess and his attrition immunity, neither of which has anything to do with his subfaction. Generally it's better to start with Wulfrik and confederate into Throgg to get the best of both worlds.
*'''Azrik the Maze Keeper:''' A Lord of Change only available in the campaign by devoting yourself to [[tzeentch|the Eagle]]. Azrik is immediately recruited at maximum level and draws from the lores of death and metal. He's a beast in melee and spell-casting, but his size makes his an obvious target for enemy ranged units.
**In IE, Azrik is now a pure Lore of Tzeentch caster and functions like a normal Exalted Lord of Change with a couple oddities. His stats are actually okay for an Exalted Lord of Change in melee (maybe being Norscan just makes him fightier), he lacks barrier, but he has retained Unbreakable, meaning he won't de-materialise like other demon units.
*'''Burplesmirk Spewpit:''' An Exalted Great Unclean One that you get for devoting yourself to the [[nurgle|the Crow]]. Functionally identical to a regular Nurgle Exalted Great Unclean One only leading Norsca this time. Comes with the Lore of Nurgle, and the passive healing plus Fleshy Abundance is a huge boon to the otherwise healing-less Norsca.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Marauder Chieftan:''' Your only generic option, and he's essentially Wulfrik only without Seafang or Hunter of Champions. You know, the things that make him really good? On his own, he's a generic combat character for the majority of the campaign. What saves him from overall mediocrity is the fact that you can put him on a Mammoth and have him run rampage all across the battlefield. He's one of those lords who can be great but needs investment in campaign and additional funds in multiplayer in order to really make him worth it.

==Heroes==
*'''Shaman-Sorcerer:''' Your Human wizard with the lore of Metal, Fire, or Death. A cheap and generic wizard hero, for when you want magic on a budget. You can also mount him on a Chariot if you want some more speed and a bit of melee damage.
*'''Skin Wolf Werekin:''' Your anti-large melee hero. A fast-moving monster with high damage and regeneration allow him to function as a mainline brawler or a high speed assassin. In the campaign each werekin can enhance his armies stats, either increasing their melee attack or defense. Each Werekin can only get one of the bonuses, but multiple Werekin can stack the same effect for a powerful doomstack.
*'''[[Fimir]] Balefiend:''' Came back from being [[Squat|Squated]], a foreshadowing of the fate of the [[Zoats]]. Has access to the lore of Fire and Shadow. Different from the Shaman due to innate tankiness, better melee attack and AP damage. On the other hand, the shaman can get a mount whilst the balefiend cannot.
*'''Kihar the Tormentor:''' A legendary hero you can unlock by devoting yourself to [[Slaanesh|the serpent]]. On the battlefield he's a max-level Chaos Sorcerer (a chaos warriors variety with plate armour, not your normal norscan) on a [[awesome|two-headed mutant dragon]] who can wreck the enemy in melee or at a range with spells from the lores of fire and metal. On the campaign map his hero actions usually succeed 100% of the time barring enemy modifiers, letting him wreck garrisons and assassinate enemy heroes with impunity.
**In IE, Kihar is a Sorcerer of Slaanesh with the Lore of Slaanesh, but he got to keep his goddamn chaos dragon, something no other god-aligned Chaos Sorcerer or Sorcerer Lord can currently use. Doesn't have a Mark of Slaanesh, weirdly, but he has goddamn regeneration, something no other chaos-dragon rider has. He's just that special.
*'''Killgore Slaymaim:''' An Exalted Hero of Khorne riding a Juggernaut that you get for devoting yourself to [[khorne|the Hound|]]. Point him at things and watch him kill them. He has Frenzy, Rage, Icon of Endless War that buffs leadership and replenishes vigour around him when he's in melee, Paragon of Carnage buffs his melee attack with the more things he kills, and Axe of Khorne buffs his damage with the more things he kill-gores slay-maims. He also deals massively increased damage against targets with less than 33% health, so it's pretty much game over for anything that Killgore gets his bloody hands on.

==Units==

===Melee Units===
*'''Marauders''' (Shields/Spears/Great Weapons): Your basic bread-and-butter infantry. Identical to their chaos counterparts, and rather squishy. Rage gives them an edge but not too much. They are useful in filling out a list with more expendable bodies. The shield variety are the cheapest and toughest, while the spear type get bonus damage against large targets. The Great Weapon marauders are a cheap if squishy source of anti-armour damage, but not much else. Overall they aren't terrible, but not particularly great either.
**'''Icehorn Marauders (ROR):''' Better than their Marauder brothers with perfect vigor and immune to psychology. Like the normal variety, they can't win a battle on their own, but not useless by any means.
*'''Marauder Berserkers:''' Marauders with two melee weapons for double the fun. They deal high damage and are deceptively tough once they get into melee thanks to the Berserker ability, which makes them tougher as they build up rage.
**'''Brutes of the Hound(ROR):''' Berserkers that are Unbreakable. better at finishing the job of breaking or destroying a unit before they are killed to the man. these can really tear apart almost all early game units.
*'''Marauder Champions:''' Your Elite infantry, meant to sprinkle them into a line to give your army some hardpoints so the monster has the time to flank. Also, a better line if the enemy shoots a lot of arrows compared to normal Marauders.
*'''Marauder Champions (Great Weapons):''' Elite AP infantry, better at their can opening jobs then Marauders. Expensive so only mix in a few into a line. get ap somewhere else, they aren't efficient at it. or cost effective.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Marauder Hunters:''' Short-range axe-throwing units that deal high AP damage and cause the shieldbreak effect, lowering the enemies missile block chance. You don't have much of a ranged army to capitalize on the effect, but it helps the ranged units you do have do more damage. They're also just about as good as normal marauders in melee, which is good because they don't have the range nor the ammunition to stay out of combat.
*'''Marauder Hunters (Javelins):''' Higher range than the standard hunters, but with better damage against large targets. The increased range makes them a more well-rounded choice than the axe-throwing variety.

===Cavalry and Chariots===
*'''Marauder Horsemen:''' This may come as a shock to you, but marauder horsemen are marauders... on horses. They have throwing spears for some ranged combat and regular spears for flanking charges. They serve as a cheap distraction and skirmish chaser but lack the bodies for serious combat.
*'''Marauder Horsemen (Throwing Axes):''' Trading their spears for axes and shields, the throwing axe variety is tougher and more specialized than the standard horsemen.
*'''Marauder Horsemasters:''' All around better Horsemen, with the stats to actually do some decent work in melee. They aren't anywhere close to knights, but they can cause a lot of pain with a few cycle charges.
*'''Marauder Chariot:''' Your cheaper harassment chariot. Faster than the wolf variety, but with less damage and utility. Phase them out as soon as you can in the campaign, and seriously consider taking the wolf ones in multi-player.
*'''Marauder Ice Wolves Chariot:''' Your big chariot pulled by a couple of giant wolves. Higher damage than the horse kind, and the wolves slow down any enemy they hit in melee. These ones can also bring throwing axes for a bit of ranged bite while their gearing up for the next charge.

===Monstrous Infantry===
*'''Norscan Trolls:''' Low leadership and weak to missiles and fire, They bring the DPS while the marauders hold the enemies in place. need micro, but cost-effective in skillful hands.
*'''Norscan Ice Trolls:''' Slightly better than the above. Frostbite will allow you to slow enemies down and make them easier targets.
*'''[[Skin Wolve]]s:''' Anti-Large, Regeneration, Frenzy...on top of that move pretty fast and absolutely demolish infantry as long as its not infantry that can in a reliant way fight monstrous infantry or has flaming attacks (or units that are both like the High Elf Dragonborn RoR).
*'''Skin Wolves (Armoured):''' Same as above, but with extra armor at the cost of being a tad slower. If micro'ed well and kept from getting pinned down are one of your best units by far. versatile and deadly. vulnerable to getting swarmed and anti-large.
**'''Maws of Savagery (ROR):''' Same as the above Armoured Skin Wolves, but with better leadership, melee defense and attack, as well as having Vanguard.
*'''Fimir Warriors:''' Your tanky anti-armor unit with additional magical attacks. On top of that has Armour-Sundering attacks that give enemies -30 to their armor. Also are Siege Attackers, so you won't need towers and rams if you have them.
**'''Mist Stalkers (ROR):''' Like the above, but on top of fear, they also cause Terror and have Vanguard.
*'''Fimir Warriors (Great Weapons):''' Same as your vanilla Warriors, but with Great Weapons and with Anti-Large. fine but consider skin wolves armored instead.

===Warbeasts===
*'''Norscan Warhounds:''' Standard hound-type units. Fast and disposable, throw them at enemy artillery and wizards to keep the enemy occupied while you move into position. Scaly skin helps protect them from missiles, but they won't survive against anything stronger than an artillery crew.
**'''Beasts of Tashnar (ROR):''' Warhounds with frenzy, anti-large, and a crazy 50% missile resistance. Better than normal hounds, but not as good as ice wolves against most foes.
*'''Norscan Ice Wolves:''' Bigger badder ice wolves with Frostbite to slow down running targets and let your slower monsters smash them. Their reduced unit size also, ironically enough, massively improves their survivablility because individual models will soak up more damage per head (or paw) and increase the damage one model can put out before it goes down. Granted, they still will go down in prolonged fights, but it's still something to keep in mind. surprising good light cav equivalent. good vs anything without armor due to high weapon strength.

===Monsters===
*'''Feral Manticore:''' Exactly like the summoned kind from the lore of beasts, the manticore is a powerful aerial force that can smash enemy backlines to keep the rest of the army safe.
*'''Norscan Giant:''' Nope. Not worth it. There is basically no redeeming feature to giants, and the Norscan kind is no exception. Grab a mammoth if you want something big.
*'''Frost-Wyrm:''' A massive chaos dragon that can freeze enemies in place with melee attacks and a frost-breath weapon. Like all dragons it hits hard in combat but fall apart faster than you want if it gets caught out of position.
*'''Feral Mammoth:''' Let's talk about mammoths. Mammoths are amazing. Mammoths are the single best thing the Norscan army has, and one of the best monsters in the game. As if the huge health bar and great stats aren't enough, the mammoths unique attack animations allow it to sweep through huge swaths of infantry at once; combined with its terror and can route most infantry units in just a few hits. The feral variety is the cheapest but runs the risk of rampaging, which can be a nightmare for such a slow and valuable unit. high doomstack potential also.
*'''War Mammoth:''' Take everything great about the Mammoth, give it more armor, immunity to rampaging, and a howdah with guys throwing spears from it's back. If you can afford it, get one. If you can't afford it, save up and get one later. makes one of the best single entity doomstacks in the game.
**'''Soulcrusher (ROR):''' A mammoth with the ability to temporarily gain 44% physical resistance, in case you need it to hold the line against the entire godsdamned Empire all at once. It also has strider, which is weird for such a massive unit, but useful.
*'''War Mammoth (Warshrine):''' A mammoth that provides leadership buffs to allies around it, at the cost of shooting ability and speed. Not bad in multiplayer, but in the campaign you should try to phase out your infantry once you get mammoths in favor of even more mammoths. A bit of a niche pick, but at the end of the day it's still a mammoth; never the worst choice.

===Campaign Only===
*'''The Ice-Forged Legion:''' A unique artillery unit you get from devoting yourself to [[Khorne|the Hound]]. It's 4 Hellcannons into one unit (normally there's only one per unit). As with regular Hellcannons, you can manually guide the projectile if you have the time.
*'''The Great Mawherd of Bloodfjord:''' It's not just one feral mammoth, it's a whole family of them. The Mawherd is weird. They're not full-grown mammoths, so they function more like monstrous infantry than a regular monster. They have far less weapon strength than a regular mammoth, but the damage is spread out as there's up to five mammoths stomping about. They have a bound skill that gives them a flat +40% damage resistance for a time.

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
In terms of the Non Daemon Chaos factions, you are pretty much the inbetween from Warriors of Chaos and Beastmen. For the most part, you're a squishy rush faction but you do have some holding power. The big strength of your race, however, is the fact that not only do you have a ton of monsters at your command, you are also good at killing them. You have a ton of anti large and good mobile damage monsters to quickly overwhelm your enemy. You still got to be careful though, as while you aren't Beastmen squishy, armor values and defensive stats are still pretty low and while you have some range, it won't be enough to out shoot dedicated ranged factions. Here's how you can win glory from the weak southeners:

*'''Beastmen''': This used to be a matchup heavily in your favour due to the Beastmen's atrociously poor anti-large capabilities. But they've been given more than enough tools in their kit to remove that weakness. Ghorgons will quite literally eat your mammoths alive if you don't eliminate them in short order and minotaurs are very capable of throwing hands with Skinwolves and Trolls. Tuskgor chariots are a nasty pain in your ass though since while the Norscans are good at killing large units they struggle with actually stopping a charge they can't outright prevent with Skinwolves.

*'''Bretonnia''': You are basically built to kill Bretonnia. Melee infantry with a strong offensive focus, big monsters, plenty of anti-large, and lots of fast movers who can harass the back lines. All of it adds up to stuff Bretonnia struggles with. Pull down their knights with Skinwolves, Fimir, and Marauder Hunters. Send hounds and horsemen after their archers. Berserkers can probably handle their peasants so long as they don't take too much fire.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''Chaos Warriors''': You're almost certainly not going to win the front line engagement unless they also bring Marauders, so this tends to devolve into a monster mash of Shaggoths fighting Fimir.

*'''Dark Elves''': A match-up with quite simple rules. If you can break into their main crossbow line you can win. If you can't you will lose. The Dark Elves can match you blow for blow at the Monster Game and Kharybdi see your mammoths and fimir as lunch while the Dark Elves have enough flaming damage to make trolls a risky play at best. Skinwolves are exceedingly vulnerable to massed missile fire and the Dark Elves' ability to take away control over your units with Witch Elves will frustrate any effort to pull out of bad match-ups. The front line match up is weird as the Dark Elves swing between fairly meh basic infantry to hyper-elite killing machines with very little in between. That being said, murderous prowess means that your infantry's preferred playstyle can backfire hard if you don't plan ahead. Your own ranged infantry will almost certainly be annihilated in short order, so you have to make them count before they're all dead.

*'''Dwarfs''': Mammoths, chariots, and hounds are the name of the game. Bring a character on a mammoth and one other and they will tear the dwarf infantry a new asshole. Tie up their guns with hounds and run everything else over with chariots. Consider a Lore of Metal caster to help negate their armor.

*'''Empire''': You're actually very well positioned to fight The Empire. Fimir and Skinwolves can put the hurt on their knights, Marauders with even a little support can crush their infantry, and your plentiful wolves and hounds can swarm their gun line.

*'''Grand Cathay''': Oof. Cathay has great anti-large position holding infantry to stop you monsters cold and enough ranged firepower to reduce your poorly armoured units to paste. Cathay even has spells to drastically increase the mass of their infantry to stop chariots and mammoths from going their thing and you have essentially no worthwhile counters to Sky Junks unless you were winning the fight anyway. You can more or less forget about your infantry as they are going to be shredded to pieces long before they ever reach the Cathayans and with the exception of Peasants Cathayan infantry are nearly dwarf tier tough, and your mammoths are juicy targets for crossbowmen and grand cannons. Chariots and monstrous infantry will be your main tool though keep in mind that Celestial Guard and Jade Warrior Halberdiers will dumpster any such large units in short order.

*'''Greenskins''': A rather interesting match up as the way you like to play is something that the Orcs can out-do you at. If you try to take advantage of rage you are going to get krumped in short order by the Waaagh once your units' rage boils over and forces you to start from scratch while the Orcs just keep hitting harder and harder. Your primary saving grace is that the Greenskins struggle at dealing with monsters for all their monster mash shenanigans and your frostbite can shut down their Goblin skirmishers. However if you let the Greenskins decide the terms or tempo of the engagement you will lose and lose hard.

*'''High Elves''': Go cheap on the front line, it's not what's going to win you this battle. High Elves are good on defense and will outlast you before you get the most out of your Rage effect. A mammoth or two will tear through all Asur infantry except maybe Phoenix Guard, but the real threat to you is their archers. Bring warhounds, manticores, Marauder Horsemen, anything that can harass their back line. Probably leave Ice Wolves at home though, as they count as large units so Lothern Sea Guard will get a melee bonus against them.

*'''Kislev''': Kislev exists to drink your tears. War Bear Riders shit on basically your entire roster of monsters that don't get focus-fired into oblivion, your infantry will be torn to bloody pieces before ever reaching the Kislevites who will then bonk the tattered remnants into submission assuming they even get that close with all the means of slowing you down, their Lores are staggeringly painful for a poorly armoured army like yours, and their horse cavalry is more than fast enough to make your skirmishers cav eat shit. Kislev also basically has no backline at all as anything that shoots can also smash. Frost Wyrms might be of use here as Kislev has no air game at all, but given that nearly every infantry man in Kislev's roster can shoot them that's small comfort. By Our Blood also means that Kislevites just don't run away.

*'''Khorne''': Do not even think about trying to contest Khorne in the infantry fight. Your very best infantry struggle against the cheapest they can bring to the field and your rage mechanic encourages a playstyle that directly feeds into Khorne's ramp-up effects from killing loads of dudes. What Khorne hates a bit more than everything else though are enemies who refuse to get into melee with him and large numbers of monsters or low model count units that don't let him collect skulls. Make sure to focus fire Bloodthirsters or Khornate Minotaurs though as they can tear your monsters to pieces. Leave the Frost Wyrms at home too, Bloodthirsters will absolutely shit on them. Also keep in mind that Skarbrand is one of the few Legendary Lords that neither Wulfrik nor Throgg stands any real chance against. Do not, under any circumstances, try to duel Skarbrand in anything resembling a fair fight. If you make this mistake, his ability to force everything around him to rampage will prevent you from correcting your error before he's killed Wulfrik stone dead. Avoid Skarbrand and shoot him to pieces as best you can and for the love of the Dark Gods do not let him ramp up kills.

*'''Lizardmen''': You are both melee oriented armies that love prehistoric monsters but are surprisingly capable at range. The primary difference though is that the Lizardmen are generally better at it than you. Basic Saurus warriors will see wave upon wave of marauders bounce off them and the Lizardmen are not lacking for ways to simply shoot your mammoths to death if they don't feel like fighting you monster to monster. Lizardman magic also blows anything you can field off the table and they have access to plenty of healing to just plain outlast you. There is no clean and easy way to win this match-up; only differing forms of slogs.

*'''Norsca''':

*'''Nurgle''': Your monsters and cavalry dream of match-ups like this while your infantry will probably fall to their knees weeping in sorrow. Nurgle has no anti-large whatsoever and has very limited ranged attack options as well as being by far the slowest army in the entire game. Nurgle also relies quite a lot on large models that are poorly armoured that you'll be able to chunk through in short order. However, your infantry want to be in prolonged fights and then pull away once their rage caps out and getting into prolonged fights with Grandpa Nurgle is the worst thing you can do as your infantry will eat increasingly heavy debuffs. Fire damage is an absolute must against Nurgle due to the abundance of regeneration and healing that the Sevenfold Lord brings to the table. Overall an easy matchup due to how one-trick Nurgle is, but can be frustrating.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': You can bring down all of their roster with your anti-large except gnoblars. All there is to watch for are their ranged units. They're powerful, and are either an ogre or a big monster that makes shutting them down a pain.

*'''Skaven''': You are very good at dealing with Skaven. They are so reliant on their ranged units that your numerous flanking options can give them an enormous headache, and their low leadership means that once those ranged units start to run they are probably not coming back. Your plentiful anti-large options will mince Moulder monsters, but watch out for Eshin kite builds.

*'''Slaanesh''': The good news is that Slaanesh melts in the face of any raged fire whatsoever and their armour-piercing is wasted on your hordes of half-naked Swedes and outside of Soul Grinders and Magic; has no way to attack you from a distance. The bad news is that you don't have enough long-ranged firepower to stop them from closing with you and you will disintegrate in the face of a Slaaneshi charge. Slaanesh however, hates prolonged battles of attrition and frostbite is there to help you stop them from flouncing out of battles they've gotten themselves into. Like most of the mono-god chaos armies they also struggle with holding against being charged themselves due to a lack of charge-defence having infantry.

*'''Tomb Kings''': You like mammoths right? Too bad because Necrosphinxes and Bone Giants love nothing more than Mammoth heavy Norsca lists. The Tomb Kings are an extremely versatile enemy that has plenty of ways to force you to come over to them and enough cheap line holders to keep you away from their backline while having plenty of hard-hitting finishing move units. They will also outright outlast you and have the magic to ruin your day. Frost-Wyrms though; can fly largely uncontested as the Tomb kings barely have any noteworthy aerial presence and tend to focus their ranged fire on the main body of your units. Of course if the Skeletons really want to get rid of the dragon they will; but it's more than able to find a use distracting them so that your army isn't reduced to paste by Ushabt, Necroliths, and Caskets. Overall a very tricky match up that is more the Tomb Kings' game to lose than it is yours to win.

*'''Tzeentch''': If you can catch Tzeentch's core of ranged infantry and flamers, you'll rip them apart. The problem is getting that close in the first place because Tzeentch's mid-range firepower is utterly unrivalled. Frostbite is an absolute necessity to stop cycling shenanigans unless you like watching the damage you deal be undone by a few seconds of recovery for their shields. You also need to be careful with the skies because Tzeentch has such a wide array of flying units, and the Lore of Tzeentch is one of the nastiest offensive lores in the entire game. The good news though is that Tzeentch's main recourse to dealing with monsters is "hope they can be shot before they collide with the horrors". Don't bother with trolls though, basically every ranged attack Tzeentch lists will throw at you is flaming.

*'''Vampire Coast''': These guys hate you. The Vampirates can blast anything to pieces from a distance but up close their are a sodden mass of loose meat. Most of your units can tear them apart in melee and you have lots of ways to get into their back line. Fimir and Skinwolves can really put a hurt on their own monsters.

*'''Vampire Counts''': Grab Throgg, Mammoths, and Fimir, then supplement them with some spear or javelin support. Vampire Counts have poor anti-large which means going full monster mash is a good choice against them. Trolls can work, but beware of their low leadership against the Vampires, whose entire roster causes Fear.

*'''Wood Elves''':

===Campaign Strategies===

====TWW1====

====TWW2====
A notoriously terrible campaign, although with mods it can be very fun. In vanilla, you start out by unifying Norsca (i.e. wandering around until you find the faction leader of the peepee poopoo tribe and sneak attack him, confederate his faction, then repeat for every tribe until you have Norsca conquered), and then set out on raiding and pillaging the old world. You can only settle certain port settlements and racial capitals like Drakenhof, Altdorf, Naggarond etc.* and you sack/raze the other settlement for sweet sweet cash or to increase your allegiance meter to the Dark Gods, which gives bonuses as it's filled up. The problem with this type of settlement system is the ruin-dwelling AI. They'll constantly colonize the ruins you leave behind. While this can be beneficial providing you with easy sack/raze opportunities against easily-reachable foes, it can be frustrating in that it's difficult to make any real progress inland.

Your economy is the equivalent of modern day Siberia, i.e. shit. In the beginning of the game, you're going to be struggling to find two coins to rub together, and fielding a halfway decent full stack even with all of Norsca conquered will be difficult. Luckily, once you get to sacking cities, Norsca has a ton of global bonuses to raiding/sacking income so you'll get the train rolling that way and basically operate at a deficit for most of the game. BE CAREFUL who you declare war on. With many factions war is unavoidable, but they can steamroll through your territory since you don't have walls.

Once you fully fill up your allegiance meter, and defeat some special armies that come in to invade you (plus a special quest battle!) you'll get your Level 3 bonus (I recommend the Serpent for that upkeep reduction, plus Kihar is a useful hero but you can go with whichever) and begin the chaos invasion. You have the choice to either join with Archaon or defy him. For power players, defying him is defintiely the way to go since you get a fuckhuge 75% upkeep reduction for all your units. Joining with him is fun and thematic, but it automatically turns the campaign into a 'This is Total War' campaign since every non-chaos aligned faction (including Skaven) is scripted to declare war on you. It's not like the chaos invasion is that helpful when you're playing as Norsca either, it's just 7 armies with more spawning sometimes. Still, can be a fun way to add a huge challenge to your campaign.

====TWW3====
In Immortal Empires, the much-reviled settlement system has been abolished, with the faction receiving many other sweeping changes - highlights include dedicating yourself to a specific god providing actual Chaos units, and a buff to your economy. Norsca's ports are now hilariously lucrative, giving as much income per turn as bigger ports like Lothern + Marienburg. And Norsca is full of seaside settlements. Now you can pillage the entire world without worrying about money.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves

2023-05-19T16:43:54Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{Topquote|Lacoi Endri Loren! (Might of the Great Forest!)|Game battle chant for Wood Elves}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Wood Elves.

==Why Play Wood Elves==
*Cause you're tired of tree hugger jokes.
*You have a need, a need for speed, and would rather not side with that [[Slaanesh|crazy sense-freak Daemon god to get it]].
*Rather than blot out the sun you want to light the sky with hundreds of magical arrows.
*You love the parts from Lord of the Rings where Ents get shit done. Or you saw the Elves in Lord of the Rings and thought "yeah, that's cool...but wouldn't it be cooler if they had dragons, psycho tree-men, and [[Zoat|lizard centaurs]]?"
*Because you want the world to learn of your peaceful ways, by force.
*You really have a hard-on for <s>The Vietcong</s> sneaky militas that sneak through the enviroment instead of taking the enemy head on.

===Pros===
*'''Sheer Speed''' - The majority of your army is quite fast. Even the most basic infantry available to you, Eternal Guards, will outpace a significant portion of the footsoldiers available to most other armies. You'll be able to dance around the plodding pace of slower armies like the <strike>dwarves</strike> Dwarfs <sub>(that's a grudgin')</sub> or lizardmen. Even fast races such as Beastmen will have trouble keeping up with your mounted units and flying monsters.
*'''Excellent Missile Infantry''' - The Wood Elves have an abundance of fantastic missile units. Ranged infantry, cavalry, fliers, lords, heroes with access to dedicated poison, anti-armor, magic or rapid fire missiles gives you immense flexibility against any threats you may face. With the new DLC, the Wood Elves have perhaps the single best ranged Legendary Lord(s) in the game in the form of the Sisters of Twilight, who are capable of not only dealing heavy single target damage but also horde clearing shots from their unique bows.
*'''Savage Melee Combatants''' - Wood Elves have access to some pretty heavy-hitting, if squishy infantry options that can scythe through hordes like lawnmowers. Additionally, Wild Riders are capable of dealing some of the most damaging charges in the game thanks to their ''immense'' charge bonus. The new Great Stag Knight unit hits even harder on the charge, and moves even faster.
*'''Micro Intensive''' - For experienced players looking for more a more dynamic faction, Wood Elves will prove quite interesting indeed. Due to the design philosophy of their army, players will need to keep on their toes and constantly be shifting a majority of their army about the battlefield to get the most out of them, more so than pretty much any other faction.
*'''Playing tall''': True to their nature, aquiring huge tracts of land is of little interest or benefit to the Wood Elves. This makes managing your forces a hell of a lot more manageable. It also mitigates the tediousness of managing dozens upon dozens of settlements in the late game, sparing you a ''lot'' of "Settlement Upgrade Available" notifications every other turn.
*'''Diplomacy''' - Wood elves don't get along with chaos, skaven, or vampires, but they can ally with pretty much anybody else and hire their units with allied recruitment. Ideally, you'll want to cultivate allies to protect the lands around your magic forests so you can fuck off through the worldroots to grab a magical forest elsewhere.

===Cons===
*'''Fragile''' - The Wood Elves are debatably ''the'' frailest overall faction in the game. A few niche units like the Tree Kin or Treemen can hold their own in prolonged fights, but the rest of your army will wither away in a sustained assault. A successful Wood Elf army must strike with surgical precision and do so swiftly and from afar. Because of this constant skirmishing, Wood Elves are arguably the most difficult race to play, as they require the most micromanagement on the battlefield.
**'''Micro Madness''' - A bit of an elaboration on the prior point, to the newer player, you may struggle to keep up with all the maintenance most Wood Elf units require to operate effectively. Unlike some of the easier or more flexible factions, it cannot be overstated that Wood Elves cannot afford to just be smashed against enemy forces recklessly or be committed to a grindfest against sturdier or more rounded factions.
*'''Weakness to Fire''': Duh. Anything that can burn or brings flaming attacks will give you a lot of trouble. A lot of your roster is especially vulnerable to this, since it directly counters your otherwise tanky Treekin frontline units, and several of the games factions have no trouble bringing it to the table, either through units (Dwarfs and Skaven in particular have no trouble to get some Irondrakes or Warpfire Throwers) or through the Lore of Fire, which is also a very common lore to find, with 8 factions (Empire, High Elves, Dark Elves, Lizardmen, Norsca, Warriors of Chaos, Ogre Kingdoms, and Tzeentch) having access to it.
*'''Absent Artillery''' - Though you have plenty of long-ranged missile units to choose from and one or two missile units who can act similarly to artillery, you have no dedicated artillery platforms. This isn't a ''major'' issue primarily because you have so many archers that can fill every role the otherwise absent artillery would perform, but you will lack a notable source of hard-hitting burst damage. This is only getting worse in campaign with the Twisted and the Twilight's changes to Wood Elf hero skills, now only the Lords can buff your missile units range meaning no more 300 range Waywalker cheese, it was fun while it lasted. Use the Arrow of Kuronous ability instead of Artillery, with a range of 600 it's quite capable of sniping out enemy artillery and lords before you get close.
*'''Limited Roster''' - Wood Elves have fewer unit choices than a number of other playable factions. This limits your army composition into fairly predictable builds that does nothing for players looking for adaptable playstyles. It also means your faction has a number of fairly obvious weaknesses, such as the aforementioned fragility and lack of artillery but also a vulnerability to heavy cavalry and fire damage. These weaknesses can be exploited by your opponent relatively easily since most of them will have the flexibility to gear specifically against those weaknesses.
*'''Limited Expansion Opportunities''' - What might be considered a boon to some might also be a curse for others. The only settlements you can properly settle in the Campaign are dedicated sections of Awakened Woods; capital city provinces that have one and only once settlement per forest (save for Athel Loren). Borderline every other settlement in the game can only ever serve as a Wood Elf outpost; a tier 1 settlement with one or two building slots that can never be upgraded. These outposts can be useful for adjacent provinces as well as providing a means for trade routes, but they ultimately offer very little direct benefit to you. These settlements offer proverbial pennies in terms of tax income and at best can help reduce Global Recruitment costs for armies passing through, so they won't be able to support any more banner armies than your capital cities can. What's worse, as tier one settlements almost always bereft of walls, these outposts are borderline defenseless against all but the most inept enemy armies; defending these lands can often strain your very limited martial forces the more spread out you are. If you want to play Wood Elves effectively, you'll almost always need to stick to your home turf.
*'''DLC Faction''' - In order to play the Wood Elves at all, you need to buy at least one of the two optional DLC packs featuring them. "Realm of the Wood Elves", their initial release, is DLC for the first Total War: Warhammer game. "The Twisted and the Twilight", a lord pack for Total War: Warhammer II, will allow players of the second game a way to play them if they don't own both the original game and the original DLC, but some of the roster will be somewhat limited (more so than it already is). Regardless, if you want to have the whole faction available to play, you'll need to purchase two full price games and two separate DLC packs in order to access everything. If that's not premium content, I don't know what is.

==Universal Trait==
Wood Elves don't really have much in the way of extra abilities or perks, there is a few things they have going for them though:

*'''Forest Stalker''' - Increase melee defence and accuracy when fighting in forests. All your units, even flying ones, have this ability, encouraging you to always fight in forests whenever possible.

*'''Forest Spirit''' - A version of Forest Stalker for all your tree units that grant additional physical resistance and magical attacks. As of game three magical attack damage is no longer reduced my magic resistance (MR will only reduce actual spell damage), is not anymore a situational ability but is now almost always useful.

*'''Hide (Forest)''' - What did you expect? They're ''Wood'' Elves. Hell, some of their units are literally just tree people. The only units in the entire elven roster who can't hide in forests are the Great Eagle, Hawk Riders and Forest Dragon.

==Lords==
Compared to the swollen ranks of the Warhammer II races, your available lord list is a little lacking. With all the Wood Elf DLC, you do have a grand total of 7 choices, though in Multiplayer you'll have little reason to take any of the generic choices. Even in the campaign, where confederating your fellow Wood Elves is relatively easy (usually only requiring the completion of a specific mission per WE faction to confederate), it can be difficult to justify recruiting the generic dudes outside of filling Office Slots on your council. Drycha is a notable exception, as the only lord she can confederate with is Durthu; she's not exactly a fan of the meatbags infesting Athel Loren.

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Orion]]''' - Orion is a hybrid ranged/melee beatstick who specializes against infantry. At a distance, he's one of the best ranged lords in the game and deals ''hefty'' anti-armor damage, perfect for sniping large monsters and individual lords/heroes. He's also blisteringly fast for a foot lord and can even keep pace with some of the slower cavalry found in other armies. This pairs well with his impressive melee attack and charge bonuses; it's a common tactic to skirmish at range with a few well timed missiles to then follow up with a charge. Though he's not a caster, Orion also has access to a powerful bound vortex spell, ''Hounds of Orion'', which will easily burn through most (elite) infantry when the burst damage is needed. All in all, a solid, well rounded lord that you can't go wrong with. He also boost cavalry so his army is usually a more balanced frontline/archers/cavalry combined arms and less micro intensive (as long you can cicle charge well).
**His faction got a rework in Immortal Empires and is now <s>low-key op</s> TOTALLY FUCKING BUSTED. Orion get 8% upkeep discount, and other armies 4%, for '''each''' active war. [[Rape|You can get 0% upkeep faction wide by turn 13]]. Go ahead and spread some of that peace and love drenched in the blood of your enemies.

*'''[[Durthu]]''' - Everyone's favorite genocidal tree ([[Drycha|no, not that one]]) is your best dedicated duelist. In a similar vein to Orion, Durthu is a hybrid lord who has access to the lore of beasts; a reasonably useful set of supporting or offensive spells that can turn either himself or supporting treekin into terrifying combat monsters that will deal death to many a foe. As a massive monster, Durthu can wade through infantry and cavalry with relative ease and can go root-to-toe with a majority of the single-entity monsters in the game. Unfortunately, not everything to be said of Durthu is good. First, as a giant monster, Durthu is particularly vulnerable to both anti-armor weaponry and anti-large weaponry. This size also makes him an easy target to missile fire. Secondly, he's also vulnerable to fire damage, something many factions have access to and something modestly abundant on missile units. If caught in a crossfire of several such tools, Durthu will melt away frighteningly quickly, so you'll need to take extra care and support him with life magic should he get stuck in. in campaign Durthu's faction gets aspect upgrades for tree spirits like drycha but still gets the full wood elf roster. he plays as a middle ground between traditional wood elf tactics and drycha's spirit focused roster.

*'''[[Sisters of Twilight]] Naestra and Arahan (DLC)''' - These two ladies are collectively the only true-blooded ''elf'' Legendary Lord available to the Wood Elves. They are exclusively mounted on either a Great Eagle or a Forest Dragon and function best as a dedicated ranged unit. They do have decent combat stats, particularly when on the dragon, but they'll almost always lose against any other dedicated duelist unit or character worth their weight in gold. They excel in sniping targets from afar and have all tools to do so; both flying options safely keep them away from any melee combatant, and also have a very nice AoE attack not unlike the split shot ammo from the DE and HE artillery pieces. The SoT also grant Hawk Riders the "Arrows of Kurnous" ability, which is basically a "fuck you in particular" button that outright deletes any big unit you point it at.

*'''[[Drycha]] (FLC)''' Everyone's favorite genocidal tree ([[Durthu|no, not that one]]) returns as a "free" bonus Legendary Lord for (Im)Mortal Empires exclusively. Like her Branchwraith kin, Drycha is a hybrid melee combatant and spellcaster who can actually hold her own in combat if properly supported, but she will certainly not win any one-on-one duels against any characters with an actual melee statline. Unlike her generic sisters, Drycha is a pure-strain Lore of Shadows caster and as such is a shockingly vicious blob blender. As far as unique abilities go, Drycha brings two things to the table; she can summon a unit of (Malevolent) Dryads up to two times per battle and she provides a progressively more potent AoE buff that increases the melee attack of fellow Treekin units the lower her health is. Combined with the Frenzy ability found on a lot of her campaign unique units, this can be a particularly nasty combination that allows her and her angry trees to carve through quite a lot of the squishy, meaty competition. In campaign and custom battle she gets her own little roster of unique Malevolent Tree Spirit/Wild Beast units including Coeddil himself (unfortunately though none of her units have custom models, just reskins). Sadly, as mentioned, she is exclusive to the Mortal Empires campaign and so likely won't be seeing much time in the spotlight. also shares an Aspect mechanic with durthu that can modify tree spirits to be better at certain roles.

===Generic Lords===
*'''Glade Lord''' - Your generic elf dude/dudette, glade lords are flexible and very customizable lords who can lead from the front or afar. They are specialized duelists at heart and will excel at hunting enemy lords/heroes if you can separate them from their armies but, unlike Durthu, tend to be vulnerable to getting tied down by hordes of enemies. Normally your cheapest lord, you can invest in a steed/eagle to maximize their mobility (take the steed if you want to utilize forest terrain) or place them atop a Forest Dragon to allow them to fight a much wider selection of enemies. Note that while the male/female distinction is cosmetic only in campaign, in multiplayer battles, male glade lords are specced for melee while the female glade lords are specced for range. The glady tends to be more popular there since she gets an magic missile with arrow of kurnous and a snare with prey of Anath Raema.

*'''Ancient Treeman''' - Ancient treemen function somewhat like Durthu (understandably) in that they are hybrid lords with respectable melee damage output and access to a supplementary lore of magic. However, unlike Durthu, the regular ancient treeman has access to the significantly more useful lore of life. This makes them fantastic centerpieces for a treeman-style/focused army who can hold their own far more effectively than your spellsingers, but this comes with the same inconveniences plaguing Durthu. As a large, flammable monster, treemen are very weak to flaming, anti-armor, and anti-large attacks. Even with self heal, he can and absolutely will melt if focused (and believe me, he will be focused). You will absolutely need additional screening units to help protect him in combat. Keep an eye on their traits when you recruit them in campaign, they'll wreck entire armies if you get one with the Murder of Spites trait (AOE HP drain like a mortis engine). You can save/import a murder of spites ancient treeman between campaigns if you don't feel like subjecting yourself to the whims of RNGjesus.

*'''Spellweaver (DLC)''' - Caster ladies who can straight up lead your armies into battle, letting you save your hero slots for something else, if you so wish. In a manner similar to the High Elves, the Spell Weavers have access to a much wider variety of magic lores than their lesser variants (and by that, I mean they get two more schools). They also can come with additional bound spells depending on how you spec them when they level up. Otherwise, they're virtually identical to their sisters.
**'''Life Spellweaver''' - Virtually identical to your Life Spellsinger, only large and in charge.
**'''Beasts Spellweaver''' - Virtually identical to your Beasts Spellsinger, only large and in charge.
**'''Shadows Spellweaver''' - Virtually identical to your Shadows Spellsinger, only large and in charge.
**'''Dark Spellweaver''' - Now we're getting somewhere new. An offensive discipline, the Lore of Dark Magic provides some solid anti-lord/hero spells via Doombolt and Soul Stealer while also providing some decent anti-infantry spells in Chillwind and Blade Wind. Not a bad pick, but faces stiff competition from the other lores, life/shadows/high magic all have good AOE spells too. Lore attribute passively increases missile damage map wide which is actually pretty nice stacked with all the other auras/skill bonuses you can get.
**'''High Spellweaver''' - This Spellweaver got a little too into the 'shrooms and learned a whole new lore of magic. With a little bit of everything, the High Spellweaver can provide a bit of healing support, single target damage, AoE damage and can even trap/damage flying units with a cast or two of Tempest. But the main reason anyone wants the lore of high magic is for Fiery Convocation. Immortal empires buffed to the point where it currently outperforms wind of death for deleting lines of armored infantry. The lore attribute buffs physical resist. Useful for spamming heals if your opponent refuses to blob up his units.

==Heroes==
You have one (two for ME) Legendary hero and three flavors of generic heroes, each with their own uses.

===Legendary Heroes===
*'''Ariel (DLC)''' - Ariel is an obscenely powerful caster hero that starts with a full roster of spells taken from the Lores of Life, High and Dark, but also Greater Arcane Conduit and two bound healing spells that rival Alarielle the Everqueens Heart of Avelorn in terms of raw healing potential. In direct combat itself, she's rather frail when put up against her direct DLC-counterpart Ghoritch, not to mention Throt, so her use against enemy single-entity-units is rather limited; her Magic combined with her Ward Save of 25% relegates her to Chaff clearing duty, where she performs very well.

===Generic Heroes===
*'''Branchwraith''' - If ever there could only be a single unit that could be defined as a "hybrid", branchwraiths would be strong contenders for the title. Not only are they capable melee fighters in their own right, but they have access to a variety of handpicked spells from both the lore of life and lore of shadows. This gives them equal measure of frontline support and damage. Penumbral Pendulum gives you a strong sweeping wind spell that excels at softening harder units for your Wardancers and Rangers. Their additional access to earthblood gives them a cheap multi-target heal that, when paired with Shield of Thorns, will make your frontline units extremely resilient for a brief period of time. AOE aura buffing melee attack is quite nice for your frontline. Best on bladesingers or dryads especially.

*'''Waystalker''' - These guys are lord/hero hunters, pretty much strictly designed and specialized for that singular purpose. They can easily vanish from your foe's view thanks to their Master Ambusher ability which, combined with their speed, also allows them to easily kite footlords while blasting them with arrows. A few limited use abilities, like the Arrow of Kurnous, can allow them to deal decent damage and disrupt infantry in a pinch. It can also be reserved for sniping and destroying artillery pieces. Despite being built to hunt characters, Waystalkers are actually only decent melee combatants and will falter against melee-focused foot lords. Only send them in if they're completely out of ammo and/or properly supported by reinforcements. AOE aura buffs missile damage, park by your archers.

*'''Spellsinger''' - Your cheap, dedicated mages. Spellsingers, like the purestrain generic mages of other factions, only exist to cast spells and nothing more. Keep these gals behind your front lines and out of harms way if you want their support to last you the battle. If you can spare the coin, consider placing them on elven steeds or unicorns so that they can quickly respond to changing conditions on the battlefield and quickly escape should enemies come for them. You have three flavors to choose from:
**'''Beasts Spellsinger''' - A dedicated vector for the mixed lore of beasts, spellsingers of this category are ideal for supporting fellow elves/trees with buffs while contributing occasional bursts of AoE damage. A spare flock of doom can do decent work to clusters of infantry, though you'll get better AoE damage going with a shadows spellsinger. The spellsinger variant of Transformation of Kadon received a fluffy nerf; instead of summoning a feral manticore, now it summons eagles. Eagles are dramatically inferior to the manticore, but they can still be summoned to provide a surprise flank or to tie down enemy artillery in a pinch. probably skip, easily the worst option.
**'''Life Spellsinger''' - Your cheapest source for lore of life spells. All in all, you really can't go wrong with her; healing magic is invaluable and can absolutely mean the difference between a winning/losing engagement on the field. You'll get a lot of mileage out of her if you pair her with treemen/forest dragons or Treekin as a frontline.
**'''Shadows Spellsinger''' - The lore of shadows is your most offensive choice for your spellsingers, and it's not a bad one. Your two primary offensive spells, the Penumbral Pendulum and the Pit of Shades both deal impressive AoE damage and thus specialize in clearing out armored frontlines. The Pit of Shades also holds the distinct honor of being one of the few stationary vortex spells in the game. This ensures that it'll never randomly roll over your own troops, but it also cannot potentially flow into neighboring enemy formations to cause greater damage, so it's a bit of a trade off there. If nothing else, you can use it to create a zone of denial in chokepoints.

*'''Glade Captain (DLC)''' - A baby Glade Lord, Glade Captains are effectively identical to their lord counterparts in form and function. Frankly speaking, being relegated to the hero slot suits them better than the Lord slot, as you aren't sacrificing the offensive prowess of the Sisters of Twilight or Durthu for a generic damage dealer. Having said that, it's still somewhat hard to justify taking a Glade Captain over a Spellsinger or Branchwraith in most multiplayer lists just due to the lack of utility they provide, but if you're in need of a more flexibly inclined damage dealer, Glade Captains are decently suited to the task. However, while it's definitely hard to justify bringing a glade captain to a multiplayer custom match, she's a must include in campaign since she passively increases an army's movement range and grants army wide buffs depending on what mount she has. Giving her a great stag allows cavalry to ignore movement penalties. Giving her an eagle causes hawkriders to instill fear. Taking her on foot allows wardancers and bladesingers to vanguard deploy, which is very effective when combo'ed with the Sisters of Twilight office that gives them stalk stance. Probably best on foot if you want vanguard bladesingers or on stag to accompany great stag knights where she is amazing. Makes great cavalry even better.

==Units==

====Melee Infantry====
*'''Eternal Guard''' - Eternal Guard are the closest thing to a defensive front line unit you have. Available shielded or unshielded (you should ''always'' take shielded Eternal Guard, precious other units in your army resist ranged attacks), these stalwart warriors are in that perfect twilight zone of being cheap and somewhat expendable while also remaining rather competent combatants capable of holding their own against other units above their weight class. Though they'll often lose in drawn out fights against stronger, higher tier melee infantry, they can pin them down long enough for your archers or dryads to flank and make up for their sub-optimal damage output. Eternal Guard, being exclusively armed with spears, are excellent anti-cavalry/monster screens and, when braced, can easily halt enemy charges in their tracks. No matter your focus, be it cavalry, missile units or treemen, you'll want your line held by a few of these guys. They don’t hold up to elite infantry well though, late game may want to replace with treekin, who are much more durable generally. Take note that they are AP spearmen with access to shields, which is incredibly rare. probably the best of the 3 elven races spearmen units for this alone. they wont get a lot of kills but can do okay even against heavily armored infantry.
**'''Winterheart Guards (RoR)''' - Eternal Guard, only with charge defense against everything, an encouragement aura for nearby allied units and ''unbreakable''. These guys will hold the line until the bitter end, something they'll ensure takes a long time due to their increased defensive stats. You'll want these guys somewhat centrally located in your front line to ensure their leadership buff affects as many Eternal Guard as possible.

*'''Dryads''' - The first of your treekin soldiers. If eternal guard are your chaffy anvil infantry, dryads are your chaffy hammer infantry. Dryads are decently fast, deal magic attacks, cause fear, are immune to psychology, and have vanguard deployment. They lack anti-charge, anti-large, and anti-armor so are best used to mulch other T1 infantry, particularly ones like clanrats and goblins that are susceptible to fear. In multiplayer, they form the backbone of a wood elf rush army, you can vanguard deploy an entire front line of dryads and blitz your opponent before he can react. In campaign, you'll want to phase them out after the early game unless you're playing Drycha or Durthu who can aspect upgrade dryads to be anti-charge frontline tanks, low AP infantry shredders, or speedy glass cannon kan openers. Drycha in particular can make dryads endgame worthy (see the entry for malevolent dryads below).
**'''Wraiths of the Frozen Heart (DLC, RoR)''' - These dryads have been gifted with attacks that freeze and slow their targets, helping to ensnare and lock down enemies.

*'''Wardancers''' - These lovely ladies serve as dedicated infantry blenders, a role they share with dryads. They have superior speed + melee stats to dryads but lack the vanguard deployment, magic attacks, and fear that dryads have. Minimal defenses means you should use them as fast skirmishers, they won't do well engaging beefy front line units in a fair fight. That said, they have an active skill which decreases their melee attack and increases their melee defense which allows them to flip roles from damage dealers to melee defense tanks. Use it when you want them to buy time while another unit rear charges their opponent or shoots them to death. In campaign, you'll want to phase them out for spear wardancers and bladesingers after the early game.

*'''Spear Wardancers''' - Wardancers who specialize against large foes instead of infantry formations. Where regular Wardancers simply appreciate having Eternal Guard tank the hits, Spear Wardancers actually synergize with them extremely well due to their shared offensive niche. Just like the regular Wardancers, have the Eternal Guard intercept cavalry or monsters before sending these gals in. Spear Wardancers have an activated ability that grants them additional missile resistance at the cost of melee defense. Turn it on when they're running around your flanks eating the occasional volley from enemy skirmishers and turn it off when they close to melee. Like halberd infantry, they have increased AP damage and can hold their own vs armoured elite opponents.
**'''Loec's Tricksters (RoR)''' - If you thought regular Wardancers were glass cannons, you haven't seen these ones at work. This regiment of renown exchanges the normal Spear Wardancer activated ability in exchange for one that pumps up their melee attack in exchange for their defense (literally the opposite effect of the regular Wardancers ability) which, when combined with the addition of Frenzy, makes them do ''obscene'' damage to large units. Unfortunately, this also means that a stiff breeze will slaughter them to the last. Hold these ladies in reserve for a critical fight, such as engaging the enemy lord or a key monster in their army and support them with magic to make sure they survive the ensuing melee.

*'''Wildwood Rangers''' - The Wildwood Rangers have an... interesting role. Previously, they were your only dedicated source of melee armor piercing damage, which they deal a lot of, but they also only specialize against large targets. While these two perks often work fantastically against monsters and cavalry, it tends to pay off less on the armored masses you may often find yourself against. They still hold a somewhat viable niche if you expect to face armored cavalry/monster armies like the Lizardmen or Bretonnia, but they are thoroughly outclassed by the new Bladesingers against all forms of infantry.
**'''Wardens of Cythral (RoR)''' - Take the Wildwood Rangers, give them silver shields, armor sundering and a ''beefy'' charge defense against large targets and send them on their way. These guys are better suited to prolonged fights against large foes than Spear Wardancers, particularly because they have actual stats in their defenses. With support, these guys can chunk most armored targets relatively well in good time.

*'''Bladesingers (DLC)''' - At first glance, you'd assume these fiery redheads are just reskinned Wardancers. You wouldn't necessarily be wrong to assume that, but you will pay dearly if you underestimate them for that mistake. These ladies are your elite melee infantry and ''butcher'' anything not horse-sized or larger due in no small part to a combination of magical attacks and high armor-piercing damage. Bladesingers also have the ability to "turn off" their armor piercing damage modifier to give themselves a raw damage buff, letting them effectively cut down virtually any flavor of infantry you could throw them at. You can switch between the two modes at will, unlike Wardancers, so they are exceptionally flexible for how killy they are. The main drawback is exactly what you'd expect from a bunch of half-naked ladies; their defensive stats are hot tish. Though they have access to Dodge and a decent melee defense, they will still die in droves if targeted by archers or charged by enemies above their weight class. None-the-less, having at least one squad of these fine warrior women is strongly recommended against literally any army that fields frontline infantry.

====Missile Infantry====
*'''Glade Guard''' - Your earliest, cheapest, and most reliable missile infantry, Glade Guard are the troops you'll have in your back-line in order to rain hell upon the enemies your melee infantry is currently harassing. Frankly speaking, there's little that can honestly be said about the bog-standard Glade Guard; they'll do decent work against unarmored enemies and they're pretty damn cost efficient, but you might find yourself looking at one of the two variants if you want to get some real work done. Note that all glade guard variants can fire forward while moving, making them exceptionally good for chasing after and pincushioning broken enemies.
**'''Glade Guard (Hagbane Tips)''' - Glade Guard with poisonous arrows. Though they deal slightly less direct damage with their missiles, they more than make up for it if they're supporting your melee infantry by applying poison debuffs all over their target's back. Available from the start of campaign, you should never use the basic variant unless you're recruiting from an outpost and need to fill a hole in your army immediately.
**'''Glade Guard (Starfire Shafts)''' - Glade Guard with armor-piercing arrows. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors and Lizardmen and should almost always be taken over regular Glade Guard (or at the least, alongside them) to ensure that you can still deal damage to them.

*'''Deepwood Scouts''' - Sneaky elves who can utilize the combination of their stealth and vanguard deployment to sneak up and ambush the vulnerable backsides of enemy formations. Unlike Glade Guard, the Deepwood Scouts can fire at any angle while moving, letting them easily kite slower, unarmored units. Inferior in every way to waywatchers, however, they do have a use in multiplayer as a budget option against factions that don't have many armored units.
**'''Deepwood Scouts (Swiftshiver Shards)''' - Deepwood Scouts that fire two shots at a time. Even with the reduced range over regular Deepwood Scouts, the doubled DPS more than makes up for that minor inconvenience. these in skirmish mode can get insane kill numbers on light infantry as long as they are fast enough to not get caught, niche but effective.

*'''Waywatchers''' - Your premium archer unit, and one of the highest damaging archer units in the game. Considering that this is factoring in units like the Sisters of Averlorn, that's saying something. All the strengths of the Deepwood Scouts are combined the Starfire Glade-Guard's utility with yet more impressive range and heightened movement speed that allows them to function both as a back-line unit or as vanguard ambusher. Very dangerous in multiplayer where they can surprise delete damn near anything if you have 2-3 of them pop out of stealth to alpha strike a high value target.
**'''Hawk-eyes of Drakira (RoR)''' - Waywatchers that also come packing with a smokebomb to slow and discourage anyone from getting too close. They also have a slightly faster reload speed and slightly better accuracy than their generic kin, which alone is worth the slight upsell.

====Melee Cavalry====
*'''Glade Riders (Spears) (FLC)''' - Cheap, fast cavalry. At 94 speed they're faster than your Wild Riders but that and the price tag are basically the only good things you can say about them. They lack the armor piercing damage and Frenzy of the Wild Riders and, despite what the (Spears) tag might have you believe, they are not actually anti large, at least not in multiplayer though they can get an anti-large technology in campaign. As a fast, cheap melee harasser they will likely be best used in a similar fashion to hounds or feral cold ones, chasing down ranged infantry and artillery units and chasing units off the field

*'''Wild Riders''' The premier Wood Elf light cavalry and [[Orion|Mel Gibson's]] personal guard, these units can blend infantry from behind with a decent melee attack, nice charge bonus, and armor piercing damage, but a low melee defense and armor means they're too squishy to stay in combat for long. Some physical resist makes them a bit tougher than their otherwise low defensive stats would lead you to believe, but don't send them into combat with units that deal magical damage or they'll melt fairly fast. All varieties of Wild Riders have Frenzy, meaning they'll be extra choppy until their leadership gets below 50%, so if you want them at their most effective don't let them take too much damage. In campaign once you can use Great Stag Knights you probably want to switch over completely.
**'''Wild Riders (Shields)''' A straight upgrade to Wild Riders, other than the price. Silver shields make them much more resistant to ranged fire and slightly higher melee defense lets them stick in combat for longer. They're still not heavy cavalry though, and are much more comfortable attacking from the side or rear than the front.
**'''Wild Hunters of Kurnous (RoR)''' With naturally higher melee attack than your standard Wild Riders and magic damage on top of that, these dendrophiles are even choppier than your standard variety stag-riding knife-ear.

*'''Great Stag Knights''' What's better than riding a stag into battle? Riding a really big stag into battle, of course! These monstrous cavalry are even faster than normal Wild Riders, with slightly higher melee attack and melee defense than even the shield variant. More importantly the Great Stage Knights have some actual armor meaning they're capable of taking a hit, though they certainly don't want to stay in melee combat for too long. Send them into infantry formations then giggle as the infantry goes flying. A few cycle charges from these will even break Chaos Chosen. Pair with a great stag riding glade captain and a sisters of the thorn unit giving ranged support for best results. Captain provides strider, melee support, and a Melee defense buff. sisters proved poison, buffs spells, and a debuff spell all together. 2-3 stag knight, the captain, and the sisters will combine into a terrifying cavalry deathstar.
**'''Lost Sylvan Knights (RoR)''' What's better than riding a really big stag into battle? Riding a really big ghost stag into battle, of course! As an ethereal unit, all the standard ethereal rules apply. They've got a ton of physical resist and no armor. Throw them into melee with bog standard swordsmen and you can leave them there safely but as soon as some wizard wazzock starts tossing magic damage around your Sylvan Knights will start dying, really fast. Don't let them fight anything that deals magic damage unless you want them to become lost again, permanently this time. They're undead, which means they crumble instead of routing which is generally a good thing as they can still hold a line and attack while crumbling. Back them up with lore of life, they can take advantage of it better than any other unit in the game thanks to their high physical resist and ability to run away from unfavorable engagements.

====Missile Cavalry====
*'''Glade Riders''' - Your fairly standard missile cavalry, Glade Riders only really stand out above other faction's similar missile cav by having slightly better than average range. They have somewhat decent melee capabilities, but in this regard they're only useful in charging lightly armored units, like opposing missile infantry. If you need something cheap to kite and harass enemy lines, these guys will get the job done if nothing else.
**'''Glade Riders (Hagbane Tips)''' - Debatably far more useful than their regular variants, Hagbane Tipped Glade Riders use poisonous ''and'' magical arrows, making them an excellent force against magic-weak armies and solid support units. Between their high speed and ability to apply poison against enemy units, they are virtually uncatchable by opposing cavalry and are simultaneously a fantastic unit for crippling faster units for your slower infantry to engage. consider as an alternative to hagbane glade guard, you don't need both probably.

*'''Hawk Riders''' - A rarity, Hawk Riders are one of the few dedicated flying missile units in the game. Extremely fast, Hawk Riders can easily dodge incoming enemy fire if microed properly (something you'll have to do if you want them to live long enough to do their job) and makes them ideal for flanking enemy positions to rain hell upon them from on high. Unfortunately, like much of the WE roster, Hawk Riders have non-existent defensive statlines and they will drop like flies if you allow them to take missile fire or get pinned down in combat. Additionally, when they ''are'' in combat, their melee attack and defense scores are ''terrible''. This is ever so slightly mitigated by their mediocre charge bonus and hefty (melee) armor-piercing damage bonuses, letting them act as halfway decent shock cavalry against armored infantry in a pinch. This should definitely only be done as a last resort or if you have sufficient forces to support them however, else they just impotently kamikaze themselves into your opponent's ranks like so many gnats on a windshield. In the Sisters of Twilight campaign, they received a ''major'' buff in the Volley of Kurnous ability, letting them fire a high damage burst of arrows into ground bound enemy targets. Be it a single character or horde of infantry, the Volley of Kurnous does ''ludicrous'' damage and a doomstack of Hawk Riders can delete massive ground-bound armies with the click of a single button. This makes them ''the'' premiere airforce army in the campaign.

*'''Sisters of the Thorn''' - Elite missile cavalry that, unlike anything else in your roster on four hooves, can do a little bit of everything. Though they don't have the charge bonus of your Wild Riders or Great Stag Knights, Sisters of the Thorn can actually remain in combat for extended periods of time due to their superior defensive abilities (both innate and through access to their bound abilities). This can be further supplemented by their poisonous arrows, letting them soften up and slow down enemy forces for a follow up charge. Unfortunately, in any single attribute they typically fall short of the rest of your options; they lack the range of your Glade Riders while being slightly slower, they don't have as impactful a charge as your Wild Riders/GSK and they don't even have any armor-piercing damage like your Hawk Riders do. Despite that, alongside their rather steep price tag, they are still wonderfully flexible missile cavalry units (by WE standards) that will likely find more opportunistic match-ups against a wider range of foes than some of your other options. Best when supporting other cavalry: Wild Riders, Stag Knights etc.

====Monsters====
*'''Tree Kin''' - Your monstrous infantry and the only units in your roster that can actually hold their own in a grindfest, even if they themselves won't really be doing much damage in the process. With thick armor, high melee defense and charge defense against large, these bark monsters will take an eternity to die if the enemy units fighting them find themselves lacking anti-armor or magic/fire damage. Against most factions, these guys are fantastic "meat" shields for your considerably squishier elven units. Just keep the matchbox away from them. Ancient treeman lords can give them 10% ward and an extra 10% physical resist from the red skill tree in campaign. they can become tough enough to hold well even vs anti large and armor piercing especially with lore of life support.
**'''Firebark Elders (RoR)''' - This is what you get when your Treekin ''are'' the matchbox. With a 70% fire resistance and the ability to bequeath that resistance to nearby units, you can patch a fairly notable (and semi-common) weakness of your other tree units. If you expect that you'll be facing an army with relatively easy access to flaming attacks, like Bretonnia or Lizardmen, having these guys form your frontline core is strongly advised.

*'''Zoats (DLC)''' - Boy, we're going deep for these guys. These guys are effectively Wood Elf Dragon Ogres and very much fill the same role; anti-large monstrous cavalry that can deal crippling damage to the big beasties. They sacrifice some of the innate damage and durability the Dragon Ogres possess for much greater utility with access to two bound Lore of Life spells: Earth Blood and Flesh to Stone. With these, Zoats can support themselves and other Wood Elf units without imposing on the Winds of Magic reserves ideally utilized by your Lord/Heroes. Take a care though, Zoats don't have the stats their Dragon Ogre counterparts do and aren't quite as flexible in their engagement choices. Have a unit of Tree Kin or at the very least Eternal Guard support your Zoats to help mitigate incoming damage.
**'''Enigmas of Ghyran (RoR)''' - Zoats who have better stats and two charges of Regrowth instead of Earth Blood. These guys are fantastic support for lists with a focus on monster units and can easily pair up with a lore of life spellsinger for immense burst healing.

*'''Great Eagle''' - Something of a squishy unit, Great Eagles are extremely fast flying units that are pretty much designed to do one thing; body slam artillery pieces and backline units with cycle charges while your infantry holds them in place. Unfortunately, that's... pretty much all they can do. They are not remotely as punchy or durable as a majority of other single entity monsters and will quickly die if left in melee combat with anything that can hold a sharp stick. Cycle charging this guy is ''imperative'' if you want them to stay alive. Fortunately, when airborne, almost nothing can catch them and they can evade missile fire from dusk until dawn. They do have a unique kill animation that can take out a third of a blob but don't expect to see it unless fighting the frailest units.

*'''Treeman''' - An all-purpose wrecking ball, Treemen are melee beatsticks that can throw a mean left hook and stand in an ocean of angry infantry without a care in the world. Unless they have fire, in which case... enjoy the lightshow, I guess. Unlike the smaller Tree Kin, Treemen are actually threatening in melee combat and are quite capable against a wonderfully wide variety of targets, large and small, armored and not. As they are very tall, bipedal trees, Treemen make a fantastic [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX]] that your opponent can't afford to outright ignore, especially since they cause fear and terror. Be cautious though; they're big, slow moving trees. They're very vulnerable to getting focused down at range and though they can wade through any infantry tarpit dancing around their roots, they can't do so quickly enough to evade incoming missile fire. And unlike their Ancient Treemen leaders, who at least can utilize magic for defense an a modicum of offense if necessary, regular Treemen don't have ''any'' way to deal with ranged assaults on their own.

*'''Forest Dragon''' - Your one and only Dragon, Forest Dragons are pretty much the crown jewel of the Wood Elf monster units. Unfortunately, when compared to the full selection of dragons available to High Elves, Forest Dragons fall fairly short in relative power, being roughly on par with Sun Dragons. They do make up for this slightly with their additional physical resist and poisonous attacks, letting them dive into the thick of it more confidently than the other flavors of dragon other factions have. When paired with a lore of life spellsinger/Ancient Treeman, these dragons can tough it out in a fight for a ''very'' long time. Defensively, a lot of the same cautionary measures other dragons use should be taken at range; their flying speed coupled with their size isn't conducive for dodging ranged attacks and their resistances don't apply against projectiles. Try to pin down enemy archers and artillery with cavalry or a Great Eagle before having the Forest Dragon swoop in for the kill.

====Drycha Campaign Units====

These units can only be used by Drycha's Wargrove in campaign or custom battles, but as campaign units are unavailable to multiplayer (or custom battle if you have unit caps turned on). The units are split into two distinct groups, Malevolent Tree Spirits who are essentially just ordinary Tree Spirits with Frenzy and a kickass purple glow, and Wild Beasts, beefed up versions of monstrous animal units from other factions most of which have vanguard deployment and Forest Stalker, making them effective flankers and slightly tougher in the trees. All of these units, like Drycha herself, are FLC units given to anyone who owns the original Realm of the Wood Elves DLC, and are exclusive to the Mortal Empires campaign. Drycha and her units cannot be played in Vortex, though she does appear in the background of Throt's campaign and in the final battle. you start with one amber as drycha which should always be used on the Tech to give poison to all tree spirits, making them much more survivable.

*'''Coeddil''' - A little treat that CA didn't really feel like advertising, Coeddil makes a surprise appearance as a Legendary Hero available in Drycha's Mortal Empire campaign. [[FAIL|And only in that campaign.]] Befitting his psychopathic hatred for all things not made of bark, Coeddil is an absolute melee menace who constantly saps nearby enemy unit's health while giving all allied nearby a minor melee buff. He's a mixed Beasts/Dark caster with several choice spells from both winds including Transformation of Kadon and Power of Darkness. If that wasn't enough, Coeddil is unbreakable and will stay in the fight until the bitter end. It's worth noting that in custom battle he's considered a campaign exclusive unit rather than a hero so if you really feel like shenanigans [[Rip and tear|you can make an army of Coeddils.]]

*'''Malevolent Ancient Treeman''' - The only lord on this list, basically just an ancient Treeman with Frenzy. This makes it even more of a melee powerhouse than ordinary Ancient Treemen, though a strong anti-large duelist lord can still take it down. Unlike ordinary Ancient Treemen, the Malevolent ones get access to three distinct Lores of Magic instead of being locked to Lore of Life. They can take Lore of Life, but can instead choose to take Lore of Beasts or Lore of Shadows. Like Coeddil, the Malevolent Ancient Treeman is considered a campaign exclusive unit rather than a lord and so you can take as many as you like, provided you have the funds for it. Lore of Beasts can summon the usual Matincores instead of Great Eagles and gives beast units frenzy. Shadows gets improved glamour removing the debuff from elf units. Life gets regen as a skill. Beasts is probably the most useful for buffing your army. A life branch wraith is probably better than putting life on your lord due to less competition for skill points.

*'''Malevolent Branchwraith''' - A Branchwraith with frenzy. Whereas the standard Branchwraith is not the best melee fighter, the Malevolent variant is actually a decent damage dealer so long as you keep her away from flaming attacks. Similar to the Malevolent Ancient Treeman, the Malevolent Branchwraith has an expanded list of Lores it can choose from. Ordinary Branchwraiths are a mix of Lore of Shadows and Lore of Life, while their Malevolent kin can specialize in either full Lore of Life, full Lore of Shadows or Lore of Beasts. Strangely, there is no mixed Lore of Life/Lore of Shadows Malevolent Branchwraith. Life gets regen, beasts gets extra melee attack, shadows gets stalk. Recommend life only and get beasts or shadows from your lord. Lords get nice army buffs.

*'''Malevolent Tree Spirits:''' - Malevolent versions of the Dryads, Tree Kin, and Treeman units. They all have Frenzy, and can be upgraded further in her tech tree for more Charge and AP.

**'''Malevolent Tree Dryads:''' These are basically ever so slightly buffed Dryads with the added Frenzy ability, making them substantially more threatening right out of the gate. Drycha herself can summon two of them per battle using one of her unique abilities, making them the only unit on this list usable in multiplayer (if only as summons). Red skill tree can give them extra melee attack, weapon strength, melee defense and an extra 15% physical resist; you can give them some AP with the Aspect of the Birch and Drycha's upgrades, which pairs nicely with their magical attacks, but they're still ultimately just whacking the enemy with sharp sticks. Still, they can outfight chaos warriors with all the buffs applied, and even against things they might not beat they are like more tanky wooden Daemonettes with very marginal AP. Just keep them away from fire and magic attacks, which is unfortunately pretty hard considering the proximity of Festus and the Von Carsteins.

**'''Malevolent Tree Kin:''' You get access to these guys much quicker than in other Wood Elf factions and you'll be relying on them just as much. Upgrades to Drycha can give them a ward save, armor, charge, and AP, and better melee when they're at Rank 7+. The different Aspects are all worth a look depending on who's giving you trouble in the campaign: Birch makes you faster and gives you AP but lowers your physical resistance, Oak makes you slower and thicker, but also gives you expert charge defense, and Willow reduces your AP damage by 6, but gives you better defense and a bonus against Infantry. Birch is good because you have other bonuses to AP, but you don't have the DPS to make the most of it; if you upgraded Drycha, you'll get +10 AP to offset the -6 of Willow, but you're not exactly gaining much, either. Oak is probably the best, because Tree Kin were never going to win the foot-race anyway.
**'''Malevolent Tree Man:''' A Tree Man with frenzy. You are better off buying Dragons, Zoats, or Bears, with one exception: Malevolent Tree Men that are given the Aspect of the Willow (-150 AP but +250 Weapon Strength and +12 Defense) are pretty good against Festus and Nurgle, who doesn't have AP, but has a shit ton of health and healing.

*'''Cave Bats''' - Non-undead Vampire Count Fell Bats with an extra 20 leadership, vanguard deployment and the ability to hide in trees. Used in essentially the same way as Fell Bats, they're great at tying down fast units, distracting ranged units, nomming artillery, causing chaos on walls and being meat shields for more important flying creatures. As previously stated they're not undead so they won't hold the line while crumbling the way Fell Bats do but they're also dirt cheap and expendable so you won't care when they're inevitably slaughtered. replace with hawks later probably, they have actual AP.

*'''Giant Wolves''' - Norscan Ice Wolves without the Frostbite, considered small units instead of large for some reason meaning the standard anti-large tactics don't work on them. They're quite speedy and have a decent weapon strength though it's not majority armor piercing, meaning they're effective against low armor opponents. Charge them into the flanks of infantry or ranged units and use them to kill routing enemies, but don't expect them to hold the line.

*'''Giant Spiders''' - These big angry arachnids don't really have a direct parallel to any other units. These are essentially buffed up Forest Goblin Spider Riders but without the Goblin. This unfortunately means they lose the shield held by said goblin, but considering it was a bronze shield anyway the 70 armor, armor piercing damage, charge bonus, and increased melee attack and forest stalker attributes more than make up for it. Poison + AP + Decent Armor in a faction where that's rare means they can serve surprisingly well in the front line, especially with magical support spells like Shield of Thorns or Wyssan's Wildform, but you're almost always better off using them to flank and having Tree Kin tank damage.

*'''Great Hawks''' - The only unit on this list that probably should have been available to the entire Wood Elf faction, these are essentially slightly cheaper Hawk Riders with improved melee stats but no ranged attack. They have the standard vanguard deployment and Forest Stalker traits and are VERY fast. Give them some Cave Bats to act as meat shields and they can be quite effective melee combatants. They'll very quickly rip apart ranged infantry and artillery and can be absolute terrors in sieges, capable of massacring any infantry on the walls with flying cycle charges. They are fragile though, so good micro and support from other units is essential when using them.

*'''Feral Bears''' - The same unit that Rakarth gets, which is Kislevite War Bear Riders without the Armor. They are a good source of AP Anti-Large when you can recruit them, but the lack of Armor makes them squishy. Good supplements when Zoats are unavailable.

*'''Feral Manticore''' - Of course Drycha would get at least one Chaos unit. This is literally the exact same unit as fielded by Warriors of Chaos and Dark Elves. Notably, the Feral Manticore lacks the Vanguard Deployment and Forest Stalker attributes of the rest of the Wild Beasts. It's essentially a slightly tougher but slower terror causing Great Eagle. It's an effective source of flying terror, but it's certainly not the biggest beastie out there and is somewhat vulnerable to anti large, ranged fire and other more powerful single entity monsters like dragons. Its rampage is especially bad, as it means that you can easily lose control of it at the worst possible time and, as a(reluctant) member of the Wood Elf faction, you're a bit lacking in tools to go get it. These still get 20 physical resistance from a tech and frenzy from Drycha or a Beasts Lore Treeman skill, with physical resist can frenzy they become extremely cost effective. Can replace Hawks even.
**With both frenzy and the tech boost they the same nearly the same raw killing power and physical resist as a Forest Dragon for less than half the cost. They don’t have breath attacks or poison but they are faster and smaller so can dodge arrows much easier. Actually very cost effective. Plus Unlike the other Manticore using factions Dycha has Lore of Life to keep them alive. Can replace Hawks entirely except for lacking vanguard.
**Wut? A Forest Dragon is niche and only really good when in the woods, but its health, breath attack, damage type and the fact that its a dragon means that they have their best use is supplementing your line, flying in and out of combat as needed. Manticores do not get forest bonuses, but are much more accessible and expendable. Manticores take out missiles, artillery, and flame weapons so your trees and forest creatures don't have to take those shots upon approach. Dragons use their breath attack, smash into the lines, then leave so you can do it all over again.
***The Feral Manticore is your mom's boyfriend that comes over before the party and helps out but doesn't stick around for long, the Forest Dragon is your drunk dad who comes in and wrecks shit.

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
The first and most important component of playing Wood Elves; stay moving. Due to how frail the majority of the Wood Elf roster is, you cannot afford to allow your opponent to take the initiative in a fight. The good news is that many of your work-horse units are quite fast; many standard or slow moving armies will rarely be able to pin down your forces if you literally just stay one step ahead of them. Additionally, your Cavalry does almost all of their work in the charge; they will ''greatly'' diminish in strength and value if they remain in extended combat. Cycle charging is the name of the game for you, and it's a tenant you'll need to stick to if you actually want to give Bretonnia a run for their money. All of this combines to make Wood Elves one of the most micro-intensive factions in the game, if played right. While this can make them more interesting and fun to play, it also makes them considerably more challenging with mistakes punishing you much more severely than what other factions might've endured for similar errors.

====Faction Counterplay====
*'''Beastmen''' - The only other faction that can consistently keep pace or even outrun your in a flat out foot race. Beastmen are very much a rush faction and will do their damndest to close the gap between your forces; something you should take every measure to prevent. Eternal Guard or Tree Kin are reasonable front line screens and have a natural affinity for fighting against the Beastmen's larger units, like Minotaurs, while Wardancers can quickly butcher a majority of the infantry they tango with. Just make sure none of your damage dealing units ever take a head on charge. Beastmen have a very notable weakness that you can exploit; a near complete lack of armor and relatively limited missile units means that they'll be taking the full force of your ranged assaults. Hagbane Glade Guard/Riders not only deal respectable damage to the beastmen units, but the application of poison helps your footbound infantry catch up to and slaughter their infantry with considerable ease. In a cavalry face off, these hagbane missile units can slow down opposing Centagors for your Wild Riders and Great Stag Knights to deliver crippling blows with a few cycle charges. Lastly, Waywatchers and Deepwood Scouts (swiftsilver) are fantastic character or monster hunters who can pop up behind enemy lines and burst down Bray shaman, Giants or Cygors.

*'''Bretonnia''' - Make no mistake, Bretonnian cavalry is beyond your league. Though Wild Riders and Great Stag Knights have impressive charges of their own, they cannot remain engaged in a fight. This isn't really a problem for Bretonnian cav, who have the stats and tools to remain in a fight and still come out on top. The two biggest units to watch out for are Questing Knights and Grail Knights. Though they specialize primarily against armored units, Questing Knights will easily catch up to and slaughter a majority of your infantry in quick order. Grail Knights are the swiss-army knife of the faction against you; with magical attacks as well as an anti-armor and bonus against large, these guys are tailor made to chop down your tree units. It's less than ideal, but try to box them in or screen them with Eternal Guard, who will at the very least hold them off and allow your vulnerable missile units to reposition or support them with anti-armor fire. If you can at least pin them in long enough, Wardancers with Spears can do impressive damage against them despite their armor. As far as the peasantry goes... you have nothing to worry about. Your archers will absolutely dominate theirs in a firefight and literally any of your infantry options will win against theirs.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''Dark Elves''' - Fortunately, much of their AP ammunition and melee specialization goes to waste in this matchup. Even better, their lack of firing range means you can often fire off several volleys before they can, even with their missile chariots. The best of news, their heavy cavalry is among the worst in the game, and is hardly able to keep up with yours. Not to be confused with their light cavalry, which is actually quite capable and the most picked flavor of Dark Elf cavalry. Black Ark Corsairs, Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter are particularly feisty in melee combat and are the best suited to dealing with your kind, so try to wear them down at range before you contest them with Wildwood Rangers/Wardancers. Dryads and Tree Kin are not recommended units to bring in this matchup; they're too slow and the Dark Elf emphasis on AP will shred them before they so much as take a step out of the woods. Keep an eye peeled for when Murderous Prowess procs and do everything you can to avoid engaging the Dark Elves while it's active; the offensive bonuses can easily turn a losing engagement into a winning one for them and you definitely aren't suited to DPS race another glass cannon faction.

*'''Dwarfs''' - This used to be one of the most unbalanced and memeable matchups in Mortal Empires, but with the addition of Throt and the thots, it's gotten much more even. Don't bother too much with shooters here. Running around shooting for what feels like hours is super boring, and you'll also probably lose. Instead, lean into the melee rush. Your Wardancers and Wildwood Rangers should be able to deal with Dwarf Warriors and Longbeards, but remember, you have to respect the tankiness. Your higher-tier infantry WILL beat Longbeards, but it will take way too long to be cost-effective, and shooting at them just isn't cost-efficient. If your opponent tries to artillery box with Organ Guns, Naestra and Arahan can sit back and trade with their artillery all day, leaving the rest of their army open for your fast rush build to stomp on. Drycha with her dryad summons and lore of shadows is also a great choice. Tree Kin and Treemen are a wonderful bastion to center your army around, but you will ''need'' to take out any Irondrakes the opponent may have fielded before you commit them to battle. The Firebark Elders RoR can help mitigate this fire weakness. Bladesingers will soon become excellent beard-cutters once the magic-resistance only applies to spell damage as opposed to magic attacks, giving you a much needed way to carve through Dwarf armor. You're really gonna want to watch out for Bugman's rangers. With their regeneration and charge defence, they are a unit type that has everything you hate dealing with, and shutting them down quickly is quite difficult. Lost Sylvan Knights can be rockstars in this matchup IF you bring them at the right time. Dwarf rune magic is pretty much a hard counter to them, but if your opponent doesn't bring rune magic, they can swing the battle for you.

*'''Empire''' - That artillery... is going to be a problem. A rather shocking array of long range artillery well suited for every occasion will make any frontal assault all but suicidal. Play to your strengths; try to flank and ambush weak points in empire lines. Stay on the move and don't give their missile infantry a chance to set up and fire. If you can, vanguard deploy cavalry or dryads in a position to shut down careless artillery placements so that your archers can start picking apart empire [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] before ''they'' can get into range. Great Eagles are also fantastic for this purpose, just make sure you keep an eye on any halberds that might be standing by. Otherwise, Wardancers and Bladesingers thoroughly outclass Empire infantry if they can make it in safely, though don't expect them to get out unscathed.

*'''Greenskins''' - Little to no armor? Check. General lack of anti-large? Check. Relatively sluggish frontline? Also check. You have a lot of things going for you in this matchup, but that's not to say Greenskins aren't able to give you a damn good fight. Goblins and Goblin Skirmishers will be a bitch to deal with; exceedingly numerous, nimble and accurate with their bows and ultimately disposable if you pin them down, they'll often distract or whittle away enough of your forces that the Ork Boyz about to crash into your lines will be able to deal some serious damage. Dryads are solid counters to the non-armored Boyz, though you'll want Wildwood Rangers or Bladesingers to deal with Black Orks. Your Cavalry is well suited to deal with the Greenskins, but only if you continuously cycle charge with them.

*'''Grand Cathay''' - Yet another defensive [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] faction. Your air force does outclass Grand Cathay's in a skirmish and you can easily take down their Skyjunks with Great Eagles or Forest Dragons (something you'll want to do if you don't want fiery hot death spewing from it), but the same can't be said for the rest of their artillery. Grand Cannons will be very problematic for your forest spirits and surprisingly difficult to pin down due to their speed while Fire Rain Rockets put out enough anti-infantry firepower to make Hellstorm Batteries blush. Your missile cav will prove quite valuable at outmaneuvering and outranging most of the [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] and can generally keep away from Grand Cathay's own lackluster cavalry selection, though just make sure you don't directly charge into any braced infantry with your cavalry; flank them or charge them with less valuable units like Dryads or Eternal Guard before sending in your heavy hitters.

*'''High Elves''' - High Elves share many of the same strengths you do. Their Sisters of Avelorn can very nearly match Waywatchers in ranged dps while their weakest dragon, the Sun Dragon is comparable to your Forest Dragon in stats. Also, their units have a durability yours simply can't match, a large part of which is their Martial Prowess. Worse, many of their units come with a 55% block chance against missile fire, which can be incredibly potent against a faction such as yours that relies heavily on missile fire. Fortunately, you have an advantage that can help negate both of those difficulties: your speed. Wood Elves are the best skirmish faction in the game, use that to your advantage. Take some ranged cavalry to circle the enemy or vanguard deploy some archers behind enemy lines and shoot their infantry in the back to ignore those pesky shields. Remember that Waywatchers don't duel other archers very well due to their low model count, save them to shoot at large targets or lords. If your enemy is smart they won't try to contest the air, if they're not shoot their dragons and phoenixes out of the sky with a combination of prey of anathraema (so you'll probably want to take female glade lord as your lord) and waywatcher fire. Either way you should be able to field some flying units such as hawk riders which you can use for more skirmishing. Remember that if possible you don't want to engage the enemy in melee until their units are at half health and their Martial Prowess is gone. The new DLC units are quite effective against the High Elves, Zoats are strong anti-cavalry and Bladesingers can blender High Elf infantry, especially if Martial Prowess is lost. Don't bring tree spirits unless you're willing to invest in Firebark Elders because the High Elves have a ton of sources of fire damage. Branchwraiths might also be a poor choice as the High Elf Fireborn RoR can kill a Branchwraith in seconds.

*'''Khorne''' - Probably one of the easiest matchup's you'll have. the majority of your units will be able to just outrun anything short of khorne's cavalry and furies. bring fast skirmishers and a good deal of anti-large to counter cavalry play and take khorne on a map-wide kiting run.

*'''Kislev''' - Bring some spears and some Tree Kin because cavalry is likely going to be the name of Kislev's game. Keep an eye out for any Ice Guard; while Kossars and Streltsi will not pose much of a threat (at range) the Ice Guard are quite capable at any range and will be very adept at scything through your forest spirits if you give them the opportunity. If you can contain them and any Ice Witches, your Tree Kin will be pretty well set to hold back any Winged Lancers or War Bear Riders trying to get at your backline. Use Eternal Guard and Spear Wardancers to mop up any such cavalry and you should be golden.

*'''Lizardmen''' - While you will have absolutely no issues outrunning and kiting Saurus and Kroxigors, you should take a caution against Skink units. They might be cute little lizards who deal relatively minor damage against most other factions, but you're not most other factions. Since a majority of your infantry is unarmored, you'll be taking the full brunt of their little assaults and they're one of the precious few infantry units that can reliably keep pace with yours and even outrun a fair chunk of your own frontline formations. Additionally, Skink Skirmishers and Chameleon Skinks will prove shockingly effective at whittling down your unarmored forces with poisonous missile fire while proving to be a frustrating target in turn due to their lose formations and (for Chameleons) ranged damage resist. Lastly, you will want to take an extreme care around Fire Slann and Salamanders, who will be the ''bane'' of your Tree units. If you can shut down their fiery assaults, Tree Kin will prove a reliable walling unit to hold down and defend against Saurus frontlines and can even resist the onslaught of their varied monsters. Your cavalry will also prove extremely effective against the Lizardmen with their superior speed and devastating charges; there's precious little the Lizardmen can do if they can't pin down your Wild Riders/Great Stag Knights.

*'''Norsca''' - The general disdain for armor among Norscans makes dealing with them at range substantially more viable than their heavily armored cousins (WoC), though their higher speeds and more prolific monsters will prove troublesome should they manage to catch up to you. Anti-Large is a must in some flavor (not that it's particularly hard to come by for you).

*'''Nurgle''' - The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Try to avoid melee for as long as you have any ammunition left, there's no sense letting Nurgle deal any unnecessary damage to your forces.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''' - Under no circumstances are you to try to meet their charges head on; any non-Tree Kin infantry that tries will get utterly demolished before the ''actual'' fighting begins. Instead, divide and conquer; Ogre Kingdoms are going to generally have a lower unit/model count than most other armies, so every dead ogre adds up fairly quickly and they can't be everywhere at once. Spread out your forces so that even if they manage to pin down some of your units, you still have reinforcements ready to reposition and hit them where it hurts. Additionally, their relative lack of armor means your abundance of ranged units can soften them up significantly before they get close. Tree Kin, with their expert charge defense, melee resistance and high melee defense stats, are one of the few units that can safely stop an Ogre charge in its tracks. Follow this up with some Eternal Guard to further tie them down.

*'''Skaven''' - Other than the High Elves, if any other faction can rival you at range, it's the Skaven. Between their Jezzails, Ratling Guns, Poisonwind Globadiers, Plagueclaw Catapults and Warplightning Cannons, Skaven have a gun for every conceivable job. You on the other hand, have virtually no armor and shielded units are few and far in between. Thankfully, many of your archers still outrange their missile units and so long as you don't allow yourself to get backed into a corner, you shouldn't have too much issue kiting their slightly slower ranged infantry. Dealing with Skaven artillery will always be your first priority; Great Eagles or Wild Riders/Great Stag Knights can swiftly slip behind enemy lines and shut down artillery long enough for your archers to set up and deal some damage. In general, your melee infantry shouldn't really be too bothered by theirs; skavenslaves and clanrats are a mere nuisance to your considerably more "elite" infantry, though don't get complacent; even skavenslaves can deal not inconsiderable damage to your unarmored elves and, like all chaff infantry, their main value lies in simply tying your guys down. Key Skaven infantry to watch out for are their Plaguemonks and Death Runners.

*'''Slaanesh''' - The only faction that can definitively claim to be faster than you... and at least in this matchup, that doesn't necessarily do them too many favors. Much of the Slaaneshi roster is geared to fight armored opponents, which thankfully (in this particular case, at least), you generally aren't. Having said that, Slaanesh isn't without claws or teeth; if you want your Waywatchers or Glade Guard to get any work done, you're going to need to screen them diligently. Slaanesh lacks much in the way of range (effectively non-existent ranged roster) or armor (...it's Slaanesh after all), so you can get some serious work done from afar if you can keep his/her chariots, cavalry and/or daemonettes from scything through your backlines. Hawk Riders can also serve you quite well in this matchup, as once you clear out any potential furies from assaulting them, they'll be virtually uncontested while they rain arrows down upon the backsides of those horny, horny daemons. You'll want to take the ever vigilant Eternal Guard to combat enemy cavalry/chariots and as general damage sponges while Wardancers can mop up any infantry currently engaged with them. Bladesingers in particular will be more than a match for Slaanesh's infantry if you permanently activate their dance skill to get more raw damage and the expense of armor piercing.

*'''Tomb Kings''' - An unpredictable matchup. Their frontline will be slow, and much of it can be whittled down with skirmish tactics before your own melee units will even need to engage them. Ushabti Great Bows pose a serious threat to the Wood Elves as they can steadily fire upon your Lords from afar, especially Orion and Durthu whose large model sizes makes them much more vulnerable, as well as outranging the Sisters of Twilight by a considerable margin. Faster constructs such as the Warsphinx and the Necrosphinx puts a great damper on the skirmishing tactics which Wood Elves mainly rely on, being capable of chasing down kiting units such as Deepwood Scouts and Waystalkers. Keep the Tomb Kings player on their toes with a good mix of Cav, ranged units and anti-large spear units, making sure to avoid engaging their frontline units in melee until absolutely necessary due to their fear effect putting you at a disadvantage.

*'''Tzeentch''' - First; leave anything with bark for skin in the woods; trying to mitigate the sheer amount of flaming, magical damage at Tzeentch's disposal is impossible. Instead, you're going to want a dedicated cavalry build; Tzeentch relies heavily on cycle charging and keeping out of extended fights. Use your superior speed to prevent any daemons from escaping. Once you manage to pin any particular units down, Wardancers and Bladesingers will dominate anything they come into contact with. Of course, you'll want to have a few archers contest/discourage any Horrors attempting to line up some shots of their own if only to further soften them up for your melee kill squads.

*'''Vampire Coast''' - Look out for artillery. If you can do that, this matchup can become modestly easy; Vampire Coast infantry is rather slow and you easily outrange all non-artillery missile units they can bring to bear. So long as you're careful with your positioning, pick your engagements and keep two steps ahead of them, you can pick apart much of their gunlines before they can get a chance to return fire. Once you do so, Wardancers with Spears and Eternal Guard are pretty suited towards dealing with the bigger monsters they might have.

*'''Vampire Counts''' - One of your best matchups. VCs have a tough time handling your skirmishers since they don't have any ranged units or light cav. They also have a tough time handling your forest spirits. Treemen/treekin can easily smush skeleton spearmen and shut down blood knights with their charge def vs. large. If you really want to be an asshole, take sisters of twilight/hawkriders, park them on top of enemy, and pick away at their key units while they impotently shake their fists at you. VC lords are frequently put on flying mounts such as Hellsteeds and Zombie Dragons. An excellent strategy against these picks is to expose archer units in hopes of baiting the VC Lord in before trapping him or in place with the female Glade Lord's Prey of Anath Raema ability. As long as Dire Wolves and Vampire Cav are kept far away while this commences, a full back line of archers can easily whittle the VC Lord down within the sixteen seconds of prey of Anath Raema, especially given its twenty percent missile resistance debuff, thereby automatically securing your victory.

*'''Warriors of Chaos''' - A heavily armored melee faction with virtually no ranged options, you won't have much trouble keeping your distance from a majority of the WoC roster. The problem is, between their heavy armor and shields, Wood Elves had a bit of trouble actually dealing with their front lines until recently. Though Wildwood Rangers are reasonably decent at facing them in combat, the addition of Bladesingers has given Wood Elves a very strong melee-oriented answer for all that bulk. When properly supported, Bladesingers can and will carve a path of death through Chaos front lines, especially if you have anti-armor missile support from the flanks. Eternal Guard, as ever, are the best screening unit you can ask for against enemy cavalry while Tree Kin are a bit more suited to holding back the tide of enemy infantry while your Bladesingers get into position. One major issue you'll need to keep in mind; if the WoC brought a Hellcannon, you will want to prioritize that before anything else. WE have no direct artillery to answer them in kind and with virtually no defensive statlines on most of your units, Hellcannons can deal terrible damage to a majority of your roster if you let them fire at you uncontested.

*'''Wood Elves''' - Oh boy, fantasy guerilla warfare. If you're facing other fleshy wood elf infantry, don't expect a straight up fight. Try to outflank and shut down their archer units to force them into a more direct confrontation and shut down their healers to prevent them from shaking off the damage you deal to them. Try to save your magical arrows for any Trees looking at you funny.

===Campaign Strategies===
First things first; you're playing the long game from turn 1. Expect to spend many consecutive turns hunkered down in the woods, actually waiting for trees to grow. The most important thing to any Wood Elf faction you play as is the Oak of Ages. Whichever subfaction you decide to play as, bar Drycha, will start their campaign with the Oak itself under their direct control. Empowering the Oak is an expensive and time consuming process that often requires the growth of outlying Awakened Woods to help rejuvenate it. Doing so, however, will issue quests from the other disparate Wood Elf factions that, upon completion, automatically and immediately confederate with your main faction. Drycha, the racist that she is, will only confederate with Durthu and has little choice but to claim Athel Loren and the Oak of Ages by force.

In general, you're going to want to pick an Awakened Forest to focus on first. Most Awakened Woods outside Athel Loren are already occupied by some minor faction and they'll need to be kicked out before you can get to work returning them to full bloom. To do so, you'll want, if not need all adjacent regions to the forest to actively be helping grow the woods. This will only occur under three conditions; A) You've turned the settlement in the region into a Wood Elf Outpost, B) You've driven any occupying force out of the settlement and razed it to the ground or C), you're in an active alliance with the region's owner. If these settlements are owned by a hostile power, they'll actively harm your efforts to grow the forest. This can give you a bit of flexibility in how you go about healing the Awakened Woods, as outside the regions immediately adjacent to said woods, you genuinely have little incentive to conquer the lands beyond them. As these woods begin to fully bloom, they'll provide constant, active benefits both to Athel Loren's growth rate and to your faction's performance on the campaign. Each Awakened Wood will also provide diplomatic bonuses to a particular faction (usually one that spawns close to the woods in question) and will typically provide some sort of attrition immunity to help in your travels. Depending on how you go about things, Wood Elves can become one of the most diplomatic factions in the game.

*'''Drycha'''
Drycha's main focus, outside the shared Athel Loren goal every Wood Elf faction has, is to return Coeddil to the mortal world and punish the filthy flesh bags squatting in her home. The only other Wood Elf faction in the game that she can get along with is Durthu; everyone else needs to be wiped out. Due to her... particular stance on the eponymous Wood Elves, she has to place units comprised of such meat under a glamour. While this lulls them into thinking they're fighting for Ariel, it also reduces their combat effectiveness. To compensate, her Forest Spirit units come in the form of upgraded "Malevolent" versions, all with Frenzy as a perk. Between that and her/Durthu's shared Forest Spirit specialization upgrade mechanic, you're ''heavily'' encouraged to form a Forest Spirit-focused build for most of your armies.

====Immortal Empires====
As above, so below. The campaign for the Wood Elves is essentially unchanged from how you would play them in Mortal Empires, with a few minor improvements.

Alliances are now much easier to form with other races and bring tangible benefits. If you choose to play passively, allies will build outposts wherever they can and strengthen your garrisons. If you want to cover the world in trees, getting access to units like phoenixes from the High Elves or Ratling Guns from the Skaven will give you some new tactical options. Most Elf units, but particularly hydras, phoenixes, and chariots synergize well with your armies.

The Jungles of Chi-An are a new magic forest on the borders of Khuresh that greatly reduces the upkeep cost of tree spirits. You should rush confederating that one first as all wood elf factions, which thankfully is pretty easy; all you need to do is conquer one settlement of any Cathay faction. And speaking of confederation, it is now possible to confederate Drycha as other wood elf factions. If you're lucky, she'll have an army of malevolent tree spirits and not just a flock of hawks and bats.

The new diplomacy system still allows you to beg money off the AI, but you won't get as much for asking as you did in Mortal Empires; 500 to 1000 seems normal for factions that really like you. Instead, you'll be making most of your money and experience off forest encounters or siege battles against capital regions. Thankfully for your treasury, the reduction to upkeep costs mean wood elves can always field more armies relative to their limited territory than other factions, allowing you to overpower anyone foolish enough to threaten the heathlands and forests themselves. If you're feeling particularly gutsy, trigger the ultimate endgame crisis/crises early in the campaign so you can farm the AI's armies for huge amounts of gold and XP.

Also of note is that, due to the nerf to AI aggression, expanding to all or most of the magical forests can be done fairly safely. You will rarely see the AI assault any of the Wood Elf territories en masse, allowing you to use the Deeproots or treasury savings to meet potential threats across most of the map. Combined with the confederation quests for the magical forests, the Wood Elf economy can be established very quickly and you'll be able to raise multiple armies before turn 50. The more armies you have, the greater the chance that Forest Spirit ancillaries will drop. These are some of the most powerful ancillaries in the game, as they impose a -5 leadership effect on enemy armies in the same province as the character they are equipped to. By stacking that effect on multiple lords or heroes you can destroy enemy armies through morale loss alone.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen

2023-05-19T16:39:10Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{Topquote|Leth! Khar! Khaos! (Master! Rage! Chaos!)|Game battle chant for Beastmen}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the [[Beastmen]].

==Why Play Beastmen?==
*Because you love the half-human half-animal creatures from Greek Mythology, but wanted to see them as destructive, crazy, violent, rapist raiders who hate everything that so much as looks orderly.
*You want to worship Chaos but don't care about the recognition.
*You really, really hate furries, and playing as a race tailor-made to be completely unromanticized animal-people was the best way you could think to express your disdain.
** Alternatively, you're a [[Furry]] yourself and have decided to throw in with a /tg/ approved furry race because you're sick of getting crap for it.
*Because you don't need no OP armor or Daemons to burn the world down.

===Pros===
*'''Speed''': You are up with Wood Elves as one of the fastest factions in the game. Your infantry and cavalry can outpace their competition from most other factions, and even their monsters are very speedy for their size. Only Slaanesh can reliably out speed you.
*'''Mass Vanguard''': Most of your units have Vanguard Deployment, meaning you can set up troops in places most newer players wouldn't expect. This really helps exemplify them as an ambush faction who relies on catching their opponents with their pants down.
*'''Summons''': With access to Lore of Beasts, Lore of Wilds, and Morghur's Chaos Spawn abilities, you are ''the'' most powerful summoning army in the entire game. You can summon a lot of really powerful units like Manticores, Cygors, and Spawn to really give you an edge over your opponents and snowball out of control.
*'''Hitting Power''': Believe it or not, a goat-man that stands roughly a foot and a half taller than a normal human and is made of nothing but muscle hits really, really hard. That's not even getting into Minotaurs, which hit with the force of a freight train with a rocket tied to the back.
*'''Chase down Potential''': Because of how fast your units are, chasing down routing units is something that few factions in the game can compete with you at. Hounds and Centigors will get rid of all that pesky infantry and make sure that terrified Lord is escorted cleanly off the map.
*'''Monsters''': Well, this one is only a super positive if you bought The Silence and The Furry, but yes Beastmen have a ton of cool monsters to pick from. Ghorgon, Jabberslythes, Minotaurs and many more will let you run the beast horde of your dreams.

===Cons===
*'''DLC Faction''': Unlike the base game factions, who are merely supplemented by DLC, the entire Beastmen faction is locked behind an additional paywall. Combine that with the fact that you need to buy <s>BOTH GAMES AND ANOTHER DLC just to get the full roster,</s> Immortal Empires is free for everyone now so it's not that bad anymore, but it's still pricey just to be able to play the cowmen. This is combined with the fact that Ghorgon and Jabberslythe are so important that honestly Silence and the Fury is a must buy for multiplayer.
*'''Lack of Defense''': You are a very fragile faction and are prone to mass missile fire and losing out in pure grindfests. You want to hit hard and get out before the enemy can retaliate.
*'''Poor Leadership''': Most of your army has leadership that can best be described as "A 50's reality show housewife who just saw a [[Skaven|Rat]]." expect your units to be running a lot. The Wargor helps a little but he won't be keeping your troops in line for long as he doesn't provide any fear immunities.
*'''No Heavy Cav''': You don't have any cavalry options which can win in a one on one slugging match against enemy heavy cavalry. Centigors get pimpslapped even by Orc Cav.
*'''Poor Ranged''': While you are ok at ranged by Chaos standards, you are made to primarily be a melee faction. Raiders and Throwing Axe Centigors have very limited range and Cygors are uber expensive. While you do have options, you will need to get up close and personnel to deal with the enemy most of the time.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Primal Fury''': As the first DLC faction since launch, the Beastmen were the first race to get some kind of passive battle ability on most of their units. As such, it's pretty outdated compared to what the newer faction received. Whenever a Beastmen unit's leadership is over 50%, they gain extra charge bonus, melee attack, speed, and immune to psychology. It's pretty much Frenzy only instead of getting extra weapon damage they move faster. This may sound like a great way to deal with the army's Leadership problems, however since it goes away when leadership is below 50% it means that it doesn't help as well as you think. Combine this with the general low leadership the army has, and sometimes you forget they have immune to psych in the first place. The bonus to stats are nice, but hopefully, this gets updated when the Beastmen update comes.

==Legendary Lords==
*'''[[Khazrak The One-Eye]]''': Your big named bastard who focuses on combat. With armor that provides a 20% damage resistance when in melee and a massive anti Infantry combat steroid, he's a beast in physical combat, especially on his chariot. Since Beastmen chariots are actually pretty good, this guy can be a menace with microed well. His biggest problem is that while he is a decent combat lord he really doesn't do much to help the army as a whole, and mostly just exists to run over the enemy. Granted, he does that pretty darn well, but since the Beastmen units generally need some form of leadership support in order to keep them in the fight this guy usually gets overlooked when it comes to multiplayer. He probably won't lose you a battle, but he probably also won't be the reason you win either.

*'''[[Malagor The Dark Omen]]''': The only caster Legendary Lord you currently have, and after his rework he has become one of the best lords in the whole game. he comes with a mixed lore of magic from Beasts, Shadows, Death and Wild with some good damage spells and the ability to summon Cygors out of the ground to bash your enemies to pieces. He flies meaning he's easier to maneuver or run to safety than most lords but if the enemy has any flying units harpies are mandatory to cover for him. In campaign, this guy is so fast and can get so much magic reduction costs that in the late game he can win battles all on his own. However the Beastmen lack of air power means you'll want to toggle his flying off and use him as a boring footlord if you're up against a faction with a strong air force like Bretonnia, High Elves and Vampire Counts.

*'''[[Morghur The Shadowgave]]''':Morghur's main draw is the ability to get free value on the field and supply your army with free units. For one, while he is a foot lord he has crazy high regeneration, meaning killing him is actually pretty damn hard. On top of that, his abilities are just flat out amazing. He gets a free Chaos Spawn summon to use whenever the hell he feels like it, so you can surprise the enemy with surprise butt sex. On top of that, he has a really cool passive that makes it so that once per battle, when an enemy unit reaches below a certain health point, they die and spawn a friendly unit of spawn. That means this guy can get you two extra units on the battlefield FOR FREE. Needless to say, that is amazing and as such he is the go-to lord pick for 90% of Multiplayer Beastmen lists.

*'''[[Taurox The Brass Bull]] (DLC)''': Available in The Silence and The Fury, Big daddy bull is coming to save the Beastmen in their hour of need. He is the Beastmen's monstrous lord and his main job will be to beat the living crap out of whatever you point him at. He is a tanky beast with Armor Piercing fire damage and numerous abilities and weapons that increases his melee prowess even further. His Brass Body ability gives him a 40% damage resistance and melee defense making him even harder to kill, though interestingly his weak point doesn't play into the game even though it shows up on the model. I guess CA didn't like the idea of you randomly losing your lord because Tzeentch felt like being a dick. If he does get in harm's way he also has an AOE explosion around himself to give him a get out of jail free card. In multiplayer he's very expensive, has a big hit box and weak to armor piercing missiles, so there are probably safer, if less fun, options there.

==Units==
===Lords===
*'''[[Beastlord]]''': Your infantry melee choice and as far as generic lords go he's... Meh? He's pretty much just Khazrak only he trades some melee prowess in exchange for an extra buffing ability for him and his army. Ironically this means in multiplayer he's considered better than Khazrak since he can actually help out all the poor goatmen who are stuck in melee. Other than that, you pretty much use him like you use Khazrak. Put him on that chariot and blast Ludacris on your speakers as you run your enemies the fuck over.

*'''[[Doombull]] (DLC)''': Budget Taurox, only instead of using axes he just punches people to death. He's a big bruiser lord similar to The Kroxigor Ancient, and comes with the ability to Daze his opponents so when he punches someone in the face they lose speed and Melee Defense, making them easier to stick on and kill. His Barbed Knuckle Boxing also gives him more attack and weapon damage. Very similar to Taurox, though less survivable and cheaper.

*'''Great Bray Shaman''': Confirmed as a FLC lord for the Beastmen on Total War access. He will be the generic caster lord for the goatmen, giving them some much needed lord variety. He comes with a Tuskgor and Razorgor chariot mount. He's great if you just want to save money on a caster by wrapping him up with your lord.

===Heroes===
*'''[[Bray Shaman]]''': Your generic caster hero and he does what you expect most mages in this game to do to be honest, so he's always handy to have around. He has access to the Lore of Beasts, Shadows, Death, and Wilds, so he focuses more only blowing shit up with magic prowess more than healing or straight-up buffs, not that he's incapable of doing that. Since you pretty much got to bring this guy in most armies unless you have Malagor, you may as well put him on the chariot, as when you do that he becomes pretty decent at cycle charging infantry to death as well. If mounted on a Tuskgor Chariot he gains vanguard deployment.
*'''[[Gorebull]]''': The first monstrous character (aside from Kholek and Sarthoreal) to be put into the game. This guy is a beast who specializes in AP anti large, so see if you can throw him against any monsters to chip down. He also acts as a pretty good bodyguard for your squishier lords or casters since who the hell wants to be fighting a nine-foot-tall minotaur with a big fuck off axe. The Gorebull does have one infamous weakness that makes him a meme in the community though, his mass. For whatever reason, it is really easy to knock this guy around like a pinball and send him flying to Saturn. Now a Dragon or Giant would understandably be able to do this, but something like a troll should NOT be able to throw this guy around so easily. Seriously, look up Gorebull Mass and you will probably find some damn good memes. This means he has issues sticking to his targets since anything big can just throw him halfway across the map. Still, a pretty good hero is you're able to keep him within orbit.
**<s>The Twisted and Twilight patch has fixed some knockdown problems that have been plaguing all foot lords, not just Gorebull, so rocketing will be a rarer occasion than in the past.</s> Nope, this guy still has the mass of a rubber ball. Sorry.

*'''[[Wargor]] (DLC)''': A hero gor and a budget version of the Beastlord. He will serve as your melee infantry hero, providing some defensive buffs for your armies to help keep them in the fight. Both on foot and his chariot mount he is more of an infantry blob fighter with mostly base weapon damage and anti infantry. He also gives +4 leadership and +5 melee defense so he can help your units stick around a bit longer. he's also fairly cheap in multiplayer, so bringing two isn't that crazy. Likely best to use against super infantry reliant factions. If mounted on a Tuskgor Chariot he gains vanguard deployment.

===Melee Units===
*'''Ungor Spearmen''': Your chaff spear unit, designed to absorb damage and make sure enemy cav doesn't stick around too long. Stat wise they're pathetic and lose to anything not a meat shield but they do have a high entity count and can use vanguard deployment for ambush tactics. They also gain advantages when fighting in the forest, so get tree engagements if you can. By far the best part about them is that they have the expendable trait, meaning you don't have to worry about them scaring the troops you actually care about when they rout.

*'''Ungor Spearmen (Shield)''': They will make your frontline in most multiplayer battles, though in campaign you'll want better troops as soon as you can get them. Always get the shields variant.
**'''Destroyers of the Drakwald''': Not only does this unit have much better melee defense, meaning it might actually stick around for a while, it also has poison attacks. This can be a good support unit and help enemy cav get stuck if they get their hands on them.

*'''Ungor Herd''': The same as above only this is a much more offensive infantry. These axe wielders sacrifice some defensive stats in exchange for better offensive ones, meaning they can pump out a bit more damage than the spear version. They will still lose to most halfway decent infantry of the same tier, but they're meant to be expendable anyway so don't worry too much about it.

*'''Gor Herd''': Your mid-tier infantry and man are these guys lawnmowers against low armored units. They come with two versions, a shielded version with more defense and a dual axe version with more attack. These guys are some of the best chaff clearing infantry in the game and will get rid of all the low-level fodder some factions love to bring to the table. Their armor is garbage so even the shielded version will die to missiles, but can still be great if they get on the right troops. Plus vanguard can help with sneaky shenanigans. Get the shielded version against factions with tons of missiles and the unshielded one against factions who don't.

**'''Black-Horn’s Ravagers''': They have better armor and stats than a normal Gor Herd, stalk, and an ability that gives them perfect vigor. This makes them great early game damage dealers, but their usefulness will drop off as the battle rages on and they sustain damage.

*'''[[Harpy|Harpie]]s''': They're like fell bats, only they might actually kill whatever they're fighting. They are usually used to tie up enemy skirmishers and get them off the field so that your troops can fight unmolested. They will die if anything so much as sneezes on them too hard, so be careful when sending them in, as they may not be able to pull out again.

*'''[[Bestigor|Bestigor Herd]]''': One of the few units that can best be described as "Shock Infantry." They have a monstrous charge bonus for an infantry unit and combine that with a decently high model count and they can cause havoc. If they can get a clean charge off on an opponent, these guys will be doing roughly the amount of a monstrous infantry unit PER ENTITY. They will clear through most mid-tier infantry if they can get the drop on them. The bad news for you is they're very reliant on the charge as their defensive stats aside from armor suck, so if they're the ones getting charged, don't expect them to last long. Great for punching through heavy armor.
**'''Khorrok’s Manrippers''': These guys trade a great axe for a halberd, meaning instead of armored infantry you want them fighting cavalry. They are your only halberd unit and you can only bring one, so they're almost a requirement against heavy cav factions.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Ungor Raiders''': Your only foot skirmisher unit, and by Khorne's Bloody Taint are these guys not exactly the model most ranged units strive to be. With pitiful range, accuracy, and AP you'd think there's be absolutely no point in bringing them, right? Well, they do have some uses. They can be used to force away skirmisher cav and can do some ok damage against units that don't have a ton of armor. They also have vanguard and stalk, meaning you can use them to get some sneaky ambushes on an unsuspecting opponent. That said, they aren't Waywatchers, so don't expect them to carry the day for the Beastmen.

===Cavalry===
*'''[[Centigor]]s''': These horse goatman things are lighter cavalry designed to go after enemy skirmishers. Their special trait Rowdy gives them perfect vigor while their leadership is above 50% which is great for cavalry as they will be at peak fighting capacity for a large chunk of the battle. Vanguard can also help them with cheeky ambushes Beastmen love to do and a shield will help them against any missile fire coming in. Don't charge these guys into heavy cav, however. That job belongs to...

*'''Centigors (Great Weapons)''': These guys are very similar to the above, but they trade their shield for AP. This makes them a good can opener unit that can get through some heavy armor. They shouldn't be thrown in alone, however, and are best used in support with other units, preferably with debuffs like poison. If you can get the drop on your opponent and give them support, they can get some real value for your army.
**'''Sons of Ghorros''': Not only do they get way more armor, but they also get magic attacks which can help deal with any physical resistance. Guardian is also fun to help protect your characters if they ever get caught out. Though sadly they are much faster than all the Beastmen lords so you won't get to see it much.

*'''Centigors (Throwing Axes)''': Skirmisher cav with a whole lot of AP, these boys are your best answer to heavily armored units from range. They're decent in melee but you want them for the throwing axes and all the AP they bring to the table. Granted with only 14 shots you need to be able to use them wisely and you best hope your enemy's light cav don't catch them or they won't last very long. And of course with goodies like vanguard they can be great for ambushes, though it's usually better to keep them with units that can protect them.
**'''The Groghooves of Wolf’s Run (DLC)''': Centigors blessed by Nurgle with poison and regeneration due to a unique passive. This will make them far more deadly in close combat due to the healing and debuffs they can spit out. This likely isn't as useful as you think because any centigor Throwing axe unit in melee is going to be losing models and you generally bring them because they're decently cheap, so a more expensive version isn't the best. Still if they poison something nothing will catch them.

===Chariots===
*'''Tuskgor Chariots (DLC)''': Your budget chariots. They may not hit as hard as your more expensive option but they are much cheaper and have vanguard, giving them much more interesting versatility on the battlefield. You can now get some cheap, relatively strong units in your early game vanguard and hit your opponent with the surprise chariot. In multiplayer these guys pretty much make razorgor Chariots redundant since they do essentially the same thing but for cheaper.

*'''Razorgor Chariot''': Not much to say about these guys to be honest. They're a very solid chariot unit that causes fear. If you're fighting against a faction that loves armored infantry like Dwarfs or Warriors of Chaos these guys will be able to run over them and supply good flank support.

===War Beasts===
*'''Chaos Warhounds''': Fairly cheap, expendable skirmisher hunters that can be vanguarded. Plus with missile resistance, you don't have to worry too much about them getting torn up by arrows or bullets on the way in. They come in a normal and a poison variant, and nine times out of ten you will take the poison version because it's literally the exact same thing but with poison, with the only downside being that it's ever so slightly more expensive.

*'''[[Razorgor|Razorgor Herd]]''': Don't let the crummy statline fool you, Pumba's warped cousins are one of the MVPs of the entire roster. Heavy AP combined with fear is already pretty good, but combine that with high mass and they can fill a variety of roles if they get support. You can team them up with your frontline to tear through armor or help out Centigors with pinning cav or monsters and laying the hurt. Plus they're only 600 gold meaning you can spam the field with bacon. They do have rampage which really sucks, but honestly, at only 600 gold you won't miss them that much if they suicide charge into halberds. Their attack and defense may suck, but the mass, AP, and combo potential more than makeup for it, and they can really punch above their weight.

===Monsters===
*'''[[Chaos Spawn]]''': Pretty much identical to what the Warriors of Chaos have, only these guys trade a lot of Weapon Strength for poison. Believe me, it is a worthwhile trade-off. With poison not only can they do a ton of damage to light armor but they can provide support for your frontline, meaning your ungors may actually be able to do something! And of course, having a unit that will never run is welcome in a faction that's prone to mass routs. Serves as a great inexpensive monstrous infantry in your armies, but if you're worried about armor, see below.
**Sidegraded in patch 2.2, giving them more weapon strength but also boosting up the gold cost. They are really good monsters for tanking hits and tarpitting single-entities.

*'''[[Bullgor|Minotaur]]s''': Let's be honest I think everyone who has wanted to play Beastmen plays them for a chance to use these guys. With high AP, charge, and attack they can tear apart anything that they get their hands on, but their low armor and melee defense mean they can't take much of a beating in return. Bloodgreed also makes them immune to psych while their leadership is up, so they'll stick around longer than your average goat person (good thing too cause their leadership ain't great). This unshielded version has an anti-infantry bonus, so if you can get your hands on armored infantry they won't last long but archers will tear them to pieces.

*'''Minotaurs (Shields)''': These cowmen give up the extra axe and anti-infantry bonus for a shield so they don't have to worry about missiles as much. Generally, the preferred choice over dual weapons since they can still tear up infantry just fine and might actually survive an arrow volley or two. They have significantly better melee defense than the dual axe variant also, so they last longer in prolonged melee’s
**'''Butchers of Kalkengard''': These guys evidently had some troll meat with Grom because they come with regeneration. This more or less negates their one weakness in being squishy, so they can absolutely run train on whatever you need them to. Keep them away from fire or your enemy will be having a nice steak dinner.

*'''Minotaurs (Great Weapons)''': With a two-handed weapon comes anti large for these guys. If the enemy has a big monster they'll chop it up if they get their hands on it, though the lack of a shield once again makes them very vulnerable to missile fire.
**Unfortunately ''not'' Doomstack material, even if you're playing Taurox. Auto-resolve hates them, so you can burn the entire unit out with Taurox's "slaughter one army, then the next, until everyone's dead" playstyle

*'''[[Giant]]''': God this thing sucks and doesn't synergize at all with the roster. It hits like a truck but it's slow, has no armor, can't ambush or hide, and kind of craps on what Beastmen like to do in general. And now that the Ghorgon is finally here it's redundant on top of that since the big cow now fill every hole that this thing filled. Now there is absolutely no reason to grab this thing, as aside from survivability the Ghorgon just does its job way better.
**in campaign however it's worth grabbing a few, not intentionally increasing their capacity by themselves but only because increasing capacity for Giants also increases Chaos Spawn capacity too. Their vunerability is offset by the fact they're one turn to recruit and free so they have a bit more use than on any other faction, being tier 3 to recruit and also available from Herdstones makes them great in secondary stacks.
**Aside from the aforementioned Chaos Spawn/Giant pairing, Morghur can make the most out of Giants because of the Chaos Boons from his tech-tree. You can make them faster and hit more often, Very Tanky with improved Regen, or Invisible and Unspottable, all of which can help Giants ''get'' to the melee.

*'''[[Jabberslythe]] (DLC)''': THE CHARGLEMAGNE MEME IS DEAD! A monster with a bound vortex that goes off automatically, a damaging aura, and poison/magic attacks, making it an infantry blob killing machine. Its best ability is the damage aura, which turns it into a Mortis Engine against any unit that has less than 50% leadership. It's very good against infantry factions that love to blob with a bunch of chaff. Throw this thing at the Vampire Counts and watch it munch skeletons for days. Even though it has wings, it can't "fly" anymore than a few meters above the ground, which is part of a special attack animation. Said animation lets it crash on top of infantry formations and go over tarpits, making them ''really helpful'' in fucking up the enemy lines.
**Pretty good in campaign, where the techtree can give them regen. A few of these guys can keep enemy infantry tied for an entire battle, giving you a good anvil to complement your army of Hammers.
**'''The Vorbergland Broodmother (DLC)''': This one comes with armor sundering and an armor-piercing vortex, making it much better against heavily armoured opponents.
**The armor-sundering vortex provides good synergy with your chaff and other anvil units which don't have AP, like Chaos Spawn.

*'''[[Ghorgon]] (DLC)''': Finally, after five goddam years you have a dedicated monster duelist. Fast, anti large and with regen in melee they are exactly what the Beastmen needed to help them out against heavily armored monsters. Its biggest weakness is the lack of armor, so even relatively cheap missiles can tear this thing to pieces. Best used on the flanks were it can take advantage of its fast movement without being at risk of taking the brunt of enemy fire. Best to keep him away from ranged faction such as Elves and save him for more monster focused races like Lizardmen, Tomb Kings or Vampire Counts.
**'''The Bloodbrute Behemoth (DLC)''': This one must have taken lessons from Snikch, since he does more damage to lower health opponents, making him the ultimate anti-monster character.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Cygor]]''': Now this is the big scary monster you want to bring into battle. It's not as good as the giant in melee but it serves as a hybrid monster/artillery platform to rain down giant death rocks upon the enemy. It's also a great counter to mages due to magic resistance and a passive that increases miscast chances map-wide. The rocks are great at taking out infantry formations and if light cav does get on it, well, it's still a giant cow monster that can defend itself with fairly little issue. Won't last long if a big scary monster dedicated to melee gets it though, so throw the rocks at them to push them back.
**'''The Eye of Morrslieb''': Same as above only with a single target net ability. Now it can lock down incoming enemies to either make its escape or throw more rocks at it. Just supplies that extra usefulness for an army that likes to get the charge but not be charged.

==Tactics==
So you may have noticed a theme in your army. Almost everything has high charge, vanguard, great attack, and shit defensive stats. This is an army that wants to get the drop on your opponent, get a charge off, rout their units and chase them away before they can hit back. It's a hard to use army that rewards good micro and timing, and due to a lot of their key units being locked behind DLC, you can argue that they're pay to win, like a lot of factions are in multiplayer. Needless to say playing defense is a horrible idea with these guys and if you prefer to sit back and let your enemy come to you this is one of the last factions you should consider playing.

===Multiplayer Strategies===
*'''Beastmen''': When you're fighting your fellow goat people, Chaos Spawn are your friends. Due to the low armor of the roster they can pump in a ton of damage and apply poison to the whole roster. Morghur is a fantastic choice for getting more of them on the field. Aside from that this often comes down to who can come out on top in the mobility game, as the Brayherd who has the edge in mobility often times can come out on top in the end. Go mainly for an spear frontline to help with cav and spawn and to get as much funds as possible into your mobile and monster elements. Raiders can also poke down the low armor of enemy spawn, but watch out for Centigors. You can also grab Lore of Wilds for a free Cygor, and take advantage of their weakness to monsters.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia| Bretonnia]]''': This is an interesting match up as both factions are heavily reliant on getting the charge in order to win. You will have absolutely no issues in the infantry grind, the big issue is dealing with Knights. Obviously you want an Ungor spear frontline in order to get as much anti large as possible, and they should be able to deal with the unwashed peasants that come their way. Razorgors are great, not only because they're cheap mobile AP but they can pin knights in place and allow your Great Weapon Minotaurs on top of them to cut them to pieces. Of course with most Bretonnian knights having anti large, be careful with the big cows when you send them in. Bretonnia also loves spamming archers, especially of the poison variety, so grabbing some Poison Warhounds or Centigors to deal with them can help you. Remember, while Centigors stand no chance at beating knights one on one, they are are a lot faster than them and should be able to avoid them rather easily. If you can deal with the Cav you shouldn't have much trouble dealing with the rest of their army. DO NOT BRING MALAGOR! Double Paladins combined with the Bretonnian air force will fuck him up.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': Dark Elves are known for bringing a ton of Mobile AP with Dark Rider Crossbows, Scourgerunners and Darkshards. This means your lack of Armor actually comes in handy as you don't really care about the AP. They don't really bring elite infantry so Gor Herds will be able to get you control of the frontline fairly quickly. Don't bring Minotaurs, as Scourgerunners will kite them into another dimension. Cygors are also great here as Elves don't really have much that can deal with them, allowing you to send rocks into their Cav and crossbows with relative safety. Bonuses with the Eye of Morsslieb, as it can lock down Crossbow Cav for your Centigors to rip to pieces. Ungor Raiders are also good for poking skirmish cav if they come close. Aside from that get some cheap spears for bodies and just try your best to beat the Druchii in the mobile game.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': Yeah you are more than well equipped enough to deal with the Dwarfs. Bestigors are of course amazing here as they can take on the vast majority of the Dwarf frontline and win, though they can be vulnerable to missile fire. If you want to go cheap and expend elsewhere, go for more expendable axe ungors and invest more in Chariots and Minotaurs. Razorgors and Razorgor chariots are great for their AP to get through the Dwarf line and get to the juicy ranged units that are behind them. Minotaurs are a risky pick as they can be taken out by skirmishers and Slayers but if you can micro them well they can do a lot for you. Harpies can also do a ton for you as they can fly over the Dwarf lines and get on the guns and artillery before they get the chance to cause too much damage. And if the Dwarfs waste ammo on your expendable fliers, all the better. Raiders can also be useful, as while their arrows will boink off the armor of the standard Dwarf line, they can cause some cost effective damage to Slayers and help out your large targets. With your mobility and plentiful AP options you'll be able to handle most Dwarf armies, though don't be surprised if one catches you off guard now and then.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': Once again, dealing with Knights is going to be your big hurdle, though fortunately they aren't quite as big of a pain in the ass as the Bretonnian version. Of course, grabbing spear Ungors is a must to spread the field in Anti Large, so a few of those will certainly help you. Grab Centigor Great Weapons and Razogors to pin them down and you can get some charges off for some good damage. Poison Warhounds are also good for dealing with Outiders and Pistoliers since they can slow them down for Centigors to get on top of. If you can keep them safe, throwing axe Centigors can also help out a ton in dealing with Knights. Once the heavy cav is gone their skirmishers and artillery are free food for your Centigors and Hounds. Gor Herds with shields should be enough to deal with most Empire frontlines as Greatswords tend to be pretty rare in this match up. The Butchers are of debatable usefulness since while they can survive arrow volleys and help with Knights the Empire has plenty of ways to deal with monsters, especially of the regenerating kind. It's fairly similar to the Bretonnia match up only the Knights are slightly weaker.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''': Black Orcs aside Greenskins don't have much in terms of armor in their frontline so Chaos Spawn can help out a lot. Of course, with their plentiful skirmishing options they have ways of shooting Spawn to pieces. Centigors can thus be a good asset in chasing down Spider and Wolf cav and getting them away from your squishier units. You likely won't see Black Orcs due to your lack of armor and if you do, Razorgor support can help your Ungor and Gor frontline deal with them. Of course the biggest thing you will have to worry about here is all the big armoured monsters Orcs love to bring like Rogue Idols and Arachnarok Spiders. In this situation, throwing axe Centigors are your friends, as they can deal with the heavy armor without getting into melee with them. If you struggle with micro or ammo preservation you can also go with one or two Gorebulls with Minotaur support. They will have issues with ranged attacks and aren't as safe as throwing axe Centigors but if you can get them on and Idol or support an attack on a Spider they can rip a very sizable chunk out of it. Or, if you have The Silence and The Fury throw a Ghorgon at them and make sure the enemy skirmishers stay the hell away. With a bit of support the big cow should deal with any monsters the Orcs can throw at you.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''': Fairly similar to the Dark Elves in that in this match up they tend to rely on mobile skirmishing to get the job done. In that case, a Cygor can work wonders. It will be able to chuck rocks at the Reaver Archers and get some of that annoying archer cav off the field. In the same vein Raiders can unleash some volleys into Ellyrion Reaver Archers if they get too close. Centigors aren't that great here because High Elves have one thing that Dark Elves don't, reliable mid to high tier cav. As such some spears can be helpful to scare off any attempt at a cav charge while Gors can carve through most of the frontline that Elves tend to bring. Rangers can do some decent damage to your infantry and Silverin Guard can hold for a while, but that's about as elite as you can expect to see from High Elf infantry. Swordmasters and Phoenix Guard are too expensive and easy to counter. In case of a Dragon, get a ton of Razorgors and pin that bitch in place for Minotaurs to get on top of and tear to pieces. Centigors with Throwing Axes can also do some reliable damage if he's a bit more apprehensive about landing. Most smart High Elf players won't bring standard archers or bolt throwers but if they do they are free value for your mobile units.

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

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': <s>This match up sucks</s> or at least it did before the Ghorgon showed up! Now that you actually have a way to take down big monsters you no longer need to worry about losing the game simply because you have no way to deal with giant monsters. Hold them down with Razorgors and spam spears for anti large and try to get your big cows to slap them around. Just make sure that you bring plenty of tools to take down Chameleon Skins, because other wise the lack of army is going to put the Ghorgon down fast. Bestigors can fight Saurus and with cheap, cost effective chariots the infantry fight shouldn't be the hardest thing ever.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': This used to be a relatively not fun one since you had very little that could effectively deal with both large monsters and Berserker rushes, but with the Silence and the Fury now you do! Most Norscans will bring berserkers as they will easily mow down most of your infantry and allow their big monsters to run amok in your lines. There are two ways to handle them, either get Ungor chaff with Spawn to rip apart Berserkers and get mass for monsters in exchange for missile vulnerability. The other option is simply throw Bestigors at them, as they'll win against any Norscan infantry in a vacuum and aren't as vulnerable to missiles but can't really stop monsters. For monsters you get either get a Ghorgon to slap them down in a straight brawl or, if you want something less vulnerable to missiles, get a Doombull/Taurox and Gorebull combo as a more mobile combo to tie down and tear Mammoths apart. If you aren't going for a Doombull get Malagor as frankly he is OP right now.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''': Prepare to suffer. you rely on getting that charge in and Nurgle has enough toughness and healing power to weather through it while grinding you down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': Oddly enough, you guys have ''a lot'' in common. You're both generally low-armored and do most of your damage by charging, but while Ogres are all Mass and ignore Charge Defense, you're all Charge Bonus and comedically low Mass (rip Doombulls). While Minotaurs with Great Weapons will trounce any footslogging Ogre on the charge, Ogre Monster Cav will fuck your day up, end of story, so expect Ogres to bring lots. They also have proper artillery, while you're stuck chucking rocks.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': Honestly Skaven are one of your favorite match ups, as you have a ton that can counter what they bring to the table. Gor Herds will dominate any infantry that aren't Stormvermin, and honestly most try hard Skaven builds never bring Stormvermin anyway. And of couse, Chaos Spawn are a blessing against low armor, so anything aside from Stormvermin will die quickly. Plus you have plenty of tools to get rid of the gunline, from Hounds to Centigors to get into the backline and get rid of those Jezails, Poisoned Wind Mortars and other Skryre tech before they can cause serious damage. With you mobility and plentiful access to fear and terror you can chase any fleeing ratmen with little issue. Now I know what you're thinking, didn't you say Beastmen have a hard time fighting heavily armoured, single entity monsters? What if they go for a Moulder Rush? Ahh, the answer is in the word *HEAVILY ARMOURED.* While strong, Clan Moulder monsters have piss poor armour meaning Raiders and other units can burn them down with no issue. The match up got a bit more complicated when Skaven got their own mobile skirmishers in the form of Wolf Rats, but your hound and mobile units generally outclasses theirs. Combine that with their low leadership and they're actually somewhat easy for the Beastmen to get rid of. What do you know, a match up you actually have a solid advantage in!

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': Well what do you know, a faction that is actually faster than you are. I wouldn't bother with Centigors or Ungor Raiders here. Seekers will out pace and beat Centigors in a fight and dive into your archers. You'll need mass to lock Slaanesh down and keep them there to butcher. Gor Herds should trade decently into most Slaanesh Troops aside from Exalted Daemonettes, and considering Bestigors are a bad idea in this match up considering all the AP, they might not bring them anyway. Minotaurs and Razorgors should be your way to go for this army, as while they won't catch Slaanesh, they will be able to hold them in once they engage and keep them there with their high mass. Once in, you can use either anti infantry of anti large Minos to slap them around. Since they have low armor, a Ghorgon isn't too necesarry to deal with with large units, and honestly a Jabberslythe might be more helpful to help against Daemonettes. Malagor is a decently safe Lord options since all he will have to worry about is Furies and a Wargor on a chariot can help keep the goats in the fight. Honestly the main goal here is to lock down Slaanesh with mass and pray to any Chaos god that isn't a depraved sex freak that you grind them down before they do.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': Gor Herd will have absolutely no problem dealing with Tomb Guard, let alone the basic chaff skellies, but the fact that they're undead makes them a bigger problem than their stats would say. In general, Beastmen hate fighting undead because not only are they all unbreakable, which screws over your "route quick and chase them off" strategy, but they also all have fear, which will hurt the Beastmen's already poor leadership. So while your goats will win in a grind, sadly they may run before that happens. Consider investing in a Wargor to keep morale up. Centigors with throwing axes are a must in this match up as they're your most reliable AP unit, and their mobility will make it hard for the Tomb Kings to catch. Razorgors can also pin them in place so Minotaurs with Great Weapons can get on top of them and carve them to pieces, but if you want a dedicated monster-killer the Ghorgon is the way to go -- just watch out for archers. Finally, Chaos Spawn are just reliable in general because you don't have to worry about them shitting their pants and running away.

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': Out of all the Undead factions, you hate these guys the least as they at least slightly play into what you like to fight against. An immobile, gunline reliant faction that you can abuse your mobility against. Get a shit ton of harpies and yeet them on top of the gunline so that your Gors with Shields can get to the deckhands unmolested. Of course, that bad leadership is still a thing, so watch out for terror routes. Archer spam is a well known counter to the Coast in general so a crap ton of raiders will be able to get their value back fairly quickly. Lore of Wilds wizard with a Cygor summon can also do some reliable damage from long range so see if you can grab one of those. Big Crabs can be a pain in your ass, though really shooting them with the plentiful amount of Archers you should bring will usually be enough to being them down.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': What used to be one of the worst possible matchups for the Cloven Ones is now one of their better ones thanks to the monsters provided in The Silence & The Fury. The vamps have no archers to target, everything is unbreakable and will kill your already poor leadership. Unlike the Lizardmen you know exactly what they will bring, an expendable frontline with 3 Blood Knights and a Mortis Engine to kill blobs. That was all once very scary, but now you have the tools to deal with it. Ghorgons have arrived and they can hunt Blood Knights or Mortis Engines to the ends of the Earth. You also now have your own Mortis Engine in the form of the Jabberslythe, who is excellent at burning through blobs of chaff. Aside from these showstoppers Chaos Spawn are nice since they can't rout and can take on most Vampire Infantry with no issue. Centigors with throwing axes are good against Blood Knights, so save your ammo for then. Razorgors are also good for blocking in Blood Knights and other more mobile threats, carving them up with AP while your Ghorgons beeline for the kill. Aside from that, grab a bunch of ungors or gors to throw into the grind; you're probably not going to need anything fancy in the infantry department considering how crummy skeletons and zombies are, but consider bringing a Wargor to buff up the leadership of your own troops.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''': In order to prove to the pretenders that you are the true servants of the gods, you will need to find a way through all that armor. Fortunately all that armor is usually in their infantry not their monsters, so a Bestigor or two can cut through Chaos Warriors without much issue. If you want more numbers in your AP options, cycle charging Razorgors combined with Ungors can provided a hard hitting AP mess that Chaos Warriors can have a hard time getting through. If they go for Marauders for a frontline and invest elsewhere, then infantry shouldn't be a problem. Minotaurs can also help, especially the Butchers as they can regen through most of what Chaos can throw at them. Marauder Horseman can be a pain in your ass since their mobility can allow them to get their javelins into your unarmoured troops. Centigors can beat them in melee and have the speed to catch them, though they won't last long if something scary gets a hold of them. Raiders are also useful as Chaos Spawn tend to be popular so arrow volleys can come in handy. Since you don't have too many scary SEM or heavy cav Dragon Ogres are fairly uncommon, but if they show up drown them in spears and cycle charge Minotaurs or Ghorgons to carve them up.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': Two things you want to bring against the Asrai, shields and mobility. You will need hounds and Centigors to hunt down all of the annoying archers that Wood Elves love to bring against you. They should be able to deal with Asrai Spear cav if you bring enough of them, then you can swarm them into the archer position. Dryads tend to be the most popular frontline for the Wood Elves, so Gors with shield should be your infantry option against them. You may question the use of Razorgors due to the lack of armor, but they are useful for pinning Dragons or other monsters in place for your raiders or cav to get a hold of. It's a battle of mobility, and if you win out in the mobile game you should be able to take the field fairly quickly.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''A'''

The fact that half your army has vanguard and hits like a truck really helps you out in this game mode. You can get to the points much faster than most factions and are able to out muscle quite a number of different races due to how relatively cheap some of your units are. Centigors and Tuskgor chariots especially are powerful given that they can come from the vanguard spawn points and hit pretty hard for their price. One of your biggest advantages is your ability to pick you engagements. Due to how much speed you have the ability to decide how much you want to invest in a particular fight. Is that Khorne player placing a ton of Spawn, Bloodletters and a Bloodthirster on the center point? You have the ability to say "Fuck that" and focus on the sides. Granted your units still aren't good at taking damages and if you come across a faction that can outmaneuver you (basically just Slaanesh) you might end up getting served as mutton. Still if you play the goats right those situations should be rare.

===Campaign Strategies===
With the announcement of the rework finally here, we can take a look at it and finally take our evil goat friends and and burn down the non furries to our heart's content.

The first big change is that now, similar to Tomb Kings, Beastmen units don't cost recruitment or upkeep, but are now locked behind a unit cap. Only Ungor Spears (without shields) and Ungor Raiders can be recruited an unlimited amount of times. Armies are also very limited since you aren't affected by supply lines. As such, similar to the Tomb Kings, make sure that you always have as many full stacks around as the game will let you. Remember, having two armies where one is a full stack of useless ungors is still better than only having one. Even if the second army isn't great for combat, you can still use it to raid, set up ambushes for your main armies, and defend Herdstones. As such once you have an extra army get a full stack as soon as you can, you can always replace those ungors with better units once you have them available. Also when units are damaged after a battle, don't wait to replenish and instead merge the wounded units and rerecruit the ones you lost. They cost no money anyway and it's faster than waiting for them to replenish.

Speaking of Herdstones, that is your new main gimmick for the race. Every time you raze a city it will give you a resource called a '''Herdstone Shard''' and once you have enough you can erect a '''Herdstone''' at a settlement you burn down. These are very basic settlements with only two building slots, but turns the regions close to it into a '''Bloodground'''. Every city in a Bloodground has a value called a '''Devastation level''' depending on the level of the settlement (a Tier 1 Settlement is worth 4). Every burned down settlement will add it's Devastation level to the Herdstone, so if you make a Herdstone from a tier one settlement and burn down another Tier 1 settlement, that Herdstone's devastation level will become 8. Once it's at ten, you can start a ritual that once completed adds the Herdstone's level to your '''Marks of Ruination''', a bar that tracks your progress and gives you new units and armies along the way, and makes ALL RUINS IN THE BLOODGROUND UNINHABITABLE UNTIL THE HERDSTONE IS DESTROYED!!!! You also get enough shards to make a new Herdstone.

That may sound really complicated, especially for Beastmen, but it's actually pretty simple. Slap down a Herdstone, burn down as many cities in the Bloodground as you can, complete the ritual, then move on. The big idea is to get as many Marks of Ruination because not only does it get you closer to the final battle but it also increases your unit caps and army capacity. As such, while the goal needed to perform the ritual is quite low, you actually want to get it as high as possible in order to progress the campaign and get a ton of good units quickly. You also need to defend the hell out of Herdstones in order to make sure you don't have other factions plague you with resettlements like in the old Beastmen campaign, so make sure you always have a spare army nearby to make sure no one tries to burn them down. As for the buildings under a herdstone, you have four options. By far the best one is Shaman's Ceremony, which increases your Winds of Magic and gives you vision across the entire bloodground the Herdstone is a part of. I don't need to tell you why vision and extra magic are something you want. The others improve your siege battles, gives you bonus replenishment and can spread plagues. Pick the one that most fits your playstyle.

You also have a new unique currency called '''Dread''', which you get for winning battles. Using Dread lets you increase your unit caps, give you more heroes, and gives you general upgrades and magic items for your armies to play around with. By far the coolest thing about it is that you can use it to essentially purchase the other Beastmen Legendary Lords into your faction, auto confederating with them if they're alive and bringing them back if not. This means that you don't have to worry about confederating other Beastmen factions to get their Legendary Lords if you don't want to worry about it. '''Bestial Rage''' is also still around, but now it only connect to Horde Growth so you don't have to worry about attrition. Technologies have been changed to '''Challenges of the Dark Gods''' which won't let you research until you complete some challenges (win 5 ambushes, win 4 battles in one turn, stuff like that.) More will be revealed as gameplay comes out.
[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Bretonnia

2023-05-19T16:35:06Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{Topquote|For the Lady, as one!|Game battle chant for unexpendable units}}
{{Topquote|We're blessed!|Game battle chant for expendable units}}
This is the tactics page for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of [[Bretonnia]].

==Why play Bretonnia?==
*Because you like the chivalry ideals from ancient legends and don't care about the peasant half.
*Because you enjoy throwing disposable peasant fodder at a problem until the knightly heroes show up to save the day.
*You love the sight of infantry being thrown flat-on-their-back by the force of cavalry charges.
*Because you really do believe that magical swords distributed by women in ponds are the best justification for supreme executive power.

===Pros===
*'''Cavalry''': The widest selection of heavy cav in the entire game, each being able to fill out different purposes. While a minority of other faction's cav units can go fisticuffs with your horse boys, you are ''the'' cav faction.
*'''No $$$ required.''': It's the only completely free faction. All you need is to download either the Bretonnia FLC or the Repanse FLC and you get the entire faction. (Minus 3 legendary lords if you only get Repanse.)
*'''Air Superiority''': You can dominate the skies if you invest in it. Louen combined with Hippogriff knights or Pegasus Knights can win most if not all sky engagements, and after that you can pick and choose your fights from the sky.
*'''Numbers''': Your peasants cost about as what you invest in their infrastructure, AKA Nothing! You and Cathay are more or less the only order factions that can effectively use swarm tactics due to how cheap they are.
*'''High Armor''': Aside from Peasants, knights and high tier units have more armor than most and can be quite resilient.
*'''Good economy''': Your economy is easily the strongest in the game. Farms bring in insane amounts of cash and can be built literally everywhere. The way CA intends to counter this is through the Peasant Economy, that reduces income from farms when you have too much infantry on the field, but being a good Bretonnian, you don't really use Peasants except Archers anyway. Add in trade and a de facto monopoly on wine if you control Bordeleaux, and your treasury will never be empty again.
*'''Easy Diplomacy''': Everyone from the Order factions likes and trusts you, even the High Elves. This makes for easy trade deals and alliances, keeping your heartland safe from any outside threat.
*'''Lack of Supply Lines''': While other factions get a percent increase in upkeep for every Lord they recruit, Bretonnia doesn't. Field as many armies as you like! Follow every army with another army consisting entirely of peasants who lack upkeep for some easy battles.
**'''Warhammer III''': Sadly this feature is no longer unique to Bretonnia, as the Supply Line mechanic has been cut altogether in the third entry. While this doesn't directly hurt Bretonnia, it is but another example of how dated and powercrept their core mechanics are compared to pretty much the rest of the roster.

===Cons===
*'''Piss Poor Infantry''': Your Peasants fight with shitty cheap weapons at best or farming tools at worse. With bad leadership, armor, and defensive stats, even your "elite" infantry gets their booties smacked by most mid tier infantry. Playing Bretonnia means conceding the front line in most cases.
*'''Anti Large''': Any opponent with a functioning brain will get anti large against you. Expect halberds or big anti-large monsters to try to wipe your cav out. Large units are also more susceptible to enemy missile fire and in melee skirmishes the AI can fire with impunity (it usually tries to avoid friendly fire like the plague).
*'''Single Entity Monster''': Yep, despite having generally good anti-large bonuses, Knights of the Realm and Pegasus Knights won't be good at killing SEMs, since they will only be able to hit them with few models at a time, while SEMs are very good at dealing huge damage to models.
*'''Micro-Intensive''': To make the most out of your cavalry, you will need to micromanage your Knights a lot. Nothing like speedrunning carpal tunnel to make you like a faction.
*'''Very Easy Campaign''': It's fair to say that if you are not necessarily a fan of sandbox campaigns where you do not do a whole lot of map painting, Bretonnia can become very dull very fast. Once you have united Bretonnia, there is little to actually do outside of maxing out Chivalry and... that's basically it. Repanse de Lyonesse balances this out with a more unique starting position but not by much.
**'''Warhammer III''': Well, it is safe to say things have since grown livelier in the third game. Between Be'lakor, Grom, Kemmler, the Red Duke and Ikit/Malagor in the vicinity (not to mention the Wood Elves if they get annoyed), it's not rare to see Bretonnia reduced to a wasteland by turn 30. Alberic, having moved to Lustria to offer a smidge more variety, often finds himself getting the short end of the shit-stick when the Lizardmen, Vampire Coast or Skaven get a little riled up. Repanse has a slightly better lifespan on average, though it's rare to see her expand beyond her starting zone to any meaningful degree. In fact, most of the Confederation techs for Bretonnia are pretty useless now, since only a handful of factions will survive long enough for you to confederate them.
*'''Convoluted Vow System''': The Vow system is as straightforward as it is convoluted and, at times, constrained in the most annoying of ways due to the weird restrictions it places on your Lords' ability to access the better units in your roster. It's not very fun trying to kill late game Greenskin, Chaos or Dark Elf armies only with Knights Errant and the garbage tier peasant infantry,(especially against their legendary lords) yet you will need to do this to get access to even the most basic of your better cavalry. While it's indeed very fluffy, you will after a while struggle to find enemies to even fulfill your vows, making you feel like Don Quixote chasing after Windmills. Picking the wrong vow at a bad time will slow down your campaign considerably.
*'''Fatigue''': Until you get some research countering this and some perfect vigor units in the late game, expect your horsie boys to tire quickly. Cavalry tire faster than melee infantry when running and lose a significant amount of fatigue while charging — and expect to be doing a lot of both.
*'''Expensive Knights''': The upkeep on knight units is very high even after you fulfill the necessary vows. Expect peasants to take up most of your early game armies until the economy train gets rolling.
*'''One-Trick-Pony''': Bretonnia is known for exactly one thing: Cavalry. While you have mediocre archers and artillery, you will never be able to match the infantry of virtually any other faction, and you have no monsters and only one skimisher unit. If you tee up against a Bretonnian, you'll already know the core strategy they're going to be using against you.
**'''On a battle level''' : Your different legendary lords offer only minimal differences in your army composition (at most, Alberic's army will have more Squires while the Fay will have more Battle Pilgrims), so expect to be easily countered in multiplayer, and all your armies to be pretty similar, making your campaign a series of battles with little variance between them.
**'''On a campaign level''' : Much like the other non-updated races from game one, no lord-unique mechanics for you! While the chivalry mechanic itself is unique to Bretonnia, none of the legendary lords really offer much to differentiate themselves from one another, and the Chivalry meter itself isn't particularly engaging. Not to mention, excluding Repanse (who starts in Nehekhara), the three other LLs will have very similar campaigns after the first twenty turns or so.
* '''Horrible Replenishment''': No Lord or hero skills or technologies to get a good replenishment rate (except for Louen, who gets a skill to let Knight units in his army have an actually good replenishment, and Repanse, who gives an okay rate to her army with one of her skills). If a unit loses models, it's more often than not a better idea to disband the unit entirely and recruit a new one. Yes, it's ''that'' bad.
** '''Warhammer III''': The third game eventually did something to correct this, by giving damsels a skill to increase replenishment casualties, but even then it just brings their replenishment to "not bad" rather than "good". And if you can't recruit enough Damsels or can't get one to an army enough, you're shit out of luck.
* '''You've been powercrept to shit:''' CA followed GW's examples, and Bretonnia has not gotten any new units or mechanics since their original release way back in the first game, nor has their roster been buffed to compensate for the global increase in power. With the third game and until their update, your supposed "elite cavalry" is actually not the best anymore. Your best ground cavalry, Grail Knights, will struggle against nearly every other race's elite cavalry (a majority of which will either beat your Knights or at least trade roughly evenly, because your Grail Knights are still balanced for Game 1 and ''don't have armor-piercing damage'', while nearly all other factions elite cavalry do and have better stats) without having to suffer from the rest of their roster being shit. Paladins and Louen, once amazing character-killers/tanks? They get folded by any generic demon character.

==Universal Traits==

*'''Blessing of the Lady''': If one of your armies does a lot of good stuff (conquering enemies, never retreat, not using [[Lawful Stupid|cowardly tactics such as ambushes]]) it earns the favor of Bretonnia's favored deity. The Blessing is really spectacular as it gives a flat 20% physical resistance to all your units. Beware: retreating once means the loss of the Blessing until that lord earns it again.
*'''Lance Formation''': <s>The Mighty Duck's Flying V is a trap.</s> Not anymore! It now add mass, making it way better at the intended function of smashing through infantry lines. You may still want to carefully choose when to use it or not, but it now has its own merits and it can really make a difference if used tactically.

*'''Vows''': Your most crucial campaign mechanic. Your Lords need to fulfill vows to the Lady to get access to your best bits. You can still recruit them, but they will cost considerably more upkeep (up to 5 times as much as you would pay normally). These vows are essentially mini-quests that become more difficult with each Level, of which there are 3. You always get to choose between 3 such quests but beware: once you take a pledge, you cannot change it. The main problems with the vows comes when sometimes the conditions of the vows cannot be fulfilled anymore (for example, one quest requires your Lord to defeat a Greenskin Legendary Lord, of which there are not many around by the time of the late game), keeping your Lord stuck with a Vow that he cannot fulfill, and damning your army to only use Knights Errant for the rest of the game. Be wary of that. Picking the wrong vow at the wrong time can screw with your campaign more than you would like. The only exceptions to this is Louen Leoncoeur, who starts with all vows already unlocked, and Repanse, who starts with the first two already completed.

==Legendary Lords and Subfactions==

*'''King Louen Leoncoeur''': Your dedicated Duellist/Tank lord. The Royarch of Bretonnia and a bona fide Grail Knight rumored to have even kissed the Lady of the Lake. Whether this is exactly true or not doesn't matter, in Total War: Warhammer he is an expensive, balls out, wrecking ball of pure Grail Knight awesomeness. There is little that can give him much trouble, he flat out stomps nearly anything and anyone that dares to face him head on. If you like, you can even put him on a royal Hippogryph. Still, very expensive for what he does.
:On the campaign map, he starts in the main Bretonnian faction of Couronne and, more importantly, has all vows already unlocked at the start. his start primes him for a crusade against Marienburg and Norsca.
*'''The Fay Enchantress''': Your caster Lord wielding the Lore of Life, a buffer/all-rounder caster. Comes with a few buffs, and while she has little armour, she can be surprisingly decent at killing infantry, since her '''Mist of the Lady''' ability deals constant damage to all enemies around her at no cost.
:In campaign she starts in the lower half of Bretonnia, being situating around Estalia (currently an Empire clone without mods), the Wood Elves, Dwarfs, Beastmen, [[Grom the Paunch]], and possibly Skaven if they move north. In the early game she can recruit extra peasants and has stronger casualty replenishment, with her personal army focusing on Grail Guardians and Battle Pilgrims.
*'''Alberic de Bordeleaux''': Your dedicated Anti-large Lord, buffing his army's Knights of the Realm to make them even deadlier against monsters, and Foot Squires to make them actually useful against enemy elite infantry. His '''Trident of Manaan''' gives him the ability to use a water-based Wind spell twice per battle, and greatly reduces attrition damage taken at sea, so feel free to go pirate/black ark hunting with him.
:He is the money maker of Bretonnia in the campaign, getting a bonus to trade, especially since he is closest to Ulthuan. His other bonuses reduce recruitment time for cavalry, increase recruit experience for knights, and Knights of the Realm have better melee defense. For most of WH1 and WH2, players would often assign him to sitting next to a big port city like Marienburg since he was more useful for boosting income than he was at fighting. In WH3, he got a new faction and a new starting position in Lustria with the possibility of confederating with Brettonia later, similar to Imrik's campaign. If the player doesn't intervene, his AI tends to ally with Marcus Wulfhart and tag team battle everyone else on the continent.
*'''Repanse de Lyonesse''': Bretonnian Jeanne d'Arc, if Jeanne didn't meet a tragic end and lives way, WAY longer. Some 500 years after driving the servants of Chaos from Bretonnia, she now leads an [[Errantry War]] against the [[Tomb Kings|undead of Nehekhara]] because... reasons (probably because ultra-conservative Bretonnian lords don't want a PEASANT GIRL leading Lyonesse). In combat, she is a Questing Knight lord, being a dedicated infantry slayer and granting bonuses to help your troops win the grind.
:Unfortunately, as an Errantry War faction, she can't confederate with the other Bretonnian lords, but she can with other Errantry factions in the Southlands with little fuss. She is an old faction total war crusader, giving a bonus to peasant units and Questing Knights, refilling their water supply from fort to fort as they purge the desert of filth.
*'''Sir John Tyrewald''': (campaign only) Not a mainline Legendary Lord, but a buffed unique vanilla Lord with a unique model, a tweaked skill tree, and prepackaged with his own Legendary Hero (Donna). Leads the Knights of Origo, who will confederate with Repanse early on barring early elimination shenanigans.

==Unit Roster==
===Generic Lords===
*'''Bretonnian Lord''': A discount King Louen. Out of the box, he does all the same things as the Legendary knight lords, minus their fancy buffs and bound spells. A decent melee character who can help you save gold to spend on more knights (hard to go wrong with more of those).

*'''Prophetess (Heaven, Life, Beasts)''': Lord version of a Damsel. Saves you on lord and mage in MP making her a cheaper option if you want to focus your gold on other aspects of an army. In the campaign, recruiting a new lord is the fastest way to get a wizard early game.

===Heroes===

*'''Paladin''': Bodyguards of your lords, but most notable as gooners with a roaming pack on Pegasus mounts being a dive bombing threat to most units.
*'''Damsel (Heavens, Life, Beasts)''': Your wizards. They have an aura that reduces magic damage for your nearby units.
*'''Henri Le Massif''': (Chevaliers De Lyonesse only) Repanse's right-hand big boy and the only Paladin in the game with access to a Hippogryph mount. Deals a lot more AP damage. Fun trivia: Big Hank still counts as a large unit even when on foot.
*'''Donna Don Domingio''': (campaign only) A tweaked vanilla Paladin with an alliterative name, a sweet scarf, and an allegiance to a faction that's likely to confederate with Repanse early on.
*'''The Green Knight''': The first Legendary Hero. A ghostly hero that lasts for 15 turns (25 in WH2) every time you summon him. He is basically a Paladin that trades the bonus vs large for drastically increased damage and defense, 70% physical resistance, unbreakable, and the inability to be killed or wounded after the battle (what with already being dead). The downside is that you only gain a summon after reaching certain chivalry thresholds (at least until you reach max chivalry).

===Infantry===
'''Important Note''': All infantry units, as well as Mounted Yeomen, use up slots in your Peasant Economy. If your unit count for Infantry units exceeds the limits of the Peasant Economy, you get less money from Farms, the more, the worse. Not that you mind, because Bretonnian Peasants are really shitty. It's important to keep in mind, because the AI doesn't have this limit and will build Peasants nonstop, so you need to disband many armies when you confederate the various Bretonnian factions or your economy goes haywire pretty fast.

*'''Peasant Mob''': Grab your pitchforks and torches, because this is all you're going to get! Your free, expendable meatshield unit. They win the title of worst infantry in all three games, being defeated even by Zombies and Skavenslaves. Still, they're free. Use only in a pinch.
*'''Men-at-arms/Spearmen-at-arms''': Your okay-ish infantry, mainly used as meat shields to establish a front line. They'll do their job alright, but don't expect them to do a lot. Come in all varieties you could ask for. Will loose to their Imperial Counterparts in a one on one.
*'''Battle Pilgrims''': Now these guys are pretty interesting. They do a much better job at holding the front line than Man-at-Arms could ever hope to and even deal decent damage, especially when combined with a Grail Reliquae. Decent morale, good enough armor, plus a shield for good measure.
*'''Grail Reliquae''': An odd piece, even more so when you realize that these are four guys imitating a horse for a deceased Grail Knight. They won't last long in prolonged combat, are especially vulnerable to ranged units (especially Warplock Jezzails) but buff your melee infantry like crazy, most notably is the +16(!!) bonus to leadership and immunity to Psychology. If you have an infantry-heavy army, one or even two of these won't hurt, but remember to keep them in the second line.
*'''Foot Squires''': Your "elite" Infantry, not as terrible in the damage department as Men-at-arms, but nothing special. They hold longer than the other options, but don't have a shield and most other basic infantry will still make mince meat out of them. I personally recommend just sticking with Battle Pilgrims, because the latter is not as expensive, doesn't require a T4 Barracks and not as vulnerable to missiles. They are considerably more effective in multiplayer, where they are decent and very cost-effective can openers to be used against units like Chaos Warriors.

===Missile Infantry===

*'''Peasant Bowmen''': Your only source of missile troops, but a decent option, just on the merit of cost-effectiveness alone. When used in bulk, they are not to be underestimated. Can come in three flavors: normal, Fire, and Pox arrows. pretty much your only source of reliably poison which makes them a good support unit.

===Cavalry===

*'''Mounted Yeomen''': Very bad. Like, really, really bad. Why would you use these? They are horrible in melee, have terrible leadership, use up slots in the Peasant economy and their charge bonus isn't exactly anything to write home about either. There is literally no reason to use them in campaign. Knights-Errant perform better for almost the same price. The only way to make them useful is if you recruit their '''Mounted Yeomen Archer''' variation, mounted cavalry able to fire on the move, but even then...
**They are significantly better in Multiplayer where running farms are never a problem and Gold is a serious limiting factor in list building. They still aren't very good in melee but fill a vital role as the fastest units in the Bretonnian roster which is necessary for a throwaway harasser unit.
*'''Knights-Errant''': Your first real piece of cavalry, and an okay one at that. They don't need any vow taken and should form the basis of your early game armies. They cannot take a hit and should largely rely on their charges to deal the majority of damage. Phase them out as soon as you can.
*'''Knights of the Realm''': Your classic Bretonnian Knights. Heavy armour, shield, a great charge bonus, these are the staple of your army and really easy to get. Use them, love them. Require the first Vow to be completed.
*'''Questing Knights''': The linebackers. If you can manage them good enough, they can even replace your melee infantry quite easily. AP attacks mean they are great against any form of melee infantry without bonuses against large units. Require the second vow to be completed.
*'''Grail Knights''': Your definitive elite. There is little that can give them a lot of trouble. They hit hard, move fast, [[Awesome|never tire]], inspire units around them, and get a bonus vs. large. Your dedicated monster and single entity unit killers. Require the third vow to be completed, so they're exceedingly hard to actually unlock.
*'''Grail Guardians''': More defensive versions of the offensive Grail Knights with extremely high melee defense, so high in fact that they can hold their own against units that normally counter cavalry. If you don't like the micro-intensive playstyle of shock cav heavy armies, you can use them. Require the third vow to be completed.

===Flying Cavalry===
*'''Pegasus Knight''': Flying, fast, anti-large killers that are very good at killing monsters and other large units but will die if anything sneezes in their direction and cannot push through a blob to escape. The only high tier unit that requires only the first vow to be completed.
*'''Royal Pegasus Knight''': Slightly better than the above stats-wise, but also come with perfect vigour (never tire) and immunity to psychology. Require the third vow to be completed.
*'''Royal Hippogryph Knights''': Plenty of health and hit very hard: absolute beasts on the battlefield; however, they cost a ton and require the third vow to be completed.

===Artillery===
*'''Field Trebuchet''': Powerful and nice range with very slow rate of fire and below-average accuracy. useful as an artillery to deal AoE damage to enemy infantry but not as a siege weapon, its large hitbox and low HP causes them to lose fights against even the weakest towers.
*'''Blessed Field Trebuchet''': Upgrade to the above: slightly better stat-wise but also come with the bonus of not inflicting friendly fire. Hitting your own units still causes the artillery morale penalty so try not to hit your peasants late into the fight.

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
A lot of the general strategies against these factions is going to boil down to one simple task; Cycle-charging cavalry. Your cavalry is your bread and butter in every matchup, so the key take-away in this section will be units in particular you'll need to look out for.

*'''Beastmen''': Another particularly fast faction, the Beastmen are largely unarmored, so a few squads of Peasant Bowmen with Pox arrows can get some surprising value against a majority of their units, further crippling them for your famous cavalry charges. Anti-Large cavalry will serve you quite well in this matchup. Grail Knights and even Pegasus Knights will serve as the tip of your spear against Minotaurs, Cygors and Ungors, while Knights of the Realm or even Questing Knights can mop up the rest of the Beastmen roster.

*'''Bretonnia''': A mirror matchup against Bretonnia will go exactly like you'd expect it to go. You'll want to do everything you can to make sure ''you'' initiate combat first, and if that means sacking a peasant mob or two to bog down opposing Grail Guardians so that yours can get the charge bonus against them, then that's what it'll take.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''Chaos Warriors''': Hoo boy, that's a lot of armor. Chaos Warriors are one of the slowest armies in the game, so you should have no difficulty outmaneuvering their forces to make that optimal charge. Despite your relative inadequacies at frontline engagements, Battle Pilgrims and Foot Squires can still deal not inconsequential damage to their forces while holding them in place for your Cavalry. You'll want to try to shut down any Hellcannons they bring, as that'll be the primary source of ranged pressure on your forces. Without that, you're free to run circles around them from dusk until dawn.

*'''Dark Elves''': Mobility is the name of the game here. Both you and the Dark Elves are good at it, so it will largely come down to who can micro their army better. Just forget about peasant spam. Even Bleakswords will shred them, to say nothing about Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter which will show any infantry you bring their own assholes in seconds. Peasant archers are a good choice in theory to put pressure on their light cav, but they are extremely difficult to protect if you aren't a seasoned player. No, this match will come down to your cavalry play. Luckily you have a HUGE advantage in the heavy cav game, since all they have in that department are Cold One Knights which are pretty much garbage. A solid airforce can be a powerful tool here, since the Dark Elves don't have much of an aerial presence. Masters on pegasi are pretty cost-inefficient (but can still threaten with their anti-large) and your flying knights or Paladins will easily shred dragons. Even Rakarth on Bracchus can't stack up if you goon him out. Plus, Pegasus Knights especially will have a pretty solid shot of dodging Scourgerunner projectiles and catching up with them to deliver death. Grail Knights are a great choice against Doomfire Warlocks or any other light cav, as long as you can tie them down. This is one of the few matchups where their elite infantry (read: Black Guard of Naggarond) can really threaten, so isolate them and goon them out with your lords/heros asap. Louen is probably the lord to bring here to support your airforce, your caster lords are just too squishy to stand up to their ludicrous amount of ap.

*'''Dwarfs''': Toss up, but with an advantage to you. Dwarfs units are slow, they don't have cavalry of their own, so your cavalry will be able to move unopposed, especially since Slayers can be counter-charged easily. On the other hand, a good chunk of their units have Defense Against Charge, high mass, and their gunline can wreck you.

*'''Empire''': It can be a bit tricky to have a plan against the Empire due to their sheer versatility, but there's one thing you know for certain; your Cavalry is better than theirs. Peasant bowmen will not deal remotely as much damage against the rank and file as the gun-wielding Empire missile units would against yours, but they can still get some honest work done against them. Foot-Squires can also best Empire missile units in combat if you can manage to get them there relatively unmolested, but don't imagine for a second that they'll hold the line against their dedicated melee troops. Trebuchets are also a solid backline option to help punch holes in the Empire's formations for your cavalry.

*'''Grand Cathay''':

*'''Greenskins''': You're in luck, Greenskins don't really have anti-large units. Their huge monsters (araknarock spiders, rogue idols) can be tough, but your anti-infantry cav should have a good time. What's better, is that the leadership of the Greenskins is surprisingly lower than what you might expect; a few successful flanking charges against their front line units can break them quite readily.

*'''High Elves''': The battle of the noble arrogant assholes, and believe it or not you actually have a very sizable advantage. The Asur have NO chance against you in the Cav fight, so grab some Grail Knights and watch as they run amok. Silverin Guard tend to be popular here as their Charge Defense, Anti Large and Magic Resist make them a semi decent counter to Grail Knights, though if you swarm them in peasants then you don't have to worry about them resisting your charge. If you don't want to risk your knights against the spear wall then grab some Field Trebuchets and kill them from afar. Dragons can easily be taken care of by either archers or double paladins. Plus Paladin support plus healing from the Fey Enchantress can make your Grail Knights all but unkillable for the Elves. Sure you have no chance at winning the infantry fight in a vacuum, but if you care about winning the infantry fight why the hell are you playing Bretonnia?

*'''Khorne''': This is probably going to be a challenging one. You beat Khorne in general mobility as all of your cavalry is faster than his. You beat him in ranged because his only ranged unit is a single-entity artillery-chariot while your trebuchets come with multiple models and you have archers. Your cavalry also has several anti-large options while Khorne has none. However your peasants will get shredded by almost everything in Khorne's roster, his cavalry units are much tougher and harder hitting even if they are slower, and he has plenty of ways to tangle up your ranged units in the form of Hounds and Furies. Bloodthirsters will be a big problem as their Terror will easily rout off your infantry and with that anti-large bonus they'll put a big dent on your knights, who will have trouble surrounding them. This might not be a bad matchup to bring Hippogryphs and Pegasus Knights. Used defensively they can fend off Hounds and Furies, can isolate Bloodthirsters in the air and surround them with anti-large damage, and in the case of the Hippogryphs still hit pretty hard against infantry. Skull Cannons will be ill-equipped to shoot them down and only Bloodthirsters can contest the sky.

*'''Kislev''':

*'''Lizardmen''': First thing, leave the kids (peasants) at home. None of your infantry options stand a ghost of a chance against the Lizardmen; even the lowly Skink Cohorts are capable of besting them in combat and that's not even mentioning how quickly their massive Dinosaurs will chow through the pitchfork-wielding masses. Assuming they don't immediately just route the field from the sheer amount of fear/terror caused by all the monsters. Instead, double down on your strengths. Bretonnian cavalry will easily outpace anything the Lizardmen could ever field. Key units to build lists around would be your Grail Knights and (Royal) Pegasus Knights, who not only specialize against large targets, but are also immune to fear and terror. Though you can't expect their support for long, your peasant bowmen can really hinder the Lizardmen frontline and combat potential with the Pox variant, allowing some of your higher tier cavalry a touch more staying power for when you need to hold the line.

*'''Norsca''': Don't even think about it. Norscans are just as mobile as you are and have an abundance of Anti-Large damage that will burn through your Knights as if they were gasoline-soaked tissue paper, both of their LLs completely wipe the floor with yours and there is no hope of winning the infantry fight either. And that's not even taking their monstrous options into account, with Fimir smashing through your precious few heavily armoured units. Evade them where you can and better pick something else.

*'''Nurgle''': With all the poison, debuff spells and high mass of Nurgle units, it's actually gonna be very difficult to get a good charge in since your cavalry will most likely get stuck, surrounded and then die on your first charge, so it will be an extremely micro-intensive battle. Your Peasant arrows will obviously be of the fire variant and will need a frontline of men-at-arms (halberds or shielded, you need the anti-large bonus for any monster that gets close). Otherwise it's a simple "keep your cavalry units moving around until a unit gets separated from the rest, then gank it, repeat until your cavalry is too damaged for that, then bring them to your frontline so they can finish the job with support from what remains of your cav" deal. If your enemy decides to simply blob up his units to not let you get a charge in, bring a coupel of trebuchets for area damage.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': Don't expect your flimsy infantry to stick around for long after they're hit with the first ogre charge. This may be a matchup where you're best off getting your knights stuck in early and keeping them there. Cycle charging is alot less effective against an enemy who can dish out a tremendous amount of hurt by counter charging your cavalry every time they cycle charge back into the fight. That and your forces have better stamina in a protracted brawl thanks to lore of life and perfect vigor Hrail Knights. Your anti-large air cav will reign uncontested due to Ogres lacking air presence, and they should be useful for tying up Ironblasters and Leadbelchers. They're also the only units you got who can reliably charge ogres without getting counter charged in return.

*'''Slaanesh''': '''PAIN'''. Their cavalry hits harder than yours, is faster than yours, and deal more damage on charges. Their infantry is fast, extremely killy and, if they have the CoC DLC, heavily armored as well, so there is nothing your own infantry can do against them and even your anti-infantry cav will struggle. They have chariots to mulch your infantry even more. Your cavalry has a slight advantage if you can get a charge in, since Slaanesh units are fragile and your Grail Knights never tire, but still. You do have better flying units that they do, so invest into pegasus knights, royal hippogryphs and flying paladins.

*'''Skaven''': While the Skaven missile units and artillery will put yours to shame, your cavalry is among the most suited to ruining the general Skaven strategy of blowing things up from across the map. Virtually nothing the Skaven have will be able to outrun your cavalry and a few well timed charges can break the relatively fickle leadership of their infantry quite easily. Knights of the Realm can do solid enough work against the general unarmored masses, but you'll want to keep some Questing Knights in reserve for any Stormvermin or Warpfire Throwers they might be packing... Unless the Skaven roll out Throt. A Clan Moulder-lead army can be one of your most difficult matchups, since Mutant Rat Ogres have little trouble blasting through your knights, Abominations are nearly unkillable for your piss poor infantry and Throt himself can frequently give Bonus vs. Large to all Skaven around him.

*'''Tomb Kings''': '''Don't''', despite what a Repanse campaign would suggest. The undead spears/halberds will tie your cavalry down and kill them, while the constructs are tough enough that even your anti-large cavalry will have a lot of trouble killing them, and their Necropolis Knights/Chariots/Nehekharan Warriors will mulch your infantry. You easily outshine them in the flying department, so a couple of Paladins on pegasi, Pegasus Knights and Hippogryphs will be very useful.

*'''Tzeentch''':

*'''Vampire Coast''':

*'''Vampire Counts''':

*'''Wood Elves''': If there's any faction capable of rivaling your cavalry charges, it's the Wood Elves. When engaging a mounted Wood Elf army, it really boils down to who gets the best initial engagement. If you can inflict a decisive charge against the Wood Elf cavalry, you'll neuter their offensive presence significantly, if they're not straight up cleaned off the battlefield. With the Wood Elf cavalry gone, you'll have virtually free reign to outmaneuver and slaughter the elves with your cycle charging prowess. Now, when it comes to dealing with the trees, you have several options; magical attacks and/or fire. Peasant Bowmen are a cheap as chips choice that can actually get quite a lot of value against Wood Elves as a whole (as not only are they unarmored, but a majority of them are unshielded as well). Lastly, though you'll need to screen them quite aggressively if you want them to stay online, your Trebuchet, though inaccurate, can blow holes in the Wood Elven front line and archer ranks long before they get into retaliatory range. Just make sure to keep tabs for sneaky vanguard deployments trying to circle around.

===Campaign Strategies===
** Always recruit an extra Lord to follow your main armies around. You don't pay supply lines, so the few hundreds of upkeep it costs you will be dwarfed by the Chivalry gained (since you gain Chivalry for each army that takes part in a battle), and that way you can do the "Raze evil faction's settlement for the bonus to Chivalry" while using your extra Lord to colonize it if you want.

** The Bretonnian economy is based around peasants. You can only have a certain number of non-knightly units before your economy starts sputtering; however, knights are expensive and your only archers and siege units are peasants. Luckily, Vows enable you to cut the upkeep of knights by significant amounts, meaning all-knight armies will be feasible in the early game if you do enough fighting to complete a lord's vows, and the more settlements you own the more peasants you can draft into your armies. The other unique aspect of the Bretonnian economy is that it is divided into two chains: farming and industry. Building the highest tier of one industry will soft-lock the other out of a settlement's productivity, meaning you'll have to demolish that other building chain. Generally speaking, farms earn much more than industry; the exception is in settlements with a Gold or Iron resource, whose unique buildings benefit from the industry bonus building. However, industry also functions independent of the faction's peasant cap, meaning you can field armies of peasants without losing income. You'll simply be making less than you do with farms.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos

2023-05-19T16:32:32Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{Topquote|[[Tzeentch|Change!]] [[Nurgle|Rot!]] [[Khorne|Blood!]] [[Slaanesh|Defile!]]|Game battle chant for Warriors of Chaos, shared with Norsca}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Warriors of Chaos.

==Why Play Warriors of Chaos==
*Because you want to see the unending tides of damnation overrun all that is good and civilized in this world.
*Because even the demons undivided faction doesn't have a roster big enough for you.
*Because back in my day only the bad guys wore [[Space Marines|Stupidly OP]] [[Stormcast Eternals|Armor]].

===Pros===
*'''Top-grade Melee''': Pound for pound, your troops are among the best in the entire game when it comes to melee combat. Though your reign as the undisputed combat champion of the game has come to an inglorious end due to feature/power creep (not even mentioning the coming of Khorne), precious other factions will be able to face you in melee and walk away unscathed.
*'''Armor''': Regardless of which ever one of the Dark Gods you decided to suck off, they gifted you an ungodly amount of armor to protect your troops from the enemy. If for whatever reason the other guy decided not to bring AP against you, you've pretty much already won the fight right there.
*'''Monsters''': You got a monster for every role. Shaggoths for anti-large, manticores for flying terror bombers, chaos spawn to help win you the frontline grind even faster and hounds to chase away pesky skirmishers. That said, power creep has eroded this advantage since the WoC debut in WH1, don't expect your big guys to match the likes of Lizardmen or Tomb Kings.
*'''Versatility''': You're not the most versatile of factions, but you have a fuckheug roster with mono-chaos marked variants of marauders, chaos warriors, chariots, cavalry, etc. With all of the high quality troops you have, you can deploy a wide assortment of tactics against all kinds of opponents. You can use rushes, monster mashes, artillery boxes, magic bombs, and make your lords into one man armies. With how much good stuff is at your disposal, you can come up with all kinds of crazy tactics to throw at your opponent.
*'''Strong Lords''': Your lord options are pretty damn good. Archeon is one of the better duelist characters, Kholek kills whatever he is fighting, Sigvald is the king of "never die" and Sarthoreal is a raid boss with impressive magic abilities. The new lords introduced in the Champions of Chaos DLC aren't to be fucked with either. Festus is a support monster, Valkia + Azazel are some of the best flying duelist lords in the game, and Vilitch is outright busted if you stack barrier regeneration. Even generic sorcerers are pretty damn good in melee, especially if you give them dragon mounts.

===Cons===
*'''DLC Faction''': The original controversy from the first game, the Chaos Warriors were originally locked up as a pre-order bonus for the first game, slapping those who didn't do so with an extra $8 tax to play as them. For penny-pinching fans, this can make them a hard sell. Plus if you want the marked units and characters that's an extra $16. If you want the full Chaos experience you will need to buy 3 separate games and two DLCs, all together costing about $204. I mean I guess that's cheaper than most decent tabletop armies but god, wait for a sale if you want all of this at once.
**'''Update''': Immortal Empires is now free for everyone and you can buy the DLCS separately, so it's not nearly as bad as before but you may still have to pay more than you might want to play as the walking refrigerators.
*'''Limited Skirmishing''': You do have some mounted skirmishers, but odds are they aren't going to be the reason why you win the fight. You are not going to be beating your opponent in the skirmishing phase of the fight.
*'''Limited Ranged''': You're generally bringing a battle axe to a gun fight. While you can artillery box with chaos cannons and pick away at enemies with ranged skirmishers, shooting is not your strong suite.
*'''Slow''': The downside of all that armor? It makes you slow as all hell. This, combined with the con listed above, means you are pretty vulnerable to enemy AP Missiles. Be sure that you devote a few of your troops to getting on those skirmishers and limiting how much damage to your troops they do on the way in.
*'''Expensive''': Sadly, all this good quality comes at a price. With how expensive a lot of your troops are, odds are you will probably be outnumbered in whatever match up you are going up against. Expect to rely on quality over quantity when you are choosing to rep team WOC.

==The campaign und unique mechanics (The Old World)==
*'''Subjugation, Vassalization, and Norscan Awakenings''': The Warriors of Chaos can subjugate lesser mortals and make them their vassals. In TWWH1/2, this was restricted to Norscans, but in TWWH3, the Warriors of Chaos can subjugate human and elf factions by defeating their last settlement. Vassals pay tribute, and count as your provinces for provincial edicts. They ''must'' join your wars, but the inverse is also true, which can be a pain because AI Factions don't factor who the suzerain is of vassal factions; you can have a military pact with, say, Skaven or Ogres, and they'll still declare war on any of your vassals.
**Archaon and Be'lakor may also force confederations of other Chaos Lords by taking over their last settlement, and considering the WoC are now flush with Legendary Lord options, you can create some terrifying doomstacks in the late-game.
**Finally, taking over certain settlements in the North can lead you to either vassalize the Norscan tribe (if they're still around), or awaken them if they aren't. You'll want to keep just the Dark Fortresses for yourself, as there's really no point in holding minor settlements short of casualty-replenishment on long campaigns. Trading captured settlements to your vassals also lets them get stronger, gives you gold, and lets them worry about holding it.
*'''Gifts of Chaos''': The chaos gods will love to give you gifts in exchange for souls of the fallen. You can sacrifice souls from enemies to gain various boons. These come in the form of undivided gifts, and gifts to specific gods. These can range from buffing units, to gaining new units such as daemons and dragon ogres. You can get souls from defeating any non daemon factions in battle. Fail to pay the tithe of souls however, and the chaos gods won't mind taking their gifts away. Some gifts of chaos can only be unlocked after making a certain amount of sacrifices.
*'''[[Path to Glory]]''': Your lords can devote themselves to the chaos gods and, given enough time, ascend to daemonhood. Every lord can take different marks. For instance, a standard chaos lord can devote to Khorne and give major boons to khornate troops in his army. While a chaos sorcerer of death can devote himself to Nurgle and switch his lore of death for the lore of Nurgle, or just stick with death. At level 20 all chaos lords can ascend to Daemonhood at a large cost of souls. This makes them very powerful and get a mix of their patreon gods magic, lest you are playing Khorne of course. Similar to ogres, Chaos lords can gain titles by completing certain objectives such as defeating a certain race or losing a battle and surviving. This allows your lords to forge quite the name for themselves.
*'''Warbands/Marks of Chaos''': What used to just be glorified banners pre Warhammer 3 are now your ticket to unlocking warriors devoted to each god. On campaign as a unit gains experience you have a chance to upgrade them to superior units, for instance you can upgrade a Marauder unit to Chaos Warriors to Chosen. However, if your army has the proper level of '''Dark Authority''' for a specific god, you can also give them a mark for that god which alters their appearance and stats. Some subfactions will have an easier time with certain marks than others, for instance Sigvald will have an easy time getting Slaanesh units but Khorne units will be hard to come by. You will need a Lord or Hero of a specific god in order to get the authority for it, so you will have a hard time recruiting and maintaining Nurgle units if there isn't a Nurgle lord or hero in the army. In multiplayer, this means that you can take 4 marked units alongside your mostly undivided army, included specialized marked mortals such as Skullcrusher or Hellstriders. In order to make sure half the units below don't get an extra 4 paragraphs of what they do, here is a general list of the stats each Mark does and each unit that can take Marks will be checked below
**The Mark of Khorne gives a unit spell resistance and frenzy in exchange for less melee defense, so if you are looking to play offense you will want to give your blessings to the Blood God.
**Mark of Tzeentch will give a unit Barrier and Magic Attacks, making them great if you are fighting an enemy that has a high amount of physical resistance or if you want them to have a bit of protection going in.
**Mark of Nurgle will give the unit poison attacks extra Melee Defense and HP in exchange for less attack and speed, making this the choice if you are looking to out last your enemy.
**Mark of Slaanesh will give a unit Immune to Psych, more Speed, strider, a physical resist and Devastating Flanker on cavalry. If you want to play a mobility heavy playstyle or you're fighting a ton of fear and terror this is your mark.

==Legendary Lords and Subfactions==
Each Legendary Lord has unique ways to access units from the vanilla/Undivided roster, while LLs from the Champions of Chaos DLC have better access to their God's daemons and Marks.

*'''[[Archaon]] the Everchosen:''' at the start of TW:WH it was a joke that he was the Neverchosen, but recent progressive buffs have been slowly improving him. Still waiting to see if he will ever get his title back from Kholek but he is currently usable in multiplayer. As of Immortal Empires, He is an extremely powerful melee lord with access to two spells each from the lores of Fire, Metal, and Death. He can fling Searing Doom and Transmutation of Lead from Metal, Flaming Sword of Rhuin and Burning Head from Fire, and Spirit Leech and Purple Sun of Xereus. He gets the cream of the crop of Fire and Death spells, and his Metal spells are alright; it may have been a bit too busted if he got Final Transmutation instead of Transmutation of Lead. He is among the strongest melee lords stat-wise in-game even before taking items, and he's now a more than capable caster. He doesn't get the AoS version of [[Dorghar]], but Dorghar does give him over 3k mass, far more than any other horse-bound character (which is fair, both Archaon and Dorghar are HUGE), so he can get out of a tight spot easier than similar characters. Seriously, he has higher mass than Karl Franz on Deathclaw. Although Be'lakor and the Daemon Prince are more expensive multiplayer lords Archaon is right behind as the third most expensive lord.
**''Campaign'': Archaon, as the Everchosen, has easier access to monogod rosters as well as better Authority to command forces from rival gods. Currently he's one of only two WoC LLs who can confederate the others, done by subjugating their final settlement, which encourages you to avoid alliances entirely.

*'''[[Kholek Suneater]]:''' For a long time Kholek was the most popular MP lord pick for the Warriors of Chaos, to the point that he became the faction's face more than Archaon. This was with good reason, as Kholek is a a world beater of a Legendary Lord. He's a massive, tough, anti-large monstrous lord that is difficult to pin down due to his good speed and mass, and is perfectly fine beating the snot out of infantry as well. Even better when gooning around with his Dragon Ogre boys. With the addition of more WoC LLs in TW:WH3 he's no longer the most common choice of lord but he's still a formidable pick. Has two special abilities, one of which boosts his melee abilities and the other of which is a bombardment.
**''Campaign'': Has bonuses that buff Dragon Ogres, giving reduced recruitment cost and upkeep while buffing attack for Shaggoths. Kholek also spreads more Chaos Corruption and has high undivided authority but no boosts to monogod authority at all.

*'''[[Sigvald|Prince Sigvald the Magnificent]]:''' Used to be bad but got significantly better after The Twisted & The Twilight update. A powerful and quick foot duelist that will never suffer fatigue penalties. His small size, perfect vigor and very high melee stats make him slippery, but when combined with the regen from his unique item he ties with Gor-Rok for the tankiest lord in the game.
**''Campaign'': Despite his overwhelming ego, his campaign has him being most in touch with [[Norsca]], having a stronger diplomatic bonus, and have practically the same unit version of the unit with them having the Norsca "Rage", with it upgrading to the superior "Berserk" at late veterancy to keep marauders viable. A Leadership bonus against men encourages him to go after the Empire or Norsca. A bit of an odd duck, as since he's already devoted to Slaanesh CA has to differentiate him from Azazel. He can recruit Slaaneshi Mortals and Daemons turn one, and as Slaanesh's boytoy has Dark Authority to better control them. In turn, he pays a premium to hire and keep Khornates unless he has a Khornate Hero tagging along.

*'''[[Be'lakor]]:''' Holy hell this guy is strong, even compared to other Warriors of Chaos legendary lords. In addition to fear/terror and the usual high melee statline, he gets a 45% ward save activated ability, passive regeneration that increases for every nearby enemy with wavering morale, and a leadership penalty aura which also removes immune to psychology from nearby enemies. And he's a lore of shadows caster who gets winds of magic cost reductions to all casts. Stack armor, physical resist, and ward saves and he can solo entire enemy armies.
**''Campaign'': Gets his own Warriors of Chaos faction starting in Albion in Immortal Empires. Comes with a unique mechanic to corrupt non-legendary human lords into daemon princes. Being the Daemon Prince of Undivided, he can access the Gifts and Favors of the Dark Gods earlier, but must prove himself before he can give them specific marks. Currently he's the other WoC LL (alongside Archaon) who can confederate the others, done by subjugating their final settlement, which encourages you to avoid alliances entirely. Has a big -25% upkeep to all daemon units which stacks with authority bonuses.

*'''[[Azazel]]:''' As the DP of Slaanesh, Azazel comes with the Lore of Slaanesh and like Slaanesh's daemon lords Azazel is geared for dueling lords and terror bombing wimps with wavering morale. He's very fast, hits very hard, and oddly is classified as infantry size so isn't vulnerable to anti-large sniping. His sword, the Daemonblade, is an especially good magical item that grants the Discouraged contact effect, improving Azazel's proclivity for triggering terror routs.
**''Campaign'': Azazel gets full access to Slaanesh's campaign abilities, with some minor alterations. Fitting with his role as Slaanesh's pimp he can seduce his enemy's units to add to his own roster and has +80 diplomacy with the Human factions, meaning through some careful and selective warfare you could make yourself less of a target. He gets cheaper seduction for human units and when stacked with the tech tree reduction he can actually be significantly better at seducing (human) units than N'kari.

*'''[[Festus the Leechlord]]''': The Plague Doctor is in, and he comes with a unique pair of mutually exclusive abilities. One is a Mortis Engine-style AoE damage aura, the other is an AoE healing aura. Only one can be active at a time, but they're very strong because he doesn't have to be in melee combat to activate them, unlike a lot of other units with these sorts of abilities. Festus is otherwise a decent caster with the Lore of Nurgle. Since he can heal with both abilities and spells he is a very strong lord choice, but his slow speed, low armor, and mediocre combat stats make him vulnerable to getting sniped or assassinated.
**''Campaign'': Fitting in with his Leechlord aesthetic, he can heal his army a quarter past the normal cap, and Festus' army ''and'' vassals have access to poison attacks. He can brew plagues on top of his plagues lasting longer.

*'''[[Vilitch the Curseling]]''': A caster/melee hybrid lord with a few quirks. Uses the Lore of Tzeentch which is very strong for dealing damage, but lacks buffs to improve their melee skills which are okay-ish, but lack armor piercing. They can hold their own in a blob but don't expect them to fend off dedicated duelist lords/heroes. Has a couple of abilities revolving around Barrier, one that's a passive that heals the Barrier of any nearby units and another that heals the Barrier of any nearby unit but only when Vilitch is casting. These stack with each other, making Vilitch an excellent support lord but only for Tzeentchian units, especially when they're spamming a lot of cheap low-cooldown spells like Blue or Pink Fire. Has another ability which buffs their spell mastery and Melee skills, ''but'' requires them to be either casting or in melee for it to go off. Also, while their combat stats are good, they're still a footlord with low mobility. Be careful not to overextend or they'll get gooned to death.
**''Campaign'': They can use a slightly altered version of the Changer of Ways abilities and gets the Teleportation stance meaning they're an absolute troll in the Campaign map. Also give their vassals better Barrier and Tzeentch Corruption.

*'''[[Valkia the Bloody]]''': Representing Khorne, the Gorequeen has the raw melee stats to rival Skarbrand but much better maneuverability. She makes a great hit + run duelist with 100 speed, a temporary invincibility ability, and a bound wind ability to clear out chaff. Like Azazel she's a small target, which makes her immune to anti-large sniping attacks and with her shield also makes her harder to bring down with ranged fire.
**''Campaign'': Valkia is able to fight multiple back to back battles just like Skarbrand and Taurox, while also getting limited access to some of Khorne's Unholy Manifestations and higher Khorne authority.

*'''[[Sarthorael|Sarthorael the Everwatcher]]:''' Looking back it's surprising we got a greater daemon six years before the daemons got dedicated factions. Not available in the campaign (for WoC anyway, Norsca can unlock a different Lord of Change over the course of the Campaign) but playable in multiplayer. A giant lore of metal caster with a lot of missile resistance. Well used as a battering ram to disrupt gun factions with his mass and terror as the rest of the army hounds after him, but prefers to run through the lines to new spots of safety to cast his spells. Was ground bound in WH1 and WH2 but in WH3 he can fly just like other Lords of Change.

==Units==
===Generic Lords===
*'''[[Chaos Lord]]:''' Cheap melee lord. Can take a poison mace if you want this lord to be supportive. He can also be put on a flying mount for manticore gooning. They have been reworked and how are now a solid melee lord though somewhat lacking in AP. Better marked usually and a good way to build towards a demon prince. Unmarked is the only version that can mount a chaos dragon however, khorne gets a horse, chariot, or Juggernaut. Slaanesh can only get a Horse or Chariot. You probably should plan on turning any of the marked ones into demon princes eventually though. Really wish they let the marked lords ride a marked dragon, especially with the big buffs dragon got to their mass/melee stats with Patch 2.0. Unmarked is perfectly viable as well and has the advantage or not needing souls to upgrade and not losing any levels, plus being able to use the dragon mount.

*'''[[Chaos Sorcerer Lord]]:''' A hyrid lord which is often preferred in multiplayer for cost efficiency. One of the few non-elf lords to get a dragon mount. Can be given the Mark of Tzeentch or Nurgle. (Lores of Tzeentch and Metal for Tzeentch or Nurgle and Death for Nurgle) Marked lords CANNOT mount a chaos dragon however, they get either a warshrine, or for Tzeentch a disc instead. too bad if you wanted a dragon. Marked lords can be upgraded into demon princes though which don't need a mount, in campaign you'll probably use these as a stepping stone to demon princes eventually, unless you prefer to leave them just marked. Unmarked is perfectly viable also, lets you use the awesome chaos dragon.

*'''[[Daemon Prince]]:''' Come in a variety of types, including an Undivided option and one for each of the four Chaos Gods. All of them are versatile melee and caster hybrids, except for the Khorne prince who is melee only. Check the Chaos Gods' pages for details about the Daemon Princes for each of them, as they are the same as those accessible to the WoC roster. The Undivided Daemon Prince has the Lore of Fire plus some melee buff abilities, including a particularly good one that gives Immune to Psychology to nearby allies. Probably worth it in general at least in campaign, but costs a ton of souls. Fairly expensive in Multiplayer as well. Do note they aren't as heavily armored as the mortal lords, instead relying more on their Daemonic physical resistance.

===Heroes===
*'''[[Exalted Hero]]:''' Melee hero, often a part of the manticore goon squad. their stat line is honestly kind of absurd for the price, as they can beat pretty much any other standard melee hero in a one on one fight. Definitely one of the better melee bodyguard heroes. Can be given the Mark of Khorne or Nurgle. They can specialize in army support or dueling with a choice of different mutually exclusive skills, in particular they can boost demonic authority for either undivided or their mark choice. Unfortunately marked hero's lose access to a flying mount, nurgle only gets a normal horse or chariot, khorne gets that and a juggernaut also. Marking isn't bad but you may prefer unmarked in order to fly. Nurgle hero's get an awesome AOE heal skill.

*'''[[Chaos Sorcerer]]:''' Tankier than the traditional wizard as they have a large amount of armour and are a low-end melee character. Not the best option for melee grinding, but they also make a great goon squad participant when on a mount. Comes in Death, Fire, Metal, or Shadows. Can be given the Mark of Tzeentch or Slaanesh (Slaanesh gets lores of Slaanesh and Shadows). Marked sorcerers can ride a chaos warshrine or the Tzeentch can ride a disc also if a flying mount is preferred.

===Melee Infantry===
*'''[[Chaos Marauder|Chaos Marauders]]:''' Your budget line, but you often fill up your numbers with them given how expensive everything else is. They are how you go wide in WoC. Posses low armor but can still cause some more expensive units to struggle against them. They have pretty good stats as far as melee chaff go, so they should earn back their cost fighting other low level troops.
**'''Chaos Marauders (Great Weapons):''' Cheap Ap Damage but not as good as Chaos Warriors (Great Weapons) since the Marauders are very fragile with trading away what little defense a Marauder gets.
**Can be given any of the marks, each come with an additional weapon variant. Khorne gets Dual Axes, Tzeentch gets Spears, Nurgle gets Great Weapons and Slaanesh gets Hellscourge Whips for additional Melee Defense.

*'''[[Chaos Warrior|Chaos Warriors]]:''' The spiked anvil of Chaos. High all-around in offensive and defensive stats except for speed. In general, Chaos Warriors in this faction are much more well rounded than their Monogod cousins. They are better defensively than Khorne, faster than Nurgle, more offensive than Tzeentch and more durable than Slaanesh. They're the nice in between that allows them to fill a wider variety of roles. Often beat out other line infantry in the grind. They Lack AP, so not effective against other high armour targets.
**'''Mirror Guard(RoR):''' A strong point used in Marauders and Warriors. Moves faster, higher defense, and don't falter against Fear or Terror.
**'''Chaos Warriors (Great Weapons):''' your AP troops effectively upend other armored infantry like Dwarfs.
**'''Chaos Warriors (Halberds):''' Your Anti-large infantry out classes Great Weapons if facing Calvery and Monsters.
**Get all their marks and weapon variants for marauders, though the Tzeentch version gives up spears for halberds. Khorne can also get halberds for some reason, but chosen of khorne can’t have halberds.

*'''Aspiring Champions:''' [[Awesome|Not-large monstrous infantry with magical attacks]]. They fill a role as support units, having the Encourage ability which gives extra Leadership to your lines, being a moral anchor if your lord is way from your front lines. The magic attacks are also a cheap way to crush enemies that rely on Physical resistance for protection.
**Immortal empires buffs their statline to be more like monstrous infantry, while getting an insane number of buffs from the warriors of chaos tech tree. With the buffs from all 4 god tech trees they are a contender for most powerful unit in the game, they have insane melee killing power, regeneration, barrier, and the ability to summon a unit of pink horrors each. How strong they have become compared to the 2 last games is completly insane. They also have very high health per model so as such are basically immune to most AOE damage spells, with only things like spirit leach and final transmutation being effective against them. Ironically though they are the easiest elite unit to recruit also, often spawning in normal recruitment pools while Chosen have to be grinded all the way through. They are great for any of the 4 monogod warriors of chaos but they are truly shining on undivided factions, with the stacking of buffs from the tech tree and the choices to pick any bonus from a specific god like Tzeentch's barrier.
**'''The Severed Claw(RoR):''' A more defensive variant of aspiring champions with halberds, charge reflection, and Tzeentch barriers.

*'''[[Forsaken]]:''' A niche, fast damage dealing unit, being both fast and having good armour. Good at mulching through low armor units and used as foot flankers. They don't do well against Armor-piercing or elite infantry. Generally going to be way better used against low armor factions like Beastmen or Skaven and kept away from high armor stuff like Dwarfs or Lizardmen. Can get all Marks.
**'''The Daemonspew:''' Blessed by Nurgle, they have poison attacks and melee attack debuff aura. A supportive unit to mix with your line blob to make an elite unit easy to handle.

*'''[[Chosen]]:''' Oh my. Pound for pound, chosen are probably the best heavy melee infantry in the game and unlike other contenders like black orks, they also come in Great Weapon and Halberd variants. They will never run away, their stats are terrifying, and they are absurdly tanky. They are every bit as scary as their reputation makes them out to be. Like any heavy elite infantry, they are slow with low model counts, so they will suffer severely from being targeted by artillery, magic, or AP Missles. Can get all marks and separate variants same as Chaos Warriors. in campaign the biggest issue they have is that they really cant compete with Aspiring champions once the tech buffs are online, seriously there is no competition, Aspiring Champions are actually cheaper and they have a 10% chance of being recruitable from the get go on Chaos controlled territory.

===Beasts===
*'''Chaos Warhounds:''' Cheap and fast harassment unit, shutting down skirmishers, cavalry, missile units, and artillery crews that target your slower-moving warriors. These doggos are a good way chase broken enemies off the field and their low cost means you won't miss them too much if they die.
*'''Chaos Warhounds (Poison):''' Doggos with poison attacks. Better for catching slippery units and able to support in melee with their poison.

===Cavalry===
*'''[[Chaos Knight|Chaos Knights]]:''' your melee cav, strong and able to win lots of protracted fights. Best used in a supporting role since they're somewhat cost-inefficient compared to demigryphs/blood knights. This version is probably best used against heavy missile factions like Elves, as they will be able to block some of the incoming fire and chase them down. They're better in a grind too, though you'll have to pull out eventually (Yeah, yeah I know, insert Slaanesh joke here). Khorne and Nurgle marks enhance your prolonged melee ability offensively and defensively respectively, Slaanesh gives devastating flanker so makes them much better at hammer and anvil tactics plus physical resistance. and Tzeentch gives barrier allowing them to hit hit and run cycle charge without getting worn down. Which of the 3 is best? that depends. Slaanesh will be by far the best at flank charging and also get a nice 10% phys resist on top, Nurgle goes all in on the MELEE cavalry aspect and have insane MD and poison so can basically just stay in the grind no problem, Tzeentch if microed can just use barrier to avoid casualties but their offense is the worst and they may not always be able to recharge their barrier. Khorne is probably the worst, not because they are bad, but because everything they do is better done by skullcrushers which are also khorne.
**'''Swords of Chaos:(RoR):''' Knights with Flaming weapons but with a smaller model count, but most useful in keeping your characters safe and letting your whole army get a temporary speed boost.
*'''Chaos Knights (Lances):''' Cycle charging cav. While the shield makes them good at resisting missile fire, the tremendous charge bonus is a bit of a waste on the skirmishers on the other side. As such, best to use these guys against other cavalry, monsters, or for rear charging infantry. Just make sure that you are keeping an eye on them, while they do have tanky stats they can still crumple surprisingly quick if you leave them in a grind. Maybe don't use these as Khorne or Nurgle, SLaanesh and Tzeentch synergize much better. If going Slaanesh carefully ask yourself if the extra charge is even worth it compared to sword and board, even sword chaos knights have high enough charge with devastating flanker, and you wont always get flank charges.
**Both the Lance and Sword and Board versions can take any of the marks.
*'''Skullcrushers of Khorne:''' extremely tough heavy cav that can engage pretty much any unit type effectively, just don't charge them into the front of halberds and they should wreck, if you were considering khorne chaos knights maybe just use these instead.
**'''Knights of the Brazen Throne:(RoR):'''
*'''Doom Knights of Tzeentch:''' Oh hey, warriors of chaos finally get air cavalry. And it's a good thing too, they weren't going to win vs. Cathayan doom balloons with nothing but marauder throwing axes and manticores. Despite their lack of anti-large and armor piercing, doom knights are one of your precious few mobile units that aren't made out of wet cardboard and will be extremely useful against factions like greenskins and tomb kings who don't have much of an air force. Remember that they are weaker in melee and more expensive than normal knights, they really pay a premium for the ability to fly. For some reason they have halberds but lack both AP and anti-large, disappointing. Still a very effective unit if used right.
**'''Knights of Immolation(RoR):'''
*'''Hellstriders of Slaanesh:''' actual melee light cav that are much better in melee than regular marauder horsemen, but still fragile, and annoyingly they lack devastating flanker despite being Slaanesh marked. come in spear and whip version, thankfully they are the only whip unit that actually has AP. They gain damage resistance for the whole battle scaling to number of models killed. so you can start them off chasing routers and weak units before sending them in to flank charge tougher units later in the battle. the whip version has respectable melee stats so aren't as dependent on charging. Unfortunately their lack of AP and extreme fragility really holds them back in later campaign.

===Missile Cavalry===
If you want shooting but don't want to spring for artillery, you only have skirmish cav. Like most Skirmish cav, you need to use some micromanagement to make sure a real opponent doesn't chase them out of the game and use their ammunition efficiently instead of AI autopilot everything.

*'''Marauder Horsemen:''' You cheapest shooting unit. Useful in taking things out annoying units air and harass units with a low Missile resistance. Fragile with the same protection as a Marauder. Their cost efficiency makes them a go to in a lot of competitive lists. Can come with Marks of Tzeentch and Slaanesh. Tzeentch gets warpflame causing javelins in addition to the normal mark stuff, really good.
*'''Marauder Horsemen (Throwing Axes):''' Trades Missile range for AP. Suited for harassing armored foes from a distance but won't take punishment well like the normal variant. Can come with Marks of Khorne and Nurgle. khorne gets flaming attacks in addition to the normal mark effects. Note that all versions are currently bugged and can fire in melee so they are ridiculously deadly right now.
*'''Marauder Horsemasters:''' A slightly upgraded version of Horsemen with the most important upgrade being significantly better armor. Lets it take punishment and trade better when engaging in melee with other Skirmish units and other lesser melee units.

===Monstrous Infantry===
*'''Chaos Trolls:''' A regenerating bag of HP and AP damage. Do need some babysitting to help with their low Ld. Better for Marauder lines for that extra Damage and Monstrous mass. To be honest, probably not worth it in most situations because of that low morale and weakness to fire.
**'''Chaos Trolls (Armoured):''' Pay extra, so Trolls are less likely to run when they take damage. These guys came out before CA realized we like variants that serve different purposes and aren't just straight upgrades. Still probably not worth bringing though, especially now that we got marked chaos spawn.
*'''[[Chaos Spawn|Chaos Spa- those things]]:''' Line breakers, they do go down quickly from guns but are a cheap way to tie up multiple line units as they don't stop attacking until they are all dead. They can tear apart lighter infantry lines if they get their hands on them, and can really help supplement a cheaper frontline. Generally better than trolls, as while they lack AP they are unbreakable and will fight to the end. Each version comes with a Mark, Khorne gets Frenzy, Nurgle gets Regeneration, Tzeentch gets Armor sundering and Slaanesh gets Devastating Flankers as Soporific Musk.
**Their Monster-Mass makes them really helpful when the opponent stack has Mammoths and other heavy-hitters. It's not the most efficient tar-pit, but they're easier to recruit than dragon ogres and they can lock them in place while your Halberds/Spears do the damage.
**'''Wyrd Spawn: (RoR)''' Spawn blessed by everyone's favorite crazy [[Tzeentch|Bird]], these guys have armor sundering and Barrier, so they can actually help against armored troops and have resistance to magic on top of all that. They can also walk through trees for some tzeentchian reason. Don't ask me why.
*'''[[Dragon Ogre]]:''' Your anti-large monstrous cavalry. These boys will kick the hell out of any cavalry or monster they get their hands on, although their vulnerability to missiles means they can be a bit of a risk against super missile factions. Try your best to keep them safe, probably best on the flanks where they can deal with cav and go into the back line or flank when that is done. Can send infantry flying if needed.
**'''Summoners of Rage: (RoR)''' Have magic attacks and an infantry clearing bound spell. It takes out Physically resistant enemies or give you another edge in a fight.

===Monsters===
*'''Chaos Giant:''' A big infantry smasher, but easily sniped and hammered with ranged and anti-large attacks. Remove them, and they can frolic through even the heaviest of armor. Shockingly they are actually potentially really good now, there are now multiple ways to give them really high missile resistance and tons of healing, so they are now a very effective unit and are actually a good doomstack option.
**'''Bilious Thunderguff: (RoR)''' An upgraded giant sworn to Nurgle. Along with poison attacks, he also comes with a violent wind bound ability where he lifts a leg and farts all over everyone around him, draining health and corroding armor. Definitely worth bringing in matchups where your opponent doesn't have much ranged and has to fight him in melee.
*'''[[Manticore|Chaos Feral Manticore]]:''' One of the most cost effective flying monsters in the game. It has an impressive statline for the cost so it can actually do a good bit of work diving into backlines or helping goon out enemy characters. It's big problem is Rampage, so you will likely lose control over it, though it is decently cheap so don't worry too much if it goes nuts. Often used as a mount for characters in multiplayer, but there is nothing wrong with taking this guy by himself. they can get regeneration in melee from campaign techs, which is pretty ok, they still die fast but it helps.
*'''Dragon Ogre Shaggoth:''' An anti-large monster duelist. Are you scared that the enemy might have a dragon, big scary tree, crab monster or freaky rat monstrosity from hell? Throw this thing at it and if it doesn't kill it it'll get it damn close. Of course, it's also a massive bullseye for every AP missile unit on the field, so you got to make sure that it's kept safe. Often paired with Kholek to make a Dragon Ogre goon squad. the biggest weakenss they had was lack of healing, but now that sorcerer lords can have lore of nurgle they can finally be healed. Maybe the Shaggoth doomstack is back. they are hard to recruit however requiring an expensive endgame undivided gift to recruit. ironically a normal nurgle sorcerer lord can probably shaggoth doomstack better than kholek now due to healing.
*'''Chaos Warshrine''': Big buffboi that buffs even better when models die around it. Consider bubble wrapping it with marauders, the gods aren't picky on whether you're sacrificing your enemies or your own troops to them. Doesn't have much offensive capability, but has enough HP to slog it out on the frontline for a long time. Can be dedicated five ways, choose Khorne for killiness, Nurgle for healing, Slaanesh for a mortis engine AOE HP drain, Tzeentch for increased spell effectiveness, and undivided for physical resist. Slaanesh may be the strongest for infantry grinds, followed by nurgle. The others are perhaps more situational.

===Chariots===
*'''Chaos Chariot:''' Standard heavy chariot. Will get absolutely dumpstered in prolonged fights but will devastate enemies on the charge. Bring against heavy armor factions that can't lock it down like Dwarfs. Each of these can come with any mark, but pledging loyalty to Tzeentch is likely your best bet since regenerating barriers is the strongest buff you can give a hit and run unit like a chariot.
**'''The Sibilant Slaughtercade: (RoR)''' A Slaanesh pledged chariot that comes with poisoned attacks, increased speed, devastating flanker, and a damage resistance + charge bonus buff that increases as it racks up kills.
*'''Gorebeast Chariot:''' Slower than standard chariots, but has more AP damage for fighting higher armor. Generally not a good deal thanks to the price since standard chariots can simply do what it does better. Can come with the Mark of Khorne.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Hellcannon]]:''' Big gun with homing projectiles and damage that includes a Ld debuff. It also comes with an unbreakable Chaos Dwarf crew who will keep firing until they're killed to the last man. Somewhat of an odd man out in the Chaos roster since their playstyle is more geared towards bumrushing the enemy than noob boxing around the artillery, but there are no complaints about having one to round out your army. Depending on the matchup, you can force the enemy to come to you if they can't artillery duel with the cannon. If you got the attention to spare, taking manual control of them allows you to fly the projectile.
**'''The Soul of Damnation: (RoR)''' A tad beefed up Hellcannon. Stats identical, but has the addition of the Soul Devourer ability that makes it reload faster when enemies are near.

===Daemons===
* For the daemon units go look at their respective pages, the overviews there are mostly the same except that with the limited access to them you'll want to be a bit more careful before throwing your bloodthirster into a horde of skeleton spears. unfortunately your skill and tech tree's are generally lacking in ways to boost demon units, so you may be better off relying on your factions own units late game after you have tech and red tree buffs. you do get some buffs from the red tree for demons but they are pretty bad.

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
You're... pretty damn strong in multiplayer to be honest, despite being a meme faction for years in the first two games. You got a lot going for you, from strong lord choices, good magic lores, really good infantry, cavalry and monsters, and even an alright skirmishing core with Marauder Horsemen. Your only real major weakness is just how expensive everything is, and even then you got it better than the High Elves in that category. You got a ton of new mechanics with the Champions of Chaos DLC in game 3 and are likely to benefit from future monogod DLC as well. It should only get better from here. Here's how to win glory for the Chaos Gods:

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

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''':

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos| Warriors of Chaos]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Daemons of Chaos| Daemons of Chaos]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves| Dark Elves]]''': After seeing this matchup, it’s no wonder thag the Chaos warriors haven’t been able to make it out of Warhammer Canada. Dark Elves are tailor-made for busting your balls. Between darkshards, scourgerunners, and dark rider crossbows, they have more than enough ranged AP to melt your infantry and heavy cavalry. Go for a marauder frontline and bring some hellstriders and maybe some doom knights to run down their cowardly ranged units.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs| Dwarfs]]''': You'll win the infantry fight, assuming your slow frontline survives the heavy artillery bombardment. Use manticores, hounds, calvary, and/or furies to mess with Dwarfen ranged. Big monsters like the Shaggoth should stay out of this, unless you like watching 2000 gold get shot to shit.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire| Empire]]''': The Empire is your arch enemy for many good reasons. While you may scoff at their frontline infantry, you should never underestimate how good flagellants are at stalling you long enough for Helstorm rockets and cannon balls to send your warriors to hell, and the disappointed gaze of The Gods. Your Chaos Knights, while tough, need some support from warhounds or skirmishers because Demigryphs with halberds will eat them for breakfast. Your big monsters are useful killers, but like the Dwarfs are The Empire is really good at killing large units. The general play is to bring a solid line of Chaos Warriors with shields because they can endure handgunners long enough to quickly cleave though their frontline. For the rest of your army get a core of warhounds, preferably poison unless your pinching pennies, as they're great for chasing down skirmish cav, attacking their back line, and are a good supporting option for Shaggoths to lessen the damage they take when fighting Demigryphs. As for monsters, per the norm, bring Shaggoths. They can defeat an unsupported Steam Tank and will wreak havoc on most Empire cavalry while being fast enough to juke cannon balls. Again, be really careful of Demigryhs with halberds. Those bird riders may take a lot of damage, but they can also kill Shaggoths with surprising speed. Bring support if they have a Jade Wizard for back up, and having agoon squad of Exalted Heroes on manticores can help control the sky if Karl Franz is on the field. The goon squad will be needed because Karl Franz will otherwise crush unsupported heroes. If your opponent brought some other southerner, then expect Volkmar to be next on the list if he’s looking to win the infantry fight. A typical Empire frontline when fighting you will largely consist of halberdiers, and maybe a few greatswords and some flagellants to act as meatshields so he can keep shooting you. For the other legendary lords, Gelt is a common sight due to him being the only guy with access to the Lore of Metal, which can screw over your armor, transmute your leaders, and nuke blobs if you're dumb enough to make those. Remember, go wide with your infantry, have a core of dogs and shaggoths and then show that the Sons Of Heldenhammer are no match for the Dark Gods!
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Grand Cathay| Grand Cathay]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins| Greenskins]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/High Elves| High Elves]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Khorne|Khorne]]''': Make no mistake, this is a bad matchup for you. Khorne is better than you in a knock down drag out melee fight. Bloodletters trade up vs Chaos Warriors and Chosen and a wide frontline of marauders will crumble quickly and buff Khorne's units in the process. However, you have a potential ace in the hole. Dragon ogres give more bang for the buck than khorne's horribly overcosted monsters + cavalry. If you play your cards right, your superior magic, skirmishing, and monsters will be enough to tip the scales in your favor.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Kislev|Kislev]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Lizardmen| Lizardmen]]''': Though a flexible faction with many tools to use against you, you have relatively little to fear from their infantry. Saurus are tanky SoBs, but grindfests will generally work out in your favor due to your superior offensive statlines. Though you'll never catch any Skink units, the only ones you need to pay any real attention to are the Red-Crested variety, which will still melt in combat against your forces without extensive support. Instead, your primary concern will be the myriad of monsters the lizards are almost assuredly bringing to bear against you. Chaos Warriors or Chosen with Halberds will be your bread and butter for pinning such beasties down. Dragon Ogres and Shaggoths also make fantastic hunting squads for isolated dinosaurs and will utterly dumpster them if they can get in the thick of it. Additionally, though the Lizardmen do technically have a higher ranged roster to chose from, your Hellcannon can lay waste to their forces long before even ''their'' artillery can attempt to retaliate. Just be particularly cautious of Razordon Hunting Packs, Troglodons and potential Ripperdactyl strike squads.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Norsca| Norsca]]''': To show the northerners that the chaos gods favor you most, you’ll need to consider your army carefully. Beserkers will trade upwards into pretty much any infantry you bring, even chosen, and their ‘berserk’ ability makes them a surprisingly tough nut to crack. This means you should either go super low-tier and bring tons of marauders, or super elite and invest in chosen and chaos warriors, relying on your infantry to win the day. Both setups have their own advantages and weaknesses. Do NOT bring mostrous infantry like dragon ogres or chaos spawn. Sure, they can deal with berserkers fine, but Norsca has plenty of mobile anti-large and ap to make you regret it. If you can protect it, a hellcannon can pay huge dividends by shooting holes in their higher tier infantry. You are one of the few factions that actually had a good answer to mammoths, Shaggoths have the speed and ap to grind them down and reliably outduel them. You won’t be able to keep pace with them in the skirmish game, but you probably want to bring at least a couple of wolves/skirmish cav, since their ap ranged units can make your monsters very sad if allowed to fire in. Marauder chariots can actually be a big problem for you because of their great mass and ap, so whittling them down with your fast units is probably your best bet. Kholek is not a great choice here, since he can get ground down by Skin wolves and Wulfrik, I’d recommend Archaon or a chaos sorcerer on a dragon. The former has a chance to put duel even Wulfrik (let alone throgg or a chieftain) if you use slayer of kings wisely, and the latter is able to pick his engagements, and probably won’t face any threats in the sky.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle| Nurgle]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]'''
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': First thing's first, leave the Chaos Warriors and Chosen at home. Not only do you not need them to deal with most Skaven frontlines, but they will get ripped apart against Jezzails and Mortar teams. Mauarders are the frontline of choice as they will help deal with Clanrats and Skavenslaves relatively quickly and for cheap. Hounds are also pretty much a requirement in order to get behind the rats and take out the weapon teams before they are able to do irreversible damage. Finally, Spawn are your friends, as they help shred Skaven infantry, murder Rat Ogres and are unbreakable so some of the scarier Skaven units won't be able to spook them off. For magic lores, go with something that can deal with swarms like Fire or Shadows. Sigvald is your best bet here as a lord since Jezzails are some of the best SEM snipers in the game and Sigvald is really hard to kill.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Slaanesh| Slaanesh]]''': Slaanesh epitomizes the very concept of anti-armor and even their basic troops will run laps around yours. Fortunately, you will be able to match their speed since the chaos gods blessed you with doom knights and hellstriders from Slaanesh's own roster. You will want to go as cheap and wide with your front-line in order to cover your flanks. Large units like dragon ogres will also be a good idea since Slaanesh lacks ranged units other than their own marauder horsemen. Lords wise, you'll either want a large monster beatstick or a flying caster lord. Keep an eye on the enemy roster if you went for the latter, you'll want to turn off flying and hide in your own army for a while if your opponent brought Azazel.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tomb Kings| Tomb Kings]]''': In Warhammer 3 you've got some really good options here, the ability to recruit anti-infantry khorne warriors with high armor can really give the tomb kings a bad time. Bring anti-large whatever really and back it up with a solid line of dual-axe khorne boys and watch the kings melt, even faster if you bring the lore of fire in some form.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Tzeentch| Tzeentch]]''':
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Coast| Vampire Coast]]''': The deckhand cries out in pain as he strikes you. A terrible, terrible matchup for you. Shaggoths, Chaos Spawn, etc. would be great here if they could actually get into melee, but with the coasts firepower there isn’t a chance in hell of that happening. Your only strategy is to go super wide and use chaos warriors/chosen as your killing. And then you’ll promptly run straight into World War Z as the coast player runs your infantry smack into a veritable wall of deckhand mobs and summons while their ap missiles and monsters eat your infantry for breakfast. You’re better off just forfeiting this one tbh, the coast player can basically just take a nap while you’re tearing your hair out on how to deal with them.
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts| Vampire Counts]]''': Your bad luck just doesn’t run out when it comes to the vampires. To put it shortly, wait for your rework. Sure this matchup is marginally better than Coast since you’ll actually make it into melee, but Vampire Counts will take your leadership to pound town with fear/terror, and their excellent mobility means that they can pick their engagements way better than you can. Also they can heal. Your only hope is to grab 2 Shaggoths or an exalted hero goon squad and defend them at all costs. Hopefully Tzeentch will favor you!
*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves| Wood Elves]]''': You know what they say: dogs are a mutated tentacle-y chaos warriors best friend. Chaos Warhounds are a must in this matchup, because they are the only unit with the speed to reliably pin down the asrai’s shooters. Here’s the thing: you will win the infantry grind with 0 effort, as chaos warriors will kill any asrsi infantry they’re put up against with one hand tied behind their back, and the great weapon variant can even buzzsaw through Tree Kin relatively quickly. That’s not where the Wood elves strength lies however. If they go full Vietnam and bring a list full of shooters, you’ll want chaos warhounds and skirmish cav to pin down and damage their archers and cav. Chaos knights can deal with any cavalry the wood elves have (except for maybe the lost Sylvan Knights) as long as they don’t take the charge. Speaking of The lost Sylvan knights, they can be a huge pain since your magic damage is limited, and the easiest way to grind them down is probably a fire caster with flaming sword of rhuin. I wouldn’t bother with Shaggoths. An Exalted hero (or even two!) on a manticore can be a great pick here, since it’s mobile enough with a small hit box and has the killing power to take out Treemen, Zoats, lords/heros you name it. You’ll just need to be careful of Hawk riders. Archaon or Dorghar or Sigvald are probably your best lords here. Anything with a big hitbox is just asking to become a pincushion.

===Campaign Strategies===
'''AND THE REWORK CAME!''' The new rework gives you the ability to recruit daemon lords and all the daemons in general. a new 'upgrade system' allows you to recruit basic marauders and then upgrade them over time into chaos warriors and then chosen. your objective really is to kill a lot of people to earn 'souls' which you can offer to the chaos gods to get daemon units or major faction buffs. with the ability to pseudo-conquer settlements the days of horde agony are in the past. Take archeon and his lads on a merry slaughter-crusade throughout the world and with the ability to evolve your non-legendary generals into daemon princes come rank 30 it's the chaos experience we always wanted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

====Azazel====
Gifts of Slaanesh, seduction, and diplomacy is the name of the game for Azazel. Gifts of Slaanesh can give you +25 souls per turn each, and you can easily have dozens of these active at once, so your able to sustain gifts of chaos easily and build up massive reserves of souls, you should use you diplomacy benefits for all its worth to avoid unnecessary wars and gradually spread out and conquer as many dark fortresses as possible while gaining vassals. you may not have the insane versatility of the undivided lord like archaon or Be'lakor but you Slaanesh faction benefits are extremely strong. prioritize givings gifts of Slaanesh to every lord you meet, friend or enemy, and you will never have to worry about souls again, you may not be overall as strong as Archaon, Be'lakor, or maybe even Sigvald but you are one of the best warriors of chaos factions in campaign for sure. Azazel himself is a great flying lord whith good abillities and an awesome weapon. Unfortunately because hellscourge units suck and mark of Slaanesh isn't really that good except on cavalry Azazel probably has the weakest unit roster of the Warriors of chaos factions, Slaanesh and undivided units aren't bad by any means but with the exception of chaos knights Slaanesh marking isn't usually one of the most useful choices. His powerful faction effects can certainly make up for that slight weakness though. like all 4 monogod warriors of chaos, his tech tree is generally more focused and less versatile than the undivided lords.

====Be'lakor====
Be'lakor, the first Daemon Prince, the first champion of Undivided, and the first to suffer from [[Horus Heresy|Daddy(-ies) issues]], comes with a few unique mechanics to differentiate him from Archaon and the Daemon Princes:
*'''Confederation''': Like Archaon, Be'lakor can confederate with the other Warriors of Chaos factions after seizing their last settlement, whereas other Warriors can only vassalize. Easier to do the earlier in the campaign, while your competition is still trying to subjugate the tribes. The factions ''closest'' to you is Sigvald, who is just to your Northwest, and Festus, in the Empire. Your mileage may vary, but Sigvald is the easiest to subjugate since the Fortress of the Damned is a port, and isn't [[Money|DLC-locked]].
*'''Rifts''': The ''best'' of the unique mechanics because of how it works with the WoC playstyle: Rifts allow for instant travel between two points on the map, and new ones can be created with the Tzeentch Unholy Manifestation simply by activating it on any land army that you have vision on, so you can send expendable heroes out to tag distant armies for you and have portals all over Malleus.
**Be'lakor starts with a Daemonic Rift in his capital, which leads you to the Southern Wastes and Ostermark, which throws you into the shit right away.
**You start with 4 charges of this rite and a cooldown of 15 turns, and this anon recommends placing your first few rifts on your Dark Fortresses rather than on Order Faction Capitals: teleporting an army ''directly'' on Sigvald or Archaon's doorstep makes subjugating them so much easier, and also makes holding these fortresses a cinch. Dark Fortresses are hard to take even without a garrisoned army and some, but not all, tend to be pretty far away from each other. Rifts can transport an army from a relatively quiet fortress right in front of an invading Skaven Horde or Empire doomstack.
**Stances are retained when traveling through rifts, but not movement, so entering in the raid/encamp/ambush stance ensures you're not entirely defenseless when emerging from the other side.
*'''Manifestations''': Replaces the Eye of the Gods mechanic. You can sacrifice souls to the four Gods in exchange for campaign abilities and a gifted Daemon unit.
**Tzeentch creates portals and gifts Pink Horrors
**Nurgle delivers 100 Nurgle Corruption (over 10 turns, so +10 a turn) and Plaguebearers
**Khorne greatly improves the melee and charge stats of an entire army and gifts Bloodletters
**Slaanesh deals damage to an opposing enemy army and gifts Daemonettes
**Souls sacrificed in this manner ''do not'' count towards the Gifts of Chaos, which is a shame.
*'''Daemonic Warband Upgrades''': Not only does Be'lakor have a base 3+ Authority with all four Gods, but after researching through the tech tree, Be'lakor can upgrade any of the basic Daemons to their Exalted versions, which keeps them competitive as the game goes on.
*'''Be'lakor's Shadow''' - You can convert enemy Human lords into Daemon Princes, either by defeating them with Be'lakor, or by Hero action. This only applies to non-Legendary, non-Warriors of Chaos lords. It takes 10 turns for the transformation to complete, and if the Lord is disbanded or killed, the effect is removed.
*'''Konquata and the Campaign''': As mentioned above, Be'lakor starts in Konquata, Albion, with the Vanaheimling's as his Norscan vassals. Being so close to Bretonnia and the Empire, as well as having rifts to Ostermark and the Southern Wastes, it's tempting to start throwing the forces of Order into Chaos, but subjugating and vassalizing other Chaos-factions should take priority. Wulfrik's territory is also quite close to you, and while you can't make him playable, having him as a vassal is still helpful, and you can gift him territory to make his faction stronger. Honestly, trading away all the non-Dark Fortress settlements to vassals or allies is the smart way to go because you benefit very little from them, while they can make full settlements out of them. His one weakness is that he has no bonuses to soul generation at all so gifts of chaos are much harder to sustain.
**Konquata [[Fail|doesn't have a port]], which makes you kinda glad that you have the rifts, instead. Getting in and out of Albion without them is a bitch, both for you ''and'' for invaders. It's not as annoying as the Galleon's Graveyard, but you will have enough warning about coming invaders to get an army through a rift.

====Festus====
Festus has power support abilities and the always powerful and useful plague mechanic but is unfortunately stuck on foot and mediocre in melee, thankfully Nurgle marking is generally one of the strongest options on many units and they have access to great weapon versions of infantry which is very useful. He also gains souls from plagues which is pretty decent but much weaker than Archaeon's vassal effect or gifts of Slaanesh at generating souls overall. Both marked heros and lords of Nurgle are very good as well. Frankly Festus is very solid. Good units to take advantage of are chaos giants while stacking missile resistance, Aspiring champions, and Nurgle chaos knights are all very strong, make sure to always have sources of healing to outlast your enemies. Really just his low speed and no mount holds him back.

====Kholek====
Kholek is a beast who gets stronger and BIGGER with every vassal, but he lost his 20% ward save skill for no apparent reason. Unfortunately he has no particularly good factions benefits, he does nothing to boost his army except giving dragon ogres a weak activated ability and some combat bonuses and he gives only his own army a 25% discount on dragon ogre upkeep, plus gets the shaggoth granting chaos gift easier. Unfortunately he is far, far less useful overall than Archaon, Be'lakor, or even Sigvald as far as faction effects go, his is still a beast in combat but there no real reason to use him instead of just confederating him as Archaon and Be'lakor. Disappointing that they felt the need to nerf him and give him nothing to make up for it. I guess you can get 50 vassals and have fun with how giant he is but frankly that's just a gimmick.

====Sigvald====
Sigvald has Slaaneshi seduction and gifts of Slaanesh both of which are extremely strong. Gifts of Slaanesh let you spam hero actions across the map to passively generate souls, where most chaos factions depend on battling and razing to generate souls you can get insanely high passive soul income while also seducing factions to become your vassals, allowing you to upkeep your gifts of chaos for free. seriously this effect alone makes Sigvald and Azazael deceptively powerful. Compared to Azazel, Sigvald has a better tech tree and access to the full roster instead of just Slaanesh, frankly Slaanesh marking is only really that useful on chaos knights and cavalry to give devastating flanker but is kinda lack luster on mauraders, warriors etc. Sigvald is much more well rounded than Azazel in unit/hero/lord choice.

====Valkia====
Valkia has some of Skarbrands signature mojo, but isn't quite as OP. She herself is a potent flying beatstick and her Khorne/Undivided rosters is focused and powerful, but in terms of faction benefits and campaign effects she is solid but perhaps not the best. Her Star ability is to replenish in enemy territory. Khorne units are offensively focused and powerful thankfully. She is the only Warriors of Chaos faction who cannot use any sorcerer lords and only has access to the Lores of Fire and Metal, maybe go Fire since you have lots of units with flaming attacks to benefit from Kindleflame. She also has no way of passively generating souls like Archaon/Festus/Azazel/Sigvald and must rely on razing and battles completely, meaning its much harder to sustain many gifts until later when you've built up a nice large reserve of souls. Still that doesn't mean she is weak by any means. Her ability to rampage across the map quickly is as potent as always. Her version of the Bloodletting ability is basically useless, all it does is increase Khorne authority and experience gain for units, but she and her other lords should have no problem getting Khorne authority since your likely to mark most of your lord and hero's.

====Villitch====
A decent caster and decent fight but stuck on foot unfortunately, god why couldn't they have given him a disc?, as a lord he's kinda mediocre, good to support barriers on your troops but other wise not amazing. Factions wise his benefits are only ok, he has the changing of ways which can definitely be good and the ability to teleport is nice, but his other faction bonuses are semi-mediocre. Thankfully, barrier is extremely strong and the mark of Tzeentch is just good in general. The biggest issue with him is that he isn't Kairos or nearly as OP as him, but still Tzeentch units are strong enough to make up for that. He has no particularly good way to gain souls compared to other lords though.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Vampire Counts

2023-05-19T14:38:58Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Vampire Counts.

==Why Play Vampire Counts?==
*Because you want the realms of the living to drown in the night as the dark creatures consume their souls and bodies.
*Because you really, REALLY wanted Dracula to win in the novel.
*The enemy can't dive your backline if you have no backline!
*Because you aren't quite sick of zombies yet.

===Pros===
*'''God Tier Lords''': Every Lord in your army is a caster of the Lore of Vampires, the strongest lore of magic in the entire game. Combine that with impressive melee stats and incredible mount options across the board, and Vampire Lords are among the most powerful in the entire game. Plus, with all the Bloodlines being playable you have plenty of even more powerful lords to choose from.
*'''Fantastic Heroes''': Vampire Counts also have amazing heroes on both the battlefield and the campaign map. Vampires are casters that can fight almost everything and win using their high melee stats and regen. Wight Kings are superb tanks with high HP, a silver shield, and a nifty anti-infantry bonus. Necromancers are essential both on and off the battlefield, granting AoE regen to allies — improved further and adding a few buffs with a corpse cart mount. Outside of fights, have a group of ten Necromancers with the "Lore Keeper" trait run amongst your cities, granting 100% off construction costs, 100% research rate, and a massive "Boost Income" bonus. Banshees are great agents that have access to "Assassinate", "Damage Walls", and "Block Army". The "Devious" trait gives a stacking boost to action success chance and a lower action cost.
*'''Healing''': Other factions have healing, but you are one of very few that can bring back dead models. This means that casualties aren't the biggest concern in the world for you as you can always just bring them back with a good Invocation of Nehek cast. Pro tip: Don't click that "end battle" button; instead, spend your remaining winds of magic to revive everyone and win the fight with zero casualties.
*'''Cavalry''': Blood Knights are among the best cav in the entire game, and, combined with the ability to revive models, can be oppressive. Even Black Knights are pretty damn good for what they do.
*'''Air Power''': With cheap expendable options like Fell Bats and crazy damage creatures like Vargheists and Terrorgheists, getting control of the sky as the Vampires is pretty easy. Just watch out for missiles and vortexes like tempest designed to kill fliers.
*'''Monsters''': You got plenty of large damage dealing monsters for numerous occasions. From fliers to ground monsters to bats and dogs to harass skirmishers, you got a beast for nearly every occasion.
*'''Inexpensive''': Most of your infantry choices are pretty cheap, which allows you to really lean into your more expensive troops and still have enough cash left over to get frontline to hold them in place. You can expect to outnumber your enemy in most battles, so be sure to use that.
*'''High Infantry Models''': The zombie and skeleton units boast one of the highest model counts in the game. Pair that fact with your ability to bring back dead models and you have a blob to reckon with.
*'''OP in Domination''': Powergamers, this is the new faction for you in multiplayer. Due to the amount of cheap unbreakable infantry and chaff they can spit out onto the field and the amount of healing they have, they can swarm points in bodies and once they have one they aren't letting go. Seriously even if you're losing the value trade by the thousands you can still win games just cause of how hard you are to get rid of. If all you care about is to win and get on the top of a leaderboard no one cares about, the Vamps are a one way ticket there.

===Cons===
*'''No Ranged Units''': None whatsoever in the first game, meaning you are always forced to go all-in; otherwise, the enemy will just pick you apart. You do have plenty of tools to deal with enemy ranged, but you can still feel the inability to put out reliable damage from a distance. It also makes your siege defenses an absolute joke. The second game allows the recruitment of a small number of Sylvanian crossbowmen and handgunners after you unlock a Von Carstein Bloodline lord but they honestly aren't worth it unless you're going up against Drycha and her roided up treemen + treekin. Generally the lack of ranged is for game balance reasons, as VC already have brilliant cavalry, lords, monsters and excellent high tier infantry. Don't be tempted to download mods like Radious which give you cheap access to ranged as it makes the counts unstoppable and the game dull. Or do it, I'm not your mother.
*'''Flimsy Infantry''': Believe it or not, literal walking corpses animated like puppets don't make the best fighters. While Zombies and Skeletons can hold the line, don't expect them to win without help. Your cav, monsters, heroes, and lords will be doing most of the work in winning the battle while infantry hold the enemy in place. Grave guard are not flimsy at all, but they are a lot more expensive.
*'''Reliance on Lords''': Lords are important in all armies, but yours literally keep your shambling mounds moving and fighting during the battle. If they die, the rest of the army is sure to follow.
*'''Lack of Anti-Large''': Aside from Blood Knights and Skeleton Spearmen, you'll be hard pressed to find anything in your Roster with Anti-Large damage. Facing off against heavy cavalry and monsters is not something you particularly enjoy.
*'''DLC''': Yes, a weakness pretty much everyone has but still worth mentioning. Mortis Engines and Corpse Carts are very useful in your average battle – almost essential – and sadly you need to fork over dough if you want to get these key units.
*'''Slow Infantry''': Zombies, walking skeletons, and possessed suits of armor are slow. Who knew?
*'''PC Killer''': Large number of units with high model counts combined with vampire-focused maps specializing in fog and your frame rate can easily take a dive, even on beefy rigs. The campaign map isn't safe as vampire corruption covers the land in fog and particle effects. Lowering or outright disabling volumetric fog is a must.
*'''Predictability''': A very similar weakness to the Dwarfs, but in the opposite direction. Where as the lack of mobility or offensive infantry means the Dwarfs can never play offense, your lack of ranged units, artillery or solid defensive infantry means you can never play defense. Experienced players will likely know what you're bringing and be able to counter.

==Universal Traits==

*'''Undead''': Everything you have is undead. Duh. Refer to the general tactics page as to what that means.
*'''The Hunger''': The Hunger gives the unit with it a small regeneration buff as long as it is in melee. All Vampiric units (Your Lords, Vargheists, Blood Knights etc.) have this.
*'''Vampiric Corruption''': One of the core features your faction is based around in the campaign and is spread by a combination of your lords/heroes and buildings you construct in settlements you own. Vampiric Corruption is what keeps your armies stitched together and your people...pacified while your armies march on the lands of the living. Speaking of the land of the living, your armies will suffer attrition while striking out into low corruption provinces that you don't control, meaning you need to move quickly to capture neighboring settlements. You'll also need to remain on site until you can establish yourself; you must endure public order penalties in settlements with low Vampiric Corruption which can quickly lead to revolts should you turn a blind eye. Fortunately, once you have established sufficient Vampiric Corruption in a province, it becomes considerably harder for the living to reclaim it; ''they'' suffer attrition when venturing onto your lands and must spend a considerable amount of time purifying your corruption lest ''they'' have to deal with Vampiric rebellions of their own. Additionally, once Vampiric Corruption reaches high enough levels, it can begin to bleed into neighboring regions, hastening how quickly you can move in.
*'''The Dead rise again!''': After each battle, any unit that is completely wiped out has a fairly high chance to come back to life. It can be a bit random and frustrating at times , but it can't be denied that it nullifies a lot of the attrition Armies far away from your cities suffer over the course of a campaign. Combine this with your free skeletons and Raise Dead and your armies will operate at full strength a lot more often than most other factions armies will. This ability is unique to the Vampire Counts + Vampire Coast.
*'''Causes Fear/Causes Terror''': Every single one of your units causes fear, and your monstrous ones as well as your Lords all cause Terror.

==Legendary Lords and Subfactions==

*'''[[Mannfred von Carstein]]''': the Legendary vampire Caster Lord himself, having the blender power of an already impressive normal vampire lord plus the full selection of Lore of Vampire and Death. Mannfred is the epitome of a Hybrid Lord; he already starts with a discount Arcane Conduit, and the additional magic power from this alone makes him easily on par with Teclis and Morathi. Unlike these two though, he also is a terrific melee combatant, especially when mounted on a zombie dragon. His access to two full lores is rare and exceptional, plus they are death and vampires some of the best lores.
: Mannfred starts in Sylvania proper with Castle Drakenhof. Starting as him can be a bit tedious, as your close proximity to no less than 4 different major order factions that really hate your guts (Reikland, Karaz-a-Karak, Karak Kadrin and The Golden Order) and the shit economy of the VC combined with ludicrous amounts of money your high tier buildings cost, make sure that you have a pretty bad time on Mortal Empires. Try not to push too aggressively into the Elector Counts that surround you, sow your Corruption and you should be fine, but always try to play it safe.

*'''[[Heinrich Kemmler]]''': Would be the worst legendary lord if not for the fact that he can summon Krell. not much to say in MP except he is a necromancer that summon a strong Wight King and if you pay more, can your side win an engagement and not immediately die.
: more interesting in campaigns as he is far removed from the vampiric cluster of Sylvania to spread mayhem to [[Bretonnia]] and [[Reikland]] from Castle [[Drachenfels]] in the Grey Mountains. he starts with two ghost units, has a good relationship with chaos, doesn't need to roll out the corruption carpet to move and improve recruitment of necromancers heros.

*'''[[Helman Ghorst]]''' (DLC): He would have been the game's first legendary hero if CA had figured out earlier on how that would work, but he is an alternative starting lord for Sylvania. Despite Kemmler's street cred, Ghorst is actually the best and only necromancer lord you should consider in MP. Has Regen for protection and Should always be on his special Lodestone corpses cart to give out his buffs to his troops and passive DPS. what makes him even more worth the cost is summoning a unit of Grave guard or a Wight king instead of regular undead. All this and his price tag make him the best cost-effective caster choice if your trying to save money on a lord.
:In the campaign, Ghorst is about bringing the zombie apocalypse into Warhammer Fantasy. His red line skills and research tree can buff zombies so much that he can bring a doomstack of nothing but zombies and still be able to grind Kugath and Greasus to dust in a war of attrition.

*'''[[Vlad von Carstein]]''' (FLC): Vlad is perhaps the best melee lord in the entire game, across all factions. He combines a terrific statline with a decent mobility, even on foot, an absurd amount of ward saves that total up to the possible maximum of 90% ''The Hunger, Regeneration and a massive self-heal plus the Lore of Vampires on top of that''. Is there anything that he is weak to? Frankly, fire damage will put a significant dent into his defense line once his abilities are on cooldown as well as being tarpitted (although tarpitting isn't as effective against him as other lords, since he is easily able to slaughter any unit that gets thrown his way) or monstrous creatures, which can keep him busy for a considerable amount of time. Picking Vlad often means for your opponent to play around him and this is something you can and should exploit. better if used as a second lord by Isabella in campaign, his faction benefits are very small (just slightly better campaign movement, vs Isabellas awesome bonuses).
:In the campaign, he and Isabella will be almost as inseparable as the Sisters of Twilight due to their combat buffs when reinforcing each other. he leads one of the opposed VC factions next door to Mannfred's Sylvania. As your starting lord, he Gives improved campaign movement and gives his personal army Siege attacker and army-wide Vanguard to not give the enemies time to mess with you.

*'''[[Isabella von Carstein]]''' (FLC): the Alternative starting lord for the Von Carstein campaign, Giving big bonuses for vampire heroes. In MP She is A Vampire lord with supportive ability Giving out improved Offence and Regeneration to herself and other units. Comes with numerous buffs to monster units. She gives way better campaign bonus than vlad and you get him for free anyway so ALWAYS start with her.

*'''[[The Red Duke]]''' (FLC, MP only): he is in the campaign but you have to confederate with Mousillon to use him. in MP he is more of a duelist lord then the Blood Dragon lord, with his El Syf hex making a target easy picking and cut though its Physical resistance in comparison to the Blood Dragon that is all in on only melee damage.

==Units==
===Generic Lords===
*'''Vampire Lord''': Like most of VC, the army is held together by a few strong units with the rest being expendable support. Already a strong melee fighter, able to blow through most infantry. All that, plus he is a caster of the Lore of Vampires. In MP, He is already expensive and paints a big target on his back to get shot down, so only buy what you need on and tray to distribute more of your funds spread across your army. Bloodline Lords largely make him obsolete.

*'''Master Necromancer''': If you were to look up the word "Redundant" in a dictionary you'd find a picture of this dude's face. As a caster lord he's rather pointless because literally, EVERY lord in the Vampire roster comes with the Lore of Vampires, which is about all he brings to the table. I mean I guess he's cheap compared to a vampire but the bonus you get with them more than makeup for the price increase. Worse yet he has to compete with the ''hero'' version of the Necromancer, who literally does the exact same thing this dude does but for cheaper and you can have more than one of them in an army if you want. The Master Necromancer either needs a serious buff/rework to give us a reason to pick him over any Vampire or even the hero version, or he needs to just be removed from the game because honestly, I don't think anyone will miss him.

*'''Strigoi Ghoul King (DLC)''': Your single entity hunter compared to the infantry muncher that is a Vampire Lord. Is buck naked for defense except for having Regeneration in addition to the Hunger. Has Poison attacks in addition to High AP, plus an ability to give a burst of even more AP for himself and allies, making him prime as a hunter of armored single entities. Its magic setup is a mix of Vampires and Death to help in his leader and hunter role, including a unique spell to summon crypt Ghouls/Horrors for a poisonous goon squad. Can be mounted on a Terrorgheist which improves his survivability, mobility, and is already a single entity hunter. However, he is also made obsolete by bloodline lords, so buyer beware.

===Bloodline Lords===
The super-special lords that are unlocked via Blood Kisses in campaign. You can pretty much ignore the generic lords, because in both campaign and MP there's no reason to take them over these guys.

*'''Lahmian Vampire Lord''': Focused on debuffing and being hard to hurt in melee. She is a mixed caster of Shadow and Vampire. Her role is using her high speed to jump on enemies and use Seduction to slow them down as they take punishment. In fitting with the Lahmians' subversive nature, she also gives large bonuses to hero action success rates in campaign.

*'''Von Carstein Vampire Lord''': A mixed caster of Vampire and Beast, with the ability to summon a Varghulf instead of a Manticore. His Storm of the Night will grant you an edge in the air superiority matchups. Does essentially everything a generic Vampire Lord does but better.

*'''Blood Dragon Vampire Lord''': Around one of the best melee characters in-game with all the stats that matter (attack, defense, AP damage, magic, and a monstrous mount option). The "weakest" of the Bloodlines in terms of magic (which means he just has the pure Lore of Vampires instead of a mixed lore, and no access to Arcane Conduit, so take "weak" with a MASSIVE grain of salt.) hHs magic skill tree may actually be better than normal since you can get access to later spells with fewer points invested.

*'''Necrarch Vampire Lord''': Your caster vampire. Not as good in melee as a normal Vampire Lord, but more focused casting, getting a mix of Death/Vampire/Beast's buff and debuff spells. Very good at keeping your magic tanks full enough to sustain you, wizard assault. Kind of awkward, spell selections are not the best and Von Carstein Lords work better as a caster. Raised Dead benefits are good though.

*'''Strigoi Vampire Lord''': Essentially an upgraded Ghoul King, granting greater melee attack and defense. Their AP burst ability only affects themselves, and they get another way to give them a burst of HP. Same issues as a normal Ghoul King, but still better overall.

===Heroes===
*'''Wight King''': Your standard melee hero and right-hand wight. Overall killy and tough. High melee defense and armour make him exceptionally tanky, and seating him on a barded nightmare makes him a very mobile threat. He works best as a mage hunter or single-entity tarpit for anything nasty with a low model count.

*'''Necromancer''': Your main source of additional undead, magic support and staying power so that your forces don't crumble. Can be put on one of the three Corpse Cart mounts for additional boons. Competent caster but keep him away from melee. recommend to skip n campaign and camo them in valuable provinces to boost income, have your lord cast instead. In multiplayer, they're good for sitting on a corpse cart as a stealth lore of vampires caster against factions that like to goon/magic missile your lord to death.

*'''Vampire''': A strong fighter caster hybrid like the lord version. Takes up Shadow and Death, lores not fully covered by other units. Generally speaking, a bit of a glass cannon, although her massive regeneration buffs make her much more durable than equivalent heroes from the elven factions. They also have access to zombie pegassi, so their mobility is exceptional, even for a VC hero. Doomstack very well with Isabella.

*'''Banshee''': A terror causing Ghost goon with High AP. She defiantly needs to stay away from magic, but good at gooning. they kinda suck in actual fights, use them on the campaign map as assassins and saboteurs.
**Has received buffs to their leadership, HP, Md, MA, APWD, Charge Bonus, and they inflict frostbite, although they lost 20% physical resistance as of IE.

*'''Krell''' (Kemmler Only): A Wight King with better base stats but, as a summon, cannot equip any items at all and will degrade over time (unless you fill his dedicated line in Kemmler's skill tree). Use him as a quick stop-gaps in your flanks or to wreck havoc in the middle of a blob, but don't expect him to last long.
**As of IE, he no longer degrades over time

===Melee Infantry===

*'''Zombies''': Dirt-cheap fodder to tie up your enemy, and you better hope that they do that job right, because they have the lowest stats of any unit in the game to the point where Betonnian Peasant Mobs would defeat them if it wasn't for their Fear passive. They got two things going for them, large unit size and hitpoint pool. Skeleton Warriors do their job better for only marginally more money and can even hope to kill some weaker enemies, so it's best to skip them.
:MP tier: S. Most competitive builds utilize zombies in some way, either as a super cost efficient frontline/tar-pit, or as a summon to block charges/tangle up ranged units.
**Has gained 10 leadership and a bit more HP as of IE.
**'''The Tithe (RoR)''': Zombies with slightly worse stats who replace Expandable with Meat Shields and have 30 more models.
:MP tier: A. For the cost some prefer the extra unit of zombies but they still perform well as tar-pit.

*'''Skeleton Warriors''': Spooky scary skeletons with Swords and shields. A more numerous variant of Empire Swordsmen, basically. Doesn't hit as hard, but is undead and comes with 160 models in one regiment. Comes with a shield for good measure.
:MP tier:B. 3x the costs of zombies for slightly more staying power. Useful against missile heavy builds thanks to shields. Can trade fairly against other chaff. can become free upkeep with a tech.
**'''The Konigstein Stalkers (RoR):''' Mostly same stats as above except for having better armor. That and having Poisoned, which makes them a step up compared to normal skellies.
:MP tier: C. For the price you might as well get Grave Guard, unless you're doing some weird poison centric list.
*'''Skeleton Spearmen''': Basically identical to normal Skeleton Warriors except that they come with Spears and actually are the only infantry unit you have with a Bonus vs. Large. Not that this matters though, their performance is too bad against anything stronger than Mounted Yeomen. honestly I prefer these in campaign to zombies or warriors, at least they have slightly better MD and bonus vs large but personal preference and matchup will decide which you use most of. If you need a line of chaff, take Spearmen over Warriors or Zombies. can become free upkeep with a tech.
:MP tier: B. Slightly sturdier skeletons with anti-large.
*'''Crypt Ghouls''': Cheap stalk skirmishers that work well against other low-level infantry. Have high damage + poisoned attacks, but their low armor and low armor piercing makes them unsuitable against units that can reliably fight back. Use them to rear charge low-tier melee infantry and surprise archers + war machine crews. Don't pit them against superior opponents like Chaos Warriors unless you're pinning them for cavalry or a wind of death cast.
:MP tier: C. Has interesting capabilities, but is in an odd place price wise. Is it really worth 5 zombies/2/3s a Grave Guard?
**'''The Feasters in the Dusk (RoR)''': Same as above, but with frenzy and a slightly higher pricetag.
:MP tier: C. Basically a sneaky/killy/slower version of bats/dire pack. Slightly more survivable.
*'''Grave Guard''': Spookier, scarier Skeletons. A straight, if a bit expensive upgrade from Skeleton Warriors and your go to choice for your main line in the late game. Their bonus vs. Infantry combined with decent armour and a shield make them formidable opponents that have little trouble with handling most other standard infantry.
:MP tier: A. If you're looking for a sturdier frontline, this is it. Fares well against most low-armor infantry, can hold the line for quite some time.

**'''The Sternsmen (RoR)''': Beefed-up Grave Guard with additional Regeneration and Charge Defence Against All. Put them as the core of your force the moment you get them.
:MP tier: S. Worth every penny. With support they'll usually last the whole fight.
*'''Grave Guard with Greatweapons''': It's in the name. Your dedicated can openers for dealing with armored infantry and anything in between. lack luster source of armor piercing, having worse stats than the shielded version. honestly you have many better sources of AP, they aren't very good in campaign, vargeists and hexwraiths/cairn wraiths are usually better.
:MP tier: A. Vulnerable to missiles and a bit pricey, but allows your frontline to grind down most enemy forces. Can provide good support against armored monsters/cav, just don't use them to soak up a charge.
**Has gained Magical Attacks and attacks faster in IE.
*'''Cairn Wraiths''': High phys resist and high armor piercing damage makes them your goto infantry for dealing with heavy armor piercing infantry like black orks who will eat grave guards for breakfast. They're completely terrible in every other way, trade terribly vs chaff units, and evaporate the moment anything that deals magic damage looks at them funny. much better in campaign than multiplayer, the AI often doesn't counter then correctly, but hexwraiths may be a straight upgrade to these in many ways.
:MP tier: B. Good mobile tarpit, can chip away at most armored foes. Don't expect high damage output, and if the enemy has any magic damage (as is common in MP) be prepared to watch them dissolve.
**Has gained more health, leadership, and frostbite attacks in IE, but they've lost 20% physical resistance and they no longer have splash attacks... not that they were ever useful against hordes anyway.

===Cavalry & Beasts===
*'''Dire Wolves''': CA sure love their Wolf units. The archetypical wolf pack which all the others are modeled after. High speed, strider, vanguard deployment and a decent charge bonus make them your very flexible and reliable backline harrasser unit. At least against backlines that don't like being harassed, anything above the level of Empire Crossbowmen or Skavenslaves eats them for breakfast if left unsupervised. Can be a force to reckoned with if handled properly, but if you don't like microing around a lot, you're better off going for real cavalry later in the campaign.
:MP Tier: B. In a slow faction with no ranged threats, a fast vanguard threat is invaluable for backline harassment. Useful for chasing off routing units as well.
**'''The Direpack (RoR)''': Same as above but with additional anti-large. It's not significant, but can make a difference when assaulting low-tier cavalry.
:MP Tier: C. Anti-large is nice, but lack of AP and high price tag make this a more situational pick.
*'''Fell Bats''': Dire Wolves, but flying! Fell Bats don't really kill anything on their own, but their high mass means that anything they catch will be occupied with them for quite some time. Can be irritating as fuck when used right, but don't get attached to any one unit of them, because they lose against everything. one of those rare early game units that remain useful all game long in campaign.
:MP tier: A. Flying tar-pit. Surprisingly survivable in melee due to high MD, fantastic price for how much disruption they cause, a must take against certain factions.
*Fell Bats got quite the upgrade with IE; higher leadership, higher MA, faster attacks, higher weapon damage, more mass, and vanguard deployment. They're 50 gold more expensive in MP, but in campaign these guys have gotten even better.
*'''Black Knights''': Now we're getting into the good stuff. Standard Black Knights have the interesting distinction that they are the only proper cavalry in the game that focuses on dealing damage against infantry. Decent armour, melee defense and a bonus against footsoldiers mean that they will execute this job very well, and to make the package complete, they are also very nimble.
**Have been buffed across the board and have Magical Attacks in IE, BUT they are considerably more expensive in MP, costing 25% more.
:MP tier: B. A heavily armored dire wolves. Good for backline harassment, and flank/rear charges. Not a lot of killing power for head on engagements, but is sturdy enough to tangle up more expensive enemy cav/monsters due to it's high armor/mass.
*'''Black Knights (Lances and Barding)''': Have extra armor with a much higher charge bonus because of the lance. Naturally in-between the high damage potential but expensive Blood Knights and the cheapness of Black Knights.
:MP tier: C. Charge damage is potent, but lack of AP and shield as well as higher price tag make this unit tricky to use efficiently.
**Haven't received as many buffs as their regular brothers, they have gained magical attacks and are only marginally more expensive compared to the 25% price jump of regular black knights.
**'''Verek's Reavers (RoR)''': Same as above, but with Regeneration, thus giving this RoR extra survivability.
:MP tier: B. Regen is nice.
*'''Hexwraiths''': Mounted Cairn Wraiths with a blistering 94 speed, flaming attacks, and vanguard. like all ghosts, they are very offensive with High ap damage and Terror but crumble quickly with their only defense being a 75% Physical Resistance. Useful at cutting up knights without magic attacks. Keep in mind that being ghosts means hexwraiths have almost no charge mass, so use them as elite unit hunters, not shock cavalry. Easier to use in campaign vs the AI.
:MP tier: Situational A. In most situations this unit would be B tier, due to price and prevalence of magic in MP, as well as middling killing power. However Hexwraiths are actually a surprisingly effective elite cav hunter, and can even defeat dedicated anti-large cav like demigryphs!
**Similar to other Ethereal units, they've lost physical resistance, but now inflict frostbite, have more health, and deal 100% AP damage.
*'''Blood Knights''': Widely considered to be one of the best Cav units in the game in terms of cost efficiency. It already has meaty stats with a massive charge bonus and anti large, making it a perfect anti cav/monster tool, but add on top of that Frenzy and it will maul anything it charges. They also have a great for of self sustain in The Hunger. The best part about them by far is the ability to bring back dead models so while they will lose one on one to Grail Knights and Demigryphs, you can always bring back casualties. Their only big weakness is their lack of AP.
:MP tier: A. Only reason they aren't S tier is lack of AP. Has a home in many competitive lists.
**Higher leadership, base weapon and AP weapon damage, have the new buffed The Hunger so they're even tankier in a fight, but they've suffered the same 25% price hike that Black Knights have in MP.
*'''Mournguls'''*: If you own Vampire Coast, you can now recruit Mournguls as Vampire Counts. Function the same as they do in Vampire Coasts.

===Chariots===
*'''Corpse Cart''' (DLC): Called a Chariot but actually a slow-moving buffing unit. Usually, only see base or with Unholy Lodestone for cheap base melee buff or additional regeneration. Balefire nerfs enemy wizards' ability to cast, but that's often hard to get much value from. If you're running a mobile army they are way too slow to keep up. You should stop using them in the campaign's late game. Use a Mortis Engine instead for a similar role, but better.
*In IE, Balefire Corpse Carts now grant +20% fire resistance, flaming attacks and magical attacks to friendly units. They can turn a relatively weak frontline into a true killing force.
*'''Black Coach''': An unstoppable engine of destruction if you're into cycle charging. Extremely quick, fire, magic and AP damage at once and to top it off, also causes fear and terror. It has a bunch of passive abilities that make it much better at leaving unfavorable encounters, however, it is quite susceptible to being intercepted by other heavy cav, utterly useless against big monsters and also quite expensive. Bringing one is quite the gamble, but at least a fun one.
**Black Coaches now give a variety of aoe buffs to your dudes the more things it kills, making cycle-charging it even more valuable; Black Nimbus remains the same, while Black Scythes gives +50% AP damage and flaming attacks, and Unholy Vigour will restore vigour to your dudes, making it an extremely valuable buffing unit, but a more direct offensive one compared to the purely supportive corpse carts or the Mortis Engine.
*'''Mortis Engine''' (DLC): The biggest gun the counts have on offer and a downright terrifying one. Mortis Engines are basically upgraded, ethereal corpse carts that not only buff up your undead minions to unholy strength, but also sap the HP of the enemies frontline. They might be slow, but are scary and big targets, and them being ethereal also means that it is quite the hassle for your opponent to get rid of it.
**Now with Magic Attacks in IE!
**'''The Claw of Nagash (RoR)''': Everything that makes the Mortis Engine great, but with the addition of a Chilling Aura that slows enemies around it to make it more difficult to escape its AoE damage aura.

===Monsters===

*'''Vargheists''': They might not look like much, but are actually one of the most cost-effective monstrous infantry in the game. For a meager cost of 700 gold, you get a flying, fairly fast regiment of creatures with Frenzy and The Hunger, that also delivers a tremendous beating with 80 weapon strength, decent melee attack and AP damage. Vargheists will carry your early game armies well into the lategame. Their flight allows them to only pick encounters of your choosing and they certainly have little trouble shutting down enemy flyers that might come your way. take multiple units and keep them cycle charging from the rear to keep them alive.
**Vargheists have gained nearly triple their mass in IE, making it a lot easier for them to escape tarpits or barrel things over on the charge.
**'''The Devils of Swartzhafen (RoR)''': Vargheists with Terror and Vanguard, which makes them into even more useful shock troops.
*'''Crypt Horrors''': Vargheists, but with poison, and on the ground. Actually not half bad. They retain a good weapon strength and still get AP damage. If you can't win the air battle, Crypt Horrors aren't that bad of a choice, actually.
*'''Varghulf''': This is an iffy one. On campaign, they're absurdly hard to get for a unit with such low survivability. On the other hand, they can reliably engage all infantry in the game and come out on top. Needs good micro and some attention. When they are exposed to things with bonuses against large, they just melt away. hit and run with them for maximum effect, they do it very well. Has less mass than other giant monsters so it will lose duels against beings its size.
*'''Terrorgheist''': If a ranged unit starts attacking them, the breath attack is ready and the said unit is not immune to Terror then burn them, sometimes those two alone are enough to make the ranged unit rout. a specialized, regenerating anti large ap monster, ok vs infantry but really best used on large targets/monsters. breath is wasted on infantry, hit single entities with it.
**Terrorgheists are now healthier, have higher leadership, higher MD and MA and a hefty bit more mass, making the more durable all-round, with a modest price increase in MP.

===Campaign Only===

*'''Sylvanian Crossbowmen''': Identical to Empire Crossbowmen, providing you with much-needed ranged fire. Running out of morale makes them rout, which will affect the morale of undead units as well.
*'''Sylvanian Handgunners''': Identical to Empire Handgunners, providing you with much-needed ranged fire. Running out of morale makes them rout, which will affect the morale of undead units as well.

==Tactics==

===Multiplayer Strategies===
You are currently THE fear faction, as obvious as it may seem. Your armies of spookiness are designed to take advantage of enemy leadership and get them to shit themsleves and run off the field. Your powerful Lords and monsters also act as nice encouragement to get them to flee. Generally your plan in most battles is to invest in your Lord, a few strong units like Blood Knights or Terrorgheists, then spend literally everything else on chaff. Have your chaff soak up enemy fire then use your OP healing to keep your actually important units alive. Better scare them off fast too before they start stabbing your skellies and zombos and realize "Hey, these things are actually really easy to kill." Keep your Lord alive to, for if they die, the game is pretty much over.
Anywho, here's how to pilot the champions of the night:

*'''Beastmen''': What used to be one of your best matchups is now one of your worst and it's due entirely to two monsters -- Ghorgons and Jabberslythes. You rely on drowning your enemies in a tide of zombies and skeletons while your characters and monsters do the work of actually killing things. The Ghorgon will kick the crap out of all of your monsters one-on-one, even the anti-large Terrorgheist. The Jabberslythe has its own Mortis Engine effect and a poison vortex that let it chew through hordes of zombies like a puppy through a bowl of kibble. The good news is Beastmen have terrible leadership, low armor and aren't great at winning a war of attrition. Lore of Death is very good against them and be sure focus down any Wargors who might be buffing the leadership of their infantry. Drown Jabberslythes in a mix of Skeleton Spears and zombies, ideally backed up by a Corpse Cart; they might not win but you can slow the Jabber down. Beware of the occasional Bestigor build designed to counter tarpits. Deal with any Ghorgons quickly, ''especially'' the Bloodbrute Behemoth, as they not only can kill your monsters but the Bloodbrute in particular poses a big threat to your lords. Blood Knights, Terrorgheists, debuffs, magic missiles, throw them all at that four-armed cow until it goes down or runs away. Be sure not to bring any ethereal units in this matchup; the Jabber's madness aura deals magic damage.

*'''Bretonnia''': On the one hand, Bretonnia is a pain because they field a lot of cavalry and you lack anti-large. On the other hand Blood Knights are one of the few cavalry units that can take on Grail Knights and win, especially since they can be resurrected while The Lady's simps cannot. Bretonnia's front line probably hasn't eaten more than one potato in the last week so they're pretty easy to roll over with zombies and skeletons, but one or two Grave Guard and a Corpse Cart can give you a good core to fall back on. Bring a few bats or wolves to take out archers and a Wight King or two can fend off Paladins. Bring a few bats or wolves to take out archers and the occasional trebuchet.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarfs| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Your roster lacks good anti-monster options, has a lot of vulnerabilities to fire damage, and hates attacking range-heavy armies. Guess what the Chaos Dwarfs have in spades? You want to avoid this matchup if you can but if you can't your best hope is that they bring a chaff heavy army. Everything you have causes Fear or Terror and Greenskin Labourers can be easily routed. You on the other hand will want to go cavalry heavy both to shut down the enemy ranged units but also to outmaneuver the Chaos Dwarfs' relatively slow roster. Your Blood Knights are probably the best counter you have against both heavily armored Dwarf infantry and any of the big monsters that may company them. Avoid sending your bats and wolves after actual Dwarfs unless you have to, they won't make a dent in that armor. Instead, save them to go after the Hobgoblins. A Black Coach won't go amiss here, so long as you can keep it from getting blown apart.

*'''Chaos Warriors''': This matchup has all the complexity of a 6-year old smacking Bionicles into each other in his room. It's one of your best matchups because you have 3 HUGE advantages that turn the game in your favor: Fear/terror, Mobility, and Magic. Chaos is reliant on it's slow-moving infantry and monsters, which tend to have pretty middling leadership. This means that their heavy hitters are generally much easier to tarpit than other factions. Since every single unit in your roster causes fear (and many cause terror) this can really add up and cause early routs on key enemy units. You also have the mobility to dick Chaos around all day, and they really have very few options to do anything about it. The units they have that can keep up (like skirmish cav and hounds) really don't have much in the way of killing power. Finally, you have healing. They don't. Invocation of Nehek means you can make even less favorable trades go your way by regenerating models which can pay huge dividends over the course of a battle. Blood Knights are an EXCELLENT pick in this matchup due to their mobility, and they are probably one of the best responses to Chaos' large units. Mortis Engines can really get some work done as well, since you don't have to worry much about it being shot up by missiles. Ethereal units can make the Chaos gods cry if played right, because Chaos has pretty limited sources of magic damage (though you'll still have to worry about lore of fire). Invest heavily in your lord, play aggressively during the skirmish phase (you definitely want to take cav fights!), and do a good job of avoiding their big monsters (Chaos' best option here is usually Shaggoths), and you'll easily be able show the Warhammer world what a pussy-whipped failure Archaon really is.

*'''Dark Elves''': Ironically, all that AP damage is actually wasted, since most of your units are pretty lightly armored. What you're really going to have to worry about are their monsters and anti-large. Their army is quite squishy, and your monstrous infantry and cavalry will have a grand old time stomping on most of their infantry options (though watch out for Black Guard, which can take out your cav and monsters, and still have time for coffee at the end). You can absorb a lot of their missile play with chaff, or use summons to take their Darkshards and Shades out quickly. Make sure to do so before they can get their shots in to your lord or monsters though! Crypt Horrors or Vargheists can also be good for taking them out. Scourgerunners will kite most of your monsters to kingdom come, so bog them down with bats or wolves as soon as you get the chance. Your cavalry can easily outmatch theirs most of the time, but Doomfire Warlocks can be a problem with their bound doombolt spell. The worst units to deal with are their monsters. Kharybdiss can spell doom for many of your better units, but is pretty slow and easy to tarpit. Black Dragons can also be a problem in the air, and many of their lords have them as a mount option. Murderous Prowess also means you can't get the Dark Elves to rout as easily as most of the other factions which can be a very big deal, so make sure you're playing a longer game, and pay attention when it procs.

*'''Dwarfs''': No lies, this is not going to be fun for you. Dwarfs are tough, have great ranged/artillery options, are resistant to magic, and their leadership is so high your fear and terror effects aren't as useful. Fortunately they're super reliant on protecting their back line and aren't great at dealing with large units in melee. Wolves, bats and Vargheists will serve you well here in shutting down their ranged units, Black Coaches can mow down Dwarf infantry for days, and your cavalry can almost always pick optimal engagements. Ethereal units are kind of a mixed bag; dwarfs don't have a lot of access to magic damage but their magic resistance makes it harder for your ghosts to hurt them. A few Grave Guard with Great Weapons can help get through all that dwarf armor but don't over-invest in them. Your biggest challenge will simply be reaching the dwarfs without taking too much damage. If the dwarfs have any characters mounted on Anvils of Doom (especially Thorek) be careful with your casters; if they cast spells too close to those guys they'll eat automatic miscast damage.

*'''Empire''': You can bring a similar build to Bretonnia, mainly zombies/skellies, blood knights, a few bats and wolves, maybe a corpse cart and a couple of Wight Kings. Try to avoid letting anything important get bogged down fighting Flagellants, summon zombies on their back lines, and try to kill their lords and Warrior Priests so your Fear and Terror affects can have maximum impact. Never underestimate the strength of pinning an enemy lord between a zombie summon and a blood knight charge. If Outriders and Pistoliers make your life hell then throw bats at them until they go away.

*'''Greenskins''': Greenskins have few anti-large units, other than archers, which means a Varghulf or some Crypt Horrors are a good idea. This is especially true since Greenskins have shit leadership and Terror routs are very effective against them. Watch out for Black Orcs or Squigs though, as they all have Immune to Psychology. Unfortunately you ''also'' don't have a lot of great anti-large options and the Greenskins have plentiful monsters. You want a mix of Grave Guard (especially Great Weapons) to deal with Black Orcs, along with zombies or skeletons to tarpit everything else. Greenskins love their skirmish cav, tie them up with bats if you can.

*'''Grand Cathay''':

*'''High Elves''': You're one of the few armies that can contest the sky against the High Elves, though it's a risky proposition. With dragons, phoenixes, and Alarielle breaking out the Tempest spell it's very easy to lose the air war with a few bad engagements. Consider bringing the generic Von Carstein lord. His Varghulf summon will mess up the High Elf backline and he has his own version of Tempest that can prove decisive in clearing the skies. All your big flyers have their uses here, but you probably don't want to invest in both them and cavalry so pick one or the other. Big ground monsters will be magnets for arrows so maybe leave them at home. Focus on overwhelming the ground forces with cheap infantry and the usual bats and wolves combo. You'll be beating their elite troops with either your flying circus or some Blood Knights.

*'''Khorne''': This is going to be a bad matchup for you. Bloodthirsters will beat the pants off of your monsters, the Skull Cannon will run circles around you, and if you try to drown them in chaff they'll just laugh in blood and skulls. Grave Guard with great weapons will be needed just for some AP. Forget the bats and wolves, bring Terrorgheists and Vargheists, you need armor piercing ant anti-large. They are absolutely going to try to goon your lord, so maybe put them on a Hellsteed just to keep out of reach. Black Coaches might be useful for running over Chaos Warriors and Blood Knights might not hit as hard as Khorne's cav but at least they can be healed and resurrected. All in all, it looks like you might have to go tight and elite to match the same thing.

*'''Kislev''':

*'''Lizardmen''': Good news, you don't care about their big, scary monsters because your undead soldiers will never run away from them. In fact, you're one of the best armies in the game when it comes to tarpitting them. Bad news, their big, scary monsters will generally slaughter most of your forces without a care in the world if you don't focus them down once they're in battle. Having said that, your first and biggest concern when facing a Lizardmen army will be their casters. Fire and Light Slann, in addition to Heavens Skink Priests, will utterly decimate your lines with their myriad of vortex spells. Slann in particular, due to having Banishment as a bound spell, will be your biggest concern. To this end, the first effective counter is to spread your forces out. Additionally, (Ancient) Salamanders and (Sacred) Kroxigors will be secondary targets due to their flaming/magical attacks being tailor made to ruin your day. If you can take out most of the Lizard magic, Hexwraiths will actually get some solid work done against their armored frontlines and cavalry. Skeleton Spears will be your desired chaff infantry; though more expensive than regular zombies, their spears will enable them to get not-inconsequential chip damage against the monsters they're tying down and their shields give them a bit more staying power against skink skirmishers and even Salamander Hunting Packs.

*'''Norsca''': This can be a rough one. You might think 'Well, the Chaos matchup is pretty favorable, why not Norsca?' The answer to that question is mobility. Norsca is fast enough to keep up, and their constant pressure can wear you down if they are played well. Their skirmish cav will drive you to insanity if you don't manage to shut them down with bats or wolves, their infantry (and monstrous infantry) can go toe-to-toe with yours, and their monsters simply counter yours in most cases. Mammoths in particular are an absolute nightmare for your battle lines to deal with, and you don't have many ways to shut them down quickly. Skin Wolves and Marauder Javelins can take the fight out of your monsters in an instant, and they usually have an easy time positioning their anti-large units to take down your elite cavalry since you can't apply pressure at range. Your best bet is to try and leverage your magic to get their monsters to rout early; perhaps with a death wizard that has spells like spirit leech or doom & darkness. You can typically outfight them in the skies (with the Frost-wyrm being expensive and rather squishy) so use that advantage to the fullest to shut down their ranged (if they bring any) or pick off their skirmish cav. It's a hard matchup for sure, but not impossible.

*'''Nurgle''':

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This is a good matchup in your favor. barring firebellies the ogres have a lot of trouble dealing with massed infantry. you'll need to take out their anti-infantry catapults and firebellies fast and after that the ogres don't really have many answers to a swarm of skeleton spearmen

*'''Skaven''': This matchup kind of sucks, but you do have a few tools to make it work in your favor. Skaven have a ludicrous number of guns built to suit virtually every battlefield need, many of which are either magical, armor-piercing, shield breaking or some unholy combination of the above. They also have artillery and missile units (Warplock Jezzails) that excel at sniping single entities, like the lord holding your shambling forces together. Fortunately, Skaven are rather skittish and have a relative lack of cavalry. Black/Blood Knights and Vargheists can quickly tie down artillery and gunlines while your fear and terror causing wall of meat and bone close in. In fact, their complete lack of an aerial presence will give your flying forces effectively free reign to pick their engagements. But check their casters before committing your fliers. If the skaven brought lore of ruin, they can snare your air units with howling warpgale and shoot them to pieces.

*'''Slaanesh''': Hey look, another faction that thinks ranged units are for pussies! Due to that, there really isn't much reason to invest in Bats and Wolves since there isn't much of a backline to dive. They're are much faster but also much squishier than you, so your goal here is to win a war of attrition. Make sure whoever your lord is has a flying mount, as due to the lack of missiles and only having Furies as fliers, so if they can fly and heal you're in a good spot. Your ground forces should comprise of Zombies whos sole job is to hold whatever deviants get thrown at them in place. Your killing force should go to your airforce, as Slaanesh doesn't really have a lot of ways to contest them. Vargheist and Terrorgheists should be able to choose their engagements and as long as you can keep them from getting pinned you can have them avoid their bad match ups. Bloodknights won't catch their cav but if you can pin them in they should be able to tear apart any Seekers or Hellriders they can get their hands on/

*'''Tomb Kings''': The Counts have an edge over their Nehekaran brethren. Since the Counts are likely the best rush faction in the game, shutting down their artillery and missiles should be second nature. Fliers really matter in this matchup, since all the Tomb Kings have in the skies is the piss-weak Carrion. The Vampires are far superior in the infantry grind (Although Tomb Kings Monstrous infantry is a different story, with Sepulchral Stalkers and Ushabti being a huge pain in the undead behind to deal with), and have an edge in the cavalry matchup (though Necropolis Knights can threaten). The biggest stumbling block is the Tomb Kings constructs, which can be seriously tough if not dealt with effectively. Luckily, you do have a few armor piercing options like Hexwraiths or Blood Knights to counter, or failing that, you can usually shut them down with your lords or hero units. However, watch out for the Necrosphinx with it's ludicrous bonus vs. large. You really just want to lean into the rush element of the VC army, since if the Tomb Kings can withstand your initial assault, things can turn very bad for you.

*'''Tzeentch''': Difficult matchup, since they have scores of flaming and/or ranged attacks, but you can still shine here. Your Blood Knights are better cavalry than anything Tzeentch can throw at you, so you will need a few in your army to take care of the cavalry, kill single entities and flank the horrors. Your Crypt Guards are actually pretty good at tanking fire with their shields, so you will need a frontline of them, you can add one or two great Weapons variants to do some damage once they're in melee. Bring a mortis engine or two to keep the frontline alive, but don't bring them into contact before your Crypt Guards have reached melee. Summons can tie down Horrors and Flamers temporarily.

*'''Vampire Coast''': Once you close the distance, the coast turns into mush. The trick is getting there without getting shot half to hell. In this matchup, a more mobile build will be to your advantage. Make sure you're using your environment, and don't feed too much into their skirmish game. It's tough to bring monsters against coast cause they can get shot full of holes before the battle has even started. The Varghulf CAN work if micro'd well but it's pretty risky and Terrorgheists and Mortis Engines are a HUGE no-no. Trees are helpful to keep your units from getting shot, and you can usually outmatch them in the skies and with cavalry. You're going to need to rely on those fliers and cav for your killing potential, so if there was ever a time to drop that extra money on a unit of Black Knights or Blood Knights, it's this matchup. Also, Ethereal units don't tend to work out great because the coast has a good few units with magical attacks.

*'''Vampire Counts''': Skip the bats and wolves this time, they're no use here. You're both going to be tearing your hair out over how to deal with the other's big monsters. Victory will probably come down to who can snipe the other's lord first.

*'''Wood Elves''': You know the "We have more bodies than they have ammunition" quote? Well, the wood elves have more ammunition than you have bodies and they're fast enough to stay three steps away from your rotting soldiers at all times, so don't try your usual Infantry blob + Wind of Death combo. Bring some Dire Wolves and/or Fell Bats to run down Glade Guard and Waywatchers and bring out the heavy hitters; Black Knights and Blood Knights are likely going to be your go-to core; they're fast enough to catch up to and slaughter any wood elven infantry while Blood Knights can actually tangle quite well with Wild Riders/Great Stag Knights, so long as they're not the ones getting hit by the initial charge. This is also one of the matchups a Black Coach can actually get some solid work done, if the Wood Elven player has any Dryads/Tree Kin on the field. You'll want to shy away from bringing any ethereal units against them; Tree units don't give a shit and several of their ranged units happen to be packing magical arrows.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''S'''

Grab Ghorst with only his cart and mortis effect, a couple Necromancers with heals, summons and the power recharge ability, 4 Crypt Horrors, and then just spam skeletons and zombies. There, you're probably going to win roughly 90% of your battles. Everyone will fucking hate you and you really aren't going to have that much fun but hey, at least you win. Because you have so many cheap infantry units that are all unbreakable once you have a point you're pretty much never going to lose it unless you really mess up. Combine all of this with your incredible healing and not even Nurgle will be able to keep up with you in the blob. My only warning is watch out for nerfs, because at some point you are absolutely going to get smacked with the nerf bat.

However, there is one faction who was put in domination whose whole purpose for existing is to burn ass and drink ale, and theyre almost out of ale, the dwarfs, you’re probably wondering right now, “dwarfs? Aren’t they considered a poor faction for domination?” In most cases yes, and that’s because of their poor speed, however they are more than capable of kicking the smug teeth out of any vampire that think their being funny by spamming trash, with irondrakes, blasting charges, bombers and flame cannons, they are one of the best factions for clearing out chaff without depending on magic, and you know what most of your army is? TRASH units, mobs of expendable unbreakable units will quickly cease to exist once the dwarfs start raining hellfire on you, to fight this, you will need to be much smarter than flooding the points as the dwarfs will laugh their asses off while drinking their pints if you do that, best prepare some Pepto-Bismol as fire rains down on you, remember that 90% wins? This the 10% where you lose

===Campaign Strategies===

* You don't have any artillery or ranged units, so be ready for sieges to take longer, & for siege assaults to have more casualties as you scale walls & storm gates.
* Create a fortified Northern boundary for the inevitable Chaos/Norsca invasion.
* Establishing good diplomatic relations with ''anyone'' will be a challenge. Don't expect trade agreements with anyone besides Mousillon.
** On the other hand Vlad now has an easier time with the Empire due to one of his new skills giving him a whooping +40 to relationship with Franz and co, so at least this part will be less of a harrow.
* in immortal empires mannlet now starts in the middle of the 'southlands bloodbowl' with such amazing people such as skarbrand as neighbors. with every single major race combination right on your doorstep this is shaping up to be one of the most difficult campaigns.
* '''IMMORTAL EMPIRES''' In Immortal empires the vampire counts have been heavily hit with the nerf-bat. the removal of free skeletons as well as the nerfs to magic alongside their generally weak roster are a tough pill to swallow. They're shaping up to be reworked post-launch or have some sort of DLC in the future because for now just stick to playing warhammer 2 if you want the vampire counts experience. Unless they remove the easy to spam necromances you can still just mass recruit them to boost income in your richest province so at the very least you should have a powerful economy still, that counts for a lot.
[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Greenskins

2023-05-19T14:35:47Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{Topquote|Gork and Mork!|Game battle chant for Orcs}}
{{Topquote|We'z gonna getcha!|Game battle chant for Goblins}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the [[Orcs & Goblins|Greenskins]].

==Why Play Greenskins?==
* Because you think the point of war isn't to protect your home, [[Vampire Counts|subjugate others]], [[Bretonnia|seek glory]], [[Dark Elves|gain revenge]], [[Chaos|burn everything that is civilized]] or [[Lizardmen|follow a plan nobody knows for what]], but something much simpler - having fun.
* Cause you think fantasy-flavoured football riots are hilarious.
* Because you want to paint the map green through the power of ultraviolence.
* You're either brutally cunning or cunningly brutal.
* <span style='color:green;font-size:150%'>'''''"WAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!!"'''''</span>

===Pros===
*'''Aggressive Infantry:''' What? You think Da Boyz are gonna lay about and let those gits come to them. Hell no! Greenskins are a rush faction and their infantry love to run up and smash the hell out of their enemies. Combine this with your battlefield WAAAGH mechanic, and you will either dominate the infantry fight or leave the enemy with damn near nothing left.
*'''Deceptively Good at Ranged:''' I mean, OK you aren't going to out shoot the Wood Elves anytime soon, but a lot of players underestimate how good you are at skirmishing. With cheap skirmish cav, surprisingly good archers that can defend themselves and really solid artillery, you are actually pretty damn good at winning fights from afar. Hell, in some matchups this is sometimes your best way to win!
*'''AP:''' You are a tank buster faction, with a crap load of AP in both ranged and melee. Factions who rely on heavy armor like Dwarfs or Chaos Warriors hate how well you can punch through their high armor values and delete models.
*'''Monsters:''' The Greenskins have some of the most and best monsters to throw at their enemies. Three species of trolls, giant spiders, big stone monuments, hydras, giants, wyverns and giant spiders '''[[Awesome|on fire]]'''... and multiple flavors of squigs too, of course.
*'''Massive unit roster:''' Because your faction is three races with three subcategories apiece plus monsters, you have an extremely broad pool of unit to draw from. Every unit is fabulously designed and brimming with character. You wil not want for opportunities to play with cool thematic armies.
*'''Humour''': If our favorite merry band of 1970s English football hooligans doesn't earn at least a chuckle at one point, you're playing the wrong game. Paired with amazing voice acting and funny writing (the research tree, for example, is called "Big Thinkin'"), CA has done a perfect job of carrying over the ridiculously funny tone of the Tabletop Greenskins.

===Cons===
*'''Low Leadership:''' Greenskin units tend to have bad Leadership, especially Goblins. The general lack of units that cause Fear or Terror and are Immune to Psychology exacerbates this problem when fighting spooky foes. You have options to mitigate this issue, the Black Orc Big Boss especially, but must still expect your troops to be running fairly often.
*'''Tricky Heavy Cavalry:''' Boars are slow movers and tend to lose to most other heavy cav within their price range. As such, you better make sure to support them and work out strategies to get your money's worth from them.
*'''Lack of Armour''': If you aren't a Lord/Hero, a Black Orc or a monster your armor is probably defined as "Tissue Paper"
*''' Lack of Anti-Large:''' Your anti large options are extremely limited, especially outside campaign where you can at least try to mitigate these issues. Big 'Uns (both kinds), Boar Big 'Uns (both kinds) and the Arachnarok Spider are the only units with unmodified anti-large bonuses and none of them have charge defenses against cavalry and monsters. As such, well-aimed and -timed cavalry charges can ''wreck'' your battle lines.
*'''Slow Movers:''' Aside from your gobbo cav, your troops aren't the fastest things around, so expect to be out maneuvered by most good opponents.
*'''Lack of Air Power:''' You get exactly two options for flying units: A high-end Wyvern mount for certain Warbosses and a campaign-exclusive Wyvern unit. Between this and merely being decent at ranged, you will learn to hate and despise races with lots of flying options. It also draws attention to how slow your army is to reach the enemy.
*'''DLC Reliant:''' As with all Core Races (and soon some DLC ones) a lot of your really good units are behind DLCs. If you want to take your green friends and win somewhat consistently, you may be forced to hand over some extra dough.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Expendable:''' A trait most of your Goblins have. As the name implies, your Orks don't give a [[Skaven|rat's]] ass about using Goblins as cannon-fodder and won't suffer any leadership penalties for watching entire units of them explode in horrible ways. Expendable units themselves aren't so brave and will get scared shitless if they see a Carnosaur rampaging through a neighboring Goblin formation, but that's not really your Warboss' problem, now is it?
*'''WAAAAGH!:''' Did anyone really expect it to be called anything else? This is your in battle army ability, used in both campaign and multiplayer. For every second an entity (not a unit, entity) is in melee, it will fill up a bar at the top of the screen. Once that bar is filled, you can call a WAAAGH giving your army a map-wide boost to melee damage and Immune to Psychology. Even the humble Goblin can become a decently scary unit if he is backed up by a WAAAGH. This means you are rewarded for going with a wide melee build, as it will allow you to build up this bar much quicker and get these WAAAAGHs off much faster. In a way, it's very similar to the Dark Elves' Murderous Prowess only it's actually much better for two reasons. One, since you have to push a button to activate it you can use it whenever you want, so you can wait for that perfect moment, and two if you keep the fight going you can use it more than once, though your troops need to be in melee longer and longer to get off successive WAAAGHs. In campaign, your legendary lords have unique WAAAGHs, that can reward going with certain army styles.
*'''Reputation/Call to Waaagh!:''' Finally, the dark days of the old, useless Waaagh! mechanic are over! Krumpin' gits, raiding and basically, everything that involves a good scrap earns you reputation, that gives you growth, income, and public order bonuses. When you reach the maximum of 200 reputation, you can make a Call to Waaagh, dedicated to either Mork or Gork, which gives you bonuses for either ranged or melee troops respectively. When the Waaagh is called, Waaagh armies will start to build up at random on all of your armies, that contain as many units as the army had when the Waaagh was started. They work as additional support armies that reinforce your standing army in combat and consist mostly of fodder, but can, depending on the placement of your army on the map, also contain some exotic units that you can't get elsewhere, like Armoured Squig Hoppers or Feral Wyverns. When you start a Waaagh, you also select an enemy factions capital, if you occupy and hold or raze it within 20 turns, you gain a trophy that has permanent effects depending on how strong the enemy was (i.e. killing a rank 89 faction in the middle of nowhere will yield a smaller bonus compared to factions like Reikland, Karaz-a-Karak or Eataine) and what kind of enemy it was. This mechanic makes Greenskins a serious threat on the campaign map because not even High Elves can hope to withstand 40 units at once, not to mention the support the Orcs might bring with them. It's best used to support your bursts of expansion in a truly Orky fashion and as an added benefit, it also feels very close to the Fluff.
*'''Scrap:''' The second, and very small mechanic the Greenskins have. Killing enemies in battles and razing settlements earns you the Scrap resource, which can be spent on certain technologies, unit upgrades and, if you play as Grom the Paunch, cooking dishes in his cauldron.
[[Category:Total Warhammer]]

==Legendary Lords==

*'''Grimgor Ironhide:''' The one and only Grimgor is a close-combat beatstick who specialises in cracking lines and peeling tin can infantry. His character-killer abilities also make him ideal for going after enemy Lords and Heroes. Just remember that he's not invincible and will need support to avoid getting crumped by things outside of his jurisdiction. Send chaff units to absorb charges from large single entities, Big 'Uns to help him handle cavalry and monsters, Shamans to boost his stats or obscure his approach where necessary and of course Black Orcs to help him crack heavy infantry lines. His personal skill tree will majorly buff Black Orcs and Big 'Uns in his army, so make sure to go for that as soon as possible. Unfortunately, his biggest weakness is very limited mobility. He gets no mounts and moves at Black Orc speed, making him very vulnerable to kiting from the more mobile factions in the game, so make sure to send fast units like Wolf Riders and Spider Riders to tarpit his targets in case you find him targeting something fast (Elves especially).

:: Grimgor's faction, '''Grimgor's 'Ardboyz''' starts in the middle of the Badlands at Black Crag and in a prime position to become a formidable power. Your immediate enemies are the various Greenskin tribes of the Badlands that need a proper krumpin', some Skaven and the isolated Dwarfs of Karak Azul. The main Dwarfen faction of Karaz-A-Karak will be your main enemy for the majority of the early to late game. If you want a general tutorial on how to deal with Dwarfs and their annoyingly thick armour, you pick Grimgor.

*'''Azhag the Slaughterer:''' Azhag is a Hybrid Lord that can do a bit of everything and currently the only Orc LL with access to a flying mount in the form of his trusty Wyvern Skullmuncha. Prior to "The Warden and the Paunch", he was the only character the Greenskins had with access to the Lord of Death, which is a pretty good lore, all things considered. In direct combat, he holds up well enough but is inferior against most Lords and Heroes that are either dedicated melee characters (Like Karl Franz or Grimgor) or are just really tanky; but his utility is pretty good. Too bad that his biggest weakness in MP is his exorbitant price tag; Skullmuncha has to be included because he is too flimsy otherwise.

::Azhag got his own faction now! He leads the '''Bonerattlaz''' in the very northeastern corner of the Old World, starting in Red Eye Mountain and diplomatic bonusses with Vampire factions (and Arkhan the Black) and at war with the Elector Count of Ostermark. A unique advantage Azhag has over other Greenskin factions is that he makes Temperate climate settlements inhabitable (it's "unpleaseant" to others). Also worthy of note is that Azhag alone gets access to the Great Halls of Nagashizzar Landmark, which is only available to Vampires and Arkhan the Black and provides immunity to all effects of Vampiric Corruption as well as a +50 opinion increase with these factions.

*'''[[Skarsnik]] (DLC):''' is a Triscky lord having a surprising about of defense and offense despite being a goblin thanks to the squig he is chained to. He is a support lord that will give enemies hell, with Trisksy Traps letting a detachment of your army be invisible until they do a surprise flank. His Waaagh! gives bonuses AP Damage to missile weapons.

::As Boss of the '''Crooked Moon Tribe''', Skarsnik's campaign is almost entirely no Orcs allowed, as he needs to take and hold Karak Eight Peaks to recruit most Orc units. Until then, his goals are essentially a race across the [[Gray Mountains]] and [[Badlands]] towards his old stomping grounds.

*'''Wurrzag, The Great Green Prophet (FLC):''' Your obligatory Caster LL, and he is not messing around. As with most caster lords, he shouldn't see combat unless you're absolutely forced to send him into melee. He boosts your spellcasting by a ludicrous degree and is basically the loremaster for the Lore of the big Waaagh!, has Greater Arcane Conduit and great discounts on the best spells his Lore gives him, most notably 'Ere we go! and Foot of Gork. As if that wasn't enough he also makes Savage Orcs almost as tough as Black Orcs ''and making them cheaper in the process''. Can passively give magical attacks to his entire army in campaign which will make them better at krumping everyone except dwarfs due to their innate magic resistance. (Until game 3 that is.)

::Wurrzag starts to the west of Grimgor in the '''Bloody Handz''' faction. He has the unique mechanic of being able to build Savage Orc recruitment buildings ''anywhere'' on the map instead of merely in the southern portions of the Badlands.

*'''Grom the Paunch (DLC):''' Fatter than anyone, Grom is as goofy as he is powerful. Picking Grom unlocks access to his Cauldron, where you can cook food for him and his armies from ingredients that have a mini-quest attached in order to unlock them. Those ingredients come in five categories and their sources are fairly intuitive (Kill a Dragon for dragon wings, kill Dwarfs for Dwarfen Beer etc.). You can also buy them from the Food Merchant which will show up from time to time and can be interacted with by placing a Hero or Army next to her. Diffrent combinations of ingredients give different kinds of food and you need to unlock the recipes themselves first. But what is all this food for, you may now ask? The dishes give ''factionwide'' buffs depending on the recipe, and buffs to Grom himself, and nearly all of them are awesome in some form or another (not to mention that the idea that your main quest revolves around finding stuff to eat is just a hilarious contrast to the usual seriousness of the setting). In combat, Grom isn't that bad either. He gives decent buffs to Goblin units and Pump wagons and he himself rides on his big pimp car (Grom does not walk) as a massive chariot. His big mass (pun intended) ensures that he has little trouble punching through enemy lines, although prolonged exposure to enemies with bonusses against large is not something he likes.

::Grom has the honour of being the only Greenfaction with access to both Mortal Empires and Eye of the Vortex as well having wildly differing starting positions. He leads the '''Broken Axe''' faction and starts the game at war with his eternal enemy, Eltharion the Grim. Your main campaign goal revolves around getting a foothold on Ulthuan and destroying Tor Yvresse, which can take quite some time, but is easily the most fun you can have with any of the Greenskin campaigns, CA did a great job with him. On Mortal Empires, he starts in the middle of Bretonnia in the not-so-creatively named Massif Orcal, on Eye of the Vortex, he starts as far away from Ulthuan as you can get in Karag Orrud, near the southeastern edge of the map. It's important to remember that Eltharion will always send some armies your way.

===Workshop Boyz===

These lads are not leaders of factions, instead being unlockable by any faction through research in the Big Thinkin' techtree. They are both semi-Legendary in that they are Immortal and have specific army-buffing gimmicks but don't have unique voice actors or lines. Also you can change their names.

*'''Raknik Spiderclaw:''' Raknik is a Great Goblin Shaman who gives buffs to all kinds of spider-related units in his army, has the ability to summon Spider Hatchlings up to five times as a bound summon spell and can ride a Catchweb Spidershrine.

*'''Oglok the 'Orrible:''' Oglok is an Orc Warboss who gives decent bonuses to Orc infantry, Boar Boyz and Boar Chariots.

==Units==
===Generic Lords===

*'''Orc Warboss:''' The simple and cheaper beatstick lord. He's not nearly as tricksy as the other two Lords, but he makes up for it with great melee stats. He's also the only other lord besides Azhag to have a Wyvern mount, and he's a pretty good fighter while mounted. If you just want a fighting lord to fly around the enemy and wreck their backline, the Warboss does the job just as well as Azhag for considerably cheaper.
*'''Goblin Great Shaman:''' Your Little Waaagh! caster lord. He was orignally a cheap but fragile debuffing caster, but he got a lot tougher and more dangerous once the Warden and the Paunch DLC added the option to ride a Spidershrine. Also has an ability that increase an enemy targets recharge time for extra obnoxiousness if you know how recharge-time works.
*'''Night Goblin Warboss (DLC):''' A cheaper, enemy controller type of lord. Annoying as hell with conjuring wrecking ball Loons, which causes enemies to rampage, and then Tormentor Sword to lock them in place so they get dogpiled. He's a surprisingly decent duelist especially with a giant cave squig mount, although his low armour means he has to be careful who he goes up against. On the campaign he also unlocks the Goblin-buffing perks Grom and Skarnik have in their skilltrees, making pure Goblin Armies viable in the first place.

===Heroes===

*'''Goblin Big Boss:''' Low cost and surprisingly decent stats. Take 2-3 of them and have them roam around gooning enemy lords + heroes. Always give them a mount. The wolf is faster + cheaper, the spider gives poison attacks to cripple high-value targets.
*'''Orc Shaman:''' Your damage-dealing and buffing wizard. Even on a Warboar, is relatively slower than his contemporary mages on their own faction mount. He is easy to catch but has decent melee offense by virtue of being part of the Orc race but less melee defense than a contemporary old-magic-man so will his hp pool will quickly drain to zero.
*'''Night Goblin Shaman:''' The sneaky debuffing caster, and he needs to be sneaky because he's just a night goblin with no mount options. He's an excellent ambusher with both Vanguard and Stalk for quickly unleashing his spells (likely before getting trampled), and he even gets some magic 'shrooms so he can cast the same spell several times in quick secession.
*'''Black Orc Big Boss:''' Big tough guy that holds the line in addition to or while the lord is the way. Has the best overall melee stats and highest armor value of your Heroes. He's a pretty great fighter, but seriously hampered by his lack of a decent mount. He also provides an aura granting allied units Immune to Psychology, shoring up the low leadership that plagues most greenskins.
*'''River Troll Hag (DLC):''' Your Death caster outside Azhag, while also being very tanky with high ap weapon damage like all swamp trolls. She has the ability to snipe and debuff important enemies while brawling it out in the front lines, but her slow speed and large size makes her easy pickings for fire arrows. Consider taking her against factions with lots of ethereal units. Aspect of the dreadknight is the only way for greenskins to get magical attacks to cut down units with physical resistance.

===Melee Infantry===

*'''Goblins:''' Ah, the humble Goblin. One of the few units in the game to match the numbers of Skaven and being a decent option for tarpits for that very reason. All but the most aggressive factions (Think Darks Elves or Norscans) will need quite some time to chew through 160 bodies, and if you combine them with Grom or Skarsnik, they become decent core troops on their own, thanks to the bonusses on Physical Resist and Melee Attack the Goblin Bosses can stack on them. Don't come with a bonus vs. large outside of campaign buffs and even then don't rely on it, since their weapon strength is rather poor.
*'''Night Goblins:''' Crazed Gobbos that are high as a kite and bring poisoned attacks to the table. Night Goblins are really just Goblins +1, gaining Vanguard Deployment poisoned attacks, stalk and better Melee attack. You might not use the base version in the campaign all that much, since Fanatics are superior in almost any way. As with regular Goblins, picking the right Lord can also elevate them to decent Frontline-level.
**'''Da Warlord's Boyz (ROR, DLC):''' Night goblin warriors that trade poison for Armor rending. These nuts are a great way to patch up your lack of armour-piercing damage in the early game. They also have a place in multi-player as a cheap way to give your mobs an edge against armoured foes.
*'''Night Goblins (Fanatics):''' Identical to regular Night Goblins except for having an ability that can clear entire units if used right. Ignore the game telling you it's a vortex with unpredictable release, it's actually identical to Breath-type spells and release exactly where you tell it to.
**'''Da Eight Peak Loonies (ROR, DLC):''' Unbreakable gobbo tarpits. Just don't wait till the last moment to use their ability since it's disabled below 25% HP.
*'''Orc Boyz:''' Da Boyz! They are no slouch and have a lot going for them. While a bit on the pricey side for an early game unit, Boyz love smashing stuff in melee and dominate early game melee encounters with ease and can even hold their ground against some of the more elite units the AI will use. Sturdy, reliable, dead killy.
*'''Nasty Skulkers:''' Glass cannon kan-openers. Stalk allows you to get them to exactly where your opponent least wants them while their smoke bomb keeps victims from getting away by slowing their movement speed by 76% for 21 seconds. Extremely effective for their cost while still coming with Goblin numbers of entities in each unit. They're also a good counter against armored heavy cav that other greenskin units struggle against. Smoke bombs + large model numbers swamps cavalry and keeps them from cycle charging while stalk means an inattentive enemy might blunder his cav into your skulkers without noticing them.
*'''Savage Orcs:''' Savage Orcs differ from regular Boyz in that they can only be built on Orc pilgrimage sites and have no armour. They make up for it by having physical resistance, a small ward save that can be buffed through research and Wurrzag. Generally speaking, more of a glass cannon.
*'''Orc Big Uns:''' Even killier than regular boys, Big 'Uns love smashing stuff and do it in a truly great fashion. Notable downsides to them are their relatively high price and their lack of a shield; missile units love shooting at them.
*'''Savage Orc Big Uns:''' The equivalent on the Savage side of the Orcs, but these guys are absurdly deadly and only Black Orcs surpass them, Wurrzag makes them arguably even stronger.
*'''Black Orcs:''' Da big Boyz. By the time they show up, the enemy frontline might as well just pack up and leave. If they do leave, you might be in a bit of trouble, since Black Orcs move very slowly (a base speed of 34 when running is considerably slower than standard infantry speed, which is in the 40-45 range for most factions) and are more than other similar elite units in the game dependent on tarpits to tie their targets down. Once they are in melee, you're in for a treat though. Base leadership of 87 means that there is practically nothing in the game they will run from, an abundance of AP damage and an obscene base weapon strength of 70 (for comparison: Swordmasters of Hoeth have 45 WS) turn every enemy unit into a fine red mist within minutes. Just beware artillery and gunners.
**'''Da Krimson Killas (ROR, DLC):''' Have two axes and can just exterminate any other Melee infantry in the game. Has a unique (for infantry units) cleave attack where each unit will swing their two axes hitting multiple enemies at once ''with each swing''. This makes them unparalleled infantry killers, and the single best infantry unit in the entire game. Slap Grimgor's Immortulz banner on them, stick them in a chokepoint and watch them beat entire armies by themselves.

===Ranged Infantry===

*'''Goblin Archers:''' Your first foot archer option and... uh... there's not much to say about them, really. They slightly out-damage Skavenslave Slingers (Hint: that's not really all that good) and can get upgrades to increase their Armour-Piercing damage from 1 damage to a whopping 4. They have their use as counters to skirmishers and cavalry archers, but get rid of them as soon as something better arrives on the scene.
*'''Night Goblin Archers/Night Goblin Archer Fanatics:''' The much preferable alternative to either of the Orc Archers and basic Goblin Archers. They share the comparatively low base damage of their arrows with similar bow infantry, but get poisoned shots - invaluable to whittle down big beasts or elite units. In a pinch you can also build them as Fanatics, that gives them a good answer to crowds - but that's really something you better leave to melee Night Goblins.
**'''Da Rusty Arrers (ROR):''' Night gobbo archers with armor sundering. These guys make a great center for your shooting line: use them to open the enemy armour before the rest of your army finishes them off.
*'''Orc Arrer Boyz:''' A very, very two-sided sword. They gain much needed range and missile strength over Goblins, but at the cost of low accuracy and a low model count of just 80. Not all that good considering that they often lose even against mid-tier Missile Cavalry.
*'''Savage Orc Arrer Boyz:''' The same deal as Arrer Boyz, minus the armour. Yay. Only use them when no other options are available.

===Cavalry and Beasts===

*'''Goblin Wolf Riders:''' Cheap and quick. Has a similar stat line as generic goblins and a much lower unit count, so they don't do well against anything that can actually fight back. Low cost + high speed makes them well suited for killing weapon teams and harassing broken units off the map, similar to chaos warhounds.
**'''Moon-howlers: (RoR)''' Gives them fear. If you need to chase low leadership enemies off the field, these are the ones to do it.
*'''Goblin Wolf Rider Archers:''' Very fast, meek skirmisher unit. Can be used to annoy the shit out of everything on foot and particularly dwarfs, but not much else.
*'''Forest Goblin Spider Riders:''' Straight upgrade from Wolf Riders, except now they actually stand a chance of killing something reliably, due to poison. Their cheapness combined with their speed make them excellent expendable throwaway units to put the enemy backline into serious disarray, while anything short of Dark Elven Dark Riders is completely unable to catch them.
*'''Forest Goblin Spider Rider Archers:''' Ranged poison delivery system. Much like the spear variety, these are a straight upgrade to wolf-riders and will accomplish more against any foe they fight.
**'''Deff Creepers: (RoR)''' Spider rider archers with Regeneration. Quite a boon for an army that doesn't have any healing, but at the end of the day, they're still just spider riders. A decent pick, but not always worth the cost.
*'''Orc Boar Boyz:''' Your anti-infantry heavy cav. They're only have 60 speed, so don't overextend them. They can't outrun fast monsters + most enemy cav so it's pretty much game over for them if they get caught out of position.
*'''Orc Boar Big 'Unz:''' Your anti-large heavy cav. They have similar speed problems as vanilla boar boys so you'll primarily use them to deter enemy cav from charging your boyz.
**'''Broken Tusks Mob:''' Bigger and stronger Boar Big 'Unz. There's no gimmick with this unit; they're just Orc Boar Big 'Unz with more health, armour, and damage. Simple but pretty damn effective.
*'''Savage Orc Boar Boyz''': Actually better than regular Boar Boyz, especially when Wurrzag is leading your army. They might lose missle resistance and armour in exchange for raw Physical resist (which Wurrzag can buff up to 56%!) but gain a substantial amount of weapon strength, melee attack, AP and Frenzy.
*'''Savage Orc Boar Big 'Unz''': Good lord, here is a proppa heavy cav for da boyz. As with the standard boar boyz, much better than their "civilized" counterparts, due to their raw damage output and a bonus vs. Infantry, especially when used with Wurrzag as your leader. Compared with regular Boar Big 'Unz, they lose their ability to fight cavalry as efficiently, so you need to look out for anything on horse or bigger.
**Scrap upgrades can give them an armor and speed bonus, or +10 antilarge to make them slightly better all-rounders. The armor and speed combo isn't bad, but it's also tempting to just go all in on offense, especially with Wurrzag's physical resistsnce buff already making them tougher.
*'''Squig Herd (DLC):''' Cheap armor piercing infantry blenders with immune to psychology and rampage. These little balls of teeth and fury are as unsubtle as they are effective; just point them at the biggest infantry the enemy has and let them go. They'll all die, but they'll take quite a few enemies down with them. Rampage is more of a benefit than a drawback for these guys; they're so disposable that blindly attacking whatever is in front of them is a better value than if they ran away. And at only 350g each, they'll trade upwards into almost everything in multiplayer. Won't win any battles on their own, but they will soften up enemies before the propa gits finish the job.
*'''Night Goblin Squig Hoppers (DLC):''' Similar to spider riders, these guys are a fast poison delivery system. Squig Hoppers are fragile and cheap but extremely quick backline harasser units that make mincemeat out of a plethora of missle units, as well as elite infantry, thanks to a bonus vs. infantry and AP attacks. The downside is that they are very squishy and vulnerable to intercepting cavalry, to which they have no answers to.
**'''Durkit's Squigs: (RoR):''' Squig Hoppers with added missile resistance. Hoppers are pretty squishy, so anything to keep them alive helps.

===Monsters and Chariots===

*'''Trolls:''' Good stats and regeneration, but terrible leadership. Their purpose is cycle charging, taking breaks to recover. Completely outclassed by their DLC troll cousins.
*'''River Trolls (DLC):''' An improvement on vanilla trolls with better melee defense and reduce enemy DPS around them. Not as good as Stone Trolls in a straight up fight, but useful as support trolls. They recruit quicker than Stone Trolls, which is a plus.
**'''Da Swamp Fingz (RoR, DLC):''' Swamp Trolls with terror and poison. Causing terror is all well and good, but more importantly the ability makes Da Swamp Fings immune to fear and terror, an invaluable trait for such an expensive unit that normally struggles with leadership.
*'''Stone Trolls (DLC):''' The best of the three Troll Units, packing more punch and are significantly more durable with built in magic and missile resistance, and of course, armor. Less regen though.
**These guys autoresolve well and do 81 points of AP damage per swing. They do well against pretty much anything that isnt dedicated anti-large or fire (which is now pretty common).
*'''Arachnarok Spider:''' Your big iconic monster. This bad girl has everything you could hope for: speed, armour, anti-large damage, and poison attacks. It even has some goblin archers on top for a bit of ranged damage. One often-overlooked factor is that the Arachnarok Spider has the strider ability, allowing it to move through forests and other terrain with no cost in speed.
**'''The Arachnarok Queen:''' Even better at slaying monsters that the normal Arachnarok, and the queen has the unique ability to summon units of spider hatchlings to absorb enemy charges, help pin down the foe, or clear out enemy chaff.
*'''Rogue Idol (DLC):''' If you want to pummel the enemy front line with the biggest, bluntest object you can find, accept no substitutes. Rogue Idols are scary frontline beatsticks with a crapload of armour and HP that start falling apart when they run low on health, damaging everything around them. It's one crucial weakness is being the slowest unit in the game, making it vulnerable to kiting and fairly easy even for basic infantry to avoid them. Pinning the enemy down with goblins isn't very effective for this monster; the idol is so damn slow that any enemy worth attacking will kill the chaff before you get to them. These guys are absolute monsters when laying siege to an enemy; walls and towers are about the only thing a rogue idol can consistently outrun.
**'''Da big 'Un (RoR, DLC):''' A Rogue Idol that doubles as an Artillery piece can replenish its ammo at the cost of HP. The addition of a ranged attack goes a long way for making up for the Idol's lack of speed.
*'''Giant:''' No. Just no. Giants are far too frail and far too vulnerable to getting tarpitted to be even worth considering, not to mention their price. You could get an Anachnarok Spider for the same money that does the same things a Giant does, with some added missile support and much more durability and mobility. Starting a campaign with Wurrzag gets you one for free, and Azahg needs to get one as part of his legendary armour quest. Aside from those two circumstances you should never bother to get them.
*'''Goblin Wolf Chariots:''' A fast hybrid chariot that can shoot with bows and charge into melee. Most of the time, a unit of wolf archers or a boar chariot will do the job better; but there is something to be said for versatility. Skarsnik and Grom can both get more use out of them in the campaign, but in multi-player it's usually better to leave them out.
**'''Teef Robbers (ROR):''' Wolf chariots with vanguard deployment, allowing them to set up right beside the ordinary wolf riders.
*'''Orc Boar Chariot:''' The big heavy chariot. Like everything orc it's slow, tough, and hits like a ton of bricks. The armour and melee defense mean it won't immediately crumble if it gets stuck in combat, which is good because it's so dang slow that it can't always escape from the enemy. This thing works best as the spear-tip for a larger boar charge; the chariot can put a hole in the enemy lines, and the boar cavalry can keep it open for the chariot to escape. The boar chariot is also great for beginner players to learn the basics of cycle charging; it's armour makes it more forgiving of mistakes and the slower speed makes it easier to see when to hit and when to run. The closest equivalent is the spiky rollaz pump wagon; both cost about the same points and the same tier in the campaign, but the spiky pump wagon does more charge damage, while the boar chariot is better for sustained combats.
*'''Snotling Pump Wagons (Regular/Flappas/Spikey Rollaz) (DLC):''' The snotling pumpwagons are fragile little chariots that come in 3 varieties: the cheap one (regular), the fast one (flappas), and the heavy one (spikey rollas). In all three cases they are flimsy little lawnmowers who need to rely on cycle charging to do any real damage. They're good if you can micro them effectively, but they'll fall apart if they get trapped in combat.
**Spikey Rollaz have better charge and AP, while the Flappas are faster. Always take the Spiky ones, especially against Cathay and Dwarfs.
**Alternate (Campaign) Opinion: These little guys are fast, massed, and most importantly, '''expendable''' ''Chariots'', and like all Chariots, they make Dwarfs and other infantry blobs cry by disrupting their formations/bracing. You ''dont'' have to actually micro them to be useful, they just need to grab the opponents attention and fire while your more substantial units plod their way to the scrap. They do anti-infantry a lot better than the Boar Boyz, and can be upgraded to have 20% Physical resistance, making them surprisingly durable. When they inevitably rout, their larger unit sizes means you'll have a few left over to charge back in, either frontally if your Boyz havent made it yet, or on the flanks. And again, because they're expendable, only Goblins will care if the unit breaks, unlike the slower Troll units.
***'''Tl;dr''': Get a few units of Spiky rollers, kit them with chariot armor, then charge them straight into your opponents most heavily-armored infantry, or their annoying missile units (or both, as with Ironbreakers) to tie them up and disrupt their charge defense.
**'''Logey Bogey's Spore 'Sploda's: (RoR):''' This is a weird one. Each chariot has a cache of explosive spores on the front that burst out when it charges into combat, causing some decent damage in a very large area. The spores take 60 seconds to regrow and the cooldown only begins once the wagon is out of combat. Best used to destroy enemy chaff very quickly; but whilst the spores are on cooldown they pump-wagons are basically identical to the normal variety. They need good micro to be useful, even more than normal pump-wagons.

===Artillery===

*'''Goblin Rock Lobbers:''' Generic catapult with decent damage and armor piercing. Cheaper than the Doom-Diver catapult with slightly less damage and much less accuracy. Still a decent weapon, and cheap enough to be fit into most armies. Keep in mind the crew is just a bunch of goblins and they're even more helpless than most artillery crews. Can be useful on harder campaign difficulties that make AI dwarf warriors all but unbreakable.
**'''Hammer of Gork: (RoR)''' Rock Lobbers that blind whatever they hit, making them great for debuffing an enemy before you smash them in melee.
*'''Doom Diver Catapults:''' More damage than the Rock Lobber, shockingly accurate, and utterly hilarious. Their projectiles home in on the enemy, a distinction they share only with Hellcannons. Best used for eliminating key units in the enemy army before they can cause you any problems. If you got the attention to spare taking manual control of them allows you to fly the projectile.

===WAAAAAGH Units/Campaign Only===

*'''Lava Goblin Spider Rider Archers:''' Now that's a mouthful. Trade the poisoned shots for Fire Damage, which makes them infinitely more viable as a harassing skirmisher unit.
*'''Spider Hatchlings:''' Essentially smaller, cheaper spider riders. A cheap way to bring fast poison to the battlefield, but not much else. You can recruit these early in game as Grom during the vortex campaign, but you should phase them out for true spider cavalry ASAP.
*'''Armoured Squig Hoppers:''' Just what it says on the tin: squig hoppers, but with armour. Ordinary squig hoppers are pretty squishy, so anything to increase their survivability helps.
*'''Soopa Squig:''' A squig that explodes when it charges into an enemy in the same way a Bloated Corpse does. Make sure it actually gets to its destination as the enemy will focus fire on it the moment it gets into range.
*'''Lava Arachnarok Spider:''' Arachnarok Spider with 50% fire resistance and three uses of free fire barrage that lays waste to targets with low armour in its vicinity. Pretty great, but very rare.
*'''Feral Wyvern:''' It's your only air unit outside of the warboss, and not a terrible one at that. Flying poison is always useful, and air support is always a good thing.
*'''Feral Hydra:''' It's a hydra, but on the side of the Greenskins. Stat-wise it's identical to the Dark Elf War Hydra.

==Multiplayer Strategies==
In most fantasy games, Orcs are usually tied to brute force and smashing your enemy until there is nothing left to smash. And... yeah in this game that's pretty much the case. With the WAAAAGH! battle ability and your great melee stats few factions can really put up a fight with you in melee. However, what most people don't expect is that your army is surprisingly versatile. You got good skirmishing, monsters, magic and artillery allowing you to employ numerous tactics and be pretty sneaky. What really screws the Greenskins over is their poor leadership, and most of your losses won't come from the enemy out fighting you, but from them exploiting your boyz lack of morale. You also aren't exactly the Empire in terms of versatility, as WAAAGH still encourages you to be aggressive. As long as you can keep the boyz in the fight though, Gork and Mork will be plenty pleased. <span style='color:green;font-size:150%'>'''''"WAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!!"'''''</span>

*'''Beastmen:''' You need to be aggressive with Beastmen; they do a lot of damage on the charge but you do your best damage in prolonged fights to build up your WAAAAAGH!. An interesting strategy here can be leaving the goblins at home entirely; the enemies considerable speed will be neutralized if everything in your army is a strong fighter that wants to be in melee anyway, and their ranged game is nowhere near strong enough to avoid melee. Just keep your eyes peeled for their monsters; you don't have many options to deal with them and they can cause all manner of problems if you leave them unchecked.

*'''Bretonnia:''' You know how greenskins have a distinct lack of anti-large and anti-air weaponry? You will after fighting Bretonnia. Your best bet is to bring a ton of cheap chaff units to surround their knights and lock them into combat; you benefit from prolonged combat and they suffer in it. Squig Herds and Sneaky Gits are your friend here; they're numerous enough to keep enemy knights in place and do enough anti-armour damage to put the hurt on them. Some skirmishing cavalry is also useful, peasants are one of the only infantry units that your goblins can reliably push around on their own.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': As much as the Black Orcs want to get vengeance on their creators it's probably best not to bring them. Chaos Dwarfs can brutally punish elite infantry and it's probably better to go wide with the Boyz. Your light cavalry can easily counter theirs, especially the spiders, while Chaos Dwarfs are almost as vulnerable to big monsters and chariots as their erstwhile kin. Leave the trolls at home however, as the Dawi-Zharr have plentiful access to fire damage and will probably route them off the field almost immediately.

*'''Dark Elves:''' It's always interesting to fight an enemy that's as aggressive as you are, and who benefit from a long scrap as much as you do. Dark Elves hit hard and can chase down even your fastest units, so need to be a bit more sneaky to deal with them. Night Goblins can be remarkably useful here; bringing poison and numbers to the fight. Poison is a wonderful tool for whittling Dark Elves down and taking the sting out of their assault. Stone Trolls are great for this battle as they bring magic and missile resistance. And unlike the High Elves, the Dark Elves don't have enough fire damage to reliably counter your trolls. However, they DO have plenty of sources of anti-large, and their Scourgerunners and ap missiles can be very dangerous for your big Arachnaroks and Rogue Idols, so leave them at home unless you're sure you can protect them. Dark Elves have great heavy infantry, but it's expensive for them to bring so you can usually bet on the infantry grind going slightly in your favor. All-in-all Dark Elves are formidable enemies, and make for a very interesting matchup.

*'''Dwarfs:''' An iconic matchup; but also a difficult one for you. The good news is that Dwarfs are too slow and too brave to run from combat, so once you get into melee your WAAAAGH! bar will fill almost constantly. The bad news is actually getting into melee in the first place will blow. You're going to need some fast harassers to disrupt the enemy artillery but most dwarfs will bunker up hard and your wolf and spider riders will struggle to break through. Enter the pump-wagon; cheap enough to be spammed, swift enough to get into combat before being shot to death, and with enough mass to disrupt the enemy's formations with repeated cycle charges. The flapping variety is probably best for this; the increased speed is essential to tying the enemy down ASAP. After that, you gotta bring in your big guys; Black Orcs, Big 'Uns, and Boar cavalry will all wreak havoc on dwarfen lines, especially if you bring some night goblins for the poison debuff. If you really want to bring Grimgor Ironhide in multiplayer this is the matchup to do it; even his mount-less ass can catch a Dwarf, and he's enough of a badass to take whatever they can throw at him and come out on top.

*'''Empire:''' Fighting the Empire can be a hassle because you can never be certain what the enemy is going to bring. One match they could have a solid gunline, next match it's a Bretonnian-style cavalry army. You need to be ready for just about anything; fortunately greenskins have a large and diverse army to choose from. Units like Goblin Spider Archers and Wolf Chariots can fill a large variety of roles and should be strongly considered against the humans, as well as your generalist units like Orc Boyz and Stone Trolls. Regardless of the individual play-style, virtually every Empire army will have a few wizards and artillery in support, so some fast flanking units will always come in handy. Tip: Don't underestimate the worth a unit or two of Nasty Skulkers can bring to the table. Sending out a suicide screen of the little critters to take out the Empire's artillery will seriously hurt them - without having all that much counterplay because of Stalk.

*'''Grand Cathay''': This is going to be pretty similar to playing against Dwarfs or the Empire, falling somewhere between the two in terms of versatility. Bring Wolf or Spider riders once again to screen for your main army and tangle up the enemy gunline. Chariots and monsters may not be the best option for cracking this nut though, given Cathay's plentiful halberd units. Big Un's and Black Orcs will be valuable here, as will goblins with Stalk. Boar Boyz might also be a good investment, as Cathay lacks much in the way of cavalry and is vulnerable to flanking. Your biggest problem are likely to be their large and flying units. Terracotta Sentinels, dragon characters, and Sky Lanterns are all going to be difficult to deal with as you lack both good anti-large and flying units of your own.

*'''Greenskins:''' Greenskin internal battles are both interesting and fluffy; and have a surprising amount of nuance simply due to the varieties of units you can bring. In the most generalist terms greenskins counter each other like a game of rock-paper-scissors: goblins can outmaneuver and poison orcs, orcs have the armor piercing damage to bring down monsters, and monsters can trample goblins with impunity. Obviously there is a little more nuance than that, but as a good rule of thumb everything the greenskins have can be hard countered by a different greenskins unit. Mind your positioning and play your strengths against their weaknesses.

*'''High Elves:''' First things first: leave the savage orcs at home. High Elves have so much magic and fire damage that any savage orcs you bring will crumble in short order. Try to to be aggressive (even more than usual, if possible) because you cannot survive high elf archery for very long. If you're good with micro and map-presence you can do amazing things with Stone Trolls, they can run rampage through any lines as long as you stay away from fire. You don't have any easy way to deal with Dragons or Dragon Princes aside from pinning them down and chewing through them with black orcs and Arachnarok Spiders, so keep them surrounded as soon as you can. Don't let fancy units like Pheonix Guard or Swordmasters of Hoeth intimidate you; if you can get close enough to krump'em, the elves will collapse like a house of cards. But getting close is easier said then done.

*'''Khorne''': A fairly even matchup since Khorne tends to favor a core of heavily armoured elite units supported by more fragile Demons, similar to how your own faction works. Problems with Khorne come in regards to their big monsters and monstrous cavalry which can be a major pain in your green butt to deal with, but their expensiveness makes it possible to tarpit and isolate them. Nasty Skulkers and other varieties of Goblins will really shine here, as their poison will take the edge off their beefy melee line and tip the scales in your favor.

*'''Kislev''':

*'''Lizardmen:''' This matchup is where your general lack of anti-large options and leadership issues tend to become rather apparent. With a multitude of large, armored dinosaurs that bowl through your unarmored infantry and scare the shit out of the survivors in the process, you will have issues if the Lizardmen monsters have free reign over the battlefield. Have an Arachnarok Spider supported by some Orc Boar Big 'Unz to focus down the bigger beasties while you use Goblin Spider Riders to run circles around any skink skirmishers trying to poke and prod your flanks. Aside said skinks, Lizardmen have a noted lack of ranged firepower, so regular archers won't go amiss against the scaly rank and file on their slow approach. Trolls, if you can ensure any Salamanders the lizards may have brought are thoroughly shut down, can often shoulder their way through most of the infantry the Lizardmen have on tap, but you'll need to keep them away from anything bigger than they are.

*'''Norsca:''' An important factor in this matchup is how Norscan Rage compares to greenskin WAAAAAGH! Norscan want to stay in melee combat up to a point, then they start to lose steam and need to break away and recuperate. You pretty much never want to leave melee once your there, and benefit from longer engagements. Pile on the pressure with flanking units and nasty skulkers to keep the enemy locked in combat and grind them out. Your goblins can have a lot of fun against these unarmoured northerners; sneak, skulk and skirmish your way to victory with your brutal cunning and archer cavalry. Keep an eye out for mammoths, though. Your best bet to deal with them are your own monsters, but Norscans are quite good at killing monsters so you'll want to hang back until you've softened their lines up a bit.

*'''Nurgle''': Nurgle is slow, wants to stay in a prolonged fight, has no anti-large at all, has weak fliers, is poorly armoured, has mediocre artillery, and has very little defence against missile attacks. Basically, they're completely fucked. The Waaaagh! is powerful enough to overcome Nurgle's progressively growing debuffs and they have basically no way of dealing with your various methods of skirmishing them. Once you swat down any rotflies, drones, or furies; plague toads and pox riders are pretty easy pickings for the likes of stone trolls and boar boy big 'unz, while the Nurglite main line simply isn't killy enough to win before you krump them.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': If the Dwarfs are the immovable object to your irresistble force then the Ogres are the equally irresistible force. Except you're vulnerable to terror routing and bad at stopping charges and the Ogres are nearly all monsters who can cause terror and charge like run-away freight trains. This is one of those match-ups where you just don't have a lot of good options. Ogre leadbelchers and ironblasters will reduce your monsters to mush, basic ogres can simply plough through just about any number of infantry you throw in their way, and Ogres are disturbingly fast for such fat lads. Skirmishing them may be your best bet since Ogres generally have poor armour and bad shields.

*'''Skaven:''' Two words: goblin cavalry. Your orcs will be shot to bits before they can reach the skaven lines, so you'll need to tie them down first. Even the humble wolf riders can reliably beat skaven in melee. But pinning down the enemy line isn't enough to win a battle; bring some orcs (or ideally orc cavalry) to finish the rats off once you've got them trapped. Rock lobbas will also do good in this battle, just make sure they're firing at the right targets.

*'''Slaanesh''':

*'''Tomb Kings:''' Tomb Kings have a lot of big scary constructs, and you aren't that good against anything big or scary. A Black Orc Warboss or two is a must for the immune to psychology bubble, and some ordinary black orcs wouldn't hurt either. You'll need some fast cavalry to intercept enemy artillery, the screaming skull catapult does even more leadership penalties than other catapults and can quickly shatter your lines. You should be very careful with your monsters in this matchup; Tomb King Necrosphinxs can tear your big beasts apart. The one bit of good news is that you don't have to worry about enemy infantry; skellingtons are trash and even your goblins have a decent chance of beating them in combat.

*'''Tzeentch''':

*'''Vampire Coast:''' This is a strange one, because most of your best units struggle whilst your often-forgotten units thrive. Black Orcs and monsters will get shot to pieces before they can get into combat, but your humbler ranged cavalry can cause all manner of headaches for the enemy. This is also one of the few circumstances where you'll want orc archers instead of the cheaper goblins; the increased range is really important when fighting a [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] army. Despite the aforementioned flaws with Black Orcs, you will probably want to keep a squad or two around to shore up your frontlines, Immune to Psychology is just too valuable against an undead army. Just keep some chaff in front of them; most guns can't arc their shots and will have to deal with whatever's in front of them first. Leave the Arachnorak Spiders and Rogue Idols at home, though; those two are just to easy to shoot to be worth the cost.

*'''Vampire Counts:''' This is where your low leadership really becomes a problem; you can easily outfight basic Vampire Counts units, but your boyz will often rout anyway from fear. Black Orcs, Squig Herds, and Squig Hoppers are all immune to psychology, and should form the core of your army. This is the match to bring a Rogue Idol, the vampires <i>have</i> to deal with it in melee and that thing gets more dangerous as it gets hurt. Doom Diver catapults are useful here; all artillery is useful against Vampire Counts, but the doom diver is especially good at singling out individual targets. Nothing is more satisfying than watching a VC army crumble because an idiot goblin squished their lord.

*'''Warriors of Chaos:''' There aren't many armies that can reliably beat you in melee. Unfortunately, Chaos Warriors can. Bring plenty of artillery and some spider riders to deal with their hellcannons. You're going to need to soften up the Chaos lines before they reach you, but you can't outrun them forever. Chaos Warriors are a hassle for some, but you've got anti-infantry and anti-armour aplenty, which helps out. Black Orcs are one of the only infantry units that can go toe-to-toe with Chaos Chosen and survive; so be sure to bring some of them. Rogue Idols are also pretty great in this matchup, provided you can keep them safe from hellcannons.

*'''Wood Elves:''' Ouch. Not a very fun matchup; a good Wood Elves player will kite you across the battlefield while whittling you down with shooting. Your goblin cavalry is almost as fast as the wood elven kind, but struggles to keep the bastards pinned down for long enough to let your other guys catch up. Sneaky Skulkers can be useful here to lock the enemy in place with smoke-bombs, but again; you have to get close to use them. A good bet is to focus on goblins over orcs; goblins are faster, have better missile resistance, and have the numbers to overwhelm the enemy and hold them in place. Just watch out for flanking attacks and cavalry charges.

==Campaign Strategies==
===General tips===

The Greenskin campaign is probably the one most determined by your legendary lord. If you're Grom or Skarsnik you can get your goblins good or cheap enough to make most orcs obsolete; Wurzzag will also want to skip normal orcs in favor of the savage kind. Skarsnik can't recruit normal orcs anywhere but Eight Peaks, but he can recruit savage orcs in the southern badlands so he'll probably use of lot of those as well. Grimgor Ironhide is the polar opposite, he is best with elite units of Black Orcs and normal Orc Big 'Uns, with no goblins aside from chaff and disruption. Azhag the Slaughterer is probably the most generalized lord with a focus on magic, which slots nicely into any army you care to bring. Azhag, Grimgor, Skarsnik and Wurzzag all get unique scrap upgrades for certain units, whilst Grom uses his scrap for the cauldron. Aquiring scrap is so easy as to almost be incidental; all your favorite things to do (fighting, raiding, and wrecking towns) all provide scrap, so it will build up pretty well without much trouble. On the other hand, if you need extra scrap it can be hard to get it quickly; in a good greenskin campaign you'll be fighting and raiding as much as you can all the time, so you can't exactly pick up the pace for quick scrap. Plan ahead and keep your priorities straight; Big Thinkin' is more beneficial than upgrades for individual units.
The most important mechanic to learn in the Call to WAAAAGH!, which is already explained in the Universal Traits section. The only thing to mention about that ability is that when your WAAAAGH! reputation goes up you get bonuses to public order and growth. Therefore, it can be beneficial to sit on a full WAAAAGH! bar whilst you gather your forces and tighten your grip on your holdings. It should also be mentioned that Calling a WAAAAGH! isn't really worth it unless your targeting an enemy with strength rating of at least 30; if you don't think your strong enough to take such an enemy, feel free to wait until you're strong enough to go big!

===Specific Campaign Tips===

====Azhag====
* Be '' 'very''' careful with your movements and who you declare war to. It' s very easy to get bogged down and overwhelmed fighting the Empire and Elector Counts, so they should always be on your mind.
* Your victory conditions tell you to destroy Kislev, but Throt/Chaos usually does that for you anyway (and even if they don't Kislev is a somewhat passive faction (For now)).
* Alliances with the Von Carstiens (ideally both Vlad and Manfred) are quite useful in the early game, and your bonus diplomacy with vampires helps a great deal. Just keep in mind that you and they are competing for the same territories, so you will probably end up at war sooner or later. Manfred especially has an annoying habit of constantly breaking treaties for no reason, and there isn't much you can do about it.

====Grimgor====
* Try to rush the dwarfs as fast as you can; the longer you let Thorgrim fortify the Silver Road the worse things get for you.
* Form an alliance with Wurzzag as soon as you can to keep your eastern flank safe; you can declare war and beat him in combat to force him into a confederation once you have your other sides secured.
* You don't need to ally with Queek to your south, but you shouldn't provoke him either; you want to focus on expanding north and east to take care of the dwarfs. Do consider intervening if it looks like he is going to kill Wurzzag; you want to keep Wurzzag alive to ensure you can snatch him up later.
* You can also push east and meet with Malus Darkblade; eliminating him gives you several nice ports, while the rest of the Dark Elves and their allies are too far away to stop you.
* Once you've pushed up through the dwarf lines you'll run into Azhag. Just like Wurrzag, ally with him for as long as you need to, then force him into confederacy.
* You can also try to confederate with Grom and Skarsnik if you really want to collect every LL, but they are both pretty out of the way for you and don't give your army much benefit.
* Eight Peaks has a unique structure that boosts Black Orcs, so try to grab it as soon as you can.

====Grom====
* (Eye of the Vortex only) Do be aware that at any point, Eltharion may send an army to come and give you a shit day. Due to your relations with high elves, the rest of Ulthuan and the Knights of Caledor will join suit in his war with you. Be prepared for the Elves to come hunt you down.
* (Mortal Empires only) Don't be fooled by the climate, it's much better to take care of Bretonnia before trying to get to Ulthuan. Letting the knights tech up is a really bad idea, as Greenskins suck at Anti-Large, and you'll need a solid power base before attacking the Donut anyway.

====Skarsnik====
* Obviously, you want to rush Eight Peaks as soon as possible. Feel free to abandon your starting area once you've crossed the river into the badlands; you don't want to spread your armies out too thin.
* Try to kill (or at least cripple) Belegar Ironhammer on your way to Eight Peaks; he'll try to take it from you and you have to kill him anyway as part of your win condition.
* On your path to Eight Peaks you'll run into Wurzzag, try to force him into a confederacy as soon as you can. Not only is he a powerful Legendary Lord, but he controls most of the southern badlands where you can recruit savage orcs, which you'll need to take Eight Peaks.

====Wurzzag====
* Form an alliance with Grimgor ASAP. Your armies consider frozen territory inhospitable, so you don't want to expand north. Having Grimgor as an ally takes the pressure of the northern flanks and lets you focus on the south and west.
* Take out Queek Headtaker as soon as you can; you'll both be fighting for the badlands and he can be very difficult to destroy in the late game.
* You'll be fighting a lot of Tomb Kings and Lizardmen in the south, so consider investing in Black Orc bosses for their leadership bonus.

{{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dwarfs

2023-05-19T14:31:42Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{Topquote|Kazukhan-kazakit-ha! (Look out, the Dwarfs are on the warpath!)|Game battle chant for Dwarfs, if you think about it, it should be look <s>down</s> THAT'S A GRUDGE!}}
This is the tactics page for the Total War: Warhammer version of The Dwarfs.

==Why play Dwarfs?==
*Because you want to sit and watch as your enemies are blasted away while coming towards you.
*Cause you're under 5'5 and want '''vengeance''' for all the short jokes.
*You don't want to do too much micro, so an army without much in the way of mobility and cavalry doesn't bother you as much.
*You enjoy having infantry that won't die after being slapped by a wet noodle.
*Slay everything without a beard!!
*FLAMETHROWERS!!!

===Pros===
*'''Durability''': You are a tank faction. Most of your units are categorized with high armour, melee defense and leadership. Even your tier one and chaff are very tanky compared to counterparts from other factions. This is further supplemented by the innate magic resist many of your units have, which ''slightly'' compensates for your otherwise complete lack of magic. Additionally, with their naturally high leadership, dwarfs do not usually break unless hopelessly outnumbered or if you screw up massively by getting cavalry charged in the rear. Frankly, your units will hold out forever.
**Your magic resistance got nerfed in the third game to ''only'' resist magical spells. Still useful, but now units with magic attacks, I.E Daemons, are going to be way better at cracking you open.
*'''Range''': Guns, guns and more guns! Dwarfs have some of the best blackpowder units in the entire game. Thunderers and Cannons can lay a whooping on anything they are firing on, and their artillery isn't anything to sneer at. Even their non-AP range units are very good for their price, and it's not hard for them to earn their points back as long as they are defended.
*'''If they get close, Nut 'em!''': As if being being one of the best factions at shooting was not enough, their missile units can also hold their own in close quarters better than most.
*'''Airforce''': Gyrocopters with their anti large can get you control over the air, and their ability to kite monsters into oblivion is a good skill to have. Even Gyrobombers have a niche for their blob killing capabilities after recent buffs.
*'''Runes''': Where other races rely on the fickle Winds of Magic, you have your reliable runes. Runes supply surprisingly good buffs and debuffs that can help your army out, making them a great way to make sure your infantry stays in the fight a bit longer. The fact that they aren't limited by a power reserve also means that they'll remain a viable option well into the latter stages of a fight, where other factions might begin to tap out of their mystical power.
*'''Anti-large''': You laugh when the enemy brings big monsters. With all your AP missiles, Anti Large artillery and slayers, you have the one of the easiest times killing monsters out of any faction in the game.
*'''Strong Economy''': It's campaign specific but yeah, it turns out the species who's renowned for being the best at making shit is also one of the best at making money. The resource building chains go up to level IV instead of stopping at level III, you can mass produce Dwarf Beer anywhere. Putting together Doomstacks of Top Tier Dawi troops is easier.
*'''Good for Beginners''': Everyone was just starting once, if you are new to Warhammer Total War or just Total War in general the Dawi are (ironically enough) forgiving. Something like the Wood Elves is fragile and has a limited margin for error, Dwarfs on the other hand have more of a fudge factor in most match ups. Not to say that it's easy mode playing dwarfs, but the likelihood of things going pear shaped in a second is lower.

===Cons===
*'''Lack of Mobility''': With no Cav, monsters and slow infantry, Dwarfs are the least mobile faction in the game. You will spend the majority of the game standing still.
*'''Lack of Magic''': Though your most recent rework makes your runes a damn good alternative, you don't really have magic. This can pose a problem when you face similarly physically durable armies in battle and lack a reliable, magical alternative for damage. Additionally, though you defensively have a 25% resistance to the arcane, many large vortex spells will still sting quite a bit and your complete lack of magical healing means it'll be hard to bounce back from the damage you do take.
*'''Chariots''': Chariots are the bane of a Dwarf players existence. They don't have any real way to lock them down and, as you'd expect, AP anti infantry can really kill what the Dwarfs want to do on the battlefield. Due to the rework to how bracing and knock down works, this isn’t as bad as before, but chariots can still be a problem
*'''Predictability''': Most veteran players know what's going to happen when Dwarfs are picked. They are going to go for a cheap, numerous and sturdy front line and a lot of guns and artillery. This means that Dwarfs are easy to plan for as they only have one real viable tactic. Building an army around fighting Dwarfs is something players from all races know how to do.
*'''Lack of Good Lord Options''': Do you like the Runelord or Thorek? No? Well you better start because in multiplayer they're your only viable options. Grombrindal is an ok duelist but honestly Dwarf lords in general kind of suck. With no mounts and no way to stick to their targets it's hard for them to get anything done. This problem got better with the Twisted and the Twilight due to the changes to knockdown effects, but sticking to targets will still be hard
*'''Hard campaign''': With all the changes to the factions around them, the Dawi have fallen on some pretty hard times. The lifetime of WH2 dotted the landscape around Karaz-A-Karak alone with a huge number of guaranteed enemies that you will have to look out for, with your most reliable allies in the Empire being very far away. The other subfactions don't fare much better and your slow growth seriously hurts your ability to expand, especially when compared with your most dominant enemies, the Greenskins of the Badlands and Clan Mors further down the road.
*'''Bad in Domination''': Turns out your stubby little legs makes it really hard for you to capture objectives. Due to your lack of mobility you can't effectively capture points since other factions can just out race you to them and get more units on them. As such, you're widely considered the weakest faction in Domination.
*'''DLC''': A con for everyone, but fortunately you get off easier than many others. Unfortunately, a couple of your best units, namely Runelords and Rangers, are in fact locked behind DLC and if you want to really use your Dwarfs to the fullest, you'll need to pay the toll.

==Universal Traits==

*'''The Great Book of Grudges''': The fact that the sacred Dammaz Kron went unmentioned on this pages for so long merits an entry on its own. The Book of Grudges documents every slight committed against your faction, including legendary grudges that you start out with. Whenever something bad happens, i.e. you lose a settlement, get raided or a hostile faction repeatedly traspasses on your turf without you allowing it, it merits an entry in the book. These entries can (and will) accumulate over time, and depending on how much your Dorfs disliked the transgression, will vary in severity, which fills up a meter that gives you some penalties and some bonusses. High severity from unresolved Grudges gives you minor public order and research speed penalties, but it also gives all of your armies a charge bonus (since the Dwarfs are so pissed off) and increases the chance of Slayers and Giant Slayers popping up in your Regiments of Renown pool, where they can then be recruited instantly into your armies. Resolving Grudges and Legendary Grudges (such as retaking Karak Eight Peaks as Belegar Ironhammer) also earns you powerful bonusses (Money, Oathgold, small Buffs for the entire faction ) and special Runes.
*'''Oathgold''': The secondary resource of the Dwarfs. Practically identical to the Mortuary Cult of the Tomb Kings, with the key difference being that the Dwarfs can make much more stuff with Oathgold and that the stuff is much more abundant. Oathgold is earned through resolving Grudges, doing missions and quests, Gold Mines and some special buildings such as the Brightstone Mine in Mount Gunbad. Oathgold, combined with trade goods, can be used to create items for your Lords and Heroes, which makes it downright trivial to kit out every single character on the map with some special gizmos to make them really powerful. Oathgold can also be used to make Character and Banner Runes, the former can be applied as equipment to individual characters (with up to 3 individual runes at maximum), the latter functions like Banners that you can give units to give them special bonusses and abilities.
*'''Expert Charge Defense''': Barring Slayers, every single one of your units has Expert Charge Defense, which nullifies charge bonusses and also the momentum of units charging into your staunch line of angry Dwarfs.
*'''Magic Resistance''': Every Dwarf has a built in 25% Magic Resist (Spell Resist in WH3). Consult the main page for WHFB Dwarfs as to why.

==Legendary Lords and Subfactions==
*'''Thorgrim Grudgebearer:''' The high king himself, and the only large non-war machine unit in your roster, as he is carried on a massive throne sled by some burly dwarfs, Thorgrim isn't huge on offence, better than say mid-tier combat lords, but he's mostly just a hard to kill brick of leadership. Dwarfs in range of him just become slightly harder to break, which isn't saying much given their default morale, and he's not easily sniped. This results in him being kind of underwhelming, you know he's not going to die like a bitch, but you also know that he's not exactly going to recoup even a quarter of his cost. Is kind of safe in campaign play for beginners, but Grombrindal is overall superior. - Pass.
*'''Ungrim Ironfist:''' The Slayer King, bane of anything taller than six feet, Ungrim is the opposite of Thorgrim; all offence, with low defence. Ungrim is actually pretty good in terms of being a hero-killer and monster-hunter, he's not going to solo Tyrion or Kroq-Gar, and don't even think of monster lords like Kholek or monstrous mounts such as a Tomb King on a war sphinx, without a unit to bog them down. The problem with Ungrim is that while he can throw hands and live up to his title, he eats a lot of damage for a dwarf, or just in general for a combat lord, he's easy to snipe with massed missiles if caught in the open, and while he can butcher most things sent his way, he'll only be able to do this once or twice in a battle before he's at serious risk of dying. Don't let that 120 armour & unbreakable make you think he's a tank, Ungrim's Melee Defence is quite low for a combat lord, and that low dwarf speed means he can by kited to death. Thorgrim lacks the damage to recoup his cost, Ungrim lacks the defence to recoup his costs. If playing with an ally that has access to Lore of Life he can be kept alive, but you're asking a lot of resources to support the Slayer King. - Pass.
*'''Grombrindal:''' THE WHITE DWARF, Grombrindal doesn't bring anything really special to the table, he's a decent duelist, although lacking the balls-to-the-wall offence of Ungrim Ironfist, Grombrinal is nowhere near as risky for a combat lord. The flashbomb ability can lockdown mobile heroes and give the white dwarf a few easy hits. Doesn't quite bring much for the rest of the army, but is the best legendary lord for cost-benefit tradeoffs. He can fight, he can survive, and he can make the entire army Unbreakable with a reusable map-wide buff. - Niche but competitive in that niche. In Campaign, he is easily the best LL the Dwarfs offer. His blue skill tree affects ''your entire faction'' and the four blessings you can choose every 20 turns (10 after picking a specific skill) are all very powerful, a whopping +25% Research Rate is no joke, as are +10 Melee Attack and Defense for every unit in Grombrindals army.
*'''Belegar Ironhammer:'''(DLC) Belegar is really just a wall, he's harder to kill than Thorgrim as they have comparable stats, but he has a silver shield for 55% missile resistance. That's all. Just an insanely hard to kill lord, sure his offence isn't terrible, being better than Thorgrim's on base stats and a nice buff can be popped to go higher. But honestly you're paying a lot for a lord that won't die, and generally speaking Dwarfs in Total War: Warhammer aren't a faction that is centred around their generals or heroes. No real wizards to throw high-impact spell effects, no mobile heroes that can exploit small gaps to flank units or hunt down supporting pieces like buffers, wizards or artillery crews. The only upshot to taking Belegar's subfaction in multiplayer is getting access the ancestor heroes who are damned hard to kill, but are also the only dwarf units that are scared of magic damage, which can sort of be a mind-games thing because the default assumption to seeing Clan Angrund picked is that ancestor heroes are on the field, so grab some magic damage to delete them, but then seeing that there are no ghost dwarfs means that the magic damage is actually a big waste considering all dwarfs have 25% Magic Resistance. - Pass.
*'''Thorek Ironbrow:'''(FLC): With the rework comes a new LL and Thorek serves this role, being the latest (and most likely last) new contender in the Lustrian Thunderdome in the Vortex Campaign, and starting at the southernmost tip of the map in Karak Zorn on Mortal Empires. He serves as a supercharged Runelord with access to a unique mount that messes quite a bit with enemy spellcasting and improved Runic Magic on his own part. In the campaign, his legendary conservativeness translates into bonusses for "traditional" Dwarfen ranged units like Quarrelers and Grudge Throwers. Not to worry though, since he starts with a Rune of Burning that makes the Catapult projectiles [[Awesome|FUCKING EXPLODE]] and dramatically increases the combat value of Quarrelers in his own Army quite significantly (arguably making them even better than Thunderers). His campaign goal revolves around finding several lost Dwarfen artifacts, which can then be used to craft powerful buffs for your whole faction. [[Derp|He also can make enemy casters explode.]] - Best Multiplayer lord pick.

==Units==
===Generic Lords===
*'''Dwarf Lord:''' No, just no, he suffers from the same issue that the legendary lords suffer from, being too slow. But wait there's more, the generic lord is easier to kill in combat, provides less army support, and does less damage. He's not even the cheapest option to help save costs. I mean he has a shield, but its only bronze. Unless you've got some kind of bet riding on a battle and there's a specific stipulation that you cannot use any other lord, screw the money because he's too crap. That said compared to generic foot lords in other factions he's quite difficult to kill, which is more advice for fighting Dwarf Lords in campaign really. PASS!
*'''Runelord:''' (DLC) Yes, yes yes. The one competitive General in multiplayer, the Runelord is just a walking bubble of passive buffs that make your low tier units good, and your good infantry units even better. Has good active abilities, like Master Rune of Oath & Steel which gives +30 armour to all dwarfs in range, or the Rune of Speed which adds 45% speed and 24 melee attack to all dwarfs in range. This is the lord pick that supports the dwarf army, and don't think he's some kind of wizard that dies when someone looks at him funny, while the melee defence is low at 40, the Runelord has the same 120 armour as the other lords, plus up to 35% missile resistance, sharing 20% of that with nearby allies. Slapping him on an Anvil of Doom gives a special ability that causes enemy casters to automatically miscast for minor damage when near him. TL;DR fucks magic, gets buffs. - Good if you want Thorek but a bit cheaper.

===Legendary Heros (Clan Angrund Only)===
All [[Clan Angrund]] has such a strong relationship with their ancestors, they come back as ghosts. like all ghosts, they have a 75% physical resistance instead of magic resistance, With magic attacks, Unbreakable, but no armor and less heath than normal. they have Fear and terror making them good at chasing the enemy off. They themselves are weak to magic attacks, but who takes that much offense magic against dwarfs anyway?

*'''King Lunn Ironhammer:''' is one of the two ghost Thanes, being the offensive one, with slightly more Melee attack than a normal thane.
*'''Halkenhaf Stonebeard:''' the other ghost Thane, being the most defensive of the par with significantly lower melee attack but a very high defense of 65 and silver shield, letting him minge with enemies for a protracted time to proc terror routs.
*'''Throni Ironbrow:''' Mostlickly to take as he is a Runesmith, so someone that needs protection while also being in the front lines.
*'''Dramar Hammerfist:''' the ghost engineer so paying extra for a harder to kill gun lines buffer and better at chasing away those that try to disrupt them.

===Heroes===
*'''Master Engineer:''' Basically a must if you're running more than 2 artillery pieces, buffs artillery, has a decent sniper rifle of his own, not great in a fight with anything beyond hound packs and light cavalry, so don't expect him to be an effective guard for the cannons he's buffing. However if there is another unit nearby casting Entrenchment right before they rout will make the unit hold the line and fight even after being routed. On campaign they also boost your army's mobility. Aaaaaand the Dwarf Rework happened, buffing him even further with the ability of the Vampirate Gunnery Wight to restore lost ammo to artillery pieces for up to five times. Just too good to miss out on if you're bringing a bunch of cannons (and who doesn't, honestly).
*'''Runesmith:''' Basically a squishier version of the Runelord, has many of the same buffs, both passive and active. With the Dwarf rework, these guys have gone from being merely decent to amazing. While utilizing a rune puts every other rune on a shared cooldown, this only applies per caster; having multiple Runesmiths allows you to stack multiple buffs simultaneously or across multiple units without having to wait out the full 60 second global cooldown. They might not necessarily be an auto-include persay, but having one or two of these guys in your army is strongly recommended.
*'''Thane:''' While they still suffer from being slow, Thanes can be used more aggressively than legendary lords. Kit them out with the Rune of Slowness to gimp enemy mobility, or give them the Ironbeard's Ring and coordinate with a source of fire damage: Flame Cannons, Dragonback Slayers, Warriors of Dragonfire Pass, basic Irondrakes, or Brimstone Gyrocopters, all of these will deal serious damage to units inside the debuff aura.

===Infantry===
*'''Miners''': The closest thing to cannon fodder in the Dwarf Roster, miners are cheap AP units. Also give "speed" and breadth to Dawi list by vanguarding.
*'''Dwarf Warriors''': Did you know that a unit of Dwarf Warriors costs 475 gold but can hold against 3 units of Empire Swordsmen, costing 400 gold each, for just over 2 minutes and racking up roughly 90-100 kills before dying/breaking? Dwarf Warriors aren't great, just good, and are very much just a shield wall frontline. Dwarf Warriors are very cost-effective starting units. They will trade positively against most infantry that are tier 1-3 excluding units with high AP values or anti-infantry buffs. Dwarf Warriors aren't the same as elite heavy infantry however, they will break in time, if rear charged, if attacked by great weapon units, if hit with leadership debuffs, or if attacked by characters. This is a unit that buys time for a unit in the second line to get in position to assist, do not assume you can just deploy them as a single line and have artillery sit safely behind them.
**'''Warriors of Dragonfire Pass'''(ROR): Slightly better warriors that deal fire damage in combat, not a guaranteed pick most of the time, but good against any faction that is vulnerable to fire, consider pairing with a Thane carrying Ironbeard's Ring to boost damage.
*'''Dwarf Warriors (Great Weapons)''': You know how Dwarf Warriors can hold frontlines for a time but need a second line unit to assist them, this is cheapest of the second line units. Regular warriors have shields, 40 Melee Defence, and charge defence against large units, Warriors with Great Weapons don't have those defences, they get armour piercing damage which is the kind of offence needed to make up for the vanilla warriors' shortcomings. Don't try and use them as a frontline unit, and replace them when you can with other melee infantry.
*'''Longbeards''': Warriors +1 really, they buff the leadership of other units (it's the generic Encourage passive so no stacking with lords), so consider mixing them with warriors. Cost-wise your mostly paying for better Melee Defence, better Leadership, the leadership aura, and Immune to Psychology compared to vanilla Warriors. A common question is which is better for cost, Longbeards or Warriors, but outside of fighting undead armies that have tons of fear/terror effects, the answer to the question is; use both. While the differences between the two units are obvious in comparison, to the player on the other side of the battlefield it doesn't matter much because a Dwarf line is still a solid formation that is hard to break. Longbeards work good in the wings to buff leadership in the flanks, and having warrior units means you can save gold for more missile units and artillery.
*'''Longbeards (Great Weapons)''': While the difference between shield Warriors and shield Longbeards isn't much, the great weapon variant favours the Longbeards, which come with Charge Defense and Armor-Piercing (but no target specialization). In MP, where every gold coin counts, if all you need is cheap AP, take the Warriors, but if you want something tankier and able to encourage your dwarfs to hold out a bit longer, take these guys.
**'''The Grumbling Guard'''(ROR): Not too bad, stat wise its a bit more armour & melee attack, 10 more leadership, and 13 more Melee Defence, which puts them at a whopping 51 Melee Defence. You don't get any improved damage output with these guys, instead you get an ability that replenishes 9% of vigour for them and nearby allies. This may not sound like much, but fatigue debuffs are crippling for units, and Dwarfs rely on grinding things out so even a small vigour buff to some units is good even if it just moves them from exhausted to very tired. But wait, this ability has infinite uses and a low cooldown so spam it away. While Hammerers do the same job but better, the Grumbling Guard are fantastic for keeping Ironbreakers in better condition than their enemies.
*'''Slayers''': Slayers are kind of weird. They're unbreakable, quick (for a Dwarf), hit hard, and do a lot of damage with no consideration to survivability. This means that they can seriously fuck up higher-tier units but on the same time are vulnerable to cannon fodder. It does not matter if you're a crappy goblin with a crappy spear, it's getting through a Slayer's hide as much as a Chosen's Daemonforged Axe. When using Slayers, hold them back so that other units, especially ones with charge defense, take the brunt of the charge before moving the slayers to counter-attack, and while it might cost you the charge bonus, having them attack through the buffer unit really improves the lifespan of your slayers (Probably much to their chagrin). Note that if you ever leave them in the open, missile units just have to imagine shooting them to wipe the unit, which is an expensive mistake. Also a definite must take against vampire counts and Tomb Kings with all their fear effects but do not ever think about using them against Vampire Pirates because they will get shot to pieces before any fear/terror units get close for the unbreakable to matter. Also, leave them at home against Wood Elves, or if you have fore-knowledge that your opponent likes horse-archer tactics.
*With the Dwarf rework that dropped together with Thorek Ironbrow, they went from terrible in Single Player to a pretty good choice for the early game, since you can now recruit them anywhere as long as your grudge meter is up. It also makes unlimited Slayer Doomstacks lead by Ungrim Ironfist a terrifying sight to behold.
**'''Dragonback Slayers'''(ROR): Slayers with better MA & MD, and they get physical resistance on top of the shield defense. The real value comes with their passive that activates in melee, it gives them fire damage, fire resistance, and applies slow debuff and the flammable trait for weakness to fire (doesn't stack if the enemy already has the flammable trait, but will stack with other effects of a different name that reduce fire resistance). The physical resist, slow debuff and the combo of fire damage and flammable debuff makes this unit a generally better pick over vanilla slayers, note that they do not get the fire resistance outside of combat so getting hit by flaming missiles outside of combat will hurt, the lore of fire spells are still subject to dwarf magic resistance though.
*'''Giant Slayers''': These are just super slayers, too costly to run a lot of. They will instantly blend light cavalry units like Marauder Horsemen or Ellyrian Reavers that dare to charge them, not that you should be using them to counter these units, it's just funny to see happen. Giant Slayers are basically Ungrim Ironfist as many Dwarfs instead of one. What they don't kill will be pretty close to death. Cannon fodder might counter slayers, but Giant Slayers dish out enough melee damage that you only need to worry about elite infantry and high mass units charging them. More vulnerable to shooting as they don't get the missile defense that Slayers get, these guys are expensive but do the job. Not recommended as a staple unit in army builds due to their cost, but good to pick if you're against monster or cavalry heavy armies.
*'''Hammerers''': Your well-armored, AP Damage dealing elite Dwarfs, not the same tank as a Longbeard but will deal serious AP damage. They've been reworked in the latest game, giving them substantially more health and magical(!) damage, meaning they're your best chance against Daemons and Treekin. **Still the same weaknesses as before, though: they're a Hammer (heh) in an Army of Anvils, so they'll mostly be pushing their way through your infantry
**Peak Gate Guard(ROR): The ultimate anti-armor unit, they go through heavily armored units like swordsmen through skavenslaves and then let other Dawi also participate in the fun.

===Ranged Infantry===
*'''Thunderers''': Like Empire handgunners, but you don't need to babysit them as much. A very useful unit even in the lategame that won't break the bank.
*'''Irondrakes:''' Where the fun begins. Ridiculously high damage output, solidly armoured. Need positioning to work right, but will absolutely demolish anything that you point them at. Their flamethrowers are considered artillery so they cannot be blocked by shields and inflict morale penalty upon anything they hit. They are surprisingly strong in melee against infantry if not deployed in a thin line because the back row can use their flamethrowers at point-blank, but not against cavalry as they'll pierce till the back row.
**'''The Skolder Guard'''(ROR): Replaces Lava for Steam to be an anti-armor unit. Much tougher than an Irondrakes with Physical resistance which is nice to have when the enemy gets a sneaky charge. They will multch full-plate units quickly given they have an even faster reload speed but watch out as you will also burn through their limited ammunition just as quickly. Against enemies with less armor you're better off using regular Irondrakes.
*'''Irondrakes (Trollhammer Torpedo)''': the Anti large version of the Irondrakes, having rocket launchers instead of Flamers. Often times Irondrakes can just melt through the armor of most things they are pointed at, sometimes they are Cavalry or monsters that have enough armor to shrug off that current of magma. Unlike regular Irondrakes they can shoot over units and obstacles. Don't be fooled by how their torpedoes explode, they don't do splash damage and should only attack infantry if you don't have anything bigger to shoot.

===Combined Infantry===
*'''Quarrellers''': Boring but practical. Like dwarf warriors, they're able to trade shots with the tier 1 ranged units of pretty much every other faction and winning because they come with shields on top of their dwarf armor. They also come with armor piercing, which makes them a budget option for shooting stuff like chaos warriors. However, they do less DPS per gold spent than similar units like empire crossbowmen and darkshards.
**As mentioned above, Thorek brings out the best in these guys, keeping them very relevant even to the late game. The shield variant is best used against missile-heavy factions like Wood Elves, but does nothing against Artillery.
*'''Quarrellers (Great Weapons)''': Similar to Quarrelers, except they give up shields in exchange for armor-piercing melee weapons. Won't win much in close combat, but they'll take down more enemies before they're overwhelmed, particularly against squishy units like harpies.
**Thorek buffs them to an insane degree to the point that when combined with all the relevant campaign bonuses, Quarrelers will become the core of your army. They're still not a frontline since they only have so many models in a unit, but 6-10 of these guys can outright delete anything that gives your Longbeards and Ironbreakers a hard time (Mammoths, stonehorns, even Rogue Idols). They also autoresolve very well, taking more losses than the shielded variant, but will take less losses than your frontline infantry.
*'''Miners (Blasting Charges)''': take that Cheap miner, then give them a single volley for bomb-throwing. Each model only gets one bomb, so make it count. Turn off ''Fire at Will'' and select the targets manually. A well-thrown Blasting Charge will decimate most charging infantry.
**'''Ekrund Miners'''(ROR): A regiment that Gets 3 Blasting Charges instead of 1. Depending on how well you managed them, that's paying less gold then recruiting 3 Blasting Charge Miners which matter very much in the gold restricted multiplayer.
*'''Ironbreakers''': The fact that Ironbreakers are one of the toughest units in the game would make them a key part of a Dawi late game army. Add to that blasting charges and you have something which can stomp most other infantry into the ground, blowing away a quarter of their hitpoints and ruining their charge before finishing off the survivors. Their only downside is that their damage in hand to hand is not that great, but that's what thunderers, slayers and artillery is for. NEVER let artillery, including artillery towers, target them. They're so slow they're target practice and they're no.1 priority as dwarfs don't have anything bigger.
**'''Norgrimlings Ironbreakers''':(ROR) Even better Ironbreakers, With bigger model size (so more bombes and unit health), a faster throwing arm, Vanguard, and Immune to Psychology. Overall a more powerful unit that can holds back the hords for longer while dealing more casualties.
*'''Rangers''': Sneaky Dwarf Quarrellers getting Vanguard and Stalk for a surprise Dwarf ambush. They have better speed to help with positioning and catching enemies at least when compared to other Dawi. They're armour is pretty good for most armies, but among Dwarfs they're on the lower end of defenses.
*'''Rangers (Great Weapons)''': Ranger equivalent of Quarrellers(Great Weapons) with one key difference; unlike the great weapon Quarreler the Rangers give up their crossbows entirely in favor of shorter ranged, higher AP throwing axes. Surprise AP flanking is a thing any Dwarf list could ask for. Keep in mind that each dwarf only carries 8 axes, so they'll run out much quicker than other rangers. Once they run out of throwing axes they become a decent anti-armour skirmishing unit, although their low defense means they need to chose their opponents carefully.
**'''Ulthar's Raiders'''(ROR) a unit your should be more careful with than just normal Rangers with Great Weapons, as they get the [[Witch Hunter]]'s ability to Mark a unit for death. You do get a fair amount of range despite having only infantry speed, being able to strip an enemy of a lot of their protection they had against ranged weapons. Good take if your using a Focus fire strategy, assuming your can keep the Raiders safe while making back their cost.
*'''Bugman's Rangers''' Surprisingly not a ROR. Improved Rangers, having the regenerative and drunkenness properties of Bugman's liquid courage. they are better at fighting off harassers while their improved shooting and HP recovery help them win archer fights. These are to Rangers as Longbeards are to Warriors: a straight upgrade assuming you can afford it. In MP, they can last longer without support and work best if you're good at micro. If not, you're probably better just leaving them at home in favor of more units of regular rangers.

===Cavalry===
Does not exist. See Slayers, Rangers and Air Units if you want something fast, you beardling.

===Artillery===
*'''Bolt Thrower:''' Your cheaper anti-large Artillery. More accurate and shoots faster than a cannon, but outclassed by them in splash and penetration power. Best used to take out elite cavalry and monsters in the early campaign.
*'''Grudge Thrower''': Your first artillery unit. Fills a role like an Empire Mortar as a long-range anti-infantry weapon giving it has the largest radius of splash damage on impact.
**'''Gob-Lobber (Grudge Thrower)(ROR)''': Like the Grudge Thrower, but better. Also has live Goblins bolted to the projectiles. Causes morale penalties to targets, which stacks with the penalty for being hit by artillery.
*'''Cannon:''' Your classic artillery. Slow to fire but harder to dodge, best used as an Anti-large weapon while also killing models in high armor units, through can have difficulties hitting if the enemy zigzags too much like most Artillery units.
*'''Organ Gun:''' An effective horse begone tool, with good armor piercing and a ton of cannon balls flying everywhere, cavalry will quickly and efficiently die off in droves as your foe rages, if there’s no cav to shoot, then this thing is good for pulping infantry and can do a decent job at eliminating chariots.
*'''Flame Cannon''' Jack-of-all-trades artillery. Great area damage to deal with blobs of infantry and while it doesn't cause AP damage, its base damage is high enough that it doesn't matter. Funny enough, its stats make it much better at breaking towers and walls than cannons.

===Air Units===
The closest thing to "cavalry". Flying Bombers. Fill a role as the fast-moving guns to shoot at enemy flanks and drop anti-infantry bombs. The rotor blades can also dish out a good amount of melee damage, but having almost no melee defense makes them relatively fragile despite having high armor. They are often safe in the air, but keep them away from other flyers and AP missiles. Despite this, they are absurdly fast having speed in the 200s to run from most problems (only Pegasus Knights or Hawk Riders could catch them without nets or debuffs). To use effectively will require some mico.

*'''Gyrobomber:''' Your dedicated bomber which sacrifices other aspects to be the best at that. As a single mobile unit dedicated to hovering over infantry to drop annihilating bombs multiple times during a game, they obviously require the most micromanagement. A well placed carpet bombing can absolutely devastate the enemy frontline, and its machine gun can put out Ratling-Gun levels of DPS on a much more mobile platform.
Important to note that on small unit scale, the gyrobombers bombs are not reduced in damage, so one gyrobomber becomes an army-shredding machine on that unit scale, and putting 2-3 or even more in every army will be an auto-win for the campaign
**'''Skyhammer(ROR)''': Drops cluster bombs, so be aware that the damage-area is greater than the marker shows. Basically the Dwarfs answer to big aoe magic to obliterate chaff and elite units alike.
*'''Gyrocopter:''' Your anti-infantry skirmishers, shooting and bombing out those enemy gunners and artillery that thought themselves safe so far in the back. Also good at harassing the harassers that thought they could run a circle around the slowly pivoting Dawi gun lines.
*'''Gyrocopter (Brimstone Gun):''' Switches from general anti-infantry to majority AP damage to harass and focus down targets with more armor. Generally speaking, superior in almost every way to regular Gyrocopters. Fire damage puts a serious dent in units with regeneration (and Wood Elves) and the lower base damage is neglible when you take AP into consideration.

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===
Dwarfs are one of the most unique factions in the game battle wise, with an utter lack of mobility and magick, and focusing everything on tanky infantry that can deal decent damage, and powerful guns and artillery. Unfortunately for them, this uniqueness means that unless you're fighting other Dwarfs, you don't have any balanced match ups against other races. Against some you have a clear, obvious advantage and tend to stomp, and against others, they give you swirlies in the bathroom for your lunch money. This is why most competitive players think they're one of the best counterpick factions as you can avoid your bad match ups and play in a favorable situation. Anyway, here's how you can satisfy the grudge against the other races:

*'''Beastmen''': A rush faction, Beastmen will have a hell of a time against you, if you play your cards right. Their complete lack of armor leaves them quite vulnerable to Thunderer fire on the approach and Bolt Throwers can slice through Minotaurs and Cygors with relative ease. Keep a solid screen of staunch Dwarf Warriors between your ranged units and the enemy and bring (Giant) Slayers to turn the Bestigor and Centigor Herds into ground beef.

*'''Bretonnia''': The peasantry of the Bretonnians can safely be ignored (except Foot Squires, after their buffs they can actually fuck you up pretty good), as they'll struggle to do anything to your heavy armor. Instead, you'll want to focus on bringing down their armored cavalry, particularly the Grail Knights and Grail Guardians leading the charges into you. Trollhammer Irondrakes serve fantastically as a powerful Horse-B-Gone tool and your Giant Slayers can chunk through most of their cavalry so long as they're not the ones receiving the initial charge. Bolt Throwers are, again, a powerful tool to use while the Bretonnian cav is on the approach. Just make sure that you keep your flanks thoroughly secure.

*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarfs| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Here's the thing about the Dawi-Zharr: their Dwarf units are generally better than yours one-on-one but are far more expensive. You can fill the field with heavily armored and relatively cheap infantry while they have to fill it with greenskin slaves.As a result your army as a whole has better staying power than theirs. Your Thunderers in particular are much cheaper than Fireglaives and have better range than Blunderbusses. Chaos Dwarf artillery can pose a big problem as you are pretty stationary and that's what they love but your cannons get a lot more shots per unit than theirs do and if you play your cards right you can win artillery duels. Watch out for Magma Cannons however, as the burning vortex their shots leave behind can really mess up an artillery crew - focus them down first if possible. Chaos Dwarfs also have lots of big monsters and chariots which will be a problem for you just as they always are. Your best bet is to shoot them down ASAP and if all else fails have a few Slayers in reserve. Gryrobombers can do pretty good against clumped Chaos Dwarf elite infantry and have a place in this matchup.

*'''Daemons of Chaos''': Expect Khorne Furies and a mostly Slaanesh-roster. see Slaanesh's guide below on how to deal with this. The good news is that since daemons of Chaos don't have access to greater daemon lords, you 'might' be able to deal with their hero-class lords. But this is mostly a full pain matchup for you, due to the access to the Slaanesh-roster daemons have.

*'''Chaos Warriors''': For Grungni's sake, keep your distance! Chaos Warriors are as tough as you are and hit harder in melee. Stock up on Thunderers and cannons, and bring some great weapon fighters to finish them off. Slayers can help as long as you're careful to make sure the enemy can't hit back. Keep your eyes out for flanking cavalry and chariots, and pray to the gods you can shoot those heathens before they reach your lines!

*'''Dark Elves''': This is a really tricky matchup for you; Dark Elves are fast and bring absurd AP damage in melee and at a range. Your biggest advantage is your superior range and you'll need to lean on it heavily to stand a chance. Grab cannons, Grudge Throwers, Rangers, and Quarrelers and hope to Grungi you can shoot them down before they get close enough to return the favor.

*'''Dwarfs''': Hopefully you have a general idea on the strengths of this faction, you're playing as them! Anti-Armor, full stop. Organ Guns, take the Skolder Guard and bring some Hammerers to crack open your opponent's can.

*'''Empire''': The Empire can be a tricky one because they're almost as good at artillery as you are while also having good cavalry and skirmishers. You'll need to stock up on gyrobombers to disrupt their flanking cavalry and Slayers to take out their knights. Irondrakes can also work well at deleting any aggressive demigryphs or knights. Beyond that, you should double down on your strengths and keep your artillery safe; the human lines will break before yours do.

*'''Greenskins''': As satisfying as it is to bury an axe in a greenskins skull, you are better off dealing with these guys from a distance. Quarrelers and Rangers are your friends here; quantity is as important as quality when fending off a green tide. Organ Guns and Cannons will be better at dealing with monsters than your Slayers, you don't want to send unarmoured units against Arachnarok Spiders or Rogue Idols. Don't forget your Irondrakes and/or your flame cannons, they can melt down anything from goblins to stone trolls. And keep your flanks protected from chariots and pump-wagons, they can wreak havoc on your lines and just ruin your day.

*'''Grand Cathay''': This is another instance of a faction that does what you do, only a hell of a lot worse. Yeah, you won't have to worry too much about these guys when they show up. Your missile boxes beat their missile boxes, their Cav is subpar and will get eaten by Slayers, and the only AP infantry that they have is Anti Large, which you don't have. Box up, get some cannons and Quarrelers, sit back and enjoy some Bugmans as the Cathayans desperately try to figure out how the fuck they're getting into your backline. Yes they do have their own little airforce, but do you really think Umgi inventions can compete with Dawi Gyrocopters? No. If they bring Sky Junks, send some Gyrocopters after them to pick them down. This faction might get more scary as DLC comes out, but for now this should be an easy win as long as you know what you're doing.

*'''High Elves''': Don't let the War of the Beard fool you, this will be one of your hardest match ups. High Elves have a lot of things that threaten you, but the things to fear the most would be their Chariots, Mages, White Lions and <s>Sisters of Averlorn</s> (they do magic damage so their AP isn't as useful as you think). Seriously, any High Elf player who knows what they're doing is going to spam White Lions and it is going to SUCK. Your best bet is to spam either Gyrocopters or Cannons and spread the field. Force the High Elves to have to either attack your artillery emplacements one at a time, allowing your others to fire freely, or use your air power and artillery to spread them apart and pick off pockets. Hammerers also have a niche in this match up, because they beat White Lions pretty hard one-on-one and with support from guns or chaff, they can go toe to toe with Swordmasters (Though don't count on that). Of course, these plans aren't perfect. There's a 99% chance they will bring Alarielle for Tempest and heals to deal with Gyros and they have plenty of mobility to get at your cannons to give the White Lions time to get in. Sadly, this is one of those match ups where even if you bring the most optimized Anti Elgi list possible, there's still a pretty decent chance you'll lose. Avoid this match up if you can.

*'''Khorne''': It's Khorne, c'mon. Warriors of chaos with somehow even less ranged and even killier once they reach your front lines. Bring plenty of armor-piercing infantry and ranged. If you want to live, protect your artillery from Khorne's furies and calvary.

*'''Kislev''': Kislev's big weakness is that their ranged firepower is also their melee power due to hybrid units, and while this seems great at first glance, they sacrifice both elements to have the other. Your artillery and ranged firepower will dump all over Kislev, your biggest concern are War Bears and Sleds, to which you should apply Slayers. Focus down the wizards and you'll out-brutalize Kislev in good time.

*'''Lizardmen''': Lizardmen are a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, you can scoff at all the Skinks as they ping impotently off of your armor (unless they're the Red-Crested variety). On the other, Saurus are just as stubborn as you are and will take days to chew through without good AP. Bring some Hammerers to eek out an advantage in the inevitable grindfest you'll end up in. Take advantage of the Lizardmen's dearth of ranged firepower and massacre their forces with Irondrakes and Thunderers, while your Dwarf Warriors hold their front line at bay. You have excellent anti-monster units in the form of your Giant Slayers who absolutely will butcher any big dinosaur thrown into your ranks so long as you have some chaff to help trap and soak the damage the beasties can toss about. Though Skinks will largely prove a minor nuisance at best to a majority of your forces, you will ''definitely'' want to screen your (Giant) Slayers from the Skirmishing variety. Key players to watch out for are going to be the Slann Mage-Priests, Skink Priests and Kroxigors. Slann, especially fire/high Slann and Heavens Skink Priests can wreak utter havoc upon your forces with the myriad of vortex spells they can toss out, like candy from a parade float and they should absolutely be prioritized if you find them on the field. (Sacred) Kroxigors, if fielded, are surprisingly vicious anti-infantry monsters and will bowl over a majority of the infantry they're pointed at. Giant Slayers and Trollhammer Irondrakes serve as a solid counter, but you'll still want to swamp the Kroxigors in chaff to mitigate the damage they deal in turn.

*'''Norsca''': This is an easy fight for you. All of that monster hunting anti-large equipment the Norscans bring is going to fly right over your head as you bury your axes in their unarmoured pecs. Bring plenty of Cannons and Bolt Throwers to shoot down enemy Mammoths and bring some Irondrakes to shoot down anything else. Norscans are usually unarmoured, so you can trade your Thunderers for Quarrelers for the better range. Stick to the basics and you'll do fine.

*'''Nurgle''': Holy shit, a faction that might actually be slower than you! And it seems like you will have a hefty advantage as they don't really have a lot of ways to stop your artillery. The biggest thing you will probably have to worry about is their air force, and Furies and Rotflies will be gunning for that back line. Keep some Slayers near your guns, and get ready to surround them if they try to land. After that you just got to deal with Nurgle's rush of Plaguebearers and Nurglings, and I hope you're ready for nothing to ever die ever because that's likely what is gonna happen when Dawi and Nurgle clash. On the ground, Plague Toads and Pox Riders will likely be your biggest threat with their anti-infantry, but they're also big models, so guns and Slayers should do the trick. Expect a Herald as the commander, and if he's dumb enough to bring a Great Unclean One, laugh and shoot it to pieces. With the new debuffs fire damage does to healing, it might also be wise to break out the Irondrakes and Flame Cannons -- you'll have plenty of time to lob napalm at those shambling hordes of Plaguebearers.
** CoC DLC has brought some changes with access to marked WoC units for Nurgle; the units you will definitely see in this match-up now include Nurgle-marked Chaos Knights, Nurgle-marked Chaos Chariots, Nurgle-marked Chaos Warriors/Chosen with Great Weapons and Nurgle Marauder Horsemen with throwing axes. Knights & Chariots are especially a threat, as they will survive long enough from their speed+armour+Nurgle Mark to get behind your lines and wipe artillery or rear-charge your line infantry. Great weapon Warriors/Chosen, while still vulnerable to your guns when getting to your lines, are both units that have respectable chances of beating your units in the grind with their standard WoC stats, but now plus the Nurgle Mark. The Nurgle Warshrine is a strong support piece for the army, but like a GUO its something Dwarfs can delete so easily that you really should not see it. Generally expect Nurgle armies facing you to have a decent share of Nurgle-marked Mortal units from WoC now, unless your opponent hates themselves.

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This match is either gonna be your easiest or your hardest, as this comes down to the skill of you, the Ogre player, and what units you brought to the table. The Ogres have massive charge bonuses, but a lot of your units have charge defense, however unlike other factions, the Ogres will only lose half due to their Ogre Charge trait. The biggest threat the Ogres bring to you is their artillery, and if you leave them be they'll reap a devasting toll on your infantry. The good news is, that with the exception of Leadbelchers, all their artillery are a single model. Have your Cannons and Gyrocopters focus them down and you are good to go, or so you would think. Besides the Gnoblars, Ogres are all monster units, which means two things. One is that your artillery and Slayers will have a field day, but two is that their shockingly fast speed means they're gonna out run you and try to outmaneuver you at every opportunity. Your army should be a good balance of Longbeards, or if you are pinching pennies, Dwarf Warriors, they all have charge defense and can help hold the charging balls of lubber back. This is one of the match up where having a ton of Slayers is a good thing, and stack up on them to defend your back lines and cut the Ogres down to size. Your artillery should consist of two, maybe three Cannons to take out artillery and thin their numbers. Irondrakes with Trollhammer Torpedoes won't be a bad call, but they're on the pricey end. Besides some of their units, bring at least two, or simply one unit of Thunderers at most, because a lot of their stuff is unarmored, your main missile troop should be Quarrelers, they're cheap and will have a good time turning Ogres into pin-cushions and are strong enough to fend off Sabertusks. Your artillerys targeting priority should look something like this: artillery units (Ironblasters first, then Leadbelchers), Stonehorns, and finally, everything else. This should be the only match up where you shouldn't bother bringing Miners with Blasting Charges. The only thing they'll have an effect on is Gnoblars and strictly that, which is a waste of cash and will earn you a grudge for being wasteful. Now get out there and strike out some grudges agaisnt the fat bastards!

*'''Skaven''': This is probably the closest we'll get to a 40k-esque matchup (you know, <strike>aside the irony of neither the [[Squats|Dwarfs]] or Skaven being in that setting</strike> [[Leagues of Votann|The Kin has declared a Grudge against the manling who wrote that]]). Between your guns and artillery and their guns and artillery, most of the damage either of you will be dealing to each other will be done from afar. A majority of the Skaven infantry is quite helpless against your frontline infantry, but you'll have a hell of a time pinning anything down with the Skavens quicker movement speeds. Grudge Throwers are going to be king against most Skaven infantry builds, while Bolt Throwers or Cannons should be fielded to snipe any Warp-Lighting Cannons, Plagueclaw Catapults or Hellpit Abominations they have downfield. Warplock Jezzails will be a priority target to focus fire down, as are Warpfire Throwers and Poison Wind Globadiers, should they start getting too close. Aside utilizing their missile units against them, Skaven have absolutely no aerial presence, meaning your Gyrocopters will have virtually free reign to gun down rats at will.

*'''Slaanesh''': A bad day for you all around. It's become apparent, that if you're unlucky enough to run into Slaanesh, you're going to want to forego ranged firepower almost entirely, Miners with Blasting Charges and Ironbreakers will trade efficiently, maybe a safety pick of Thunderers to deal with a Keeper Of Secrets, but AP on everything, Furies, Spawn and chariots will just pulverize your formations in one of the most one-sided setups in the game right now.

*'''Tomb Kings''': The good news is that Tomb Kings don't like fire, and you have fire aplenty. Brimstone Gun-equipped Gyrocoptors are your fastest fire-delivery system, but Irondrakes and Flame Cannons are useful as well. The bad news is, that you don't like chariots, and they have chariots aplenty. Use every trick you can to soften up the chariots before they hit your lines; but it's unlikely you'll be able to stop them all. Grab some Giant Slayers to finish off the ones that survive your barrage and hope it's enough to keep them down. Tomb Kings infantry is no match for you, so you should build your army against their monsters and chariots.

*'''Tzeentch''': Ooh, here is somebody that's going to hate you. Tzeentch units are squishy and their ranged units only have middling range and are better for kiting. He also has no artillery other than Soul Grinders, few big monsters outside of Lords of Change, and relies heavily on spamming spells to activate their army abilities. Bring a Runelord or Thorek on an Anvil of Doom and laugh as their casters explode. Otherwise, pound them into dust with artillery, as they have few answers to an army with better range than them. Just guard the back line against Furies and Doom Knights and don't bother with air units, they'll get shot down in short order.

*'''Vampire Coast''': The most common Vampire Coast strategy is to bunker up with a large number of cheap ranged units and heavy artillery. If that sounds familiar, it's only because it's the same thing you like to do, you're just better at it. Bring plenty of Cannons and some Slayers to deal with the enemy monsters (hint: kill the Necrofex Colossi first). Once the big monsters have been dealt with, the pirates are basically just an inferior version of you, clumps of Quarrelers and Thunderers are plenty to take down the Zombies. And remember not to bunker up too tightly; you may have magic resistance but Winds of Death will still <i>hurt</i>.

*'''Vampire Counts''': Virtually nothing that makes up the rank and file of the Vampire Counts will pose a significant threat to you. Skeletons and Zombies will only serve to slow down your already plodding advance and only deal any meaningful "damage" to you simply by sponging your limited ranged firepower meant for something else. The only standard units that you'll find yourself at a significant disadvantage against will be the Cairn and Hex Wraiths, given your general lack of magical damage. You'll want to engage them with missile attacks for maximum effect and make sure that you are braced for their charges. The main thing you should be focused on taking down will be the Lords and Heroes leading the army; without them, the undead hordes will quickly fall apart (literally). They also pose the single biggest threat to everything you have, as their Lore of Death casters can delete swathes of your army with a single well placed cast if you are positioned carelessly.

*'''Wood Elves''': Wood Elves are an extremely annoying foe who are fundamentally the exact opposite of you. Their infantry can run circles around yours and they can deal frightening amounts of damage against their intended targets, but you'll snap their twiggy spines if you whip 'em with your beards. In general, you're going to be engaged in a very tedious game of "keep away", where the Wood Elves are going to be dancing just outside of your reach while their Glade Guard and Waywatchers pepper you with AP arrows and occasionally test your flanks for weaknesses via Wild Rider/Great Stag Knight cycle charges. Fortunately, you do have a couple tools the elves don't: Artillery. Grudge Throwers excel against WE infantry and can discourage them from trying to camp too far away, while Bolt Throwers and Flame Cannons will make mince-meat of the cavalry/Forest Spirits that may try to break through your lines. Speaking of Forest Spirits, Irondrakes will ''incinerate'' them. Slayers also help against the bigger tree spirits in theory, but the ranged power the Wood Elves bring make them a dicey proposition. As far as their melee infantry options are concerned, the only ones that majorly threaten you are the Bladesingers; their anti-armor magical attacks will scythe through your armor will jaw-dropping speed. Use Thunderers to soften them up on the charge then use Slayers to cut them down swiftly.

===Domination===
General Tier Rank: '''F'''

You are just SO FUCKING SLOW. You opponent is going to get to the point first, no question about it and most armies have plenty of ways to roadblock you in order to stop you from getting on them. While few factions will be able to contest you in a head on charge for the midpoint, once they start going for the side points you will have no way to out contest them. Important to note that there are some maps that you won't get completely dumpstered automatically. The more choke points that are on a map, the better it is for you because then the enemy will be more forced to try to take you head on instead of just avoid direct contact with you in an attempt to cap more points. However, even then there's no way you can outmaneuver your enemy unless they fall asleep at their computer out of boredom. Don't play Dwarfs in Domination until they get some major buffs, a DLC, or rework that will help them move around the map better.

However if you still decide to stay committed to playing dwarfs, the general tip is seize two caps at least and have a squadron of gyrocopters and bombers to harass the foe, ironbreakers are king here, jam them on a point and laugh as your opponent struggles to get them off, rangers and miners are key here as they are the only units with vanguard deployment (this includes the ROR ironbreakers) to delay the foe by brawling with them as your slower units get into position or to reinforce your troops if needed, slayers are necessary here as besides gyrocopters, their the fastest thing you got, bring along 3, 4 if needed, to both delete cav or monsters too big for their britches and do aforementioned delaying tactics, for artillery, on smaller maps, organ guns and flame cannons will be an excellent infantry/cavalry begone tool for clearing out points that are infested with enemy troops, as per the norm, bring a cannon to deal with enemy artillery and snipe monsters regardless of the map size, on longer maps, the grudge-thrower will be a much better alternative for clearing out points, but organ guns and flame cannons are a good deterrent for defending points, as they’ll delete blobs, just make sure there safe from enemy cav and flyers, however the one weakness as listed above, is your slowness, you need to be smart if you want to consistently win domination as dwarfs, assume a box formation as units in said shape, turn about faster and thus let them react to threats flanking around or move to different points faster if it’s necessary (keep in mind, it does not increase movement speed, it just hastens how fast they turn), while it is vulnerable to artillery fire, your cannons should already be firing at said artillery, follow this guide somewhat well and proceed to wipe every smug grin off with an axe, show every YouTuber good or otherwise how wrong they were as you strike out grudges and get vengeance for every domination tier list that put you in F tier!

===Campaign Strategies===
*'''Karaz-A-Karak''': Karaz-A-Karak starts out with a solid base economy and a protected position, with your flanks covered by minor dwarven factions and only one Greenskin faction as your initial enemy. However, that start is deceivingly simple at first; once Grimgor and Queek get going, your position will become increasingly precarious if you're not careful. Your biggest weakness is easily your very slow growth, as the Greenskins and Skaven often will have higher tier units much sooner than you do. Making the jump from Tier 3 to 4 as soon as you can is your top priority. Once your scary lategame units arrive, you can start to dominate the Southlands and expand in any direction you damn please.
**'''Pick Gronbrimdal (Mortal Empires only)''': There is no reason to ever pick Thorgim over Grombrindal as your starting LL. Grombrindal comes with a much better selection of starting units (Gyrocopters, Irondrakes and Thunderers) and his blue skill tree might be one of the most blatantly overpowered things in the game on its own, as Grombrindals variants of the perks not just affect his army, but your entire faction. Thorgrim can be recruited later down the line regardless.
**'''Don't get bogged down''': The initial 50 turns of any campaign might just be called "get ready for Grimgor". While you can expand quickly at the start, it is ill advised (and very tempting) to stray too far from your Capital and end up with your armies battering against your starting enemies while Grimgor happily carves a path straight towards Karaz-A-Karak. Losing Karaz-A-Karak becomes a win condition in this case; if you can successfully defend it, the Greenskins are finished, if you lose it, you can restart a new campaign.

'

*Clan Angrund''' In immortal empires Belegar's difficulty level has been severely reduced, on turn one as soon as you take your first settlement you can full-confederate Karak Izor instantly. After that it's the usual hop and skip to Karak-Eight-Peaks, however with it in Skarsnik's hands now, it's significantly easier to take as Skarsnik doesn't start with a full 20 stack army unlike the 'Crooked Moon Mutineers' from Warhammer 2.
[[Category:Total Warhammer]] {{Total War Warhammer Tactics}}

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Empire

2023-05-19T14:27:39Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

This is the tactics page for the Total War: Warhammer version of The Empire.

==Why play The Empire?==
*Because who doesn't love the sight of normal, everyday humans beating back the supernatural through sheer force of arms?
*A difficult, but very rewarding playstlye that rewards unit cohesion and combined arms tactics.
*Guns. Lots and lots of guns.
*Because the Karl Franz memes are too god damn good to not play them at least once.
*Humanity, fuck yeah!

===Pros===
*'''Jack of all Trades''': There's not a single department anyone can say you're bad in. The Empire can be played in a variety of different ways that can be viable from gunlines to infantry brawls to skirmish tactics. No plan is off the table for The Empire.
*'''Easy to Learn''': One of the more straightforward armies out there. It doesn't have any rules or units that are too complicated, but their wide roster brings a variety of tools to the table.
*'''[[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|Gunpowder]]''': Gunpowder units are powerful in this game and can easily swing a fight in your favor if they are allowed to do their thing. Handgunners and Cannons can make any army regret coming to the field if used well. Their artillery is amazing for its cost and can blast most things into kingdom come.
*'''Flexibility''': As explained before, The Empire can bring a variety of tactics to the table, which can make them hard to predict. They have an answer for just about every race in the game, and while they have some uphill match ups, they can get together a few lists against everyone/
*'''Cavalry''': A very strong Cavalry faction, up there with the best (which kind of detracts form the whole "Jack of all Trades" thing mentioned above) Empire Knights are amazing for their price, and Demigryphs can take on just about any other cav unit one on one and win.
*'''Powerful Legendary Lords''': The Empire has some of the best named characters in the game. Karl Franz and Volkmar can be a massive asset to any battlefield, and Gelt and Wulfhart can be used to amazing effect as well.
*'''Magic''': You have access to every generic lore of magic in the game, including Metal if you pick Gelt as your lord.
*'''Skirmishing''': Don't let all the flashy stuff the Norscans and the Dark Elves wave around fool you: You have some of the best skirmishing units in the game, if not ''the'' best. Both on foot as well as on horseback. Free Company work amazing for their cost and Outriders can be a terrifying mobile gunline when used right.

===Cons===
*'''Master of None''': The main downside of most Jack of all Trades factions. Everyone in the game outclasses you at something. Sure, your State Troops are crushing those Men-at-Arms, but you're cav just got ran over by Grail Knights. Your heavy cav chased of those Wild Riders, but now Waywatchers are putting out more value than your missiles could dream off. Yeah, your gunline and artillery are carving up the Chaos Warriors, but now that they are in melee you can kiss your frontline goodbye. You need to make up for your weaknesses when going up against certain factions.
*''' Mediocre Infantry''': your infantry isn’t bad but unlike most other factions yours isn’t really meant to win the fight, their meant for holding the line, they have average stats across the board but that is their main weakness, they can hold the line but they won’t beat the line, that job is for your artillery and cavalry.
*'''Aerial Inferiority''': Some of your lords and heroes have airborne mounts, but beyond that you got nothing in the sky.
*'''Difficult to Master''': most newer players pick Empire in multiplayer due to their relative ease of campaign in single-player, only to learn they are hard as hell in Multiplayer. The Empire is a faction that requires time and finesses to play perfectly and isn't something you can pick up and play.
*'''DLC Locked Content''': You don't have it as bad as some factions, but you do have some missing stuff you would like on the battlefield. Also, you are the only core race to never get an FLC lord, meaning if you are committed to not buying DLC, you're stuck with Franz and Gelt. (Not that they're bad choices, but more options are always good.)

==The campaign and unique mechanics (The Old World)==

The Empire pretty much fills out the entire northern part of the old world, giving you a very secure starting position with either Franz, Gelt, or Volkmar. The main routes into the Empire, except the infamous Black Fire Pass, are guarded by the Imperial forts from the south and west, and by Kislev from the north.

At the start of the game, The Empire is fractured into many independent provinces, each ruled by an Elector Count. Karl Franz, for example, is the Elector Count of Riekland and you play him as such. Each of the Elector Count factions have Fealty, which shows how loyal the individual Count is to the Empire as a whole. If their fealty reaches zero, they secede from the Empire and start a civil war; if it reaches ten, they will offer you a confederation, causing you to take direct control of their lands and existing armies. If you control the main capital of a province, you can make one of your lords the Elector Count of that province and receive a global bonus of some sort to one or more troop types, a unique passive bonus for the lord in question, and the Runefang of the province, which is an Epic item of some sort with a unique ability that ranges from amazing to useless.

The Elector Counts cannot form military alliances or confederate through normal diplomacy. Instead, the Imperial Authority and Prestige mechanics are used to represent the political power of your faction within the Empire and manage relations with the other Elector Counts. You basically want 1 Imperial Authority and 1000 Prestige at all times, and Elector Count events will give you more at the cost of money, prestige, or diplomatic relations. Prestige increases when you win battles or through events, as well through the number of controlled regions. As with Charles V, the key to ruling the Empire is giving the Elector Counts just enough independence to get themselves into trouble but not enough to cripple the Empire. Do not be in a rush to confederate them through the Imperial Authority mechanic; it builds up slowly and you'll find yourself drawn into frontier wars with powers hostile to the Empire culture instead of leaving it to the Elector Count AI to handle. The exceptions, generally speaking, would be Averland and Stirland, which have a tendency to get deleted by the Vampire Counts and thus inflict Authority losses that can snowball into civil war, the disintegration of the Empire, and mass public unrest in all your provinces. Either confederate those two provinces first, or get involved in the vampire wars and save them from extinction. Any civil war with another Elector Count is a mistake; it will cost you a great deal of Imperial Authority, especially if you actually conquer that Elector's territory and wipe them out yourself.

As is befitting for the most basic faction in the game, the Empire's economy is neither terribly bad, nor exceptionally good. There are few exploits or economic landmarks, aside from some major ports in the hands of neighboring factions, and the economic resources you would usually trade are generally in the hands of other Elector Counts at the start of your campaign, and you will either have to wait for those settlements to be taken by an enemy or fight an unprofitable civil war for them. For most of the early campaign you will be focused on fighting off rogue Greenskin armies and dealing with the Vampire Counts. Expansion opportunities are slim until you can build up some reserves; if you reconquer Marienburg you could expand into Couronne and knock out Louen Louencour early, leaving Bretonnia easy prey for your armies, but you will also be exposed to non-stop Norscan raids. If you try to conquer the Dwarfholds, expect a long, bloody, slog with a faction that should be your trading partner and buffer against the Greenskins, and if you think of heading into the Southern Realms you will find Skaven harassing you everywhere. The overall victory condition for the Empire campaign is uniting all the Elector Count provinces and defeating Archaon.

==Legendary Lords and Subfactions==
*'''[[Karl Franz]]:''' So Franz is your beatstick Legendary Lord and my lord is he good at his job. Thanks to his items he is widely considered one of the best non mage lords in the entire game. First off, Deathclaw is able to give him control of the skies and once you have it it should be what he's on for the entire game, campaign or multiplayer. Ghal Maraz also gives him +16 anti large and armor piercing, making him a damn scary monster killer, and wields the Riekland Runefang, which grants an AOE leadership and attack buff to his troops. Combine that with fear and terror and Franz can be a goddamn nightmare for a lot of factions to deal with. His only real weakness is that if your take him you're pretty much forced to being a Lore of Life mage due to how squishy he is. Aside from that, damn good choice for campaign and multiplayer.
*'''[[Balthasar Gelt]]:''' So Gelt is not only the only lord level mage you have, he's also your only access to the Lore of Metal. The Staff of Volans gives you a crazy amount of magic to play with, meaning you can get quite a few castings of Final Transmutation off in order to delete blobs. Plus, the fact that he can ride a Pegasus means he is decent at keeping himself out of trouble, though if someone gets their hands on him he's probably going to be in trouble. All in all he's a decent pick in multiplayer, especially against heavy armor or factions who love to blob, but there are just better options for you. In the campaign, he can get some crazy buffs to magic, armor, and artillery. Also memes. Lots of memes. Starts in [[Solland]] and not penalize for spreading into the mountains, so lots of non-"allied" factions to expand into.
*'''[[Volkmar the Grim]] (DLC):''' So if you want at least a semi-decent chance at winning the infantry fight, you got to bring Volkmar. On his War Altar of Sigmar, he can be a crazy powerful lord to assist your state troops. While you may see his lack of armor-piercing and wonder how the hell he's going to deal with armored troops, remember that it's his abilities that make him so good. He's got a buffed version of Shield of Faith and Soulfire meaning he can really buff up your infantry troops and deal with blobs fairly well, on half the cooldown normal Priests and Arch-Lectors have too. In the end, though, Jade Griffon is what makes him so amazing, as replenishment makes him ungodly hard to kill. Combine that with the fact that he can cast Banishment twice with no winds of magic use, and you got a buffing, blob destroying beast who can turn your infantry fights from a surefire loss to a possible win. In the campaign he's an alternative to Franz with a focuses on making a single Flagelent death stack possible.
*'''[[Boris Todbringer]] (DLC....Kinda):''' So our boy Toddy has an odd way to unlock him. You'd think he'd be the FLC choice for the Empire but no, CA did something kind of stupid. He could only be unlocked after beating the Eye for an Eye campaign you get when you buy Call of the Beastmen in game 1, and even then only in custom battles and multiplayer. Meaning you have to buy the Beastmen DLC, complete a crappy mini campaign and then you can bring Toddy to multiplayer but not make him playable on campaign. Yeah it's pretty dumb, thankfully you can find mods that only need to be used once to permanently unlock him. At least if you play the second game it's not gonna ask for the mini campaign (But he still remains unavailable as an LL choice on Mortal Empires, why CA, why). Good news is Boris is pretty good in combat. His runefang gives him passive regeneration meaning that while he doesn't do as much damage as Franz, you don't have to babysit him nearly as much. Still has terror and a good leadership and melee capabil bomb ability, so can be very good against low leadership faction.
*'''[[Markus Wulfhart]] (DLC):''' Markus is your choice if you love kite builds but are too manly to be an elf. With vanguard, stalk, nets and TWO different sniping abilities he can take a large target and burn it down pretty darn fast. Armor-piercing anti large means he like fighting factions that rely on big armored monsters, so if you're against someone who loves them, he will do wonders. His biggest problem is his lack of mount options meaning that he is pretty prone to getting gooned out and dying to any decent melee character who realizes he can't get away. He can do some great damage and help out your skirmishers with nets and buffs, but if your opponent wants him dead it's honestly not that hard for them to get him that way. His campaigns place him in [[Lustria]], where he wages a war of "colonization" against the lizardmen. As his underpowered forces escalate the conflict with the dinosaurs with [[lascannon|friken laserbeams]], your backers will ship you reinforcement to further their interests, letting Wulfhart play with late tier units very early in the game. In Vortex he is also gearing up with his fight with [[Nakai the Wanderer|Nakai]], Gathering up and leveling 4 special heroes to tip the scales in the climactic battle between two hunters.

==Units==
===Generic Lords===
*'''[[General of the Empire]]:''' Discount Melee lord. Budget Griffon rider, but most players will make room for a Karl or Boris instead.
*'''[[Arch Lector]] (DLC):''' comparison of discount Volkmar or Priest make lord. Still a good fighter and line supporter with his prayers. He rolled the lord and priest slot together so you can fill the vacant hero slot with a wizard.
*'''[[Huntsman General]] (DLC):''' Discount Wulfhart. Rather than being a powerful sniper, Huntsman is Support Lord for Gunlines. Has fire for days to inflict on Flammable and Regening enemies. Can also shoot exploding fire arrows, give units around him fire attacks and faster shooting, and an Oil attack that makes things weak(er) to fire and slows for more shooting time. Sees less use as most players need a fast-moving melee character to press the enemy and keep monsters off their weak holing lines.

===Legendary Heroes (Huntsmarshal's Expedition only)===
Markus Wulfhart gets four unique heroes to help his quest to conquer Lustria. All four start with Immortality, and three of them are totally unique to the Empire. In the campaign each of the four heroes has a quest chain that allows you to unlock new items and skills for them, much like Legendary Lords. Reaching the end of the quest chains gives each hero a unique effect to aid you in the final battle against [[Nakai the Wanderer]].

*'''Hertwig Van Hal''': An upgraded witch hunter who hates the undead with a passion, giving him bonus damage to all undead but causing diplomatic penalties with Vampire Coast factions. His quest chain gives him one of two abilities; he can either heal allied units, or temporarily make units around him unbreakable. If you plan to keep Markus and the gang together it's best to get the healing ability.
*'''Rodrik L'Anguille''': A Bretonnian paladin and the tank of Wulfharts little RPG team. He's a decent brawler but best used to protect the rest of the group with defensive abilities and high armour. Also, despite being a Bretonnian he [[fail|can't ride a horse]] and has to foot slog into battle, although he can get some speed bonuses with talents. Keep him in the front of the army, ideally with Hertwig or a life wizard nearby to keep him standing. In the campaign, Rodrik can choose between unlocking a unique sword for better offense, or doubling down on his tankieness with even more defensive abilities.
*'''Kalara''': A wood elf Waystalker and your premier assassin. She can venture out on her own with the deadly combination of snipe, stalk, and vanguard deployment; but she also has a few passive buffs to help allied ranged units. Keep her with some huntsmen, or ideally the Deathjacks, for a surgical kill-team that gives enemy lords and heroes nightmares.
*'''Jorek Grimm''': A Dwarf engineer who decided to work with the empire. He can entrench and replenish ammo for your artillary, two things the Empire cannot normally get and desperately needs. Jorek brings a bevy of inventions and items to the campaign, including a [[derp|caster item no-one in the group can use]] and even a freaking [[awesome|gyrocopter]]!, if you play thorek ironbrows quest battle, he is the wazzock you smack around when hunting the big one.

===Heroes===
*'''[[Empire Captain]]:''' Your generic melee hero, and honestly he is probably the worst one in that category. No AP, anti large or infantry, no special support abilities or powers, just a dude with a sword who can't really do anything against most dedicated combat character. His pegasus makes him mobile, letting him kite around the battlefield like a human missile. He's a decent mage hunter, but if you expect him to do anything other than that in multiplayer, prepare to be disappointed. Empire Captains just aren't as strong or resilient as the melee champions of other races. In campaign, a level 40 Empire Captain is a tank and should be used as such. He'll also do a lot better with a Runefang than either a Huntsmen-General or an Arch Lector, so if you appoint either as Elector Counts you should bring a captain to use the sword.
*'''[[Witch Hunter]]:''' Your designated assassin. Has decent melee capabilities, but his main use is his armor piercing pistol which, although short range, packs a hell of a punch. Comes equipped with the Accusation ability, wherein he points at an enemy and yells at it, lowering melee defense, armor, and missile resistance. Works well in conjunction with other ranged units for when you really want one specific unit to get obliterated. His short range and lack of any kind of mount really holds him back, especially against swifter foes.
*'''[[Warrior Priest]]:''' An excellent support hero, his buffs will make every unit around him temporarily win at combat no matter who they're fighting despite the fact your lines were supposed to be one of the weakest infantry in-game. In fact buffing infantry is the most effective use for him since their staying power allows them to make the most of his buffs.
*'''[[Warhammer_Magic#Classic_Lores|Wizards]]:''' One of the strengths of The Empire is that it has a Wizard for every occasion, bar partying with Gelt.
**'''Amber Wizard:''' Unique among Empire wizards, he has access to a griffon mount. Makes your stuff better at fighting and can summon a Feral Manticore for more aerial gooning. Don't rely on him for direct-damage; those spells are unreliable at best and you'll be better off going for a different lore of magic for that.
**'''Amethyst Wizard:''' Specializes for sniping single entities and units with small unit sizes. Aim for high value targets with lots of armor/physical resistance.
**'''Jade Wizard:''' The Hippy is the team medic, Very valuable in any list <s>that has Griffons</s> that has a high value unit or two.
**'''Grey Wizard:''' Specializes in debuffing enemies and occasionally reaping clumps of enemies. The more he casts, the faster your units become.
**'''Bright Wizard:''' A DPS caster that devastates Flammable (almost anything with regen or treekin) units in addition to boosting the damage output of your own.
**'''Celestial Wizard:''' A good, all-around lore. Lots of damage spells with a handful of buff/debuff spells.
**'''Light Wizard:''' Strong lore, letting your units catch a running monster or halt a charge, and can make the difference between your infantry standing and breaking in an important protracted battle.

===Melee Units===
*'''[[Spearmen]]:''' Bare basic troops that have a charge bonus against cavalry. Cheapest of chaff but no shield. You'll see these guys alot in multiplayer, Empire tends to skimp on infantry so they can put more money into missiles/cavalry/artillery.
*'''Spearmen (Shield):''' Spearmen but with better defensive stats and an ability to tank arrows while costing a teeny bit more. Unless a chaos host will be hitting your bare-bones settlement in 2 turns and it's the only thing you can recruit locally, always get Spearmen with Shields.
**'''Eldred's Guard''' (Spearmen)(ECST) In the campaign they are spearmen with expert charge defense and anti-large damage.
*'''[[Swordsmen]]:''' Your very basic melee infantry and the epitome of average. Doesn't do well against all but the weakest of enemy fighters (Think Skavenslaves, Peasants, Zombies) and will get positively obliterated by most of the baseline troops of the WH2 factions. That being said, they work well enough for their cost and have decent morale.
**'''Sigmar's Sons''' (Swordsmen)(ROR): Unbreakable and better defensive states, making them better qualified to hold the line.
**'''Swords of Ulric''' (Swordsmen)(ECST) Swordsmen with frenzy and fear, making them better frontline damage dealers.
*'''[[Greatsword]]s:''' Your melee infantry elite. As usual, nothing all that groundbreaking and a bit frail. They work really well as tarpits for enemy elite troops as well as being able to even drag some of their enemies with them, their great morale being a valuable asset. Used right, they can punch far above their weight.
**'''Carroburg Greatswords''' (Greatswords)(ECST): Unbreakable Greatswords that deal magic damage, as well as an area buff increasing nearby units melee attack. Tend to get focused down a lot by the AI.
*'''[[Halberdier]]s''': Available fairly early on and a really good option for your frontline. Halberdiers make Bretonnians and Dragon Prince's cry, they are a very cost-effective counter against all matter of heavy cavalry that gets thrown their way. They share the same boons of Greatswords: Armour-Piercing, good model count, decent morale. Granted only 40 armor and no shield means that if the enemy has any kind of missile unit, these guys are going to say hello to Morr very quickly.
**'''Nordland Mariners''' (Halberdiers)(ECST): The marines negate charge bonus from anything they brace against. They're also aquatic, making them good in fighting in maps with a lot of water like in lustria or on the high sea.
*'''[[Flagellant]]s (DLC):''' Your most cost-effective tarpit. While being ''extremely'' fragile, they tie down enemy units, especially those without bonuses against infantry very effectively. Generally speaking, they work better in MP than on the campaign, where Suicide units are not worth it. Combined with an Arch-Lector or Volkmar leading your army (especially the latter, who buffs their Physical Resist up to 33%), they turn into shockingly vicious chaff killers with Bretonnian levels of charge bonus and 50% Missile resist.
**'''The Tattersouls''' (Flagellants)(ROR): Even better at tying down enemy units, having both more health and bigger unit.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''[[Free Company Militia]] (DLC):''' These guys are a very good flanking and dual-purpose unit. They have no AP or much range but they make up for it by being able to fire while moving forward and being somewhat decent in melee for missile standards. This means they can defend themselves against hounds and be able to wrap around the flank, fire into the side or back, and charge if they run out of ammo. All in all a solid unit if used well. In campaigns their versatility makes the auto-resolve AI think they're far more powerful than they actually are.
**'''Stirland's Revenge''' (Free Company Militia)(ROR): come with Skalk and Immune to psychology, along with an ok amount of AP missile damage makes them fill a better ambusher role.
*'''[[Crossbowmen]]:''' your reliable shooting unit, a long-range of 160 and shots will arc over your units. Easy to use and cost-effective if facing enemies with low armor.
**'''Stir River Patrol''' (Crossbowmen)(ECST) Vanguard crossbowmen with fire damage and slowing attacks. Excellent when fighting undead and chaos monsters, dealing big damage while giving dedicated monster slayers an opportunity to catch them.
*'''[[Handgunner]]s:''' There's a reason why the Empire's described as being built on Faith, Steel, and [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|Gunpowder]]. While you do need micro to be effective due to their LOS firing arcs and you usually have to babysit them, Handgunners are a key part of an Empire Army as soon as they're available. These guys are excellent at melting away heavy infantry formations, and there are few things more satisfying than seeing lines of guns mow down a group of chosen. Yeah, selling your soul to the asshole gods was a great choice schmuckos!
**'''The Silver Bullets''' (Handgunners)(ROR): Handgunners with magic guns. Specialize in picking off high-value targets that rely on Physical Resistance for defense.
**'''Gunderson's Surefires''' (Handgunners)(ECST): Essentially free company who traded their pistols for full-sized handguns. They can't fire while moving, but they can vanguard deploy and do well enough in melee.
*'''[[Archer]]s (DLC):''' With a pitiful 120 range and better options on the table, the main advantage these guys have is that they're cheap as dirt and can be recruited at tier 1. Choice #1 if you want to save money and force your opponent to fight in the rain. You will get better results from other options, which have AP or move faster, but quantity has a quality all its own.
**'''Deathjacks''' (Archers)(ROR): What other archers wished they could be. They are set apart by having the powerful combo of Stalk, Snipe, and vanguard deployment, letting them be the ultimate skirmishers, constantly lowering the health of units while the opponent is not looking.
*'''[[Huntsmen]] (DLC):''' Human waywatchers only they swapped out AP for Anti Large. These guys are great at killing low armor monsters and cav and their ability to vanguard and fire while moving makes them ungodly annoying for any army that can't catch them. You're wasting shots if you put them into infantry and don't expect much against super heavily armored monsters, but they can be a pretty useful unit against the right factions.
**'''White Wolves''' (Huntsmen)(ROR): Huntsmen that don't imminently crumble when charged by light skirmishers. Your asking if your going to pay extra so a unit of Huntsmen don't immediately high tale it and probably stop participating in the battle when a unit of hounds bites them.

===Cavalry===
*'''[[Empire Knight]]s:''' Knights are one of the few units in the Empire roster that can be considered great. Boasting a decent statline, really good armour, and morale, they can hold their own with most cavalry in the game and only Dragon Princes, Blood Knights, and Grail Knights outperform them. That said, do not throw them against other cavalry; their bonuses provide anti-infantry damage, so use them as the hammer to your infantry's anvil. If you use them to fight, say, Knights-Errant, you will be disappointed.
**'''[[Knights of the Everlasting Light]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Bog-standard Knights with Magic Attacks. Counters Ethereal units and Daemons.
**'''[[Knights of Morr]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Knights that cause Fear and Terror. Will chase way anything that isn't fearless or unbreakable.
**'''[[Stubborn Bulls]]'''(Empire Knights)(ECST): Empire Questing knights with greatswords instead of lances. High AP cavalry, they are a good substitute for Demigryph Knights. The downside is you have to hold the Elector Countship of Ostland, which leaves you exposed to Norscans, Skaven, and Chaos invasions.
*'''[[Reiksguard]]:''' Upgraded Knights, same strengths, same weaknesses. If you're playing MP, take normal Knights, they do the same job for cheaper.
**'''Zintler's Reiksguard'''(Reiksguard) (ROR): Has Vanguard and Immune to Psychology. Gives a little more utility than Reiksguard.
*'''[[Knights of the Blazing Sun]]''' (DLC): Bog-standard Knights with Fire Attacks and Higher DPS values. That's all that is to them. Counters Regenerating units like many undead, tree people, and trolls.

===Missle Cavalry===
*'''[[Outrider]]s:''' Outriders rank amongst the best skirmish units in the game, period. Their repeater rifles deliver a tremendous amount of firepower at a decent range and they are very quick on their feet (or rather, hooves). This comes at the relative downsight that, unlike Pisoliers, they cannot fire on the move or in all 360 degrees around them, making good micro a necessity. If you want to have a reference point in how to use them to their best, try playing around with Dragoons in Total War: Empire.
*'''Outriders (Grenade Launcher):''' Screw Elven missile cav, Rotting Promethean Gunners or Norscan Missile cav, ''these'' are the definitive champions of the missile cav game and the best unit across all factions in that category. Grenade Launcher Outriders outright delete high model, low armor infantry and rack up a substantial amount of kills very quickly. Unlike other gunpowder units they can fire over obstacles. Their mobility, firepower, and high price makes them prime targets so keep them safe from missile units and skirmishers like warhounds with enough movement speed to run them down.
**'''The Bordermen''' (Outriders (Grenade Launchers))(ECST): Now with higher ratio of AP damage, letting them deal significantly more damage to high armor enemies.
*'''[[Pistolier]]s:''' If Outriders are your walking gunline, Pistoliers are your dedicated harassers. Fire on the move makes chases go very one-sided, which is their only real boon, apart from being cheap. Their missiles are fairly weak, don't pierce armour and even their ammo count isn't anything that spectacular.
**'''The Noble Sons Abroad''' (Pistoliers)(ECST): Pistoliers with better melee skills and armour. They hit almost as hard as knights on the charge, but without as much AP damage.

===Monsters Cavalry===
*'''[[Demigryph Knight|Demigryph Knights]]:''' Versatile monstrous shock cavalry with better survivability than normal cavalry and good armor-piercing damage. However, they are a fairly small and expensive unit that needs to be used carefully when facing factions with AP sniper fire or their own fast, anti-large units. Compares favorably to most heavy cav + monstrous cav with the exceptions of Brettonia's perfect vigor grail knights and the ogres with their even more monstrous mournfang + crusher cavalry.
*'''Demigryph Knights (Halberds):''' Slightly more expensive demigryphs with better anti-large and armor piercing. Better against elite infantry, cavalry, and monsters and generally taken over vanilla demigryphs.
**'''The Royal Altdorf Gryphites (Demigryph Knights)(ROR):''' A step up with better melee defense and terror to rout cavalry that aren't immune to psychology.

===Chariots===
*'''[[War Wagon]] (DLC):''' These things used to be a meme unit, though with the buffs they got I suppose you could make an argument for them. AP shots are nice and the additional tankiness can help them get out of some sticky situations. Plus they can function as chariots even without the AP in melee and the guys on the back can fire while in combat, so that's nice. Outriders will be better in 90% of situations, but honestly, they aren't ''absolutely'' useless.
: They do beat pistoliers and Outriders when it comes to being harassed. High armor and you loss out on potential firepower when all the unused ammunition dies with the models, so War Wagon gives you more shooting for your buck with each wagon taking a lot of punishment before one model is lost compared to how much ammunition is lost when a cavalry unit reaches that same health margin.
*'''War Wagon (Mortar) (DLC):''' Ok, so ''this'' is a meme unit. The extra mobility doesn't make up for the missing ammo and without the guns, to fire they are a hell of a lot worse in melee. Just take normal mortars, they'll do so much better and if you plop a spear unit by them they'll be defended just fine. (still, those Results can be pending) - Changes have been made to the Mortar Wagons, now not suffering from the range, damage, and ammo nerfs this unit previously had. They're still more expensive than regular mortars, so their usefulness is still dubious, although interestingly Mortar Wagons can hide in trees, if you want to conceal your artillery's position up until the last moment.
**'''The Black Lions (War Wagon):''' (ROR) Carries Helblaster Volley Guns and sometimes can shoot over infantry. As with mortar war wagons, it's better to just take the regular artillery. They might be a lot more useful in the campaign due to their instant veterancy. Slightly more useful than the above Wagon's due to it allowing you to get better Helblaster angles.

===Artillery===
*'''[[Mortar]]:''' The first artillery unit you have access to, Mortars are very powerful against blobs of lightly-armored infantry. Their slow and indirect fire means positioning the mortar is less important than ensuring they have as much time as possible to drop explosives on the enemy. While they can be effective against archers, they are very weak to direct attacks and should be kept as far back as possible. They are also fairly inaccurate; don't expect any precision, and keep them from targeting units locked in close combat with yours unless you are targeting the ground or the enemy has blobbed up a lot against a thin line of your own troops. Their best niche is probably in siege battles; lots of enemy units clustered on walls and behind gates are easy kills for them.
**'''Sootson's Guns''' (Mortar)(ECST): Deals magic damage and does not cause friendly fire, making it perfectly safe to shoot at your own units. If you can recruit more of them, and you have not yet unlocked Helstorm Rocket Batteries or want to save money, do so. They are straight-up better than standard mortars.
*'''[[Great Cannon]]:''' Good Ol' Reliable. Will blast holes in most things it hits, thanks to its high AP damage, but it can really only hit things bigger than a house. As is traditional for Total War, you can manually aim and fire the cannon to better aim your shots. Given the nature of its cannonballs, it is surprisingly powerful when fired into the flank of enemy formations, but very inefficient if they're coming straight at the cannon. Surprisingly, they shine best in sieges, able to blast enemy towers, gates, and walls into rubble far faster than mortars. You're not going to get very many of these unless you're planning to do a lot of sieges with that army or planning to fight big, slow monsters like Dread Saurians. Vargheists and Varghulfs, while theoretically good targets, are fast enough to dodge the cannon shots and close in to kill the crew.
**'''Hammer of the Witches''' (Great Cannon)(ROR): Magic cannons that deal 100 more damage per shot. Great when facing elite units with high amounts of physical resistance or ward save.
*'''[[Helblaster Volley Gun]]:''' Fairly good in the hands of a veteran player. These are basically Gatling guns, mowing down infantry and nearly impossible for monsters and cavalry to dodge, unlike cannons. However, good positioning is needed to use them to full effect, and compared to Dwarf [[Organ Gun|Organ Guns]] they have shorter range, lower AP damage, and a slightly lower rate of fire. Get the Black Lions if you can, as their mobility really helps make the best of the Helblaster.
*'''[[Helstorm Rocket Battery]]:''' The cheese stick of the Empire on the campaign map. Given how fragile your melee line is to getting bogged down by at least decent enemy fighters like Night Goblins or Skeleton Warriors, Helstorms are your answer to massive big blobs of chaff. Sporting a ludicrous range combined with nine rockets per salvo ''per piece'' makes them perfect for thinning out hordes of Greenskins, Skaven and Undead. It has got two problems though: Its accuracy is more of a lucky guess at range, where the Helstorm follows the philosophy of "if i throw enough bombs at my enemy, one will hit them", the second and far worse one is that its damage against armoured elite infantry like Chaos Warriors or Swordmasters is subpar at best.
**'''The Sunmaker''' (Helstorm Rocket Battery) (ROR) Trades lower ammunition for significantly more Fire damage. Basically a Cruise Missile that makes Skaven think twice if they should invest in Infantry.
*'''[[Luminark of Hysh]]:''' A Giant's worst nightmare, the Luminark of Hysh deals the most damage of any artillery in Total Warhammer 1. Very accurate, on par with an Amber Spear and with very mild tracking effects, but specialized for targeting single entities. These are great for sniping high-value enemy units, like Lords, Heroes, and Dragons, especially if you can pin them down in some way. The bigger the target, the easier it is to hit with the Luminark. They also have a map-wide debuff that saps their enemy's ability to recharge their Winds of Magic and give your backline an impressive 12% ward save (resistance to physical and magical damage). However, they are near useless in melee, despite being powered by a Light wizard, and cost a lot. Look after them.
**'''Templehof Luminark''' (Luminark of Hysh)(ROR): Can cast Net of Amyntok to stop any unit within range, making it an easy target.
*'''[[Steam Tank]]:''' A heavily-armored, Unbreakable vehicle with a bow-mounted cannon and a turret-mounted steam gun for 360-degree counterattacking capability. As the cannon is mounted in an armored housing, it cannot be angled to target targets below the tank, so make sure that you place the tank on the downhill slope if you put it on high ground. The steam gun itself is fairly weak but has unlimited ammo, making it useful against blobs of low-to-medium tier infantry. The tank also has melee capabilities and a good charge, so it isn't entirely useless even after it runs out of ammunition.
**'''The Emperor's Wrath''' (Steam Tank)(ECST): Has the ability to vent hot steam, preventing enemy units from engaging it for a short time and dealing a decent leadership debuff. It explodes when destroyed, taking out a chunk of whatever was attacking it.

==Tactics==

===Campaign Strategies===
general overall empire strategy: In Campaign, the crucial thing with Empire is having the right army composition. Usually, you gotta have the lord and 1-3 heroes, 2-4 cavalry/chariot units, 2-4 artillery units, no more than 4-6 missile infantry units, and the rest (around a third of your army) MUST be hand-to-hand infantry units. Do NOT go overboard with artillery and missile units, always have, at the very least, 6-8 melee infantry units, and use your general and melee heroes to hold back the enemy. Get this into your head: your melee infantry is your worst weakness, but it's also your backbone. Without them, all your shiny and deathly artillery will fail miserably. Your infantry is mediocre at best: low armor and hp make them die to a breeze, with bad strength they don't kill shit, and most of all, their low morale will make them run pretty soon. The combination of all these factors makes them very unreliable. More, more unreliable than you think when you begin the battle.

First of all, you need numbers: without that, you'll lose, 100% guaranteed. Even if you win a battle with only five swordsmen units and get cocky, in the next battle you'll find they're only at half strength (Empire infantry gets decimated in each battle, even victorious ones) and you'll get your ass handed to yourself. Get halberdiers asap, their defensive nature makes them perfect for an Empire gunline (which most of the time your army will be). You also need to place them right (spears/halberdiers in the flanks to protect against cavalry, no weak points in the battle line, no exposed flanks), and you need to support the right (heros with "Hold the line" and priests with battle prayers evenly distributed in the line, cavalry in the flanks prepared to intervene when necessary, mages to buff the line/debuff the enemy). Without a reliable wall of steel in front of them, your missiles and artillery won't have enough time to do their thing, and if the enemy gets to them, not only will they stop firing, they will suffer great (perhaps irreparable) casualties, the nearby units will get demoralized, and you'll have to dedicate a lot of resources to contain the breach, weakening the rest of your line. Do NOT let your battle line get breached!

When you progress in the game, you won't have to rely so much on the h2h infantry battle line. Your griffon/horsey general/captain/priest, with all their buffs, can contain whole units by themselves, your mages can use their flying mounts to position their spells where they are truly devastating, your high-end artillery can work miracles, and demi-gryph knights can operate independently. And yet, do not delude yourself: without a good battle line, all will be for naught. Greatswords are good but not truly great (heh), do not think they are Ironbreakers or you'll pay for it. As always, even if I repeat myself, never leave home without around a third of your army being melee infantry!

About mages, remember, with Empire the name of the game is buff/debuffs. Your little guys truly need them, do not use missile and offensive magic unless you have a lot of magic reserves and will get a lot of advantage when doing it. Later in the game, when you have a good mage with lots of magic reserves, some vortexes, either moving or immobile, and things like Comet of Cassandora can be outright devastating when the massed enemy is being contained by your battle line and you cast them right in the middle of them. But even then, only do it AFTER you have buffed/debuffed the right units and have the battle more or less under control.

About pistoliers/outriders, they only shine when you have many of them, and can shoot a unit while it's occupated pursuing your other units. This is especially true with outriders, who can't move and shoot. Lonely units won't do much, but having said that, even if they only manage to get one enemy infantry unit away from the main battle when the action takes place, they have justified their cost.

About empire knights and all their variants, remember that even with all their armor they die fast in prolonged combat, or get whittled down by the enemy fire. Never let them get too far from your battle line, where their slowness (for cavalry) can make them get surrounded and destroyed by the enemy. Their primary use is to support your infantry, not to chase enemy missiles away (although they can and should do that sometimes, of course).

To sum it all up, never forget that, in this game, Empire is the closest thing to managing a real-life army: one moment of overconfidence and many lives will be lost!

===legendary lord, immortal empires guide===

'''Karl Franz:''' in immortal empires, his starting position got a hell of a lot harder, surrounded by enemies on all sides, elector counts with a death wish, and did I mention enemies on all sides?

your first goal as always is to wipe out the rebels, take Helmgart, and start building for when Grom or tree-Hitler come knocking, the next order of business, is to rescue Middenland or Stirland, Middenland tends to die first in most cases due to Festus and kazarack, Festus in particular must die, as he often kills Hochland and the penalty's when in negative authority are HUGE, so rush up north and kill him fast, getting an arch-lector with points in untainted can be helpful with removing the large amounts of chaos corruption there will inevitably be due to those bastards, the next step is to kill the vampires, and if luck is on your side, Stirland will have at least one settlement left or gelt is helping to hold the line, buts it's still not easy, if you're really unlucky in reaching Festus and/or kazarack, they can leave vast portions of the empire as ruins and you'll have to put up with kislev and others trying to settle said ruins, and good luck getting them back, as the AI is a bitch about trading settlements, you can offer them 50k gold but there's a high chance it will fail regardless, forcing you to wage war on what should be an economic ally/meatshield for all the daemons up north.

to wrap up, Karl is surrounded by enemies on all sides, the Ai is annoying as ever, counts are suicidal and the imperial authority is what ends your campaign, as the counts die left, right, and center.

well, my good man, you have your work cut out for you, may the odds be in your favor! FOR SIGMAR!

'''Balthazar gelt:''' '

'''Volkmar the grim:'''

'''Markus wulfheart:'''

===Multiplayer Strategies===
The Empire is supposed to be the quintessential Jack of all Trades faction. You are good at a multitude of strategies, but you also don't overtly specialize in anything. This flexibility allows you to be one of the more unpredictable and versatile factions in the trilogy, allowing you to use all kinds of tactics from skirmishing to gun lines to infantry rushes and heavy cav builds. Sadly, while you are good at using these multitude of tactics, every faction in the game will out match you in something. Sure, you have the tools to exploit the weaknesses of others, but if you try to out skirmish the Wood Elves or out melee Chaos you shouldn't be surprised when it goes tits up for you. Contrary to what you may believe as the main human faction, this is not a beginner friendly army and needs experience and good micro to use well. Still, you have plenty of ways to take the field and destroy your enemies. FOR SIGMAR!
*'''Beastmen''': The Beastmen are going to get into melee whether you like it or not, but you can soften them up before they get there. Bring crossbows and handguns to soften the enemy up, and some spearmen and halberdiers to absorb the enemies charge. If your micro game is strong you can do some good damage with pistoliers; but free company are to slow to keep away from the beastmen. Bringing Toddy isn't just fluffy, he's pretty great against low leadership enemies like beastmen. Don't bring normal artillery unless you can keep it totally bubble-wrapped with infantry; a steam tank will usually work better than a couple of cannons. You should bring at least one Luminark to deal with enemy monsters, just keep it safe from flanking attacks.
*'''Bretonnia''': Your cavalry is good, but the Bretonnians will win in the cycle-charge game. Halberdiers are your best friends here; they can split knights apart with their high AP and anti-large damage. Keep some handguns and hellblasters to shoot the knights down when they break away from melee, and bring some outriders to delete the enemy elite.
*'''Daemons of Chaos''':
*'''Chaos Dwarfs''': Your best bet is to go very wide, with a lot of cheap spearmen for your frontline. Chaos Dwarf elite infantry is very expensive and they'll usually rely on a lot of "Labourer" chaff units to cover the field. Your spears will hold fine against them. You probably want to bring at least one Great Cannon or other artillery unit to keep the Dawi-Zharr. Magma Cannons are good at burning down artillery crews but your cannons get four shots to their one. For real killing power though you want to exploit your superior mobility. Bring Outriders, Knights, Demigryphs, and War Wagons. Almost all of them will do fine in melee against Wolf Raiders and can quickly reposition to try and avoid Chaos Dwarf gunlines. The best counter against you in this case is Bull centaurs but Bull Centaurs are slow for monstrous cavalry and can be easily kited by War Wagons. Leave your Handgunners at home; they're too stationary and will get blasted to pieces by the many horrifying artillery pieces the Chaos Dwarfs can roll out.

*'''Chaos Warriors''': Chaos generally don't bring their elite infantry options here as they're very vulnerable to missiles and most state troops are unarmored to start with. As such, Greatswords can be a great support tool for your frontline. Two of them can help take out most Chaos infantry aside from Chosen with support from spears. Aside from that, your options generally revolve around whether you want to pick Franz or Volkmar. If you pick Franz to deal with monsters, go for mobility. Two outriders can tear most of the Chaos army apart and you can use Empire knights to protect them from lighter maurader and hound units. Be sure to bring a life wizard to keep Franz alive. If you want Volkmar to guarantee an infantry win, a few handgunners can be brought to pick apart Shaggoths and a couple cav units and a light wizard with nets can be used to support them.
*'''Dark Elves''': This is one of the few match ups were Lance Demigryphs are better than the Halberd version. Due to the amount of range AP the Dark Elves bring the shield is super important to help keep them alive, and since Dark Elves don't rely much on heavy cav these guys are better for cycle charging infantry. Aside from that, your main issue is going to be dealing with all the mobile range. Pistolers trade very cost effectively against Dark Elf ranged cav and Markus can help make sure they stay in place with his nets. Handgunners are also good to get rid of their scarier units like Morathi and Malekith. If you want a lord that can actually fight if needed, Volkmar is great with some heavy cav as long as you can protect your ranged pieces. Generally Dark Elves like to go on the offensive, so you're the one who will have to turtle up with an unbreakable frontline and try to pick off all of the good targets that you can.
*'''Dwarfs''': Dwarves are the Empire turned up to eleven, which makes sense considering how much the Empire learned from the dwarves. Their artillery is better than yours, their infantry are stronger, and their lack of magic is made up for with their innate magic resistance. The Empire is faster, which can help, but high Dwarf leadership and melee defense means cycle-charging isn't a surefire strategy. Generally, you'll want to separate dwarf units, especially their ranged units from their melee units, and flank the former while occupying the latter's attention with a line of disposable Greatswords and the like. Huntsmen outrange dwarf ranged units, and can be used to good effect when skirmishing, while Outriders' high AP and speed make them very effective on larger maps. Forget Pistoliers, Archers, Swordsmen, and Spearmen; their low AP makes them useless against everything except Slayers.
*'''Empire''': As above, separate front- and backline units and take out the artillery. The Empire's variety of wizards presents a moderate challenge, requiring you to pay much more attention to positioning and movement of your ranged units if you want to get rid of them without excessive losses.
*'''Grand Cathay''':
*'''Greenskins''': Are you into kiting? If not, tough luck. Orcs just straight up walk all over your melee troops and Black Orcs and Trolls bring enough AP damage on their own to give your elite infantry a very hard time. You'll need to tarpit their slow, lubering advance long enough for your missle troops and artillery to shoot them to pieces. Helblasters and Hellstorm Rocket Batteries work wonders to thin out the green tide and Outriders can be a pain in the Greenskins arse to deal with since nothing they have is fast enough to catch them... until their ammo runs out, that is. You can also get good mileage out of Demigryphs, greenskins don't have anti-charge units and their cavalry will lose to yours.
*'''High Elves''': THe only other roster to be as generalistic as yours, and believe it or not, you actually have a sizeable advantage. For one, none of your otherwise flimsy infantry is actually that bad against HE baseline options like Rangers or Spearmen due to bigger units and higher HP. Second, your artillery can seriously ruin the day of any units the High Elves can bring. And finally, any of your options is much more cost-effective in comparison; you can bring two units of Swordsmen for the price of one unit of HE Spearmen, and even one unit of Swordsmen can handily win against them. Their elite units have "shoot me" written all over them for your artillery and missile units, a request you should oblige.
*'''Khorne''':
*'''Kislev''':
*'''Lizardmen''': Use your artillery to devastate their infantry, use your gunners to hunt down their monsters, use your infantry only as a last resort if the Lizardmen close the distance. If they have Terradons, prioritize accordingly; Riders can be ignored, FireLeech Bolas can't. If you can shut down their speedier units (like Cold One Riders, Carnosaurs or Horned Ones), your cavalry can get some solid work done through some well placed cycle charges while keeping two steps ahead of the plodding lizards. In general, you'll want to have your forces in a relatively lose formation; between the Slann, Skink Priests and various AoE abilities at their beck and call, you don't want to lose half of your frontline to a Banishment or Chain Lightning cast, something they'll be able to toss about relatively frequently.
*'''Norsca''': The traditional foe of the Empire is vulnerable to being flanked, their access to Hounds not withstanding. Cavalry can be put to good use against Norscans as they close in on your forces, though the many units equipped with big shields in their army mean you'll have to micromanage your archers and gunners in battle. Your biggest challenge will be dealing with and clearing out the Norscan's faster units before their slower infantry and monsters crash against your lines, as many of their faster units are going to be very good at dodging artillery fire, and indeed at closing on your artillery crews.
*'''Nurgle''':
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This should be an easy matchup if you play it right. With Huntsmen, Markus Wulfheart, Great cannons, and Luminarks combined with the Ogres' relative lack of armor and shields, they will quickly be reduced to big, chunky corpses. As long as you watch out for Gnoblar Trappers, your missile cavalry will have a field day gunning down Ogres. Consider targeting Ogre artillery with yours due to the amount of damage they can do from afar and up close. Bring an anti-large frontline, but support it when melee is joined to make winning the close fight possible.
*'''Skaven''': Weapons Teams will slaughter your infantry if you let them. Use your artillery to outrange them, and use your heroes to clear out mobs of Stormvermin and Bombardiers. Empire infantry, ranged and melee, are much better than theirs, but beware their summoning abilities lest they destroy your firing line. Empire cavalry, particularly Pistoliers, can be useful if you don't have many heroes, but large Skaven units can bog them down easily after the latest cavalry/mass changes.
*'''Slaanesh''':
*'''Tomb Kings''': Target the Tomb Kings. Everything else, bar the Sphinxes and Scorpions, are a distraction and waste of ammunition. Use your infantry to bog them down and keep firing.
*'''Vampire Coast''': As with all undead factions, you should try to take down their leader as soon as you can. Leave your unarmored footmen at home; anyone without a shield will be shot to death in short order. Bring plenty of long range firepower and at least one or two Luminarks to take down the enemy monsters (prioritize Necrofex Colossi first, then Leviathans, then everything else). Pistoliers are a good choice for this army; most of the enemy infantry units have no armour to speak of. When picking magic support there really isn't a wrong answer for this matchup, but anything with a vortex will do great against large hordes of slow-moving enemies.
*'''Tzeentch''':
*'''Vampire Counts''': Target the Vampire Lords. If you can't, avoid wasting your precious ranged units' ammunition on chaff like skeletons and zombies and focus on the high-value targets: Heroes, Corpse Carts, Wraiths, and monsters. Don't bunch up your infantry too much; Vampire lores of magic are devastating to infantry blobs. Your best strategy is getting a Fire Wizard or 3 on pegasi, as the Vampire Counts have no ranged units.
*'''Wood Elves''': Their archers will outrange your gunpowder units, but they don't have anything that can ''quite'' contest your artillery. Thin their ranks with some Mortars or Helstorm Rocket Batteries and have Shielded Spearmen or Halberdiers screen against their cavalry or larger Forest Spirits. Speaking of which, the Luminarch of Hysh does ''disgusting'' damage to any (Ancient) Treemen stumbling across the battlefield, while a Bright Wizard can make kindling of any Dryads or Tree Kin on the field. Once they get closer, light them up with all manner of firepower. A majority of their roster is unarmored and generally unshielded; they'll take heavy losses. Take a care against their elite infantry; though squishy, they are veritable blenders who will make short work of your soldiers should they make it into melee.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''A'''

As a jack of all trades faction and the way domination works you can reliably 'summon in' answers to whatever your opponent does on the fly. The empires roster is decently mobile and you have lots of options to counter-act your opponents strategy wether it's calling in demigrphys if the lizardman player brings in some dinos or doubling down on artillery you have a great ability to adapt on the fly and win the match

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

Hobgoblin

2023-05-18T21:16:10Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

[[File:4e Hobgoblins.png|300px|thumb|right|A pair of hobgoblin soldiers. Be careful: it's likely there's more around.]]
Tougher than [[Goblin]]s, smarter than [[Bugbear]]s, they're the [[Alignment|Lawful Evil to Goblin's Neutral and Bugbear's Chaotic]]. Usually considered militaristic and malevolent, but often overlooked as cannon fodder like their smaller Goblin cousins, Hobgoblins can prove to be interesting and formidable enemies to a group of player characters, and have the capacity to be pretty badass if you want them to be. Also have a love of slavery (though that’s not exactly unique). Physically, Hobgoblins are generally portrayed as being very large and strong, usually at least as tall as a human. They range from rust to amber in color and sometimes have blueish purple noses or ears. Their ears tend to be overlarge and they have either dog-like or extremely long noses. [[Meme|They also are the CEO of sex.]]

=Hobgoblins vs Orcs=
If you google something like "[[Dungeons and Dragons]] Hobgoblin", you'll get a lot of results where people are asking what the real difference is between Hobgoblins and [[Orc]]s. Aren't they just the same thing with a different name and drawn slightly differently and carrying different weapons? Well, not exactly.

The short but not especially helpful answer is, to quote the Daily Bestiary blog: "Orcs may have hordes, but Hobgoblins have ''armies''."

The longer and more expositional answer is that way back at the dawn of Dungeons and Dragons, [[Gary Gygax]] wanted to have a distinct monster with distinct stats at every early Challenge Rating (1-7). This distinction has been grandfathered in all the way down to [[Pathfinder]] and 5th Edition, though the exact differences in stats has changed over the years, and it's usually combined with the flavor portrayal - [[Orc]]s being the tribal savages, Hobgoblins being the well-organized and relentless force. [[Rule Zero]], of course, means you can choose to use both creatures, only one, or neither, as you feel like. If your campaign is likely to travel long distances and visit vastly different regions, it can be useful to have two creatures that fill a similar niche and yet are distinct in certain ways from each other. In addition, publishers sometimes give Hobgoblins the more exotic weapons, armor, and tactics, with [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] portraying hobgoblins with an almost "oriental" cast ([[samurai]] armor for the 1e version, Mongolian clothes for the 2e), which is something that [[Pathfinder]] preserved.

For those of you who follow Tolkien, the traits of the [[Lord of the Rings]] [[Orc]]s were actually split between Dungeons and Dragons' [[Orc]]s and Hobgoblins. D&D Orcs are reminiscent of the cave-dwelling ambushers Bilbo met in the Misty Mountains or the hordes that Sauron used to attack Gondor, while D&D Hobgoblins are more like Saruman's Uruk-hai.

Perhaps to try and reinforce the split, unlike [[orc]]s, hobgoblins are usually not suggested to be capable of interbreeding with other races... at least, not since [[thoul]]s stopped being a thing. Then the [[Kingdoms of Kalamar]] setting for 3rd edition decided to just say "fuck it" to that noise, introducing the Sil-karg, or [[Half-Hobgoblin]], to go alongside the [[Half-Orc]].

=PC Stats=
As it turns out, that natural lawfulness means that when you get down to it, hobgoblins are a pretty decent option for monster adventurers. After all, if they're not as murderously self-interested as standard Chaotic Evil monsters, then logically they can find common cause to adventure with humanoids for whatever reasons.

In fact, Hobgoblins have actually been playable in literally every single edition of D&D, from Basic through to 5th.

==BECMI==
Basic D&D presented Hobgoblins as a PC race in the 10th of the Known World Gazetteers, which makes sense if you're aware that Gazetteer #10 was "The Orcs of Thar". Hobgoblins received the following traits:

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<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
::Hobgoblin Ability Modifiers: +1 Strength, -1 Dexterity
::Note: Like all Humanoids from "The Orcs of Thar", a Hobgoblin has racial ability score caps of 18 in all scores bar [[Intelligence]] and [[Wisdom]], which are capped at 16.
::Note: Like all Humanoids from "The Orcs of Thar", a Hobgoblin determines its [[Charisma]] score for interacting with [[human]]s and [[demihuman]]s by dividing its Charisma score by 3 (rounding down) and subtacting the result from 9.
::Hobgoblin Natural Armor Class: 8
::Can become [[Shaman]]s (8th level) and [[Wokani]] (4th level).

{| class=wikitable
!Hobgoblin's's level || XP Required || Hobgoblin's hit dice
|-
|0||0||d8+1
|-
|1||1,200||2d8+2
|-
|2||2,400||3d8+3
|-
|3||4,800||-
|-
|4||9,600||4d8+4
|-
|5||19,000||5d8+5
|-
|6||38,000||6d8+5
|-
|7||76,000||-
|-
|8||150,000||7d8+5
|-
|9||300,000||+2 Hit Points
|-
|Subsequent||240,000||+2 Hit Points
|}
</div></div>

==AD&D==
In AD&D, hobgoblins were naturally added in the Complete Book of Humanoids, along with most other savage humanoids like [[orc]]s, [[goblin]]s, [[gnolls]] and [[ogre]]s.

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<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
::Ability Modifiers: -1 Charisma
::Ability Mins/Maxs: STR 6/18, DEX 6/18, CON 5/18, INT 3/18, WIS 3/18, CHA 3/14
::Available Classes: [[Fighter]] (11), [[Cleric]] (9), Shaman (7), Witch Doctor (7), [[Rogue|Thief]] (12)
::Natural Armor Class: 10
::Hit Dice: By class
::Infravision 60 feet
::40% chance to detect new construction, sloping passages, and shifting walls when within underground complexes (roll 1d10; the hobgoblin senses these features on a 1-4).
::[[Dwarves]] receive a +1 bonus to attack rolls vs. hobgoblins.
::Weapon Proficiencies: Long Composite Bow, Morning Star, Scimtar, Spear, Whip, Pole Arms
::Nonweapon Proficiencies: Armorer, Blacksmithing, Bowyer/Fletcher, Brewing, Chanting, Close-Quarter Fighting, Direction Sense, Fire-Building, Hiding, Intimidation, Looting, Religion, Weaponsmithing, Wild Fighting
</div></div>

==3rd Edition==
Hobgoblin PC stats were actually all over the place in 3rd edition! First appearing in the Monster Manual as an NPC, they got their first full PC stat block in [[Forgotten Realms: Races of Faerun]], and were reprinted a few times after that, remaining identical in every printing:

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::+2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution
::Base land speed 30 feet
::Darkvision 60 feet
::+4 racial bonus on Move Silently
::[[Favored Class]]: [[Fighter]]
::[[Level Adjustment]]: +1
</div></div>

You may wonder just why it is that they get a +1 LA rating? Well, the truth is it's because WotC dramatically undervalued class levels and overvalued ability score bonuses.

In [[Eberron]] Hobgoblins were one of the great empires of the past and have a sovereign, recognized nation plus a history of mercenary work. While not exactly ''respected'' in most of Eberron, including one in an adventuring party is perfectly plausible.

===Kingdoms of Kalamar===
Hobgoblins got a major promotion as one of the core playable races in [[Kingdoms of Kalamar]]. Unfortunately, as KoK was written for 3.0 by a bunch of hacks who somehow thought that 3e would take all the "warriors dominate at low levels" elements of [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] and turn this into flat-out [[Fighter]] supremacy instead of doubling down on [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards]], their stats are generally regarded as being really crap.

The Tellene Hobgoblin first appeared as PC option in the KoK Player's Guide, where they were largely identical to the 3.0 hobgoblin... save for the fact they got a new +2 racial bonus to Listen & Spot checks, and that they escaped the +1 [[Level Adjustment]] by suffering a -2 penalty to ''all three mental stats''.

Tellene Hobgobs subsequently got their own racial [[splatbook]] which offered up five different subraces to play as... are they any better than the original? Well...

;Krangi
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<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
::+2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma
::Medium Size
::Base speed 30 feet
::Darkvision 60 feet
::+2 racial bonus to Listen and Spot checks.
::Racial Weapon Proficiency: Proficient in the use of Short Sword, Halfspear, Longsword, Dagger, Crossbow, and Javelin.
::Racial Armor Proficiency: Proficient in the use of Light Armor and Medium Armor.
::[[Favored Class]]: [[Fighter]]
</div></div>

;Kargi
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<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
::+2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma
::Medium Size
::Base speed 30 feet
::Darkvision 60 feet
::+2 racial bonus to Listen and Spot checks.
::+4 racial bonus to Hide checks.
::[[Favored Class]]: [[Fighter]]
</div></div>

;Kors
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<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
::+2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -2 Intelligence, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma
::Medium Size
::Base speed 30 feet
::Darkvision 60 feet
::+2 racial bonus to Appraise checks dealing with armor, weapons, and raw metals.
::+4 racial bonus to Hide checks.
::[[Favored Class]]: [[Fighter]]
</div></div>

;Dazlak
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<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
::+2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -2 Strength, -2 Intelligence
::Medium Size
::Base speed 30 feet
::Darkvision 120 feet
::+2 racial bonus to Survival checks in Desert environments.
::Energy Efficient: A Dazlak requires only half the amount of food and water to survive that a human does, and can operate for 48 continuous hours without penalty
::[[Favored Class]]: [[Fighter]]
</div></div>

;Rankki
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<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
::+2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Dexterity, -2 Intelligence
::Medium Size
::Base speed 30 feet
::Low-light Vision
::+2 racial bonus to Listen, Spot and Search checks.
::+2 racial bonus to Survival checks made to deal with the weather.
::[[Favored Class]]: [[Fighter]]
</div></div>

Tellene is also home to the [[Half-Hobgoblin]], who is at least competing with the [[Half-Orc]] for "crappiest racial stats of 3e".

==4th Edition==
Hobgoblins appeared in 4e's 1st [[Monster Manual]], alongside many other iconic monstrous races. They weren't particularly exciting when they did, but they were functional and certainly not as badly off as in some editions:

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::Ability Scores: +2 Constitution, +2 Charisma
::Size: Medium
::Speed: 6 squares
::Vision: Low-Light
::Skill Bonuses: +2 Athletics, +2 History
::Battle Ready: +2 bonus to Initiative checks
::Racial Power - Hobgoblin Resilience: Once per encounter, as an immediate reaction to being affected by an effect that a save can end, you can make a save to end that effect.
</div></div>

4th edition would later present them as a Winning Races article in [[Dragon Magazine]] #419. In this version, their ability modifiers were +2 Con and +2 to Cha or Int, they gained the Phalanx Soldier racial trait (+1 to AC if you are wielding a shield and standing adjacent to a shield-wielding ally), and Hobgoblin Resilience was replaced with Hobgoblin Discipline (1/encounter, as a free action, immediately end an ongoing save-ends effect at the start of your turn).

==5th Edition==
Nasty mid-level monsters. Low hitpoints, but good armor for monsters and have a faux-sneak attack that deals a shitload of extra damage when they focus-fire on a single target, which they ''will'' get off because your brain-dead party couldn't focus-fire on the squishy-but-deadly guys if their lives literally depended on it, right? ''Volo's Guide to Monsters'' added brutal monk/cops that can turn invisible and powerful blaster wizards that get faux-evoker powers and can apply that faux-sneak attack to all of their spells. Even the AoEs.

Added as a playable race in in ''Volo's Guide to Monsters'', along with both the other [[goblinoid]]s. Mockingly described on /tg/ as being all [[wizard]]s, since Int bonuses are scarce and getting additional weapons and armor is a lot better for classes that don't already get them, but a Con bonus is welcome in any class.

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::Ability Score Increase: +2 Constitution, +1 Intelligence
::Size: Medium
::Speed: 30 feet
::Darkvision 60 feet
::Martial Training: You are Proficient in two martial weapons of your choice and light armor.
::Saving Face: Hobgoblins are careful not to show weakness in front of their allies, for fear of losing status. If you miss with an attack roll or fail an ability check or a saving throw, you can gain a bonus to the roll equal to the number of allies you can see within 30 feet of you (maximum bonus of +5). Once you use this trait, you can't use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
::Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.
</div></div>

===Post-Tasha's===
The ''Folk of the Feywild'' [[Unearthed Arcana]] article, which would later be published in ''Mordekainen's Monsters of the Multiverse'', saw a drastic rewrite for the Hobgoblins, and this one was considerably...lighter compared to the original writeup, turning them more fey-like but also making them less of an auto-take. This also makes Hobgoblins add more uses to the oft-ignored Help action.

Part of this is that they represent the original lore about them being originally Fey who were subjugated into soldiers. This also makes more of an effort to tie in the magic of reciprocity, that is the spirit of giving and receiving.

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<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
::Ability Score Increase: +2 to one stat and +1 to a second or +1 to three different stats.
::Size: Medium
::Speed: 30 feet
::Darkvision 60 feet
::Fey Ancestry: You have advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the charmed condition on yourself.
::Fey Gift: You can use this trait to take the Help action as a bonus action, and you can do so a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Starting at 3rd level, choose one of the options below each time you take the Help action, whether as a bonus action or an action:
::*''Hospitality:'' You and the target of your Help action each gain a number of temporary hit points equal to 1d6 plus your proficiency bonus.
::*''Passage:'' You and the target of your Help action each increase your walking speeds by 10 feet until the start of your next turn.
::*''Spite:'' Until the start of your next turn, the first time you or the target of your Help action hits a creature with an attack roll, that creature has disadvantage on the next attack roll that it makes within the next minute.
::Fortune from the Many: If you miss with an attack roll or fail an ability check or a saving throw, you can draw on your bonds of reciprocity to gain a bonus to the roll equal to the number of allies you can see within 30 feet of you (maximum bonus of +5). You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses you finish a long rest.
</div></div>

===Eberron===
Keith Baker later introduced further hobgoblin subraces in ''Exploring Eberron'', mostly for the Dhakaani culture of ancient goblinoids reemerging in secret after locking themselves away from the Age of Dust deep beneath the Earth, ''[[Fallout]]'' style. They are specifically known as the Dhakaani ghaal’dar (mighty folk), and are the leadership caste of their society. They also have different subraces for different specializations:

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> Click "Expand" to see the statblock.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
::''Ability Score Increase'': Your Constitution score increases by 2.
::''Age'': Ghaal’dar mature at the same rate as humans and have lifespans similar to theirs.
::''Size'': Ghaal’dar are between 5 and 6 feet tall and weigh between 150 and 200 pounds. Your size is Medium.
::''Speed'': Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
::''Darkvision'': You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
::''Discipline'': You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed.
::''Languages'': You can speak, read, and write Common and Goblin.
::''Subrace'': Within the Dhakaani caste system, young ghaal’dar are trained to fulfill one of two roles. Guides are diplomats and scholars, while soldiers are devoted to war. Choose a subrace for your ghaal’dar character.
:::'''Guide:''' As a guide, possibly a duur’kala bard, you’ve been trained to lead your people.
::::''Ability Score Increase'': Either your Intelligence or Charisma score increases by 1 (your choice).
::::''Lead By Example'': If you fail an ability check or saving throw, you can gain a bonus to the roll equal to the number of allies you can see within 30 feet of you (maximum bonus of +5). Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
::::''The Guiding Arts'': You have proficiency in two of the following skills of your choice: History, Medicine, Performance, or Persuasion.
:::'''Soldier:''' As a soldier, you’ve drilled in the art of war since childhood. Ability Score Increase.
::::''Ability Score Increase'': Either your Dexterity or Strength score increases by 1 (your choice).
::::''Strength in Unity'': If you miss with an attack roll or fail a saving throw, you can gain a bonus to the roll equal to the number of allies you can see within 30 feet of you (Maximum bonus of +5). Once you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
::::''The Arts of War'': You have proficiency in two of the following skills of your choice: Athletics, Intimidation, Perception, or Survival.
</div></div>

===3rd Party Settings===
;World of Farland
On the other hand, if you want a more expected sort of hobgoblin PC race, take a look at the [[World of Farland]], which gives us this statblock: the biggest difference is that Farlandish hobgoblins are literally bred for either of two military castes, and have subraces reflecting this.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> Click "Expand" to see the statblock.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
::Ability Score Increase: +2 Constitution
::Size: Medium
::Speed: 30 feet
::Darkvision 60 feet
::Born to War: You are Proficient in ''all'' Martial type weapons.
::Tactical Mind: You have Advantage on Intelligence checks relating to battle tactics and strategy.
::Subrace: Choose either the Cavalry-Bred or Legion-Bred subrace.

''Cavalry-Bred'' hobgoblins are bred as beastmasters and, obviously, cavalry.
::Ability Score Increase: +1 Dexterity
::Hard to Kill: You have Advantage on Death Saving Throws.
::Beast Trainer: You have Proficiency in Handle Animal, and when you are mounted, you gain Advantage on the next attack you make after your mount is struck by an attack.

''Legion-Bred'' hobgoblins are the rank-and-file warriors of the hobgoblin legions.
::Ability Score Increase: +1 Strength
::Martial Advantage: Once per short rest, if you hit an enemy that is also within 5 feet of a non-incapacitated ally of yours, you can deal +2d6 damage.
::Stern: You have Proficiency in Intimidation.
</div></div>

==Pathfinder==
On the world of [[Golarion]], hobgoblins are the result of an ancient attempt at [[fleshcrafting]] ordinary [[goblin]]s into bigger, stronger, and smarter forms that could then be used as expendable soldiers to defeat the [[elves]]. The elves managed to stop their creators before they could install controls, but not in time to keep them from hating elves instinctively or from seeking to conquer and destroy. Nice going, pointy-ears. Since they hate elves, they hate arcane magic as well, to the point even [[Sorcerer]]s are unheard of among them. They make up for this with [[Alchemist]]s, [[Oni|Ja Noi]] allies, the occasional devil-worshiping shaman/[[Cleric]], and engineers (the kind that makes mundane siege engines and fortifications rather than steampunk).

Golarion hobgoblins are most notable because they're supposed to be completely hairless... but, as Paizo began using them more frequently, hobgoblins with hair became increasingly common in their artwork. Rather than admit that this was just a result of different artists ignoring that lore, Paizo retconned that Golarion hobgobs are hairless... but scalp humanoid foes they defeat and make wigs out of their hair, which they wear as symbols of prowess and honor.

Their stats are unchanged from 3E, except they lose level adjustment and, per [[Pathfinder]]'s changes to the skill system, their move silently bonus is now a bonus to Stealth. They have options to trade away this bonus for a few things, and one thing to trade their darkvision for, but in the end the only reason to bother with playing one is the way that they coincidentally have the perfect ability scores for a [[Kineticist]].

=Gallery=
<gallery>
<center>
Hobgoblin 1e.jpg|1e
Hobgoblin MM 1e 2.jpg
Hobgoblin A2.png
Hobgoblin MCV1.jpg|2e
Hobgoblin 2e.png|DiTerlizzi art from the 2e Monstrous Manual.
Hobgoblin 3e.jpg|3e
Hobgoblin Forces 4e.jpg|A troop of hobgoblins from the [[Nentir Vale]].
Hobgoblin 5e.png|The infamously lion-faced hobgoblin of 5th edition .
TWBTW Hobgoblin stilt-walker.png|hobs on stilts
Hobgoblin_Fire.jpg|A Hobgoblin Firebrand from the [[Pathfinder]] RPG
Hobgoblin_Commander.jpg|An [[weeaboo|Oriental]] style Hobgoblin commander, also from Pathfinder
Hobgoblin Wyrmlord Ulwai Stormcaller.jpg|They're over here....
PF Hobgoblin Chieftess.jpg|...And they're over there...
PF Hobgoblin Bombadier.jpg|...Those Darn Hobgoblins are everywhere!
Hobgoblin B1.png
Hobgoblin ARG 1.png
Hobgoblin ARG 2.png
Hobgoblin SF 1.png
Hobgoblin SF 2.png
2fa1c3e162bb169c0375f4e7f04d0548.jpg|If anything, Hobgoblins can make some pretty good beer.
</center>
</gallery>

==Warhammer Fantasy==
The Hobgoblins of Warhammer Fantasy are backstabbing, selfish, and treasonous to the point even normal goblins seem chill compared to them. So much so that they evolved a bony plate in their back to ward off backstabbing. Their culture is vaguely Mongol Horde inspired: riding giant wolves and living in nomadic caravans along the Eastern Steppes where they regularly torment [[Grand Cathay]]. Their leader, [[Hobgobla Khan]], was the reason the Cathayan Great Bastion was built. Hobgoblins are loathed by the other Greenskins for siding with their Chaos Dwarf Masters in the Greenskin Slave Rebellion of Zharr-Naggrund, which is why you never see the little buggers beyond the Dark Lands.

Now in Age of Sigmar, the Hobgoblins (renamed Hobgrots) follow the swamp-dwelling sub-faction of the Orruks Warclans called the Kruleboyz, Orcs that are more Mork than Gork in thinking. Hobgrots are bigger than the usual grots (goblins), and even though they do follow the Kruelboyz, they are more of a middle-man in a selfish tripartite symbiosis between the Kruleboyz, themselves and a mysterious clan of [[Chaos Dwarfs|Chaos Duardin]]. They fight using crude sulphuric stick grenades that they pocketed from their stunty overlords. Tribes of Hobgrots are fiercely protective of each other, so most Kruleboyz don't bully them as much as other grots, and they may form small empires in wastelands. Also, they're one of the few species of Humanoid Greenskins (non-Squigs) who aren't actually Green. Their skin in official model paints is depicted as being sallow yellow. This is ironic, due to them no longer looking like racial stereotypes of asians.

Being made into a playable race in [[Age of Sigmar Roleplay]] has introduced a more opportunistic angle to the Hobgrots. While just as greedy as any normal goblin, the Hobgrots are more enterprising and especially capable bargainers. They seemingly have a better grasp of commerce, enough so that they have a compulsion to trade up their goods for more valuable treasures.

{{Chaos Dwarfs-Forces}}

==Monstergirls?==
[[File:MGE Hobgoblin.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The MGE Hobgoblin... because, when your goblin looks like a horned [[loli]], what's easier than just slapping tits on it, naming it hobgoblin, and calling it a day?]]
{{monstergirls}}

Because hobgoblins are not readily distinguished from [[goblin]]s in the eyes of most people, the idea of a hobgoblin monstergirl is an uncommon one at best. Perhaps the most believable depiction of a hobgoblin MG would be as a race of [[goblinoid]] [[amazon]]s; curvy female goblinoids who use force to secure what they want, be it land, wealth, or a human boytoy.

For what it's worth, there is ''one'' D&D adventure where a sexy female hobgoblin appears; [[Red Hand of Doom]] features Wyrmlord Ulwai Stormcaller, a female hobgoblin stormsinger whose rare blue eyes and uncanny good looks have attracted much torment for her throughout her life, as other hobgoblins have accused her of being half-human, or even half-elven. The same description also calls her a masterful liar even though she has no ranks in bluff and her art is pretty far from sexy, so take the description with some skepticism.

In the [[Monster Girl Encyclopedia]], hobgoblins are portrayed as ditzy, dim-witted, clumsy oppai loli variants of the common goblin; despite being even dumber than their flat-chested sisters, goblins adore and revere them, seeing their huge breasts as a sign of great power and potential. Perhaps because hobgoblin mamono are even more ridiculously super-strong than the goblins are themselves; they may not have much going for them, but if they hit you, then you '''stay''' hit. Or else it's because the common goblins are smart enough to realize that breasts are a huge advantage in terms of having fun whilst having sex.

Most art of sexy hobgoblin girls typically depicts them as mildly-muscled, sharp-faced elves with skin tones in varying shades of red, usually possessing protruding canine teeth and cat-like eyes or yellow sclera, and occasionally includes extra bits like bright blue patches on their pulse points, tiny horns, or strongly-hooked/otherwise oddly-shaped noses.

<center>
<gallery>
File:Hobgoblin Cleric.jpeg
File:Hobgoblin Wizard.jpeg
File:Hobgoblin Fighter.jpeg
File:Hobgoblin Monk.jpeg
File:Hobgoblin Astral Self Monk.png
File:Hobgoblin Artificer Bust.png
File:Hobgoblin Landsknecht.jpeg
File:Hobgoblin Paladin.jpeg
File:Hobgoblin Wizard Bust.png
File:Hobgoblin Bust.jpeg
File:Hobgoblin Kimono.jpeg
File:Hobgoblin Engineer.jpeg
File:Hobgoblin Swimsuit.jpeg
File:Hobgoblin Artificer.png
</gallery>
</center>

==See Also==
*[[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition races]]

{{D&D1e-Races}}
{{D&D2e-Races}}
{{D&D4e-Races}}
{{D&D5e-Races}}
{{Pathfinder-Races}}
{{Starfinder-Races}}
[[Category: Goblin]]

Heresy

2023-05-18T21:14:08Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{awesome}}
{{heresy}}
{{topquote|+++ Any person who speaks ill of the Emperor, the Imperium, cites his loyalty to any entity besides the Emperor, defaces holy artifacts or buildings, incites heretical thoughts or actions, talks openly about forbidden subjects and generally behaves in a manner disrespectful to all that is holy and good will have his extremities removed and left to bleed to death, for the Emperor's pleasure. The body will then be burned to ensure no taint remains.+++|The [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer]], Art 6741/09a}}
{{topquote|Beware the [[xenos|alien]], the [[heresy|heretic]], and the [[mutant]].|Thought for the Day}}
{{topquote|Since the time of Sigmar Himself, we have been no more than a flickering beacon of hope amidst a sea of despair and corruption, but never before have we faced so many dangers. We must suffer the simple-minded liberalism of our burgomeisters, the sanctioning of magic use, the heresy of false prophets and religions, the arrogance of the Arch-lectors, and the convoluted plots of the Dark Gods - the rot has sunk deep into the flesh of the Empire, where even now it festers and grows. The time has come to act and only within this proud and ancient order lies the strength of will, the zeal, and the righteous fury required to save us. They call us Witch Hunters, in their fear and ignorance, without even the slightest idea of the monstrous deeds we must commit on their behalf.|The Witch Hunter's Handbook}}
{{topquote|Betrayal isn't ridiculous. It's the reason empires fall.|Marisha Pessl}}

[[Image:Heresy_vein-popping.png|thumb|right|'''HERESY''' must be regarded with the [[RAGE|appropriate]] [[Exterminatus|severity]].]]
In [[Warhammer 40,000]], '''heresy''' (or {{BLAM|'''''HERESY!'''''}}) is the most severe accusation the Imperium can make against one of its citizens. It is almost always punishable by [[Blam|death]] or [[Arco-flagellant|worse]]. Most commonly, Heresy involves what real-world politics would call High Treason: willingly consorting with [[Chaos]], unwillingly consorting with Chaos, acknowledgeding the existence of Chaos (basically anything to do with Chaos bar annhilating it in zealous flame), betraying the Imperium to Xenos, which the Imperium gravely forbids, and in particular anyone guilty of [["If only."|merely suggesting anything good about Chaos]] will receive a [[Exterminatus|retribution of Inquisitorial proportions]]. In terms of mass Heresy, [[Exterminatus|mass cleansing]] is often applied as punishment. However, heresy, depending on the tolerance of your planetary government, can also include blasphemy against or defamation of the Emperor and/or the Imperium; saying anything against the Imperial Creed, which details pretty much everything not related to the veneration of the [[Empra]].

The trials for heresy are broad, but the majority of them occur [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jViTte8VAzU&feature=g-vrec like this], or [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BxFlmb6S6E this], or [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg this] or even [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnF1OtP2Svk this]. The funniest thing is that 99% of the time heresy is actually heathenry since heresy is revering the same God but differently (catholics vs protestants or ecclesiarchy vs mechanicum) while heathenry is worshipping something completely different (shinto vs hindu or Chaos Gods vs The Emperor).

==What IS heresy?==
[[File:1289624777422.jpg|200px|thumb|They're all around you.]]
[[Image:Witch Hunters Handbook.jpg|thumb|left|The only book you should ever learn to read for.]]
The Imperium realizes that heresy is a serious matter and that its implications and consequences must be made perfectly clear to all servants of the Emperor, from the lowliest serf to the highest commander. And so with the aid and wisdom of the Inquisition and the Holy Ecclesiarchy, the definition of heresy in the eyes of our immortal God-Emperor is made known:
*EVERYTHING IS HERESY
*<s>EVERYTHING</s> {{BLAM|HERESY!}}{{BLAM}}
*Banging an Eldar lady is probably heresy too, but try saying that to your Commissa{{BLAM|QUESTIONING YOUR COMMISSAR IS HERESY!}}{{BLAM}}

If you are not sure if something is heresy, it probably is. Play it safe and report it so that it can be properly BLAMMED.

Those interested in finding out more about heresy for the express purpose of removing it from our world are encouraged to check out a copy of ''"The Witch Hunter's Handbook"'', which is available at any Temple of Sigmar and contains useful information on the subject, as well as amusing anecdotes from the late Kasper von Liebenstein. (The second edition has been cleansed of its borderline-heretical text by Huntress Karin Schiller. Reprobates in possession of the first edition copy are required to burn it immediately and repent of their sin of knowledge or else be deemed heretics in the eyes of our Lord Sigmar.)

==But Seriously, What Is It?==
[[Image:Canossa-gate.jpg|thumb|right|Extra heretic Henry IV re-evaluates some of his life choices.]]
Well, outside of the [[Warhammer 40000|the Warhams]] world, heresy is derived from the word '''Heterodoxy''', a Greek word used to describe deviation from ''Orthodoxy'' or established religious doctrine. While most established religions have their share of offenses which are considered "heresy", the word has become most closely associated with the Roman Catholic [[Inquisition]], and by extension all of Christianity because they're the ones that made the biggest splash in Europe and most of the world. Consequently, this whole section will focus mostly on them in the brief history below.

Seeing that Catholic doctrine dictates that the Pope is the guy who has the keys to Heaven, and has a direct phone line to God, he could issue orders of excommunication and interdiction, meaning the affected people and/or countries were effectively permabanned from the Heaven server; The Pope can still do this (and has, notably on Nazis and Cartels) but no one really cares what some old fart in a funny hat thinks any more. Also, way back before books were mass-produced and education was widespread, Peasants (and even some nobles) couldn't read so everyone went to church because the Priest was the only guy who could actually read the Bible. Worse yet, the Bible was written in Latin because that was considered the proper language in much the same way Weeaboos insist that subtitled anime is better because you're listening to the original Japanese. The first attempt at translating it into English ended with the translator being burnt at the stake.

This had severe consequences, as Christianity had far more power and influence in Western society then than it does today. For starters, heresy was considered a one way ticket to [[Warp|Hell]] which, whether or not you're a Christian and believe Hell actually exists, everyone can agree it's a horrible place. Also, there was the little issue that all important oaths of the day were sworn before God, meaning excommunication rendered them null and void. Since the Catholic Church functioned as the court of last appeal for most major matters, this could make the excommunicated person an outlaw, which was especially bad for excommunicated nobles and monarchs. Your [[knight]]s and vassals didn't have to serve you, your [[peasant]]s didn't have to pay their taxes, and if one of them tortured and killed you they could get <strike>in good with the clergy which could lead to rewards</strike> high fives from Jesus. This gave the Church incredible power, which many of the clergy wielded like a club to bludgeon people into acting correctly. And by "correctly", we mean "however the Church wanted them to act at the time" (sometimes justified, sometimes not). The only way to get an excommunication lifted invariably involved large amounts of donations to the Church and/or general ass-kissing.

Now for all we like to joke about the [[Warhammer 40000|the Imperium]] being "Catholic Space Nazis" for their Gothic aesthetics, its has more in common (including its stance on heresy and badass double-headed eagle) with the Eastern Orthodox Church, most notably in Byzantium: The secular and ecclesiastical organizations existed separately, but they were meant to supplement and support eachother ("symphonia") and Ecclesiarchy was kind of part of the Imperial administration, with Emperor having serious influence. So while excommunication by the church may have meant the severing Eucharistic ties for an individual rather than actual corporeal punishment, due to above-mentioned concept, he would be considered to be a criminal by the state. So instead of being lynched by the mob of autists, you would get judged by the state itself. Though instead of getting {{BLAM|BLAMMED}} they would mostly get exiled in some remote monasteries in middle of nowhere.

[[Image:tic.jpg|thumb|left|A hairy tick on the prowl.]]
That isn't to say there wasn't real heresy going on for a while. In the early history of Christianity people developed some funny ideas that lasted for a surprisingly long time, despite the Church telling them to stop in a very pointed manner (and if that failed, out came the pointed objects). These heresies could be grouped into two rough categories- the Trinitarian/Christological heresies and the Gnostic belief systems. To put it in terms someone who isn't a theologian could understand, the former is basically a bunch of people coming up with their own ideas about Jesus' nature and relation to God based on their interpretations of the Bible and trying to make it the official belief system of the Church. The most important of these was Arianism, which basically said that Jesus Christ the Son wasn't the same entity as God the Father, and that he was subordinate to the Father; by contrast, the orthodox view was that the Son and the Father were the same being in different persons. This may sound really weird even before you get into the details of the Trinity, but that's why Arianism is important: '''it made the Christian canon as we know it...well, canon.''' Other heresies managed to hang on long enough to become established sects of their own, such as the Nestorian heresy giving rise to the Assyrian Church of the East.

Gnosticism was a very different beast, since it was less of a divergence from established theology and more of a completely unrelated set of religious beliefs that occasionally borrowed elements from Christianity. While what the many different sects of Gnosticism practiced and believed wasn't entirely standard or agreed upon, they all shared a contempt for the material world in general [[Iron Hands|and the human body in particular]] and claimed that the material world was created by an inferior god or Demiurge (no relation to the Tau) opposed to the true God of the spiritual world. By the use of the esoteric knowledge held by the various Gnostic sects, collectively referred to as [[Mage: The Awakening|Gnosis]], its practitioners could free their spirits from the confines of the material world and escape the influence of the False God. Obviously, their appropriation of various elements of Christianity did not go over very well with the nascent Church, and as of now they exist solely as a few minor groups of mystics with no real influence outside their own communities. As you can probably tell, some of their beliefs were also repurposed for use in several works of fiction, like in Mage: the Awakening.

Eventually, the charges of heresy were leveled against the Catholic Church itself (or rather it was done and not immediately stomped out as had usually the case, see the Hussite Wars) when a monk by the name of Martin Luther denounced the corruption that had been growing within the Church and its clergy. In particular, he was outraged by the selling of indulgences which would supposedly assure the salvation of whoever bought them despite the Bible stating that salvation comes only from faith in Jesus. The Pope wasn't willing to listen to him, Luther refused to recant his views, and to make a long and bloody story short the dominance of Catholicism fell apart in western Europe soon afterwards in what became the start of the Protestant Reformation as various kings and princes throughout the continent realized they could escape from the Pope's influence while still staying in God's good graces. Heretical sects popped up among the Protestants on occasion, but the Protestant were usually too busy defending themselves from Catholic persecution or persecuting them back to do much persecuting of heretics themselves (although they still tried to do it when they could). As a result, said sects were typically left alone to develop into independent groups such as the Anabaptists (whose descendants include the present-day Amish and Mennonites).

While heresy was still taken seriously by both Catholics and Protestants for a time, later events such as a series of brutal and ultimately inconclusive religious wars between Protestants and Catholics, nationalism becoming more important to the general public than religious affiliation, religious tolerance and secularization becoming increasingly popular with the spread of Enlightenment ideals, and other similar concerns have slowly weakened the effectiveness of cries of 'Heresy!' as time went on. At least, that's the case as of this article's writing.

== On Heresy, Blasphemy, Heathens, Schismatics, Sinners, and Apostasy ==
Similar but not identical terms you'll often hear include Heathen, Blasphemy/Blasphemous, Sin/Sinner, and Apostate/Apostasy. Explaining them is pretty simple so we'll start with the one that comes first alphabetically.

An apostate is someone who abandons a pre-existing faith for either another or no faith at all while apostasy is the act of abandoning said faith. A lot of what is often called Heresy in 40k is more correctly called apostasy, such as people taking up worship of the Dark Gods or the Tyranids through Chaos and Genestealer cults in Warhammer 40k and abandoning the Imperial Cult. Apostasy is usually the most serious sort of religious crime you can commit in highly religious societies for obvious reasons. It can take the form of converting to another religion, being a theist (a person who believes in and tries to follow God or gods but doesn't follow an established religion), a deist (a person who believes God or gods exist but doesn't see them as having an active role in society) or becoming an atheist (believing there is no such thing as gods and not following any religion - [[Skub|except maybe Buddhism]]).

'''Example''': <s>I praise Chaos not the Emperor!!</s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|Apostasy!}}

Blasphemy is saying or writing something that is obscene to the faith. Blasphemy can overlap with Heresy but blasphemy is saying something disrespectful about the god/s or something sacred in the religion in question, where heresy is distorting the religion's teachings and spreading those ideas. For the Imperial Cult, calling the God Emperor a magpie driven by his draconic heritage to hoard golden and shiny objects would very definitely be blasphemous on multiple levels.

'''Example''': <s>The Emperor and Khorne are the same deity!</s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|Blasphemy !}}

Heathens are people who were never part of a faith to begin with and the term broadly overlaps with the labels of Infidel and Pagan, though Pagan tends to more specifically refer to polytheistic faiths (Interestingly, the term pagan itself was originally a Latin word that was their equivalent of "hick" or "redneck", and was an insulting term that Roman Christians referred to followers of Greco-Roman polytheism as) while Infidel is usually used for other monotheistic faiths. Someone born into a religion different from yours has committed no heresy nor apostasy and while being a Heathen is seen as something to be corrected by evangelical faiths, most evangelical faiths want to convert heathens rather than kill them. In history, the Catholic Church even complained to the Pope that the Spanish were killing most of their potential converts in the new world and thus preventing them from bringing the native Americans to Christianity because the survivors started seeing the faith as an instrument of terror. In 40k, technically speaking most non-Imperial humans are heathens due to having been born to a different faith, and the Imperium will usually try to convert human heathens who are not tainted by Chaos, aliens, or thinking machines.

'''Example''' <s><span style='color:blue;font-size:115%;font-family:serif'> Your faith is false join the Logic of the Greater Good!</s>{{BLAM}} {{BLAM|Heathen!}}

'''Example''' The Omnissiah directs our footsteps along the path of knowledge. {{BLAM|I really want to BLAM you for that Infidel!}}

Schismatics are those who follow a branch of a religion created by some form of schism, most famously the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox branches in Christianity or the Sunni and Shiite branches in Islam. It doesn't see much use today (because in this era Christians of different branches, and to a lesser degree Muslims of different branches, have learned to tolerate each other's existence or at least not start wars over which branch is the "true" religion) but it's still there and occasionally gets used by Traditionalist Catholic nutcases (think the Catholic equivalent of Jack Chick) still fighting the Thirty Years' War almost 500 years after the fact. It technically overlaps with heresy, but it can be properly thought of as the term to call heretics who have become big enough to gain some form of legitimacy. Like the difference between "cult" and "religion" mostly being one of scale these days.

'''Example''' <s>These are the tenates of the [[Cult of the Redemption]] Join us as do the Emperor's work!</s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM|Schismatics!}}

These are all considered forms of sin, which can be thought of as spiritual crimes. Sinners are essentially anyone who commits such wrongdoings, and given how broadly defined sin as a concept is for religions that care about the concept essentially everyone is a sinner to varying degrees (and that's before we even get into original sin). "Forgiveness for your sins" is essentially the religious equivalent of getting a pardon for crimes. Like secular crimes, sins come in varying degrees of severity with similarly variably harsh punishments or requirements to earn forgiveness for them. In more extreme cases, the sin cannot be forgiven by any means available to the mortal coil and the sinner must be put to death. Given that modern countries really dislike other institutions intruding on their ability to enforce and create laws, most religions that aren't the ruling power of a theocracy of some kind can't proscribe punishment for sins that clashes with the laws of the country (eg; most countries that don't have corporal punishment would not permit caning from Islam's Sharia Law). Now, if you do live in a theocracy on the other hand... what if any punishment you suffer depends on the theocracy and religion in question. The odds for mercy are very good in the Vatican City but very bad in Saudi Arabia, for example.

To make this as simple as possible; a heretic is someone who still claims to be part of the faith but makes irreconcilable challenges to its dogmas, an apostate is someone who outright abandons the faith for another, a blasphemer is someone who says something deemed spiritually obscene to that faith, a heathen, infidel, or pagan was someone who was never part of that faith to begin with, a schismatic is someone who follows a rival church of the same faith, and a sinner is basically any sort of religious criminal. Ironically, this means the Horus Heresy which is defined by half the legions and a third of the army forsaking the Imperial Truth for Chaos might be more correctly called the Horus Apostasy while the Age of Apostasy whose primary conflict was a doctrinal schism between Vandire and Thor is more correctly called the Age of Heresy or the Vandirian Schism. But on the other hand, "Horus Apostasy" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Maybe if Horus were named "Amon" or "Anubis" instead...hrm...

==Major Heresies in 40K==
While any individual can be branded a heretic for the slightest offense, a number of big-time heresies have occured in the 40k timeline.
*Earlier
**'''The Matt Ward Heresy''': A HUGE, ancient heresy lost to time. According to the few reliable reports that have been collected, he was a crazy, demented proto [[Chaos|chaos]] cultist(see:normal), who believed in things that [[Malal|contradicted his very existence]], such as Grey Knights being the best SPEHSS MAHREENS, or Necrons using '''GODS AS POKEMON'''. Luckily, he lost the favor of the chaos gods after he fell in love with the Ultrasmurfs, and died sometime in 2k. However, rumors indicate that his head may have been found by a certain [[Angry Marines|Space Marines]] chapter, now as a horrid chaos deity. Pray to the Emperor that it is untrue.
**'''The Multilazer Heresy''': An ancient heresy with little information on it. What is known is that there was a heretic known as [[C.S. Goto]]. He was vile and unrepentant for his sins, and did everything from torturing [[Dark Eldar|elvenfolk]] for no other reason other than it turned him on, to making things happen when physically, they shouldn't or frankly cannot, such as making a heavy Tyranid bioform a '''FRICKIN FEATHER!''' Everything seems to indicate he was a follower of Tzeentch. Which explains why he was such a [[Eldrad|dick.]] Nothing is solid yet, but some believe he may have been taken to Commorragh. Which both [[Not As Planned|freaks him out]] and [[Just As Planned|pleases him.]]
**'''The Furry Heresy''': A vile heresy that started in M2. Likely a plan from Tzeentch (Slaanesh didn't exist back then) to get others to worship Chaos, followers were described to have a strange obsession with dressing or identifying as animals, and sexing them too. It isn't confirmed, but some believe the Eldar may have adopted this heresy during the Dark Age of Technology, and as a result led to a [[Slaanesh|certain tentacled thing]] being made, as well as creating the Eye of Terror. Even now, millennia later, loyal forces of the Adeptus Astartes (most commonly of the [[Black Templars]] and [[Angry Marines]]), Ordos Malleus and Hereticus, and even the Golden Legion themselves are on the hunt for these specific breeds of heretics, fit only for execution by boltgun.
*M32
**'''The [[Horus Heresy]]''': The big one where [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|FUCKING HORUS]] embraced Chaos worship and caused the biggest civil war to date in the Imperium.
**'''Schism of Mars''': Horus' rebellion coincided with an equally big Tech-Heresy within the Mechanicus, as the Fabricator-General at the time revealed that he was backing the Warmaster. Half the Mechanicum turned to worship the Chaos Gods and went to war with the other half, creating the [[Dark Mechanicus]].
*Later
**'''Catelexis Heresy''': An extremely powerful Xenos Psyker called the Cacodominus succeeded in capturing the Catelexis sector for himself; when the [[Black Templars]] finally killed him, he let out a psychic scream known as "The Howling," which killed countless astropaths and caused many ships to go astray in the warp, resulting in even more widespread dissarray and chaos. It may have also left the Black Templars unable to produce Librarians, but nobody's completely sure about that.
**'''The Moirae Schism''': During the [[Nova Terra Interregnum]], a heretical branch of the Mechanicus claimed not only to be able to predict the future in the [[Astronomicon]], but also that the Ecclesiarchy and Mechanicus would merge into one organization. This pissed off both the Mechanicus leadership and the Ecclesiarchy, but it also spread like wildfire, leading to two millenia of civil war and the exile of a faction of [[Iron Hands]] that supported it; these would later be recognized as the [[Sons of Medusa]] Chapter.
**'''[[Age of Apostasy]]''': While not labelled explicitly as a Heresy (due to predating the Ordo Hereticus) this war revolved around the conflict between the Temple of the Saviour Emperor and the Confederation of Light for supremacy as the state religion. It ended when the batshit insane Ecclesiarch/Master of the Administratum [[Goge Vandire]] was assassinated by his own bodyguards after the sustained efforts of an alliance of Space Marines, Mechanicus, Custodes, and the Confederation of Light threatened his power.
**'''[[Macharian Heresy]]''': Immediately following the [[Macharian Crusade]], the once-loyal generals of [[Lord Solar Macharius]] pounced upon his death and immediately drew up their own mini-empires independent of the Imperium - [[FAIL|necessitating ANOTHER crusade just to get their territory back and punish the generals.]] And since their superstar commander Macharius was dead (likely the fault of the High Lords/Inquisition, but its vague who pulled the trigger) it took them ten times as long to conquer the same worlds.
**'''[[Abyssal Crusade]]''': A bunch of chapters of Space Marines were deemed as heretics by a Saint and were forced to enter a warp rift in order to fight for their penance. All but one of the chapters were lost, and when that last chapter finally returned, they noticed that this same saint was still the exact same. Surprise, surprise, the saint was actually a chaos-worshipper and thus he was killed and his many records eliminated.

==Heresy in Warhammer Fantasy==
In [[Warhammer Fantasy]], the [[Empire|Empire of Sigmar]] is FAR more benevolent than its science fiction counterpart. Religions of any (non-Chaos) form are allowed despite the state religion being the worship of [[Sigmar|Sigmar Heldenhammer]], magical (psyker) aptitude is met with apprehension but is encouraged within the halls of the Colleges of Magic (established by a [[Teclis|xeno ally of mankind]]), and humanity seeks alliances with other races and actively recruits them as soldiers, or enters into trade and treaties with them ([[Halflings]] are all citizens of the Empire as a matter of fact despite having the personalities of [[Tyranid]] [[Kender]]). Scientific innovation is greatly encouraged, and as a result the Empire is the most scientifically advanced race in the setting. There is less freedom in other ways however; as humanity within cities is VERY prone to rioting, behaviors seen as likely to lead to a riot (including spreading factual news about the current state of the realm and of impending invasion) are suppressed. Undeath in all forms (including concepts accepted in 40k such as the state of the God Emperor and use of [[Dreadnought|Dreadnoughts]]) is a worse form of heresy than consorting with the Ruinous Powers, and any magical act not taught and officiated to you from a College of Magic is considered at best malicious mischief.

While it's commonly known that Chaos Mutations occur with regularity and are normally just unpleasant afflictions, mutants are not officially second-class citizens as long as they are loyal. However, they are prone to mistreatment and are generally the victims of any riot (well, them and teenage girls) and in [[Kislev|areas commonly attacked by the servants of Chaos]] are killed at birth. Chaos Mutants called [[Beastmen]] dedicated to the Ruinous Powers are one of the biggest threats to the Empire, but despite the fact that most learned men are fully aware of the existence of the most powerful of these groups ([[Skaven]], who possess technology on par with real world World War I weapons) they are considered to be fictitious by the general population. Generally, while considered heretical, speaking of Skaven is more likely to be met with public mockery rather than BLAMing. Those who have actually encountered them laugh nervously, those living in ignorance guffaw with the crowd, and those in positions of authority who fear a sudden riot just as capable of destroying the city as an attack by the mutants scowl and throw accusations of madness.

The Witch Hunters of Warhammer Fantasy, despite being far more effective than their "'Kill Everything' Button"-happy counterparts are also entirely more insane than the Inquisition of Warhammer 40k and consist of personalities akin to [[Cultist-chan|Chaos Cultists]]. They themselves are secretly dedicated to a Chaos God of Order (what, you expected logical rules from Chaos?) who empowers them against the servants of the Big Four and Undivided. Most Witch Hunters are severely traumatized individuals taught that their word is higher than that of the Church (they are known to burn [[Sisters of Sigmar]] at the stake due to receiving visions from Sigmar), who see heresy in all actions, and their past is full of self-purges and mass murders as the head of their order inevitably falls into paranoia and senility each generation.

Those in the Warhammer equivalent to Russia, [[Kislev]], are a much more suffering lot than the Empire. Sitting right at the invasion route from [[Warriors of Chaos]], [[Orcs & Goblins|greenskins]], and dwelling in a land where portals to the Warp constantly open and close letting in entire Daemon armies but themselves being a poor and uneducated people, they lack any Inquisitorial group. Each position of authority from local Sheriff straight to Tzarina Katarin herself take it upon themselves to personally purge the population. Any sign of Chaos mutation marks the afflicted for immediate execution, any strange behavior or sign of madness is an indication of an incoming assault. The people of Kislev themselves have become a hardened race, who will face an army of [[Khorne|Bloodletters]] outnumbered armed only with rocks while standing shirtless and in bare feet in the middle of a blizzard and come out triumphant with minimal casualties (in other words, Imperial Guardsmen who can out-NONEPURER Gray Knights).

In addition, the [[High Elves]] of [[Ulthuan]] (like [[Eldar]], but badasses who solve the world's problems, instead of fuckups trying and failing to solve their own) have their own internal Inquisition. The order of the Swordmasters of Hoeth is older than [[Tomb Kings|mankind's first civilization]], and were founded by one of the early Phoenix Kings as a way of purging Elves who joined the [[Slaanesh|Cult of Pleasure]]. While officially they are Sapherian bodyguards, messengers, and general police force of the High Elves and more specifically the spellcasters of the race, the Swordmasters are also master informants who collect information in a complex spy network and send it all to Hoeth, the center of learning in the Warhammer World (also the location of the magic internet). There, the High Loremaster (who is blessed by [[Lileath]], a Lawful Good loli Tzeentch) filters it and signs the death certificates of those [[Dark Elves|Elves so strap-on on head insane they'd fucking worship a god who just wants to eat their souls]]. The Swordmasters themselves are actually more like the super calm variety of Jedi knights, spending most of their time training with animu greatswords bigger than their own bodies which are continually smithed and re-forged using magical liquid metal cores and Ithilmar (hard as steel, lighter than sheet tin) to the point that the lengths of their fingers and the weight of their eyelashes are accounted for in their balance and technique. The result is lightly-armored Elves who fight like Zorro on the Speedforce in groups of one hundred at a time.

==What do they do with heretics?==
In Warhammer Fantasy, heresy is usually met with (questionably historical) torture until a confession is extracted and the TRUE torture (or immediate execution in a busy week) can take place. Although the various churches of the setting are slow to act and generally are only capable of convicting those who march into a city square covered in Chaos tattoos and trying to recruit Priests of Sigmar, or are doing Thriller in a group of Zombies while singing "I am a Vampire" at the top of their lungs, Witch Hunters tend to BLAM without second thought any who smells a bit too nice/bad or stutters when attempting to recite a prayer on command. Any time a [[Mordheim|major event that does not involve large armies occurs]], chances are good Witch Hunters will soon be converging on the area to execute anything still moving.

The Imperium has a much more complex system of dealing with things. If your heresy was serious but you are repentant in your trial, the church may strap you to a horrific war machine called the [[Penitent Engine|Penitent Engine]], which is a bit like a Space Marine dreadnought except it's designed to be really painful and humiliating for the pilot who themselves are drugged and tortured until there's nothing left of their mind but rage and shame. What's creepy is that it's an entirely voluntary way of seeking absolution (obviously, since strapping someone against their will to a war machine they can control is [[derp|NOT SMART]]). Considering how many of these are stomping around, it's a wonder the [[Adeptus Mechanicus|AdMech]] hasn't designed a not-insane version to be used by the [[Imperial Guard]] as an assault walker. [[Sentinel|... right]].

The body of an [[Arco-flagellant]] is a much similar fate for heretics. In fact Penitent Engines and Arco-flagellants seem to be the same concept given to two different writers. In any case if your heresy was serious but you are repentant in your trial, the church may Lobotomize you, fry your prefrontal cortex responsible for rational thinking, strap VR goggles on your newly-lobotomized head, install combat drug pumps into your spine, chop off your arms and replace them with weapons, and hold you in storage as what is basically a combat [[Servitor]]. The fate of an Arco-flagellant is oddly merciful and calming; during times of peace you're sedated and made to watch Ecclesiarchy-approved public television all day. In times of battle you're used as a suicide bayonet rusher.

The [[Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer]] says that a heretical Guardsman should have his extremities severed and left to bleed to death. At the discretion of the commanders, he may just get moved to a penal battalion or classically BLAM'd.

On remote Imperial worlds and [[Necromunda|highly populated hiveworlds]], minor heresies naturally spring up all the time because the Ecclesiarchy has a weak presence, so visiting preachers may try to take a softer approach with these things. They may even tolerate some fanciful unorthodox beliefs as long as they don't offend the core values of the church. While this might seem at first to be common sense over-ruling grimdark in some some small way, the scary bit is that how far this tolerance extends varies a lot and shifts, some benign little deviation which one high ranking priest would know to be a harmless quirk of local customs may be seen as another as being heretical and dooms millions to die as heretics.

Oddly (in earlier editions of Fluff), it was implied that even significant Heresy could be redeemed but a traitor could never ever be forgiven. One character in The Emperor's Gift was a penitent who had been a member of a significant heretical cult but was redeemed by an Inquisitor and entered her service. Despite this, most other characters viewed him with suspicion or outright hatred, so your mileage may vary.

In terms of mass Heresy, (Example given, a large congregation of worshippers that worship a deity that isn't the God-Emperor of Mankind) the usual solution to such crimes is either [[Exterminatus|genocide via orbital bombardment]] or the deployment of [[Space Marines|death squads]] to the planet itself to commit mass-genocide via [[Bolter]], [[Chainsword]], and armored boot. The [[Black Templars]] are especially gifted at the latter option, often landing on planets deemed to be infected with mass Heresy and usually committing mass murder and torture on a scale that would make an Inquisitor puke (And that's saying something).

For [[Xenos]], their existence is an automatic Heresy. Xenos are usually exterminated on sight, usually in an excessively brutal fashion (e.g. Chainsword disembowelment). Even in several rare cases of Xenos attempting to surrender, the majority were usually purged. In the rare (Read: Nearly nonexistant) cases of a Xeno being captured, the captive is usually "questioned" (Read: Tortured via Chainsword and/or Bolter) and then executed (Usually via Chainsword and/or Bolter).

Humans that have utterly surrendered themselves to [[Chaos]] are of course, treated no longer as a human, but as the lowest form of Heresy possible. Those that are captured (If ever) are usually tortured (In a fashion nearly similar to what Chaos does with unfortunate souls), then turned into [[Arco-flagellant|Arco-flagellants]] and/or killed in an excessively brutal and painful manner (The manner of which is still unknown but horrific).

==Witch Hunters==
Witch Hunters from Warhammer Fantasy are usually recruited from those who had come dangerously close to heretics or Chaos mutants, but who had themselves been spared. Their training is regimented and involves self-flagellation as well as group flagellation to give a high tolerance for pain, constant schooling so that all prayers and religious works concerning Sigmar can be recited by heart simply by being asked for specific page and paragraph number, and tests with a higher mortality rate than facing an actual Chaos incursion. [[Chaos Spawn]] are brought into more elite classes to harden the minds of the young recruits against the taint of Chaos and to teach them how to fight that which is unnatura-- oh nooo'''GRAGHBBGEBBLELBGBELGBLEL'''{{BLAM}} *Ahem*. They are taught the use of martial weapons, both large and imposing like the titular Warhammer to bootknives which can be brought to bear against those thinking they are merely being briefed on situations. Poisons, wilderness survival (in all climates of the world), and general knowledge of the regions of the world are taught to any who manage to make it thus far as knowledge is far more dangerous than weaponry.
Witch Hunters are familiarized with all forms of codes and secret languages known in the Warhammer World, with the exception of arcane scripts which they are taught only to recognize but not to read. Those who manage to pass all other forms of training are taught how to use crossbows and flintlock pistols, which are blessed with each bullet they fire being inscribed with prayers to cause maximum damage to the unnatural forces of the world.

Those deemed particularly possessing of zeal are given access to tainted texts recovered from everything from Necromancer Covens to Chaos Cults. Generally speaking, the information in these are histories of heretics as well as all the knowledge available to those on the other side of the fourth wall who read the Army Books and codices of the games.

Once recruits pass their trials they are then depending on their specialties either armed with crossbows (which is why rather than BLAMming, execution may come in the form of a FWIP instead) and assigned to city bastions or to patrol groups, or are sent out on their own to follow any rumor of heresy and pass judgement on those they find.

They have been reinstated as the [[Azyr#Age_of_Sigmar|Order of Azyr]] in [[Age of Sigmar]].

==Extra heresy==
[[Extra heresy]] is a decree recently enacted by local Commissar [[Fuklaw]]. While we're still a bit sketchy on the details, it is clearly mentioned that [[LCB|Xenos]] [[Heretical Love|love]] is Extra heretical (that just makes it even more appealing) but it is a well known fact that anything remotely related to Jersey Shore, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus or anything Western pop music is extra extra heretical. Punishment is still the generic execution by your local [[commissar]]... those dic{{BLAM}} -Most virtuous and excellent officers of the Emperor. Actually, if the Emperor saw all this shit, he'd have a single manly teardrop from his eye.

==What isn't heretical (40k)==
[[Image:Heresy meter.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The Imperium's patented heresy detector.]]
Much like the whole Rule 34 and Rule 35 gig, there are a few things that aren't heresy. Here's a short and general list:
*The [[Emperor|immortal God-Emperor of the Imperium of Man]]
*Veneration of the immortal Emperor
*Dying for the Emperor in the most manly way possible.
*Dying for the Emperor in as many ways as possible {{*BLAM*|HERESY!!! LIVING MORE THAN ONCE IS CHAOS WORSHIP}} [[Nagash|But what if I worship the skelepope and not the barbarian gods?]] Life is the currency of the Emperor! (Spend it well... and not on heresy)
*Despising Matt Ward, the future <s>[[Malal|sixth]]</s> <s>[[Retcon|fifth]]</s> [[Skub|sixth]] chaos god.
*Nearly dying for the Emperor while doing something badass as many times as you can before you actually die for the Emperor
*Brutally slaughtering and burning heaps of xenos, mutants, heretics and most especially Modern Pop Fans, for the God Emperor of Mankind. (If you can live long enough to fire that flashlight that is OH GOD NO NOT THE FACE-*{{*BLAM*}} If unable to do so, fighting to distract them until the end.
*Discovering new planets so the Emperor can have even more wars. Unsullied planets + war = More burning Heretics for the Emperor, hurrah!
*Building gigantic Gothic cathedrals the size of sky scrapers for the Emperor.
*[[Imperial Navy|Rendering said cathedrals spaceworthy.]]
*Praising of the Emperor.
*Praising the Emperor through song that isn't modern pop/rap/hip-hop/dubstep.
*Listening to Gregorian choirs praising the Emperor, as well as any militaristic song that does not violate any Imperial Law. (E.g., the song is approved as long as it doesn't violate the [[Imperial Truth]])
*<s>Sexing Aeldari ladies, probably heresy but I'm pretty sure [[Jaq Draco|inquisitors]] [[An Eldar's Ears|do this]] so it's o---</s>{{*BLAM*}} {{BLAM|EXTRA HERESY!!!}} It's Okay so long as they're of the Goth Variety, Lord Guilliman approves.
*Hailing to the High Lords of Terra/Administratum/Ecclesiarchy- except when they commit heresy.
*accusing random people of {{BLAM|HERESY!!!}}
**{{*BLAM*}}
*{{BLAM|Why are you still reading this instead of venerating the motherfucking Emperor?! You must be a heretic for having doubt! Die heretic scum! *BLAM*}}
**Calling the Emperor motherfucking is {{BLAM|HERESY!!!}} {{*BLAM*}}
*getting {{*BLAM*}}'d

==What isn't heretical (Fantasy)==
*Our lord [[Sigmar|Sigmar Heldenhammer, true god of the Empire]]
*Veneration of the holy comet
*Worship of '''Non Chaotic''' lesser deities, special mention being Ulric.
*Growing mustaches
*Brutally slaughtering and burning heaps of daemons, witches, greenskins, Vampires, walking skeletons, talking cats, and [[Warriors of Chaos|Scandinavians]] (remember, the pointy end of the spear faces AWAY from you)
*Fucking Elf ladies (good, people like banging elves)
*Getting drunk with Dwarves (considered a minor anti-heresy)
*Adding [[Steam Tank|steam engines]] to things
*Not rioting
*Praising the Elector Counts (except in times of civil war), and the glorious Emperor Karl Franz
*Not talking about the <strike>[[Skaven|giant rat-men armed with weapons that spit fire, who spread the plague through the water, who have planted a bomb in the city square and...]] IT'S ALL OVER, OUR ONLY REMAINING SOLUTION IS TO RIOT</strike> <strike>{{FWIP|HERESY! *FWIP*}}(fwip? they have guns you know)</strike> {{BLAM|... *sigh* Alright... HERESY!!! *BLAM*}}

==Gallery (40k)==
<gallery>
Image:HeresyStamp.png|The Official Imperial Stamp O' Heresy
Image:Fucklaw.jpg|[[Commissar Fuklaw]] wants to explain a few things to you about Heresy.
Image:Heresy-explained.jpg|Heresy and you.
Image:Heresy-explained2.jpg|You know heres...uh...oh wow...i got to get some Eldar heres{{BLAM}}
Image:Notheresy.jpg|Not heresy.
Image:But_That's_Heresy.jpg|"Sisters can't love Sisters!"
Image:Heresy.jpg
Image:Absolutely heretical newscast.jpg|In the 41st millenium, everything is absolutely heretical.
Image:Extra_Heretical.jpg|[[Lofn|Half-Xenos]] cosplaying commissars? EXTRA HERETICAL.
Image:HeresyComic.jpg|What IS heresy?
Image:HeresyHorus.jpg|Pro-heresy.
File:Beach Bitch.jpg|Go ahead, sleep with it. Just remember foxes have fleas.
File:Hairy Heresy.jpg|<s>Should not want...</s> {{BLAM}} Suffer not the furry to live.
Image:Emperor s will be done pt26a by dustygrafix-d3efy6s.jpg|Heresy at it's finest..in a horrifying and heretical way, of course.
Image:Heresy_Flowchart.jpg
</gallery>

== See Also ==
*[[Chakat]]
*[[Cake]]
*[[:Category:Heresy]]
*[[Extra Heresy]]
*[[:Category:Vampire Counts]]
*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZg1c3BAjbk The Heresy Alarm]

[[File:1233076587396.jpg|center]]

[[Category:Heresy]]
[[category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]

Great Taurus

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{{Heresy}}
[[File:Great_Taurus_SoM.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Bringing the term 'Bullfighting' to a whole new level.]]
The Great Taurus are flying creatures of pure [[Rage|RAEG]], manifesting itself in the form of a red, winged bull wreathed in flames and smoke. While one would think that this may be a [[Chaos Beast]] dedicated to [[Khorne]], the reality is that it actually serves under [[Hashut]]. Yes, it is a bit confusing as both Hashut and Khorne share plenty of similarities, but the big difference is that Khorne has a [[/d/|hardon for skulls]] whilst Hashut has a [[Furry|hardon for bulls.]]

==Overview==

As flying bulls, these flying ribeyes reign supreme in the ashen wastes of the Dark Lands where they must battle Dragons, Goblins, Ogres Orcs, Trolls and Wyverns. Unless the Winds of Magic are blowing unusually strong, they seldom stray far from this region as is suffused by the Wind of Aqshy.

The [[Chaos Dwarves]] on the other hand, have plenty of legends floating around these flying bulls. One such legend dates back to their creation, in which the Great Tauri were once people of their race mutated in living bull-furnaces to serve the god [[Hashut]] and call them the Red Bulls of Hashut. There is also apparently a stable housing these guys beneath the great temple to the god in Zharr-Naggrund and powerful Chaos Dwarfs are able to ride them into battle.

Another legend is a couple of (unknown) gods originally sent the Great Taurus as a punishment for a terrible transgression that occurred in the heart of a once-fertile land. It is said that the inhabitants had begun to worship the Ruinous Powers, hurling those who would not give up their faith into an active caldera. The volcano then erupted laying waste to the land for hundreds of miles and from this inferno emerged the first Great Taurus to hunt down any survivors.

Whatever is the case, the Chaos Dwarves grew to respect these guys as a pretty good war mount, as the fire they breathe is hot enough to melt iron, and enemy weapons instantly soften and blunt as their wielders are about to deliver the blow. When they reach peak autistic anger, the flames would then burst out of their throat and eyes, which usually resolves with the creature smashing its way into a large regiment. Its hide is bright red, flickering with sparks and is thick enough to resist heavy blows.
{{Chaos-Daemons}}
{{Chaos Dwarfs-Forces}}
[[Category: Warhammer Fantasy]] [[Category: Chaos Dwarfs]]

Grand Inquisitor De Hojeda

2023-05-18T21:04:29Z

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'''Grand Inquisitor De Hojeda''' is a fan-made special character for the [[Estalia]] army created by the [[Warhammer Army Project]] in their fandex for this unexplored part of the [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles]] world.

As his title suggests de Hojeda is the current head of the [[Myrmidia]]n [[Inquisition]], and well known for both his fanatical devotion to his goddes (and his position within the inquistion) and his political savvy; he is known as "the Spider" for his mastery of spies and information gathering.

His great weakness is his arrogance, especially where it is tied to his sense of nationalistic pride. Estalians are notoriously arrogant about their self-perceived superiority compared to the other nations of the Old World, but de Hojeda is particularly haughty. In fact, he considers the very idea that Estalia may need help facing against the coming storm of darkness from pagans ([[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|the Empire]], [[Bretonnia]]s) or heretics ([[Tilea]]ns) to be foolish, and you just know ''that's'' going to bite him some day.

On the tabletop, de Hojeda is the special character version of a Myrmidian Inquisitor. He uses up a Lord slot and costs 205 points, and has the following stats:
Movement 4, Weapon Skill 5, Ballistic Skill 5, Strength 4, Toughness 4, Wounds 3, Initiative 5, Attacks 3, and Leadership 9.

His special rules are:
* '''Magical Attacks'''
* '''Magic Resistance (2)'''
* '''Tactical Supremacy:''' Roll 3d6 when taking test to Rally, March, Reform, or Redirect Charge, and discard the highest.
* ''"Burn the Heretic:''' De Hojeda has Hatred and re-rolls failed To Wound rolls against [[Wizard]]s, [[Undead]], [[Chaos]] and [[Skaven]]. So does any unit he's joined.

He wields a hand weapon and carries the '''Sacred Armor''' (Magic Armor; 2+ Armor save, 6+ Ward save) and the '''Book of Wisdom''' (Enchanted Item, roll a d6 each turn; the book contains that spell from the Lore of Light and can cast it as a Power Level 5 Bound Spell). He can also take up to 100 points worth of Inquisitorial Powers.

[[Category: Warhammer Fantasy]] [[Category: Estalia]] [[Category: Warhammer Army Project]][[Category: Warhammer Homebrew]]

Gobbledigook

2023-05-18T21:03:27Z

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Long ago, in a distant time ''[[White Dwarf]]'' was actually pretty great. It was more than just the glorified catalogue it is now. The ''White Dwarf'' of years gone had reviews and articles about non-[[Games Workshop]] products, a Letter To The Editor section that took actual criticism, showed off the armies and home-[[fluff]] of average joe players, and it even had comics such as ''[[Thrud The Barbarian|Thrud the Barbarian]]''.

'''''Gobbledigook''''' was another such comic which ran in ''White Dwarf'' in the late 1980's; it was drawn by artist Bil Sedgewick.

==Gobbledigook==

Gobbledigook, or Gook for short (oof, might need to not call him that anymore if he reappears), is an unspecified variety of [[greenskin]] who appeared in short, usually one-panel comics. Along with his pet squig, Niblitz the two explored and poked fun at Games Workshop properties including ''[[Warhammer Fantasy]]'', ''[[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|Rogue Trader]]'', and ''[[Blood Bowl]]''. While ''Thrud'' tended to mock the universe from within, Gook would break the fourth wall and mock models in our universe by reacting to their ugliness in-universe, cross tables during game sessions and mix the universes up as people chased him, and tease Games Workshop staff.
Notably everyone seems to know his name, and those who enjoy ludicrous continuity could fairly conclude he is a 4th dimensional being similar to the [[/co/|DC Comics']] Bat-Mite. Some people try to say he may have been a Forest Goblin, but since he doesn't wear a Native American cosplay outfit, this is unlikely. The same people also say evidence of this is Niblitz being "Spider-y", but he looks more like a horned swabsquig.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Gobbledigook Page.JPG
</gallery>

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Games Workshop]]

Games Workshop

2023-05-18T21:02:15Z

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{{british}}
{{Fail}}
{{Heresy}}

[[File:GW Logo.png|center|900px]]

{{topquote|A fool and his money are soon parted.|Dr. John Bridges}}
{{topquote|A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.|Jonathan Swift}}
{{topquote|For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.|Saint Paul, The Bible, 1 Timothy 6:10 (NLT)}}
{{topquote|Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.|Conrad Hilton}}
{{topquote|xaxa Warhammer is for everyone unless you are poor...|Uamee}}

'''Games Workshop''', known to /tg/ as '''Geedubs''', or '''GW''' is a company which produces miniatures and despite their former CEO's best efforts, games. Their three most notable games are [[Warhammer Fantasy]], [[Warhammer:_Age_of_Sigmar|Age of Sigmar]] and [[Warhammer 40,000]].

{{Infobox Deity
|Name = Games Workshop
|Symbol =
|Alignment = Stupid Chaotic Evil
|Divine Rank = AAA
|Pantheon = Tabletop
|Portfolio = Warhammer Fantasy, Age of Sigmar, PRIMARIS MARINES
|Domains =
|Home Plane = Lead Belt, United Kingdom
|Worshippers =
|Favoured Weapon = Exploit Worker, Union Breaker, Price-gouging, IP Lawsuit, IP Theft
}}

The first thing that you must know is that in /tg/'s general opinion, Games Workshop used to be good, and then it was shit, run into the ground by idiots. <s>Thankfully since [[Kevin_Rountree|a new guy took over]] it's been doing a lot better and most believe it could become good again. See [[Mordheim]], [[Beakie]], [[Rogue Trader (Sourcebook)|Rogue Trader]] and [[Talisman]].</s>

This turned out to be a fool's hope. See Warhammer+ and the 2020-2021 purging of the 40k fanimation community, which has led to a sharp and ongoing decline in their stock prices... even during holiday season of 2021 (as of Nov. 3rd).

The second thing you must know is that Games Workshop is the reason /tg/ exists in the first place: it was originally created as a containment board to isolate Warhammer threads from the general population on [[/b/]]. Warhammer is also a massive part of tabletop gaming culture history; as such, the importance of Warhammer in /tg/ cannot be overstated.

The third thing you must know is that Games Workshop is extremely protective about their precious intellectual properties. This is funny because you can count the number of original ideas in their core games on one hand, with the original creators outright admitting they ripped off existing works wholesale. The vast majority of backstory in Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 is a rehash of established fantasy/sci-fi literature, padded out with stuff the writers half-remembered from A-level history lectures. This is particularly true in the case of Warhammer Fantasy, which actually makes sense when you realize most of GW's founders actually had history degrees. 40k by contrast is mostly Fantasy ''IIIIN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE'', with a heaping helping of tropes from everything sci-fi that was popular in Britain in the 1980's.

Finally, and this is very important to understand why they have become the dominant company of the miniature market and are no longer a failing business that constantly shot itself in the legs (thanks to their own failings and tarnished reputation): GeeDubs likes the top lines in the news and shows it off. Thanks to the old fucking idiot who was crippling the company deciding to leave with a large stash of money, like a rat jumping off a sinking ship, the new management was able to realize that putting out more than a catalogue was a good way to draw in new buyers and win back some old ones. Any given week you can see them bringing articles, comics, tutorials, interviews, short stories, miniatures, codices, novels and other features, this zealous dedication to '''growth''' allows them to promote and sell their different lines, which in turn allows them to make even more profit and produce more stuff while periodically trying different niches, creating a (relatively speaking) virtuous economic circle. Games Workshop's resources are comparatively vast and they use them at their full (with varied although generally favorable results) extent. Add to this the extensive use of their brands in the video game industry, and you can see why they are THE powerhouse when it comes to miniature-oriented tabletop gaming.

==History==

===Ancient History===
The original Games Workshop was established several hundred years ago BC, originating in China. However, when the Emperor placed a commission for thousands of life-sized soldiers, this predecessor began to collapse, as with all production being geared to the creation of these soldiers and the murderous ire of the first Emperor, they were unable to introduce price rises. As one, their board of directors resolved that they must fall into hibernation, to wait out the storm, screaming defiance at the one man who ever had defeated them.

===Almost-as-Ancient History===
[[File:John Peake and Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson.jpg|thumb|center|300px|Steve, John, and Ian with their first products.]]
Games Workshop was established in 1975 in London as a small literal workshop that created wooden [[Board Games|boards]] for public domain games, such as [[Chess]] which it sold through mail-order catalogs (not its own). The original staff was just three men in a flat in London. John Peake, Steve Jackson (not to be confused with the other /tg/ Steve Jackson), and Ian Livingstone. Livingstone was a massive games fan, and was captain of the Chess club in school, while Peake carved wood as a hobby. They soon made a business of selling boards for Chess, Go, and Backgammon.
[[File:O&W!01.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Owl And Weasel, issue #1.]]
In the same year Games Workshop put out its own newsletter, called "Owl And Weasel" which somehow wound up crossing the Atlantic and ending up in the hands of pen-and-paper-gamings' Jack Kirby, [[Gary Gygax]]. Gygax sent the trio a copy of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] to play-test for a review in their publication. Jackson and Livingstone were hooked and ordered six more copies. Gygax, thinking they were a much more established (as in established at all) company, offered them exclusive distribution rights in the entirety of Europe.

In 1977, Jackson and Livingstone accepted and began selling copies of the game straight out of the flat by using Owl And Weasel to get the word out. Gygax himself had also been selling out of his apartment at the time, and neither found out the other group was just a couple of nerdy kids selling shit out of their home. Peake left the company as he had no interest or patience in new games (yep, people complaining every time something new comes along have been in since the beginning). After he left, D&D exploded in popularity and people who came to buy a game were continually knocking on the floor-level homes in the building, before being directed to talk to Livingstone and Jackson on the top floor. Predictably, this earned them a boot out the door from the landlord.

They rented a small office to be the original Games Workshop, slept in a van in the car park, and bathed in the restrooms of a nearby sports club while pretending to be patrons. They continued distributing D&D through mail order but had absolutely no success in convincing established hobby shops to carry the product. Without alternative, Livingstone and Jackson bought a place in west London in 1978 to sell mostly imported American gaming accessories from Dungeons & Dragons to Call Of Cthulhu and more. The two entered into negotiations to merge with [[TSR Games]] to retain exclusive distribution rights, but the owners of TSR (other than Gygax, who supported the idea greatly) turned the offer down.

===Citadel===
[[File:White Dwaf Issue 1.jpg|thumb|right|300px|White Dwarf, issue #1.]]
The new building allowed them to host gaming conventions which would later become the famous [[Games Day]]. This was followed Owl And Weasel being discontinued and replaced with [[White Dwarf]], a small magazine (originally just black and white on colored stationery) written by the now obsessed tabletop gamer Livingstone, which covered industry-wide tabletop gaming news. White Dwarf was supposed to be sci-fi and fantasy neutral, referring both to a dying star and to, well, [[Dwarves]]. Originally the magazine was everything Livingstone felt like writing about, from movies to publishing short stories to computer and computer gaming-related articles. The letters section quickly became THE forum for tabletop gaming in <strike>the Old World</strike> Europe, where everything from rules clarifications to personal reviews were published. Interestingly, Livingstone published letters that were critical of both him and Games Workshop.

Games Workshop's very first new product, [[Reaper]] (not to be confused with [[Reaper Miniatures]]) was a basic fantasy skirmish game for between 5 and 30 miniatures. In 1978, [[Citadel Miniatures]] was established under a man named Bryan Ansell as the miniature manufacturing division for any future Games Workshop products, which would produce them in bulk. Although initially a separate company simply owned by the same people as Games Workshop, it would eventually merge in the 90's into one company with the name only being a vestigial remainder of independence.
[[File:GW 1982.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Games Workshop team, circa 1982. Pictured from top left to bottom right: Andy Patterson, <strike>John Lennon</strike> Anthony Epworth, <strike>Abraham</strike> Bryan Ansell, Diane Lane, Gerry Ball, Chrissie Lane, Alan Merritt, [[Rick Priestley]] pre-barber, and an unknown woman (possibly Priesley's wife).]]
This was followed in 1980 by the release of [[Valley Of The Four Winds]], a mostly forgotten fantasy game where two players fight over the fate of a realm. The side of evil consists of demons and the undead while the side of good consists of Elves, humans, and <strike>Dwarfs</strike> Dwarves (that spelling comes later). Battlecars was next, as a Mad Max style game. The first RPG created by Games Workshop was a licensed [[Doctor Who|Dr. Who]] role-playing game. [[Fighting Fantasy]] was a project of Livingstone and Jackson, a fairly popular game they would leave the company to pursue.

Nothing Games Workshop made was as successful as Dungeons & Dragons, which was now being carried by competitors. Citadel sold generic fantasy miniatures for use with D&D, but players only ever made small purchases and were not in the market to collect one of everything leaving some stock hard to move. Ansell had become the primary boss of the company, and his solution was the wargaming market that had begun to catch on internationally. At this point, Games Workshop was still very much a small business with most employees putting in work as needed; a writer or mail sorter would load shipments into the building or package products.
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===Warhammer===
In 1983, [[Warhammer Fantasy|Warhammer]] was released. It was created by Games Workshop writer Richard Halliwell and his friend (former mail order department) [[Rick Priestley]] (known by [[Meme|many nicknames on /tg/, often "The Based"]]). Priestley was mostly inspired by growing up and delving headfirst into both science fiction and history, the news of the Atomic Age, and World War 2; all of which led him to the first wargames, and eventually getting a job at Games Workshop with the goal of working on his own.
The requirements for the new product were simple.
# Take advantage of popular fantasy favored by gamers like [[Conan the Barbarian]] and [[Lord of the Rings]].
# Every model must have rules, so everything gets sold.
# Use six-sided dice since almost everyone everywhere already had some they could scrounge up to play the game.
Halliwell did the first draft for the game and did most of the work on raw mechanics, Priestley did development and editing. Originally having no actual miniatures associated with it, it simply consisted of a single set of three books giving a basic rule system and scenarios. The first book, '''Tabletop Battles''', and has the core rules plus a bestiary and list of potions to be found in addition to an example scenario called '''[[The Ziggurat of Doom]]'''. The second book is '''Magic''', containing the rules for magic where spellcasting characters with the right equipment and wizard level (1-4, with the highest level being Archmages) can spend Constitution to use their chosen spells. The final book, Characters, adds the roleplaying game aspects including leveling up, alignment, upkeep costs, and the '''The Redwake River Valley''' example scenario.

While filled with typos, contradictory rules, and BADLY needing an FAQ that never came (so they quickly set the standard for what GW would aspire to) it was well accepted for introducing the concepts of magic failing and of the psychology of forces on the field. The setting was almost non-existent, and what little lore there was only existed in the flavor text of magic items. Of special interest is the game was originally conceived partly as a wargame, partly as a roleplaying game with actual guidelines for leveling up your general and interacting with the world— even an alignment system! If anything, the game combined the role of Dungeon master and player into one as a character led a force of generalized encounters against each other and looted the dead. Every group of friends had a different world, as the results of a previous battle fitted into the unending campaigns of war. A major difference between current and early Warhammer is an extra player was required as a Game Master for a battle to take place.
[[File:Citadel Design Team 80s.jpg|thumb|right|400px|The Citadel Design Team in the early 1980's.]]

Ansell used the success of Warhammer to move Games Workshop HQ from London to Nottinghamshire, in what was presented as a merger but many at Games Workshop saw as a Citadel takeover. By that time there were six other Games Workshop locations, and cost appears to have been the only reason the name was not changed to Citadel. Few Games Workshop staff stayed on, as Nottinghamshire was in the midst of a nasty Thatcher-era labor dispute that saw employees harassed.

Due to popularity, an expansion for Warhammer called '''Forces of Fantasy''' was released in 1984 which began to describe the factions in the world (all still extremely generalized, mostly Dungeons & Dragons based). Once again containing three books (Forces of Fantasy, Fighting Fantasy Battles, and Arcane Magicks), it made the skirmish roleplaying game into a war roleplaying game with a fairly important magic system. The final booklet included, The Book Of Battalions, contained example armies for the game and included the favored armies of the Games Workshop staff, including the Perry Twins, Bryan Ansell, Nigel Stillman, and Based Priestley. The same year also saw Games Workshop stop importing printed books from the United States, and instead print them in the UK while also expanding into having a US headquarters and manufacturing division so as not to have to physically import goods in reverse.

Later in 1984, the second edition of Warhammer was released. It combined the expansions with the core game as well as suggested supplementary rules from White Dwarf. Combat was the core rules, like Tabletop Battles. Battle Magic is the same as Magic, although it reduces equipment requirements and instead adds the lores of Illusionists, Demonologists, and Elementalists plus the example scenario '''The Magnificent Sven'''. The final book, Battle Bestiary, includes the stats of all the factions and models in the game and guides for forming armies out of them as well as homebrew additions. Still having very loose rules, the game was three books although this time they were actually professionally printed rather than looking like something off a photocopier. Paper punchouts were included to represent troops rather than any miniature although Citadel produced a range of minis which were advertised in White Dwarf (although the rulebooks still said in those days to simply use whatever you want), and the very first Warhammer lore was established.
:The [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|Empire]] was a vague kingdom of men in decline, [[Chaos]] was some kind of Demonic extra-planar threat that prophesied the [[End Times|end of days]], there was some kind of ancient race that created the monsters of the world called [[Slann]], and [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Elves]] had some kind of [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|civil war]] going on although the version presented in this book was a clash of kingdoms rather than a two way war of genocide.
:Three supplements were released, the first adding the very first Warhammer villain, [[Heinrich Kemmler]], in the [[Terror Of The Lichemaster]] campaign. The second, Bloodbath at Orcs' Drift, introduced the first [[Orcs & Goblins|Orcs to the setting]] (although they weren't the asexual greenskins of today, but rather generic Dungeons & Dragons Orcs and Half-Orcs). The third, '''Tragedy of McDeath''' was basically Warhammer Macbeth, involving a plot of necromancy with Dwarfs and humans who would eventually come to be the [[Bretonnia|Bretonnians]]. "Blood In The Streets", was just rules for fighting with buildings as well as paper scenery. The final expansion, Ravening Hordes, made the army choices much specific rather than relying on overlapping options.

On the side, Citadel had acquired the rights to produce miniatures for everything from [[Judge Dredd]] to [[Doctor Who]], and collaborated with many other companies including [[Ral Partha]] (one of their most successful partnerships, which launched Citadel into the mainstream of tabletop), Iron Claw Miniatures (which went out of business with their molds and copyrights being absorbed by Citadel), and Marauder Miniatures (technically another company owned by the founders of Games Workshop, much like Citadel itself, which was absorbed into the company in the early 90's much like Citadel would be absorbed by Games Workshop not long after).

Games Workshop saw aggressive expansion during this time, as White Dwarf went from a general nerd culture newsletter to specifically just a magazine for Games Workshop products which also functioned somewhat like a catalog and order form for new products. By opening physical retail stores to encourage gamers to meet at, they got easy advertising as Games Workshop products were on the shelves all around them. Many smaller companies began to suffer and close due to the slow death of the mail-order catalog business model that many companies relied heavily on.

Third edition Warhammer was also released in 1987, and was just a single hardback book (the ancestor of the [[Big Red Book]] of <strike>today</strike> yesteryear). The rules were finally ironed-out although the magic system remained the same. Players now controlled large forces with specialized troops including elites and warmachines, movement was extremely important tactically as there was Charge actions, and generally the game was considered a bit more complicated to pick up and learn than your average tabletop game. Games Workshop began to push it's own miniatures more and more, and the rules for certain types of troops came bundled with them rather than in the core book. The Warhammer setting was more fleshed out, and many consider this to be the first true edition of a Warhammer game fluffwise. Orcs and goblins were not connected and had females, undead didn't really have a reason to exist, Chaos only really mattered if you were talking about Chaos, the Empire's decline was because of cultural problems rather than being buttfucked by everyone else with twelve men or more at their command every other season, Elves were pretty much just snooty Elves and douchey Elves, Dwarves had no real flavor beyond Joseph Bugman existing, and the rest of the world was just kind of assumed to be like our own somewhat.
:Even going beyond this, [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] was released which introduced an entire world outside the not-Europe of the [[Old World]] by touching on Ind, Araby, [[Nippon]], [[Cathay]], [[Naggaroth]], and more.

Third edition had two expansions; [[Realm of Chaos]], written by Ansell as a blatant ripoff of Moorcock, which introduced everyone's favorite (or hated) [[Chaos Gods|Evil Sues]] and established Chaos in a way it would basically remain from that point on; Slaves To Darkness, which detailed pretty much everyone in the actual physical world who wanted to kill you for no particular reason; The Lost And The Damned which continued giving reasons why living in Warhammer would fucking suck; and finally Warhammer Siege which gave scenarios. So more or less the late 80's/early 90's introduced [[Grimdark|grimderp]], nicely paralleling the trend in comic books.

Also in 1983, to much less fanfare but still modest success, the board game [[Talisman]] was first released. In it, players are adventurers trying to obtain the Crown of Command and kill their opponents. In 1985 Talisman received a second edition, different only in that the pieces were printed in color. In 1986, an expansion set for Talisman, called Talisman Expansion Set (clever) was released which had an FAQ, more characters, alternate endings, and enough stuff for up to 12 players to play at once. Talisman: Dungeon came out in 1987 as well and came with an additional game board and rules for navigating it on the side of the main board.

GW also acquired the license to make Lord Of The Rings miniatures in '85, taking over from competitor Grenadier Miniatures. They'd lose this in 1987 GW, which passed to Mithril Miniatures.
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===[[Indrick Boreale|Spess: Tha Finuhl Frunteer]]===
Later that year, Games Workshop released [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|Rogue Trader]]. Rogue Trader was Priestley's first creation, before he became the mail packager at Games Workshop HQ. Based on the idea of having a ship and using miniatures to play the game, and he'd refined the game as he did rules articles and sci-fi discussions in White Dwarf.

Conceived as a Frankenstein's Monster of of Warhammer/Judge Dredd/[[Dune]]/Moorcock/Heinlein/Lovecraft and John Milton's Paradise Lost (the latter work inspired the [[Horus Heresy]]) with a sprinkling of anything else perceived as cool, the game was functionally a combination of Warhammer 1st edition with Warhammer 3rd edition as a roleplaying/skirmish/wargame. It was mostly just an updated version of the game [[Laserburn]] by Ansell, who after the financial failure of his solo creation re-imagined it for Games Workshop.

Forces were originally just a [[Space Marines]] faction decided by rolling dice rather than listbuilding, which was added later as well as with most of the story in White Dwarf. The [[Imperium]] was given fluff, [[Orks]] were created as green skinned assholes described briefly in 3rd Edition although now with asexuality to go with it. Extremely complex rules for vehicles were added, and finally Ansell's Chaos was copy/pasted from Warhammer to Rogue Trader with the overt Moorcockyness removed. Priestley designed the Rogue Trader setting as part irony and part parody, with only self-deluded antivillains as protagonists.

It was hinted at various points that Warhammer 40,000 was Warhammer Fantasy in the future, then later than Sigmar was a "son" (its complicated) of the Emperor of 40k and thus all of Fantasy was a planet in the 40k universe, later that the 40k universe entirely existed in a box on a wizard's shelf in Fantasy, before finally the creators decided both Warhammers are reflections of each other in a multiverse.

===For Those About To Rock, We Sell-out You!===
Many employees in 1988-1990 left the company, unhappy with the increasingly profit-driven model of the company. Many created their own games, publications, and even went to Games Workshop's (few remaining) competitors. Notable was Fantasy Warlord, which barely sold enough to break even before shutting down. The miniatures created for Fantasy Warlord by Alternative Armies are actually still available, although some were sold to Mayhem Miniatures (which became Kennington Miniatures).

Unchallenged in the market (being the Apple of miniatures in that day), Games Workshop sought to expand its customer base into the mainstream. Television commercials were made, Games Workshop expanded aggressively into France and Australia, and the miniature lines were made less grotesque and more like the artwork. Any place that could support a major sports team was designated a potential, even eventual, Games Workshop location. Later on Games Workshop prospects were locations that could afford to support high end clothing stores like Marks & Spenser or toy store retail chains like Early Learning Centre. Games Workshop stores were designed to be friendly, with owners and employees being outgoing and knowledgeable about tabletop games while popular music like Grunge and early Alternative was played over speakers.

Ansell in the meantime had begin to expand the company into entirely different mediums, and due to his love of music had begun to use Games Workshop as a publisher for bands like Sabbat, Saxon, and Bolt Thrower. He opened a Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000-themed clothing line, licensed novels set in the universe, and funded [[LARP]] events. Ambitions that were not realized even included a gameshow set in 40k where players built robots to fight other robots (so a themed version of the television show Robot Wars).

In 1988, Talisman: Timescape was released in which players in the medieval core game could randomly be thrown through space and time into other time periods, mainly those inspired by Warhammer 40,000.

In the same year, to compete with rival [[FASA]] and their [[Battletech]] game, Games Workshop released [[Adeptus Titanicus]], a 10mm scale tabletop game where twelve [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Imperial Titans]] fight each other in a city. Games Workshop tied the game to the 40k franchise to boost both games. White Dwarf expansions added rules for vehicles, infantry, and aerial combat.

Talisman: City came out in 1989 which added a new board, a city for players to interact with the city guards and buy/sell items. It was likewise followed by [[Space Marine]], which was a battle between two Space Marine armies and included miniatures for vehicles as well. In the same year, Codex Titanicus was released which combined Space Marine and Adeptus Titanicus together into one game, the first edition of [[Epic]].

Over the next year the game received major additions including Knight, artillery, and infantry models in not only Space Marines, but also Imperial Guard (1991 Armies Of The Imperium), Chaos and Eldar (1992 Renegades), Orks and Squats (1992 Ork and Squat Warlords), and finally Tyranids (1995 Hive War).

===Bitch, Where's My Money?===
In 1991 Ansell left Games Workshop, and sold his shares to the General Manager [[Tom Kirby]]. Kirby's first order of business was to grow the company to quickly pay off what he had borrowed to buy it, and he was presented with two choices; grow the company with more diverse games or focus heavily on the two Warhammers. Kirby opted for the latter, and pushed the idea of more games in the two settings along with much bigger editions.

Warhammer 4th edition was released in 1992, with changes to rules bringing the term "Herohammer" into the fanbase as most of any given army was simply there to protect the powerful characters the game was REALLY about. This was the first edition that had miniatures specifically for everything in the rulebooks, had specific race selection that prohibited using troops of another type in your army, and had a starter set which contained a two-force starter game which was High Elves VS Goblins. Magic was entirely redone, and was marketed as an expansion and used cards as spells. Magic had two further expansions, one for general magic and one for Chaos. Warhammer lore was more fleshed out, coming to resemble more or less the factions of today. The Empire was the human focus of 4th edition, with the valiant knights having no mention.

In 1993, Games Workshop came out with ''Warhammer 40,000'', normally called ''Second Edition''. Like Warhammer (now "Warhammer Fantasy Battles"), it was built around small units of infantry supporting ridiculously munchkinized special characters with complicated rules and war gear and appropriately pricey lead models, but at this stage Games Workshop actually cared somewhat about customers; models were made in plastic or wallet-friendly, Roman-Empire-collapsing lead, game sets included serviceable army lists and collections of miniatures, and paints were provided in 20ml pots, later 17.5ml. This switch was perhaps the first sign of the next age (and every other age, by the looks of things as paints are now just 12ml per pot).

===Special NEERDS!===
In the same year the very first of what would later on fall under the label of "[[Specialist Games]]" (anything not Warhammer or Tolkien) was released; [[Man O' War]]. Warhammer Fantasy setting, but rather than commanding an army the players were heads of an armada on the high seas!

1993 also saw the release of the final 2e Talisman expansion, Talisman: Dragons. It added new characters, locations, spells, and items, all themed with dragons, into the game.

In 1994 the third edition of Talisman was released, adding miniatures, experience points, alterations to the board, and the biggest change of all; it was set in Warhammer Fantasy. Later that year, White Dwarf contained mini expansions to the game while the first true expansion, City Of Adventure, reintroduced the city board as well as a forest. Dungeon of Doom came next, adding the dungeon and a mountain.
The year also saw the launch of Second edition Epic, still consisting of two games. The first was a re-release of Space Marine that had Space Marines, Orks, and Eldar. The second game was Titan Legions which had the same factions.

In 1995 Dragon's Tower expanded Talisman 3e as an alternative end goal as players climbed a tower and killed a dragon (duh). It came with another White Dwarf expansion.

In 1996 [[Necromunda]] was released. Priestley was inspired by his meetings with the creator of Judge Dredd during the days of Games Workshop licensing the IP, and used it to resurrect the forgotten RPG aspect of Rogue Trader.

Fifth edition Fantasy was released in 1996 as well, along with its magic expansion which rebalanced and simplified the magic system and included all three 4e expansions. Cards remained available to buy, although all the Winds of Magic-based magic spells were included in the core rules (meaning you still had 20 more spells you had to buy cards for).

Of particular note is the Slann finally being fleshed out, creating the [[Lizardmen]] army with the starter being Bretonnia VS Lizardmen. Campaigns were released which were heavily involved in the lore; [[The Grudge Of Drong]] featured a conflict between Elves and Dwarfs which lead to the [[War of the Beard]], Tears Of Isha involved the bitter war between the High and Dark Elves, Idol Of Gork was the first time that Orcs were truly Orcy as known today with the introduction of [[Gork]] and [[Mork]] (or was it Mork and Gork?), Circle of Blood as the [[Vampire Counts]] (then still one army with the [[Tomb Kings|Mummies]]) VS Bretonnians as the first introduction of the [[Abhorash|Blood Dragons]], and Perilous Quest as a war between the Bretonnians and [[Wood Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Wood Elves]] during their introduction to the lore.

Each campaign came with multiple endings decided by player involvement (becoming the precursor to Warhammer events and one of GW's biggest fuckups), paper scenery which defined the architectural styles of the featured races from then on (although this was sadly the last time these races got scenery before everything simply became Empire and Chaos), and a campaign book summarizing the story.

At some point it was determined that the stock army lists weren't enough, and so "Army Books" (for Warhammer) and "Codex Books" (for 40Kl, later simply "Codex:(faction)") began to come out, each bringing new models and rules into the game. The last round of these for 40K (''Codex: Tyranids'' in particular) tended to make the army ridiculously overpowered and make everyone ''else'' want a new Codex to rectify the balance. Perhaps the ultimate example of ''Second Edition'' philosophy was the last book, ''Codex: Assassins'', which consisted of nothing but four hideously powerful special characters. These included [[Culexus|this asshole]] who caused the psychology effect ''Terror'' to all psykers, regardless of anything, meaning Greater Daemons and Hive Tyrants would occasionally shit themselves and run for the hills when faced with a normal-sized human.

[[Image:Haet trees.jpg|thumb|FUCK TREES]]
One notable aspect of this period was that Games Workshop hated trees, and would thus include several million cards in every boxed set if given the slightest provocation; the core sets for ''Warhammer'' and ''Warhammer 40,000'' both received an update governing the magic / psychic system which consisted solely of cards and templates (which were card). Some entire games (''Doom of the Eldar'', ''Battle for Armageddon'', ''[[Horus_Heresy#The_Board_Game|Horus Heresy]]'') came out in this period which consisted of nothing but a board and lots of high-density card counters to lose down the back of the sofa or inside the dog.

[[Gorkamorka]] came out in 1997, and was Priestley's answer to Mad Max meets 40k, featuring Orks in different groups crashed on a desolate planet using vehicular weapons to slaughter each other.
Third edition Epic was released as well as a single game with simplified rules, but it was a financial failure after barely moving any units in six months and was recalled. This is unfortunate because [[Jervis Johnson]] and [[Andy Chambers]] consider it the greatest game they ever made. Most of the planned models were never released.

[[Mordheim]], the Fantasy version of Necromunda set in the ruins of an Empire city where all factions are scrambling for control was released in 1998.

The last Specialist Game was [[Battlefleet Gothic]], essentially Man O'War in space using massive battleships.

And did no one think of [[Blood Bowl]]?

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===Learning The Wrong Lessons===
Despite the Specialist Games being massively popular, Kirby had expanded Games Workshop incredibly fast into unknown markets and as a result a massive amount of Gorkamorka sets in French, Spanish, and Italian were left unsold while English demand was high. Games Workshop was left almost on the verge of bankruptcy, causing a new sales philosophy to be decided upon. Rather than one based on restraint and market research as one would expect, the new direction was "only sure things, minimize risk". Suddenly, the irony of the 40k setting was dropped. The Imperium suddenly WAS the heroes, and Chaos was the evil that always wins in the end rather than these things being the punchline at the end of a sarcastic joke.

One of Bryan's policies for the company was that the production studio and creative minds must always be kept in charge of marketing or the company would die. Kirby, after Gorkamorka, decided the opposite was true. Given today's hindsight it turns out Bryan was right and this was one of many of Kirby's bad decisions.

Plans were made to phase out all of the Specialist Games, and over the next few years the only things available were simply unsold stock. An excuse was made for the first, Man O'War, that the molds had broken and somehow couldn't be fixed (bullshit for many reasons). The rest were quietly and unceremoniously dumped while all references to them were dropped as well.

Sometime in the run-up to ''Third Edition'', it was decided that models should switch from toddler-murdering lead to safe, pointy pewter (or "white metal" as the industry (not just GW) insisted on calling it). This led to a 25% cross-board increase in all metal mini costs, even those ordered through Citadel's back catalog (because those figures from their back catalogue were cast up, when ordered, in the new white metal). At this point, it seemed something clicked in the heads of GW's management; they had just made a ton more money without actually doing anything. Perhaps they could do that again.

''Third Edition'' 40K came out in 1998 and Warhammer Fantasy Battles 6th Edition (featuring Orcs VS Empire, and the last edition to come with paper scenery) came in 2000, both reducing the dominance of single munchkin characters in favour of large armies, conveniently meaning players had to buy far more models. Then along came the fucking screw-tops, and proof that any pretense of caring about the customer had been cast aside.

===Ringhammer===
Games Workshop had begun to suffer financial troubles in the late 90's with competition from the surging (and independent) Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, [[Magic: The Gathering]], and [[Pokemon]] (no seriously, Pokemon was THAT fucking big back then).

The answer? Huge cash cow intellectual property. Priestley suggested to Kirby they cash in on the upcoming Lord of the Rings movies with the Lord Of The Rings Strategy Battle Game. Kirby was unable to see Priestley's ulterior motives through the dollar signs in his eyes and approved the project at once, so that particular series moved away from large and complex kits back to the roots of single characters and groups of soldiers.

[[Alessio Cavatore]], a major developer of Mordheim and supplement materials, was also put on the project and it was applauded by the gaming community. Games Workshop blew through the movie material and even began making miniatures based on things from Tolkien's works that weren't in the movie such as Tom Bombadil and Goldberry. Not only that, but they also expanded armies that were barely even mentioned in the books or seen in the movies (the Easterlings in particular) and then bragged about it in White Dwarf.

The miniatures were required to be produced in 25mm scale by contract, rather than the 28mm heroic scale used by Warhammer. Its been theorized by fans this was to keep the Tolkien miniatures out of Warhammer and keep their IP from becoming an expansion to GW's existing IP.

===Short Term Gain, Long Term Pain===
The issue is that as hype from the movies diminished, so did sales. Kirby by this point had expanded sales and marketing into autonomy, and when the interest in the game died down (something creative teams said would happen but marketing had shrugged off) the result was marketing attempting to drive up profits with unpopular schemes, the first among these being a major change the range of paints sold.
[[File:Citadel Paint Pots.jpg|thumb|right|300px|As time drug on, pots had less paint and worse seals.]]
The "problem" with the older flip-top paint pot designs that had been sold up until this point was that they actually kept [[paint]] usable for a long time. While the Citadel flip-top pot suffered from shit hinges and opening tabs which would both break after about four uses, [[rip and tear|a real man opens paint with his teeth anyway]] so that was not a problem. Obviously, these flip-tops were no good to GW, and so a new pot, the Screw(you)top, was designed which would gunk up its own thread and either glue itself shut forever or prevent an airtight seal forming after a couple of uses.

Apparently forgetting ''every other company in existence'' that made model paints, GW also raised the price of these new and terrible things; clearly justified, since they contained a mere 30% '''less''' paint than the old design. It was also around this point that photographs of the [['Eavy Metal]] studio started to vanish from the pages of ''White Dwarf'' (along with all other content that could be considered useful for anything at all other than advertising models) since they kept forgetting to hide all their non-Citadel gear for photoshoots. Even though, of course, everyone had known for ''years'' that the painters didn't "mix Snot Green with a little Chaos Black" to get a paint shade that was in Tamiya or Vallejo's stock range. Nowadays of course we can get the good stuff for cheap from [[Privateer Press]] (problem, GW?), but back then it was just ''fucking terrible''. GW managers and staff also suffered a change in personality, pushing the idea that anything other than GW was a ''plague'', and it was to be treated as such. "Saw you just bought some Knights of Minas Tirith, well, what about a Stompa?"

Games Workshop, highly resistant to change (ironically), began to see the shifting face of tabletop gaming towards electronics as unimportant with Kirby even calling video games "a fad". Just as Games Workshop had crushed their competition with physical stores, the internet distribution saw many new companies begin to emerge as they brought their products directly to the consumer via the internet. Games Workshop attempted to compete in this regard, although they never moved past having anything more complex than a digital version of a catalog and a little-moderated forum (which was closed down to much rage in the 2000's). Games Workship kneejerked and made White Dwarf exclusively Games Workshop products, allowing longtime competitor [[Dragon Magazine]] to reign triumphant as the source of tabletop gaming news in the last age of printed publications. Meanwhile a new market had emerged of making miniatures specifically designed to look like Warhammer models and be used in the game. This...did not go over well, and Games Workshop came to be known as ready to sue anyone at the drop of a hat, even once famously attempting to copyright "[[Pauldrons]]" and sue over the concept of a wolfskin cloak on a viking-looking warrior.

Prices began to ramp up ridiculously as GW realized they could charge whatever the hell they liked and their longterm fans would still pay. While GW was never particularly cheap, their chunky kits ended up in the same price bracket as top-quality scale miniatures by other companies; today, a [[Citadel Miniatures|Citadel]] Space Marine Hunter( 125-parts entirely cast in opaque plastic) costs about the same as AFV club's Churchill mk3 (400+ parts with 2 vinyl tracks, 22 metal springs, 29 Etched Brass pieces and a turned aluminium barrel). At some point, someone remembered that back in ''Second Edition'' days they actually had people willing to pay for gigantically expensive, limited-edition lead Thunderhawk Gunships. To hit this niche of "people with more money than sense," [[Forge World]] was created; all you had to do was get mom and dad to sign that second mortgage and stop being so damn selfish and a 40K-scale Titan would be yours.

===Minimize Effort, Maximize Rage===
In the year 2000, [[Warmaster]] was released. Designed by Based Priestley, it was essentially the Warhammer Fantasy version of Epic.
[[File:Gw_logo.png|thumb|400px|[[/pol/]] approves of the new logo]]
Fourth edition Warhammer 40k was released in 2004, and was more an advertisement for more models than an actual edition. It was advertised as being "backwards compatible", mostly because by itself it was barely a game. The rulebook was mostly sections of painted licensed plastic terrain and large models than anything else.

In 2005, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was given a second edition which was largely the same but was up to date with the lore, and had a better magic system. It was used more to advertise the wargame however than as a frontline product. This came with a single unified rulebook for Lord Of The Rings that included the (greatly) expanded line in the form of the One Rulebook to Rule them All.

Around this time the bulk of plastic Warhammer scenery was released, with almost all of it in Fantasy geared towards the Empire or Chaos (with some trees maybe representing Elves?) and 40k towards the Imperium or Chaos (with a few Necron and Tau pieces from Forgeworld). Games Workshop had seemingly decided who the main characters were, and some factions in either game from this point on only were mentioned in passing while receiving no support or updates.

Seventh edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles in 2006 luckily avoided this, with Battle For Skull Pass as the starter set between Dwarfs and [[Goblins|Night Goblins]]. This marked the last major change for Warhammer Fantasy, as the next update only really changed by adding more models and having minor rebalancing. Many fans of armies like Bretonnia and Wood Elves were left very unhappy their army was not updated in 7e, relying on outdated rules and thus being extremely underpowered all in favor of an event.
Looking to resurrect the dying Lord Of The Rings game, Games Workshop released Legions Of Middle Earth, an "expansion" suggesting buying larger groups of models to use in a theme force using the existing rules.

[[Storm of Chaos]] was released as the major event of the 2000's to much pomp and circumstance, supposedly being the canonical transition from the old into the new as Chaos made its great attempt to destroy reality while every faction strapped on their wardrums and marched into the clusterfuck. Players were selected to actually play the factions to drive the narrative, and the community was kept informed of what was going on. There was a problem however... Chaos couldn't win. The bulk of the story for the event was driven by the fact a fuckhuge Chaos army was invading, but the players for Chaos couldn't even manage to scrape out of the starting gate. So the narrative kept going that Chaos was a fuckmassive force that made all the other fuckmassive forces pretty much not worthy of note, and every time a player on another faction beat a Chaos player before turn four the story would state that the other player had ''barely'' delayed the forces of Chaos for only a brief time and at great cost, sometimes their complete destruction occurring anyway despite the actual battle report results saying no Chaos survived the battle and almost none of the other army was killed.

In the end, Chaos was given one last chance in the very last match as the defenders (meaning they had the advantage) in the last battle. Even this, they lost. Badly. In a phone-in result where Games Workshop made a desperate bid that fans would choose for Chaos to win and make all the actual promised narrative unnecessary, players chose to let Chaos deservedly lose. So the event ended with [[Grimgor Ironhide|a single crazy fucking Orc]] headbutting [[Archaon|Chaos Darth Vader]] in the balls, laughing at him, and walking away and thus saving the world in an ending befitting a Saints Row game. Games Workshop quickly stopped promoting the event and from that point on pretended it never happened. Combined with their Eye of Terror campaign for 40k, where Chaos conquered Cadia but lost their entire fleet in Battlefleet Gothic games (leading GW with nowhere to go aside from 'Chaos sits on a planet until the Imperium shoot them off of it') caused GW to lose faith in player-driven narrative, due to the fact [[derp|that the players were driving the narrative.]]

In 2008, fifth edition Warhammer 40k was released and borrowed heavily from 7e WFB as well as implemented a HEAVY emphasis on cover rules while making shooting much more important. In 2009 Games Workshop launched released War Of The Ring, which made the skirmish game into a full-fledged wargame. The rules were highly simplified to enable quick games with larger groups of models.

===Dawn of the Great Derpening===
[[File:GWstockfail2.jpg|thumb|300px|right|GeeDub's stock taking a very hard fall. Coincidentally, their drop in stocks coincided with the 6th Edition release of the ultra-nerfed [[Tyranid]]s codex. Hilarious when you consider them to be the "shadow across the warp", it would appear that the Tyranids became GW's shadow across their profits, something they have yet to recover from after half a year. (The share price collapse was actually caused by a less-than-promising financial report released that day.)]]
The early 2010's could generously be described as GW's '''UNHOLY FUCKING DISASTER'''.

To start with, in 2010, Based Priestley left Games Workshop forever, saying that "the creative team was no longer doing anything creative" and "game development and game design wasn't of any interest to them. The current attitude in Games Workshop is that they're not a games company, that they're a model company selling collectibles."

In May 11th 2011, Games-Workshop's new terms of use [[Embargo | restricts sales of all of their products to the European Economic Area]], (EU + Norway, Switzerland and Iceland). This essentially removed Games Workshop products from online distributors other than themselves, and furthermore made their actual in-store stock of products highly limited with many models only being available directly through them (although many Friendly Local Game Stores will order from their website to fulfill requests). Oh, and they spiked the prices another 10-15% for most models.

Additionally, all metal models were on their way to being discontinued, to be replaced with much more expensive [[Finecast|Resin]] kits which were INCREDIBLY unpopular with the community due to low quality casts and high price without the sense it was worth it. Unlike the pewter kits (which are basically tin), the resin kits are loaded with carcinogens; strange, since last anyone checked the reason for switching to pewter in the first place was that lead was toxic (and nothing to do with hiking the price). The quality of the product could lead one to believe it was much much cheaper, but [[Casting|resin damages the mold more than pewter because it sticks to the mold more]]. It gets expensive when you have to replace molds more often, and they also break fairly easily so that all the little ten year old Smurf players have to buy new ones when they snap them in half. So essentially, Games Workshop not only ruined the quality of their models, they jacked up the prices and made it nearly impossible for anyone outside the EU and 'murrica to obtain it. Kinda like going from fine French wine to your corner-store cheap beer... and the beer is more expensive than the wine. And the beer gives you cancer.

Then-Chairman Tom Kirby mentioned in a 2011 press release that they were increasing cost cutting measures and making more products while avoiding mention of actual profits (note this is a summary, not his exact words). Given their charts, it was easy to see why he chose not to disclose the company's profits (or lack thereof).

[[File:Games Workshop Stocks.png|thumb|right|300px|Not being able to increase your revenue in a decade is a bad sign.]]
In 2013, Games Workshop decided to transfer their sales restriction to Canada, just as they had to Europe. As the United States had already had international sales cut back in 2003, this had lead to a large online market for Canadian retailers, selling their products at discount sales to US customers. However, with this new change, all international sales in North America are now completely gone, as GW once again decided to fuck over long term customers and local retailers in favor of luring more small children with disposable income to their overpriced, neckbeard-run stores.

MiniWargaming, a well known FLGS with an extensive online store, decided to close shop because of these new rules. Their store manager made [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnPpfs120DA an entire video explaining their reasons and going over just how asinine Games Workshop's new rules are.] Between jacking up prices, locking down international sales, and screwing over online sales and bitz sales, Games Workshop intentionally set itself on the fast track to running itself into the ground in the eyes of long term followers. Possibly due to their apparent belief that removing the entire world (excluding European Economic Area and Canada) from their consumer base is a good idea.

As far as games went, they at least made a dent on that front.

Eight Edition Warhammer Fantasy was released in 2010, introducing 40k-esque large models (and pretending Storm of Chaos didn't happen). Many fans hold that this is the most balanced the game ever was, despite some particularly nasty cheese existing (Warriors of Chaos, Dark Elves) and some factions STILL not getting long overdue updates and having to rely on 6th/7th edition books in a system that had nerfed the core mechanics their models relied on (Beastmen, Bretonnia). It was also best not to think about how a number of the situations that could arise would realistically play out or else your head would explode, since this was the edition in which fuckhuge orcs on boars would charge a unit of skinks, and they'd all die before they could even attack. It also had units dedicating their entire lives to protecting a weak frog turn and flee, while the weak frog stayed back and fought to the death in order to ensure his guards escaped. In 2011 it was expanded with [[Storm of Magic]] which introduced fuckhuge monsters from Forgeworld that could be summoned, as well as a redone (and pretty broken) magic system. This did poorly however as the magic was terribly balanced in the main game anyway, the additions here just made it worse and the additional spells/bonuses meant to help the weaker lores were only useful to a small number of armies/situations, while the prices of the monsters were laughably high and the rules for them were not worth taking over basic infantry.

Blood in the Badlands came out in 2012 and added siege combat and advanced scenarios to the game, strangely echoing the early days of Warhammer. As Lord Of The Rings interest had largely waned, it was rereleased with updated rulebooks, new models, and licensed The Hobbit miniatures in 2012 as well.

Between all that in 2012 came sixth edition Warhammer 40k, borrowing even more heavily from Warhammer Fantasy with psychic powers becoming a clone of Fantasy's magic phase while scenery became interactive. Furthermore, armies were no longer exclusive with mixed-faction lists being possible.

In 2013, Sigmar's Blood came out with a campaign between the Empire and Vampire Counts lead by [[Mannfred von Carstein]], introducing advanced diplomacy rules mostly involving misfortune, and The Desolation Of Smaug expansion to Lord Of The Rings finished off 2013 releases.

In late 2015, pop culture business site ICv2 reported that [[X-Wing]] [http://spikeybits.com/2016/03/warhammer-dethroned-top-5-miniature-games.html had dethroned Warhammer 40K as the top-selling miniatures game in the United States]. GW ''could have'' tried to sue George Lucas and Disney over the concept of a fascist galactic empire with fully-armored soldiers who enforce the Emperor's will, but sadly even they weren't that stupid, and they instead retaliated by refusing to renew [[Fantasy Flight Games]]' licences to the Warhammer IPs. (It could also be due to FFG being bought by Asmodee, a company GW views as a direct competitor to their new line of "Boxed Games".)

===The Fall of Warhammer===
[[File:Gymz Porkchop.jpg|thumb|300px|left]]
In 2014 the [[End Times]] event was announced for Warhammer Fantasy while Warhammer 40k got its seventh edition. 7e 40k removed restrictions even more on armies and simply allow you to mostly take whatever you want if you are okay with not getting some bonuses, although you get advantages for sticking to groups existing in the canon. Otherwise it added a lot more to the game, not all of it good. Notably Gargantuan Creatures and Super-heavies were added into the game and the world was introduced to the horrors of Unbound lists (as well as GW's obsession with formations - GW's way of selling their stocks of unpopular models by giving powerful bonus rules when playing them in bulk). They also added even more Warhammer Fantasy-esque psychic and terrain rules.

Meanwhile, End Times... ended Warhammer Fantasy. Billed as the next big thing, the event consisted of staggered releases of extremely expensive books, nearly as much as a new starter set, and new (very large and expensive) models. The books contained scenarios, massive amounts of lore, and also removed a great deal of restrictions on how armies are built; first by allowing an army to be 50% low-level characters (Heroes) and 50% high-level characters (Lords) so long as the default core requirement of 25% of your army on basic troops was fulfilled while turning every spellcaster into a master of magic, then by making magic even more fucking insane by diddling with spells and giving a metric fuckload of dice to cast them, then in the final book simply throwing all listbuilding rules out the window and saying "take whatever the fuck you want and put it on the table". Meanwhile the story consisted of nearly everyone except the Undead and Skaven taking it up the ass HARD from Chaos as it slowly meandered its way through all opposition to the heart of the Empire (read: what they wanted from Storm of Chaos); the undead got forcibly united under a reborn [[Nagash]] and the Skaven trolling everyone who was fighting Chaos. In the end the final faceoff occurred between Chaos (joined by the Skaven) and the "heroes" of the setting (both including and joined by the Undead). The "heroes" all failed miserably and were consumed by black nothingness filled with plagues, gnashing teeth, evil intellects, and naughty tentacles as the world simply '''ENDS'''. Fantasy fans were left feeling cold and full of hate, and for nearly a year simply assumed their setting had been completely and unceremoniously raped to death while all the resources and time they'd invested into the hobby had become worthless.

On a side note, multiple video games for Warhammer Fantasy were announced with some being released in this time, leaving fans tearing their hair out in frustration at the idiocy of killing a setting, then FINALLY making decent video games for it. This games include [[Total War: WARHAMMER]], [[Mordheim: City Of The Damned]], [[Man O' War: Corsair]], and [[The End Times: Vermintide]].

===Age Of Skubmar: The Great Derpening===
[[File:El Presidente Gym Porkchop.jpeg|thumb|left|400px|"El Presidente Gee Double U, the people wish to express their love and dedication to you. They may have used different words."]]

When it seemed it couldn't get any worse, Games Workshop then decided that since it had made 40k mostly like Fantasy, it would make Fantasy into 40k. A happier, LSD-fueled version of 40k.

That version, believed by some to have actually been made with [[Skub]] mixed directly into the material, was [[Age of Sigmar]] which removed literally ALL limitations on army building (as in you can take any models in the game from any faction in any number and call it an army, with rules for your opponent to play the game with an easy win condition if your army is x3 the size of theirs) and consists of a skirmish game which only has four rules, officially making it even less of a Warhammer than Warhammer 1st edition.

[[File:Age Of 40k.png|thumb|right|400px|Like a gut-torn rabbit hiding in a wooded thicket.]]

If that wasn't enough, almost everything was arbitrarily renamed to be trademark friendly. Zombies became "Deadwalkers", Elves became "Aelves", Dwarfs became "Duardin" despite the perfectly good trademark-friendly "Dawi" sitting right there, and Lizardmen were given the hilariously terrible name "Seraphon" which, if googled, brings up the career work of a [[furry]] tickle-fetish artist. (In their defense, the name already existed as the name of Elf Darth Vader's dragon in Warhammer. In their offense, the connection between that and Lizardmen was never actually given, so it's a moot point.) The only factions that escaped the renaming were the Bretonnians and Tomb Kings, but that turned out to be foreshadowing akin to seeing a huge silver line on the horizon on the day you plan to go to the beach.

The story was worse still, consisting of Norse mythology mixing with superhero comics in an awkward combination where Chaos Gods can be kidnapped by Elves, Warhammer Darth Vader becomes the master of the Dark Side rather than the other way around, and characters introduced and given importance in one book immediately die in the next.

The advertising for Age of Sigmar was the rules (all four pages of them) and the stats of existing models being free on launch, followed by outrageously expensive digital content that updated the game, the core lore advancement being contained within scenario books that are ludicrously expensive, and a requirement for many scenarios to have specific models which includes the expensive as hell new terrain, the rules of which can only be viewed by buying the model. To put it simply, Games Workshop managed to take the hated practice of DLC content in video games and push it fully, hard and deep into tabletop gaming.

To top it all off, Games Workshop, almost overnight, took down their iconic Space Marine statue that had sat in front of their headquarters for years and replaced it with a giant statue of a Stormcast Eternal (the <strike>Sigmarines</strike> Space Marines of Age of Sigmar). They also replaced the Imperium Eagle with Stormcast-style wings and a Ghal Maraz replica to really hammer the point home (pun intended). [[RAGE| The beloved servant of the Emperor was relegated to being hidden under a staircase and behind an advertisement for Age of Sigmar.]] We... really wish we were making this up.

Games Workshop had promised their investors in 2014 that 2015 would be a massive year of financial returns, although by the time of the [http://www.iii.co.uk/research/LSE:GAW/news/item/1792782/half-yearly-report-and-trading-update?context=LSE:GAW Half Yearly Report] they had grown a mere 1%. To make matters worse, this included the ample revenue from their new video game licenses as Age of Sigmar had been largely rejected by large portions of the gaming community as many stores were completely unable to even move starter sets, resulting in a few months of them being at clearance prices online through third party distributors. Further still, many [[FLGS]] dumped all Fantasy Warhammer stock, some even dropped Games Workshop stock entirely.

Considering the 2015 Financial Report of Games Workshop, Age of Sigmar was going nowhere and GW outright stated they do no market research and did not plan to start. [http://www.iii.co.uk/news-opinion/richard-beddard/games-workshop-agm%3a-relentless-profit-machine They believe that only 20% of their fans actually play the game or give a fuck about the story so in their eyes the plot and rules are not to blame for any major decrease in sales and anyone who doesn't like it can fuck off.] Like it or not, Warhammer Fantasy is dead and buried while Age of Smegmar is here to stay.

Games Workshop plugged on ahead regardless by rebranding themselves, changing the names of Games Workshop Hobby Stores worldwide to Warhammer Stores after the deathrattle of The Hobbit merchandise.

===The Hangover===
Following the disastrous launch of Age of Sigmar, Games Workshop announced a plan in December 2015 to resurrect the Specialist Games division and the games Blood Bowl, Epic, Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic, "And Many, Many More" while resurrecting the Tolkien games.

In February 2016, it was believed that Games Workshop used a Cease And Desist order to shutdown [[Warseer]], the largest Warhammer community forum other than /tg/, but thankfully that turned out to be a simple virus and database corruption (but to be fair, one could hardly be blamed for thinking GW responsible). In more substantiated dick-move news, Josh Reynolds, a freelance writer employed by Games Workshop known for actually answering fan questions about the setting and filling in plot holes in End Times (as many, MANY characters and plots were forgotten in the event even between books) and attempting to assure fans [[Sigmarines]] and Space Marines are totes different, was essentially told to shut the fuck up about GW IPs on social media while his entire list of lore mending was declared non-canon via being told to say nothing he writes reflects GW outside novels.

Going even further into community-souring, the popular Tomb Kings line and faction was squatted unceremoniously in the same month (worse than Squatted, at least the Squats got an explanation in-fluff as to why they disappeared), putting an end to Warhammer Egyptians and axing the faction that gave rise to all remaining Warhammer Undead. Needless to say, this was NOT well-received by fans, especially those who played Tomb Kings themselves and those sick of Age of Sigmar Stormstormed Stormbolters and their leader, the Celestial Primarch. This doesn't make sense, even for GW given their love of copyrights and patents, since the Tomb Kings faction was one of GW's more original creations (an Egyptian-themed non-evil undead civilization) and thus are easier to copyright (they could even have patented the name unlike with Space Marines or elves).

The only positive of axing the Tomb Kings is that it somewhat toughened the fanbase to endure when GW continued their douchey warpath by axing the Bretonnians faction and a large chunk of the Warhammer Fantasy models still in production. This included almost all named characters, while survivors of the purge were renamed to be generic (in a horrifying twist of fate, the very first Warhammer character Heinrich Kemmler was reassigned the name "Necromancer"). This wave of axing was mixed with wave after wave of Khorne Chaos, Archaon Chaos, and Sigmarine updates leaving everyone either with balls bluer than Tzeentch's ass (and Slaanesh's imprisoned everything) or dreading when their faction book came out and gutted classic and beloved models forever.

To sum up - GeeDubs started to fix their shit, but decided it was too much effort and went back on being raging dickmongers as usual.

A report that the 30k boxed set ''Betrayal At Calth'' had outsold the entire Age range coupled with a stock value steadily dropping down to their 2012 status in early/mid 2016 may have shocked stockholders, because the armies of Order that were squatted had selected models returned to the store for a "Last Chance, for reals this time guys!" sale on 4/18/16. Within the day most of the models had already sold, leaving the newest Sigmarines to remain collecting dust in their place.

===In Summary===
''It is the 3rd Millennium. For more than a hundred months Games Workshop has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Nottingham. It is the foremost of wargame companies by the will of the neckbeards, and master of a million tabletops by the might of their inexhaustible wallets. It is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with business strategies from the early Industrial Revolution Age. It is the Carrion Lord of the wargaming scene for whom a thousand veteran players are sacrificed every day, so that it may never truly die.''

''Yet even in its deathless state, GeeDubs continues its eternal growth. Mighty battleforce starter-sets cross the online-store-infested miasma of the internet, the only route across the ravaged world trade network, their way lit by a draconian retail trade-agreement, the legal manifestation of the GeeDubs's will. Vast armies of lawyers give battle in James Workshop name on uncounted websites. Greatest amongst its soldiers are the Guardians of the IP, the Legal Team, college-engineered super-assholes. Their comrades in arms are legion: the writing team of countless untested rulebooks, the ever vigilant Black Library retcon editors, and the hipster writers of White Dwarf and Warhammer Community, to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from the competition games, their own raging incompetence, gaming fatigue, Based Chinaman, STL galleries - and worse.''

''To play Games Workshop products in such times is to spend untold billions in plastic crack. It is to support the cruelest and most dickish company imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of sales discounts and customer-friendly models, for so much has been dropped, never to be re-published again. Forget the promise of efficient 3D printing service and cheap updated digital codex libraries, for in the grim darkness of Games Workshop business model there is only quarter profit-seeking, Primaris Space Marines, environment-despoiling paper books and carcinogen plastic mold injection. There is no fun among the hobby communities, only an eternity of price creep and ever more derpy rules, and the laughter of rich meta-chasers who didn't lose their sources of income to automation and job obsolescence.''

===New Games Workshop™: How Do You Do, Fellow Gamers?===
It was not expected, we couldn't have known, since the resignation of supreme leader [[Tom Kirby]] and the ascension of new CEO [[Kevin Rountree]] there has started to appear a pattern, sporadic reports of real discounts at [[Forgeworld]] and [[Black Library]], and then, in the last days of 2015 it has been revealed that major changes are coming, the sudden resurrection of specialist games, Games Workshop releasing starter sets with real ''saving'', all around the internet neckbeards are discussing and watching, wondering what's going on, perhaps the new guy in charge has decided is time to take some contingencies for the inevitable demise of tabletop gaming with the ever increasing development in 3D printing and the emergence of new alternatives. It seems like the boxes are a replacement for the old Battleforce packs, and while you don't get as many units as the old box, they are cheaper and usually come with a good mix of units to start a small army.

And now, there's an [http://warhammerworld.games-workshop.com/the-bugmans-xxxxxx-league-cup/ official (as in hosted and ran by the almighty GeeDubs themselves) Blood Bowl tournament] going on at Warhammer World on May 21st. Truly these are strange times. GW also appears to be preparing to start selling their product in toy stores (Toys-R-Us Etc.) as well as producing various Warhammer Merchandise such as pillows and journals (For Some Reason). Also now they've made a 40k starter set with simplified rules and all the paint you need to assemble the models. Clearly the sky is falling. (Also they've started making conversion tutorials and stuff, for some reason).

They also actually maintain their Facebook page now, and the other night they had an Age of Sigmar live tournament...

Also a number of the staff now have twitter accounts.

They've also taken over the internet leak game. When a sprue for the new Ahriman model was found on E(vil)Bay, GW not only showed off the sprue, but also the upcoming Kharn model. And recently, they've shown not only Daemon Primarch Magnus, but also new artwork, teased the Thousand Sons sprue, and made a reference to plastic SoB. Strangely, they had the Magnus video up and running mere hours after the model was leaked. And the red trashcan seen in the video looks similar to the background of the leaked photos. Is GW leaking their own products to get the Hype train up and running? Just as Planned, so it seems. Discussions with my local GW guy indicated it was a rogue employee, as nobody else would be allowed anywhere near the new models, probably a cleaner, who leaked the pictures.

BUUUUUTTT... They rehired Matt Ward.
May or may not be responsible for the return of Roboute Guilliman (which ironically has earned a lot of character development thanks to his return to 40k), or maybe Bobby G's return it's a symbolic gesture that they have finally decided to start fixing everything.

While some people will never be happy, there are few than can deny that GW has been making a massive improvement in the last year or so with their products, content, and relationship with the community. Genuinely good deals, well received releases and ad campaigns (the recent hero bases one is positively goofy, but in a "that's the GW we used to know and love" kinda way.), combined with actively encouraging and showing off fan input and content (even producing a house rules data sheet for a conversion AAAAAND putting pictures of [[Your Dudes]] ON THE MODELS PAGE ON THE ACTUAL WEBSITE!!!!!!!!!), altogether it's almost as if, dare I say it, GW has remembered how to be... [[Warhammer Fantasy|fun!]] They even made a new model for [[slambo]]!

Hell, GW is even straight up asking fans what they want brought back in the next made to order wave. Answer: [[Warhammer Fantasy]] (Well, at least we still have Total War: Warhammer as a consolation prize)... But behold friends, They cast Resurrection, hence Warhammer: The Old World!

As of January 2017, Games Workshop stock spiked 41% from November of 2015, '''bringing the stock's value higher than it was before the crash in 2014.''' Secret surveillance done by some fans reveal that after the crash a new board of directors was formed, it includes [[Sigmar]] and [[Roboute Guilliman]] (Matt Ward and Mortarion are teaming up), this may explain the sudden influx of good policies.

Games Workshop has been announced as the biggest riser in FTSE All-share index.

On a tragic side note unrelated to business, one of their most esteemed writers, Alan Bligh, died in May 2017. He will be sorely missed. In his absence the HH released have drastically slowed, probably because this leaves just 3 people in rules detachment for Horus Heresy '''and''' FW WH40k (two of those has little to no experience as rules writers, by the way). New releases still come out here and there, but they're about as common as they delays.

===2017-2020===
By the middle of 2018 Games Workshop has gone through many changes, the first indicators were not mere bluff, it seems the company is now in a new phase of expansion and successfully recovering terrain both in the skirmish, tabletop and specialist genres, let us see the list of achievements:
*Warhammer 40,000 entered it's 8th edition in July 2017, complete with a total revamp of the rules for [[Awesome|every playable faction]] in a refreshing departure from prior editions holding onto codexes from yet older editions (looking at you, [[Tyranids]]). Though full-blown codexes for all factions still had to be released individually, a series of complete indexes at least offered every faction the ability to play with modern rules right from the edition launch.
*Necromunda is back
**And the Squats with them, or at least a remnant in the form of a beardy mercenary, effectively killing the 20 years old meme (although they were at least mentioned again as far back as the 2012 6th edition rulebook). Not only that, but when they revealed his return, they referenced the meme themselves, making fun of the "Squat Clock" joke.
*In Warhammer Fest 2018 they released a photo of one of the new Sisters of Battle plastic models, the level of detail is exceptional, and it's just a line trooper.
*Adeptus Titanicus came back, in plastic, which, while it may be expensive, lets you use your knights, which mean it may be accessible even to people which "just" can buy knights.
*While Dawn of War 3 didn't go as well as expected, a new line of videogames are here, including the aforementioned Total War series with legacy tomb kings and Bretonnia, Adeptus Mechanicus, Vermintide 2 (which has sold over a million on PC), a videogame version of Titanicus, an enhaced edition of Spacehulk: Deathwing, the strategy game Gladius and Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 (which is set in the Gathering Storm).
*Duncan Rhodes and Chris Peach painting tutorials and tips of the day have become recurrent.
*Forgebane has become the first starter set with factions other than Space Marines, featuring [[Necron]]s and [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] trying to out-geek each other.
*Did we mention [[Kill Team]] is coming back?
*With Warhammer Community and Facebook GeeDubs has fully taken into the web and social media, with regular updates as well as regular, if controlled, interaction between the admin and the people posting in Facebook.
*Aside the 40k indexes/codexes giving some units some much needed attention, the return of Chapter Approved as an annual rebalancing medium and biannual FAQ adjustments continuously bring 40k into one of the single most balanced editions in it's history. While certain tactics and lists could still be [[Cheese|cheesy]], the noted attention to the current meta and rule rebalancing helped curtail much of the abuse.
*Age of Sigmar is bringing quite original factions such as the Kharadron Overlords and the Idoneth Deepkin, with less emphasis in Tolkienesque armies and more in "let's try to make this faction unique", also they have toned down the noblebright with Malign Portents, which gives a lot of focus on Nagash and his centuries-old plans to take over the Mortal Realms.
*Black Library has worked out to give more deep to the characters and settings of 40k and AoS, the former is exploring the aftermath of the Noctis Aeterna and the Indomitus Crusade, while setting some of the books in Holy Terra itself and its denizens, in AoS there has been more focus in exploring the background and personality of the Stormcast Eternals, their former lives, as well as giving some much needed focus to other mortal races and establishing potential new characters.
**On that note, Gotrek is back, with his first novel Realmslayer, looking for Felix in hopes he has reborn in this new reality.
*Some models from the squatted factions, Bretonnians and Tomb Kings, have been briefly returned for the Warhammer classic range.
*GW has gotten fully aboard laughing at themselves, with much of their recent media awash with memes, jokes, and jolly good humor. The reveal trailer of the Stormcast Eternals Sacrosanct Chamber, for instance, has an opening animation that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9daI6m4KsM looks for all the world like something, well, ''we'' would make].
*Age of Sigmar has gotten a 2.0 edition that looks pretty good so far. The only big downside is the May 2019 Sylvaneth release was delayed with the merchandise stuck in customs, but that was due to Brexit related political and economic problems, which Geedubs acknowledged with good humor. The new Sylvaneth release came out late July and was very good and well-received, so all is fine on the arboreal front.
*With the advent of 40k's Psychic Awakening, GW seems fully intent on keeping the narrative rolling forward (even advertising the promise of wrapping up a number of loose ends), for better or worse. At least in regards to the "better", they fully intended to go into detail about ''all'' the factions in 40k with a slew of new models for good measure. This turned out to be something of a mixed bag, with many of the narratives doing little more than [[Advancing the Storyline|maintaining the status-quo]] while others seemed to suffer from fairly blatant favoritism.
**''Phoenix Rising'': First on deck is the Craftworld [[Eldar]] feuding with their [[Dark Eldar|sado-masochist kin]]. Jain-Zar paves the way as the first [[Awesome|plastic Phoenix Lord]] leading her Howling Banshee aspect against Drahzar and his Incubi disciples (all of which are also now in plastic). A battlebox set titled ''Blood of the Phoenix'' was released alongside this book featuring the aforementioned units alongside a gaggle of other plastic kits for each faction.
**''Faith and Fury'': Next brings the [[Black Templars]] against the combined might of several [[Chaos Space Marines|Chaos Space Marine Legions]]. Unfortunately, while the book includes expanded rules for the factions within, no new chapter/legion models or battleboxes are being released for the Templars or any of the mentioned CSM Legions. At least a brand new generic CSM [[Sorcerer (Warhammer 40,000)|Sorcerer]] launched with the book.
**''Blood of Baal'': The faceoff between the [[Blood Angels]] against resurgent [[Tyranids]]. A new plastic model for [[Mephiston]] graced the Blood Angels. Tyranids, unfortunately, continue their uninterrupted streak of not receiving any new models what-so-ever.
**''Ritual of the Damned'': The [[Dark Angels]] & [[Grey Knights]] square up against the [[Thousand Sons]], with a brand new Primaris Company Master for the Dark Angels being released (and no, it's none of the pre-existing Dark Angel characters, they opted to just make a completely new character).
**''The Greater Good'': A three-way war of propaganda erupts between the [[Imperial Guard]], [[Genestealer|Genestealer Cults]] and [[Tau|T'au Empire]]. A fancy new [[Shadowsun]] model launched with the book, as well as a new Start Collecting! bundle for Genestealer Cults, but the Imperial Guard received nothing outside the usual rule supplements.
**''Saga of the Beast'': An appropriately named conflict between the [[Space Wolves]] and [[Ork|Orks]]. A minty fresh plastic [[Ghazghkull Thraka]], [[Makari]] and primaris-ified [[Ragnar Blackmane]] released in the ''Prophecy of the Wolf'' battlebox.
**''Engine War'': The most inclusive and innovative Psychic Awakening slated for 2020 yet, the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] and [[Imperial Knight|Imperial Knights]] fight their [[Chaos Knight|corrupted kin]] and the [[Chaos Daemons]] accompanying them. AdMech got the single largest batch of new units they've seen since the Skitarii launched back in 7th edition; Skitarii cavalry in the form of Serberys Sulpherhounds and Serberys Raiders mounted on cyberdogs, Sicarian jumppack infantry comprised of Pteraxii Skystalkers and Pteraxii Sterylizors and a 3-in-1 Archeopter with a transport, gunship and bomber variant filling virtually every conceivable role the Admech roster found lacking. Kinda puts every other PA to shame considering most only released one or two updated named characters, [[Imperial Guard|if]] [[Genestealer|they]] [[Tyranids|got]] [[Black Templar|anything]] [[Death Guard|at]] [[Thousand Sons|all]].
**''War of the Spider'': [[Fabius Bile]] returns with a fresh new plastic look, leading his Agents of Bile against a three-way-free-way involving the [[Adeptus Custodes|Talons of]] [[Sisters of Silence| the Emperor]], [[Officio Assassinorum]] and the [[Death Guard]].
**''Pariah'': [[Illuminor Szeras]] in his new plastic make-over and his [[Necron]] host stand against Lord Inquisitor Kyria Draxus and her contingent of [[Adepta Sororitas]] for... reasons I'm sure.
***Almost as an afterthought, the [[Deathwatch]] and [[Harlequins]] are getting a Psychic Awakening-lite release in the form of two separate White Dwarf articles (couldn't even be paired in the same book against each other) to be released this summer. Kind of an anti-climactic way to round out the remaining factions, particularly for the Deathwatch (who have their own codex) when the Black Templars (who're just crammed in the generic Space Marine codex) had significantly more fanfare.
*Plastic Sisters of Battle. That is all, even though they ran out of boxes in under three minutes. To be fair, GW apologized and said that, while they expected new SoB to be popular, they never expected them to be THAT popular. [[Shadow War: Armageddon|Because sometimes GW just. Doesn't. Learn]]. GW also promised to address insufficient number of limited edition boxes (hey, that's capitalism for ya) after their new factory is constructed.
* Warhammer: The Old World is technically the return of Warhammer Fantasy, although it won't be released for another three years.
**Despite (or perhaps because of) the continual stream of new releases pouring out monthly, prices still seem to be gradually creeping up to record heights, with the ''Blood of the Phoenix'', ''Adepta Sororitas: Sisters of Battle Army Set'' and ''Necromunda: Dark Uprising'' box sets well above $200 USD, with the Necromunda set dancing just around $290 USD. This is topped off by the exponentially expanded library of required reading players will need access to in order to play 40k in an official competitive manner (the annual Chapter Approved, the most up-to-date Codex (for Space Marine players, at least), any relevant Codex Supplements, Forge World Armoury Indexes, Campaign or Psychic Awakening books). While the latter issue may not be a concern to more freestyle or casual players, the increasing prices of the box sets make the prospect of getting new players into 40k ever more daunting.

===2020-2021: The Seeds of Treachery===
*When the initial surge of the COVID-19 pandemic went global (we know; something, something Nurglites), Games Workshop ceased doing online orders and closed many of their stores and factories around the world due to lockdown and quarantine policies in various countries including the UK. Thankfully, GW has been doing their best to maintain connection with the community online, lift spirits, and keep people informed about upcoming (albeit inevitably delayed) new releases.
**As of May 1st, GW's website re-opened for online orders in select locations (their webstore is still closed to the US, Canada, Italy, Australia and New Zealand). Their Forge World website is still closed and the Black Library is restricted to ebook sales only for the immediate future.
**In mid-June GW re-opened many physical stores, but social distancing is still recommended (including/especially for the Nurglites).
**GW's webstore is now fully online for everybody again, though many items now have quantity per customer limits to help compensate for their reduced ability to restock supplies. Additionally, while their factories are once again up and running, production is still continuing at a rather reduced rate, resulting in somewhat lengthy time frames for product to restock.
*Warhammer 40k entered its 9th edition in late 2020, giving the core rules a fair makeover without changing the gameplay mechanics too much. All 8th edition supplements and codexes are fully compatible with the new edition, but need to be replaced once their 9th edition variants launch.
*9th edition ushered in a new era for Necron players by propping them up as the main antagonistic faction of the new edition, granting them ''many'' new models and units in a near complete overhaul of their range. Space Marines, of course, also received yet another considerable slew of new Primaris units to keep the nearly 4-year long Space Marine release spree rolling strong.
*Though new codexes were being released near-monthly during the onset of 9th edition, further restrictions on production and shipping due to COVID-19 have resulted in extensive release delays for new codexes and models until further notice.
*Games workshop has recently hired several popular fan animators. These animations, previously available to anyone for free on youtube, are now being marketed as part of the new Warhammer+ streaming service. Furthermore, GW has recently released a change to its copyright rules banning all fan animations from making money.
*40k Kill Teams was ushered into the new edition with a new, frankly disgusting box set featuring the much coveted Heavy Intercessors and new Flayed Ones in one of ''the'' most imbalanced matchups ever seen. Priced at a rather steep $160 for 12 models in total, GW seems to have no reservations about continuing to bump up their prices.
*GW has doubled down on their animation ambitions and has signed on the talent behind very prominent fan-created projects such as ''Astartes'' and ''The Exodite'' to continue their work officially under GW's payroll. It remains to be seen how much free reign these formerly independent creators will be allowed, as the ''Astartes'' shorts were removed from their original Youtube home and transplanted onto Warhammer Community's website with a few notable edits (and definition drop).
**This has expanded into a more contentious issue as GW decided that they would jog sweatily behind the video streaming service with Warhammer+. As of May 2021, it's being promised as being the only place to see many original Warhammer-only animations like the Exodite, Astartes Part 2, and Angels of Death. Of course, [[rage|people are up in arms]] because all this shit that was originally free on Youtube thanks to crowdfunding is now being thrown behind a paywall.
**June 2021 has revealed some further aspects about Warhammer+; its launch date is slated for August 25th and it's not only going to have the original animations as part of its subscription service, but a surprisingly diverse catalog of content. Indeed, also included are exclusive models (one of which is given out to annual subscribers on their subscription anniversary with the other being available for purchase), included paid subscriptions to the 40K and AoS rules apps, inhouse Battle-Reports for AoS and 40k, painting tutorials and some back issues of [[White Dwarf]] and book series such as the Gathering Storm. All under an umbrella price-tag of £4.99/$5.99 a month (or £49.99/$59.99 a year). While tempting and all, it's still only a matter of time before the verdict comes in and people can judge the value of this not-so-ambitious model for milking money outside of the perpetual Codex Creep and plastic crack.
*In a rather interesting move, GW is preparing to release a series of rule supplements for an upcoming campaign: War Zone Charadon. The first book, ''The Book of Rust'' features the Adeptus Mechanicus, Imperial Knights and Death Guard, providing new rules, Codex Supplements and "Armies of Renown". At the time of announcement, neither the Imperial Knights or Adeptus Mechanicus have even had their 9th Edition codexes announced. As the AdMech codex has released about a month after the Book of Rust, it seems to be as compatible with 8E as it is with 9E as it didn't do anything to address any of the changes in editions.
**War Zone Charadon's second book, ''The Book of Fire'', continues the very questionable trend of dicking over factions that have yet to have their codexes released while granting more perks to armies, like the Adeptus Mechanicus and Sororitas, who just had their codexes released and are already in a relatively strong position. Chaos Space Marines get a token mention in the book...[[FAIL|by having their old rules reprinted, without even granting them the extra wound per model they sorely need]]. In the meantime, it's the best option if one wants to purchase the brand new Be'lakor and field him in his own special army.
*Kill Teams is getting another new edition (already?). This new version of Kill Teams does come with a rather juicy incentive: [[Awesome|plastic Death Korps of Krieg]] facing off against freshly minted Ork Kommandos. Indeed, to celebrate the launch, DKoK is getting a special plastic kit that can be used to make 10 standard Guardsmen or Veterans and even comes with enough extra bits and bobs to thoroughly customize individual models as specialists. Yes, they can be used for Kill Teams or for standard 40k. Yes, those bits include lots of shovels. Yes, GW released an animation of a Krieger killing an Ork with one.
**The new edition of Kill Teams features a very extensive overhaul of the game mechanics. Where last edition was built around a system relatively similar to 40k's gameplay, Kill Teams uses a completely different structure that does ''not'' translate to 40k.
*Speaking of Orks, their new codex was ushered in by a new box set containing a brand new Ork subfaction; the Beast Snaggas. These squig-riding/wrangling Orks are also accompanied by a fairly sizeable range refresh, including new Ork Boyz, Kommandos (per Kill Teams at least) and even new DeffKoptas. ''Unfortunately'', the new Ork Beast Snaggas box set was limited edition and was the only source of the Ork Codex until further notice.
*One minor complaint is that their Youtube comments section is almost always turned off; the complainers have clearly never seem how brain-breakingly terrible YouTube comments are because they'd consider this a good thing if they did. The fact that this is still better than the previous decade and a half shows how bad things really got. Thank fuck for sensible economic choices being finally deemed necessary.
*Another complaint aim at GW is them taking a stance in a political issue. After the George Floyd incident, GW released a statement on Twitter (https://twitter.com/WarComTeam/status/1268665798467432449). The response from the community has been...mixed, with some praising GW for speaking out on an important issue and other saying that they should stay out of politics and accusing them of hypocrisy due to the recent price increase actually excluding more people from the hobby.
**Now the whole message that they wrote was almost certainly corporate bullshit, because almost every big company has released a similar statement. But that didn't stop parts of the community from acting like retards. On one side, leftyfags used the fact that a corporation said something they support to discuss plans to force people they disagree with out of hobby while changing the setting to be more "inclusive". On the other side, rightyfags got salty that most don't like calling black people racist slurs "as a joke" and call them names back while blaming "the SJW menace". So you know, overly political fucktards using a tragic situation to try and assimilate the rest of the community to their way of thinking and calling for their heads if they don't.
*Age of Sigmar's Broken Realms Saga was released to moderately positive reception, with it having more narrative impact on its setting than 40k's Psychic Awakening had. Following the conclusion of the Saga, AoS Third Edition was released, with revamps to older systems in the game, and the introduction of new ones such as Monstrous Rampages, Heroic Actions, and Universal Battalions. As well as new model ranges for Stormcast and Orruk Warclans.
**As of November 2021, the Age of Sigmar community has not suffered as badly from GW's predatory and ever infuriating business practices, especially in comparison to the 40k community. Partially this can be attributed to the smaller pool of officially licensed media or fanmade content meaning fewer incidents of NDA or copyright scumbaggery. Whatever the reasoning, many AoS fans still wait with baited breath for whenever GW finally slips up and squanders their last good graces.

===2022: Mostly Back on the Old Shit===
[[File:GW Cease&Desist-Flashgits.png|right|thumb|400px|"Oh and how is that cease and desist coming for all those Youtube animation faggots?"]]
Turns out it was all a ruse, and that GW is still a shit company, as within a period of around 12 months GW has fallen back into almost all of their old habits again.
*Prices have slowly crept up again with many new (and a fair few old) kits being more expensive, and while this is only by a small amount in some cases, the creep in price is definitely felt in start battle boxes, as many of the recent ones have had little in it and cost far too much.
** Oh, and they made so much money on all you COVID shut-ins that [[Profit|they gave everyone in the company a £5,000 bonus]].
*Power creep has reached and surpassed the point it was during 7th edition, with every almost every new codex having broken and meta lists, typically built around new units introduced making so that GW in a not so subtle way is trying to make the best things for armies new stuff that no one will have, so people almost always have to buy the new thing to have competitive armies.
**Just for reference it took 16 years and 5 editions (3rd-7th) for the old system of 40k to become broken enough that GW decided to scrap the whole thing and redo it. It's taken around 4 years and 2 editions for the game to become as broke (and arguably a bit more broken) this time around.
***To add to this, an entire faction - the [[Leagues of Votann]] - were being outright banned from many tournaments. Why? Because in an edition known for it's horrendous power creep, the Votann were ''exceptionally'' broken. Let that sink in.
*There were also several cases of false advertising, when the contents of the boxes did not match the description in articles on Warhammer community site (those had to be retroactively changed). On top of it just being a bad business practice, preorders of GW boxes in countries without official GW stores can open before said boxes are put on GW's webstore, therefore making people who believed those articles and paid up front understandably angry.
*GW has been also squashing fan animations and projects, updating their IP laws to have a [[Bullshit|"Zero Tolerance Stance"]] for people who use their IP and make money out of it without their permission. Commissioned fan art? Fan animation on Youtube? Patreon supported artist who makes Warhammer fanfiction? [[BLAM|"Cease and Desist, faggot."]] We have yet to see if this extends to people who make lore videos and battle reports, but considering GW has been burning down anything that could be in competition with [[Warhammer Plus|Warhammer+]], they soon could.
**After the channel [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxIy_cPihn8|"AbsolutelyNothing" discussed his run in with GW legal] it proved what a few people had believed: that GW was actually Shanghaiing a bunch of different creators to add to their Warhammer+ service and telling them to demonetise their content with the threat of legal trouble if they didn't. Because most fan animations were both of better quality than [[Ultramarines: The Movie|GW's]] [[Inquisitor_(film)|official]] [[Warhammer_Epic_40,000:_Final_Liberation|stuff]] and more importantly free, it meant that random cunts on Youtube would outperform Warhammer+. GW thus came in and offered those a job in order to make 'officially-sanctioned and supported' animations. Not a bad thing on its own, but with the fact that if the creators didn't agree they were forced to demonetise their entire channels and cancel any monetary support to make these animations shows that these meeting were pretty much just blackmail to either get creators to work for them or potentially cripple their main source of income. Though it's also easy to see why a company wouldn't want other people profiting from what they see as their product (even though it doesn't all actually belong to Games Workshop). But, GW is so ignorant of its fans, the company never realized these creators brought in people who bought 40K products. Usually not models, but everything else.
**Because of these new IP rules [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device]] has been shelved indefinitely as even though GW has not sent them anything yet, Alfabusa and the rest of the crew don't feel like their livelihoods are secure with the threat of GW breathing down their necks, thus killing what is arguably the widest reaching piece of free marketing for 40k. Images of guns and feet come to mind.
***Hilariously one of the few places that mostly doesn't give a shit about TTS indefinite hiatus is good old [[/tg/]]. While most disagree with overbearing IP rules, /tg/ has not been seeing eye-to-eye with projects like TTS as of late and the uproar on sites like Reddit and Twitter have generated large amount of mocking, joy and general feelings of schadenfreude on [[4chan]]. This stems mainly from screenshots of Twitter and Reddit accounts saying things along the lines of "I was thinking about getting into the hobby, but now I'm not", confirming in the mind of /tg/ that the majority of the TTS audience were [[That_Guy|no-model secondaries]] [[No gamer|that didn't play the game to begin with.]] As far as /tg/ is concerned, those added nothing to the hobby to begin with and [[Just_as_planned|their removal from the fandom is a net positive in the long run]]. To say that this has caused somewhat of a rift to develop within the community would be an understatement.
***Some argue that this comes off as laughably hypocritical, deriding one of the most beloved and wide reaching 40k fanmade series, but also of being elitist gatekeepers who turn off new prospective fans from potentially joining the hobby. TTS also acted as a major way to bring people into buying everything other than models. The games, the books, and whatever else they could get that didn't involve physical effort and finding time to go to a store tucked into a forgotten corner of their hometown or a nearby city.
*This has caused several fans who grew tired of GW’s shit to abandon Warhammer 40k in favor of [[Battletech]], which has recently seen something of a resurgence as of late. Which may eventually create the one thing Games Workshop fears the most, [[Not as Planned |a rival]] [[Derp |big enough to]] [[FAIL |threaten them directly.]] This could have far-reaching consequences in the future, though when we can expect results is up in the air.
*The release of Horus Heresy 2.0 humiliated both veteran Legiones Astartes players by removing many iconic units such as Land Raiders Phobos and Castaferrum Dreadnaughts from the core rules and non-Marines players by simply not giving them any rules at the system's launch, essentially declaring them second-rate citizens. The Legacies document that came later to add these modern-day units and stuff that never got models was routinely lambasted for incredibly lazy writing and making these units straight-up shittier than the stuff they want you to use in the big black books. As for the non-marines players, their rulebooks are only coming out roughly as fast as any other codex. Hopefully history doesn't repeat itself and make the game fall off the radar due to [[Alan Bligh|a lead dev dying and the team struggling to fill the gap.]]
*Being a British company, on the 8 September 2022, the day Queen Elizabeth II died, they added a black square and statement of condolence tribute on their website and kept it there for several days. On the 19th of September, the day of Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, Games Workshop closed all their UK stores and didn't publish anything on Warhammer community. While many businesses in the UK and other parts of the world have made similar tributes, it goes to show even Games Workshop knows some things are more important than money.

tldr; As a company, prices are creeping up, Codex's are broken and horribly balanced, GW is being about as anti-consumer as they can get, outside of throwing dried cat shit at people who walk into their stores and they seem to have nothing but contempt for the fanbase. So we're right back to where we were during 5th edition 40k.
===2023: A year that is currently happening===
stay tuned...

==/tg/ Analysis Of Games Workshop==

===Blind Deaf-mutes===
In a [http://www.iii.co.uk/news-opinion/richard-beddard/games-workshop-agm%3a-relentless-profit-machine meeting with shareholders], Games Workshop exhibited their attitudes quite plainly (and may or may not have mistaken 1/5th for a half).
*"- the word “Game” in Games Workshop encourages the misconception that games are its business, but that only about 20% of Games Workshop’s customers are gamers. The rest are modellers and collectors. Maybe half of them think about playing now and then. The other half have no intention. People actually walk into the stores because they’re curious about modelling fantastic armies."

When asked "-if the company would sell games with pre-painted easy to assemble miniatures like the popular Star Wars themed X-Wing game" they said:
*"It wouldn’t be a hobby business then, it would be a toy company."

*"-introducing products at new price points is different to reducing the recommended retail price, something the company resolutely refuses to do. It’s considering “putting more value in the box”, discounting in other words, when people buy in number. That ought to encourage gamer-modellers."

*"Potentially lucrative income from licenses granted to video games producers like the much anticipated and soon to be released Total War Warhammer will always be incidental because video gamers do not become modellers, and Games Workshop doesn’t know how to make good video games."

In their 2015 Financial Report, they stated:
*"The Group does not undertake research activities."
In the same report, the words "market" and "research" never referred to the same subject. They claim their main audience is teenagers, although they also state that the hobbyist crowd is their main fanbase. Furthermore, they make assumptions about their fanbase despite admitting that they do not research about them.

So what can be learned? Games Workshop has absolutely no long-term plan other than to make more expensive models, and cater to those who can drop thousands in a single impulse buy. Rather than expanding and reaching out to new customers, they are intentionally becoming a niche market for an elite crowd. In other words?
"Fuck you, you smelly hatless Irishman."

===The Digital Age (And Completely Missing the Point)===
Games Workshop would sign a deal with Apple to sell eBooks on the interwebz, instead of Amazon (the largest retailer worldwide), because then the books would have to be cheaper. Games Workshop refused to understand the fact that eBooks ''almost always'' cost less than what they would if bought from a book store. That 1 pence discount doesn't count.
(From GW point of view, even tho it's stupid to put the same price on eBooks as the Hardcover Army Books/Codices, it makes sense. Because if they were to sell them cheaper, they would sell much less books, meaning they'll lose money from the traditional books. Yes, it cost $80 in Australia for both the eBook and the Hardcover, which again is bullshit.)(A load of crap, 90 dollars for Hardcover Codex, 70 for ebook, in Aus.)

Though in this regard, GW does seem to be slowly figuring out what works: Dataslates are a cheap effective means of deploying models without committing to entire armies/detachments. Essentially like microtransactions. While around £3 might seem like a lot of money for only a few pages of crunch and only two or three new units/formations, they are some of the cheapest products GW have released in a good long time and they do also use these to repost entire rules sections dragged out of the codices in addition to the product itself, so you never needed the codex if you never owned it in the first place.

Some of the Dataslates are extremely high quality (like [[Cypher]]) and are virtually must-haves, while some others are complete dross (Reclusiam Command Squad?) that were dreamed up over a 5 minute coffee break just to sell something. But with the advent of 7th Edition, armies can be made up entirely of dataslates ''(or just go unbound)'' so they are no longer telling you how to build your army any more and you can keep it cheaper by bringing only a few models to make up your chosen formation.

[[File:Gamesworkshopinanutshell.png|thumb|300px|right|Games Workshop's probable downfall.]]

Oh, and they sell them in various formats so you don't need that iPad if you don't have one since eReaders can be downloaded for free and if you still don't have anything to read them on, then have a [[FAIL|think]] about how you got onto the Internet.
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===Why Games Workshop is Bad and Should Feel Bad===
One anon's perpsective on why GW hasn't collapsed in on itself yet. Keep in mind that was written some time during the Derpening when reading this.
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Never mind that large groups are often less efficient due to the fact that most people like to agree and be part of a group, even if the group is wrong. Forget that the burden of hard work is often shrugged off thanks to the assumption that everyone else will be carrying enough of the real challenges to pull things through (and that when things go wrong, it's a flaw of human nature that people don't like to admit and accept when they screw up). Instead, focus on the fact that the people heading GW – or most large corporations for that matter – are successful, rich, ordinary men who are blessed by good fortune in an unfair universe and probably don't realize the reality. Further, examine the knowledge that, according to Sun Tzu and a variety of psychological studies, successful rich people with the aforementioned profound luck are the folks most likely to make stupid mistakes out of anyone!

Now you know why GW (or the entire world, for that matter) is run the way it is.

A source of some debate on /tg/ is whether or not it is actually charging prices that make sense for the hobby. All logic points to a resounding “no”, but another interesting social phenomena is this: fanboyism is an inbuilt human process. Whenever money is spent on a good, especially a luxury item, man has a way of increasing the illusionary worth of that item.

Imagine buying tickets to see your local team play football, and they lose. It's not even a good game, to be honest. People around the country were disappointed. However, those tickets cost a lot of money, and having spent all that money for so little in return makes a person feel stupid. We grope for other things, then, to make the tickets worth while rather than admit we were wrong (even if we were only wrong due to events beyond our control) and learn from it. Yes, it was cold, but your wife was there, so you bonded! The beer was too expensive as well, but they sold your favorite brand! You had an experience! It was fun! Yes, those tickets were worth it in the end.

We'll even do this with soft drinks. Even if brain probes reveal a man likes Pepsi more than Coke, going back and telling the man what he was drinking can actually ''alter his memory'' so that he remembers liking the Coke more. It's amazing.

GW products are exactly the same way. They're ludicrously expensive. Even people who support GW fervently wish they weren't. It hurts. In a rough economy, it's hard to play the game. You spend months, years – who knows how long waiting for that new codex, it turns out to be awful compared to expectations (hello, Tyranids!) (UP YOURS ASSHOLE.), and now you've either got to suck it up and keep playing (got to buy the new Trygons, I guess, even though they aren't ''that'' great), or take a huge monetary loss and give up. Fanboyism steps in and makes it all okay. You're not just buying the models, but the game and the network utility too, so 40k is still totally fun and cool!

Big corporations, and GW as well, are predators. They feast on fanboyism. Like the [[Dark Eldar]], they prey on your suffering and write sick, stomach-turning poetry about the flowing, green streams of vital wealth they siphon from your being. You are a toy (''moreso than the articles they sell''). [[Hot Chicks|That cute girl at the convenience store you see all the time?]] Thanks to GW, you have to choose between inviting her to the theater and buying that new squadron of Guardsmen. Those of you scoffing at the dilemma, shut up; those Guardsmen won't cheat on you, dump you for someone else or nag nearly as much after you've had them for a little while, so it's <s>[[Neckbeard|totally a tough call.]]</s>{{BLAM|'''*BLAM!* HERESY!!! NOT CHOOSING THE EMPEROR'S FINEST IS HERESY!!!'''}}
But putty in their hands you may be, there are still some principles of basic economics that imply GW ''might not be earning enough revenue,'' and surprisingly, they can only lose more money by raising prices! There's no real way of knowing how things really are within GW without a look at the delicate, inner machinery of their business. But it does all come back to our first consideration: GW is run by the type of person most notable for making poor decisions – lucky, successful people, and a group, no less.

Whatever idiot wrote the following has no _actual_ business sense. Revenue ≠ Profit. Profit = Revenue - Cost... yes, but still give you a good idea about GW policy.

The situation is thus: there is more to money flow than just the bottom line, though often it's all we think of, but basically there's income, cost, and revenue. What is of most concern is revenue, which could also be thought of as [[profit]]. GW sells their models for a greater amount than what they cost, and the amount they make is revenue!

So now, there's revenue, and then there's marginal revenue. Revenue is just how much you make. Sell a thousand Guardsmen and make ten thousand dollars? Your Guardsmen revenue is $10,000! Marginal revenue, on the other hand, is how much you make ''compared to selling one less of the item''. In this case, the Guardsmen have a marginal revenue of $10. Each Guardsman made a profit of $10, and if you sold one less Guardsman, you'd make $10 less. See? Easy. Well, for this simplified example anyway (in reality there are a lot of fixed start-up costs, but point made).

Now let's raise prices. From now on, we'll sell half as many Guardsmen per box, and the boxes will cost the same. Now marginal revenue is $22, because every time a Guardsman is sold, we bring in $20 per Guardsman plus an additional $2 gets saved thanks to the Guardsmen we didn't make! This is cool – we're in business, just like GW, /tg/! Let's do that again – our customers are fans, they'll bear it! Now we'll sell five Guardsmen to a box, and we have a marginal revenue of $45!

Okay, wait, wait. I've got it. I'm a genius. Let's sell one Guardsman. Sell it for the same price we used to sell twenty of them! We're going to be rich! Marginal revenue is going to be amazing! Like, what, over a hundred dollars a purchase?

So what's our profit in the end? What! Negative? How!? We're making ''so much'' per model! The marginal revenue is ''so high''!

The answer is simple. Not enough people are buying one crappy Guardsman for $200 dollars. A few of the fans are sticking it out, hating us relentlessly, but newcomers to the game see the price tag and run screaming. People who can't afford it leave because they have no other choice, but they're happy in retrospect. Even some of our most loyal customers finally decided to just date that girl after all – one gets more of their money's worth from her ([[This Guy|one way]] [[Hot Chicks|or]] [[Promotions|another]]) and they'll deal with her constant bitching. Actual revenue is at an all time low.

Believe it or not, lots of other companies really do make this mistake, albeit not often to this extent (unless you check out [[Forge World]], anyway. Anyone want a Tau [[Manta]]? Under £1,000). It's because maximizing marginal revenue is very easy. It's simple arithmetic, and if your market base is rather inelastic (and GW's market base certainly is due to the high investment requirements of their games), a lot of times price changes won't have a huge impact, so it's easier to focus on. GW is at some point in the middle here, where it has started to become questionable.

It's hard to say if they're making right decisions or if their pricing makes the most sense. It's becoming the status quo that their games are really a hobby of those with absurd disposable income, which is not a quality described of the young men who are presumed to make up 40k's primary demographic. It's possible that they're targeting young teens with parents who will buy the models for them, but that's hard to say as well since parents will lack the dedicated fanboyism to continually invest in the absurdly priced hobby.

Mix in unbalanced rules that unfairly favor certain factions, long wait times between army updates, [[Casting|inferior model quality]] compared to what's provided to model hobbyists outside of the wargaming industry, and GW may have a recipe for a failing market.

In fact, by using some math and basic market theory, we can actually take a look at how much GW is supposedly spending to bring our hobby to us.

The list below will give us some basic numbers to work with. We know that GW currently sells its rule books at $74.25. What we don't know is GW's actual costs or how many books they're selling. These things have an impact on the math, but we'll sort of fudge it. Now, based on that alone, we want to price our book at twice what it costs to make the thing. In the real world all this nice math has the tendency to fly apart, but generally speaking that's the ideal manner of doing things. For example:

Quantity sold: 0
Price of book: $0
Estimated cost to GW: $0
Marginal Cost: $0
Marginal Revenue: $0
Total Revenue: $0

Quantity sold: 1
Price of book: $74.25
Estimated cost to GW: $37.13
Marginal Cost: $37.13
Marginal Revenue: $37.12
Total Revenue: $37.12

Quantity sold: 2
Price of book: $74.25
Estimated cost to GW: $74.25
Marginal Cost: $37.13
Marginal Revenue: $37.12
Total Revenue: $74.25

And so on. Since we're assuming that every book has a fixed cost to produce, we just get a rough idea of what it's actually costing GW to make rule books for us. Or so such is true only if we figure they're trying to price things according to a competitive market where the consumer sets the price. Basic economics says we want to have a marginal revenue equal to our marginal cost if we want to work with a price we can't really control, and that's what this does.

See, there's a few things to consider. The first is that, in a competitive market, people are just going to buy the cheapest product. That means whoever is selling cheapest kind of wins the day, but while GW could maybe sell their rule books at $20 each, they'd be suffering huge profit losses that are not directly proportionate to the change in price. Instead, they'll try to follow along with what the market is doing, and to their very best possible effort, they'll try to lower their costs so that the marginal costs equal the marginal revenue (or, again, their prices are basically double their production costs per item). That just simply maximizes revenue, since if they raise prices their competitors will undercut them and GW will be able to sell nothing.

But honestly, if you've read this far, then hopefully you're braced for this shock. According to estimates from a few publishers, it only costs about $3 per book to publish 5,000 hardback books, and that cost decreases as you publish in greater bulk. 40k books do have a lot of pretty pictures, so maybe that increases costs somewhat, but again, costs generally tend to get smaller as you order more of an item, and it's pretty likely that GW is not just settling for a measly 5,000 books internationally. They sell all over the world.

So where are all these other costs popping up that should cause GW to spend $37 on every single book they produce? In small production quantities, we'd consider the cost of labor. Who knows how much Matt Ward demands to be paid to lick every rule book before it leaves the factory! What do the photographers want in compensation? Actually, ''stop''. At GW's production rates, those expense considerations become almost ''completely negligible.'' You pay Matt Ward a salary to lick all the books. It's a yearly thing. You pay him once and you're done, so by the time you've produced a million books, even if you paid Matt a million dollars to slobber on every single page, Matt is only increasing the cost of the books by a dollar each.

Margins are all that matter. GW talks about overheads and so forth as an excuse, but that's insanity. In a perfectly competitive market you don't increase prices to cover overheads. You reduce the overheads because they're predictable annual costs that you more or less established on your own! Besides, you shouldn't be able to arbitrarily raise prices like that, seeing as how your competitors are supposedly keeping you in check! So really, what we can infer is the following:

A. Basically, GW has no competitors controlling their pricing right now. (This was especially true in the old days. Nowadays, this is less of an excuse as wargames and miniature companies branched out into all sorts of different fields. Thus, the monopoly GW used to have is no more.)

B. They are price gouging their players to fill the pockets of the people who run the company. (This scares off a lot of players, especially ones who have to buy a bunch just to keep up with the inconsistent update schedule or wish to start with a full army. Thus, the only people left are the people rich enough to afford it and those too ignorant to really think otherwise/the GWIDF)

C. Their pricing is not directly related to their costs, and anything they say to the contrary is a big fat lie. (This particular argument is used by Recaster supporters and proponents of 3-D Printers as they slowly advance in complexity to begin making more accurate and good-quality resin models.)

D. You could play another game, but all your friends are playing 40k anyway and you don't want to feel left out.

'''E. Fuck Games Workshop'''. ''' ''FUCK THEM WITH A FUCKING CHAINBLADE. NO. MAKE THAT A DAEMONHAMMER.'' '''

This article also explains the problem with Australian prices, in a slightly less detailed manner; [http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/04/the-iron-fist-how-games-workshop-intends-to-monopolise-the-online-sale-of-products/]

Games Workshop have sat pretty at the top of the miniature wargames shit-heap for many years (indeed, the scale models industry tries to ignore that they're the biggest single seller of miniatures) and have abused this position to increase their own profits. However, fortunately for the long suffering gamer alternatives are emerging. [[Privateer Press]] for example produce the games [[Warmachine]] and [[Hordes]] and offers slightly cheaper models and starter sets. In the market for wargames Privateer Press and Coolminiornot are rapidly emerging as a viable challenger to GW's monopoly while Reaper Miniatures takes them on using the same tactics that made them in the first place; licensing IP's, and making things for other games. They are the Tau, Dark Eldar, and Chaos to GW's Imperium.

Also worthy of note is [[Mantic Games]] who produce [[Kings of War]], a fantasy battle game in a similar vein to Warhammer. The rules system was even written by former GW man Alessio Cavatore (essentially succeeding at what every frustrated ex-GW employee since 1988 has dreamed of) and it is fast, fluid and a lot more "fun" than Warhammer. The company is pioneering the use of plastic-resin alloy (or 'restic') as a cost effective alternative to pewter. Oh, and equivalent plastic models cost about HALF what GW charge (e.g. GW High Elf Spearmen (16 models) - £20, Mantic Games Elf Spearmen (20 models) - £13.99) the trade-off however is that Mantic models look like hammered dogshit. Mantic are basically the war gaming equivalent of Asylum films.

One can only hope that these new upstarts will beat down GWs monopolistic hold on the [[wargame]] market.
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===A Sobering Look at GW's Near Collapse===
On top of all the other financial considerations involved with a company like Games Workshop, there's one major concern that was probably gravely overlooked by the company as it raised prices and cut smaller retailers out of the picture: a concept called "network utility". A lot of products are useless unless they're used by a ton of people. A fax machine is a good example - if everyone owns a fax machine, then one person can use his own fax machine to send pictures of his ass to everyone on earth. That's a good value for a single person, and really makes the fax machine worth buying! However, if fewer people buy fax machines, it becomes less and less desirable to own one. After all, why buy a machine that's only capable of sending a picture of your butt to your grandmother, the only other person who still has a machine? Grandma is never impressed, anyway.

A similar concept exists with GW, and they've ignored it over the past couple of years, especially as they've cut models out of starter sets to reduce costs. If you go down to your local game store and everyone is playing Warhammer 40k, not only are you more likely to get into it because of friendly recommendations, but you're also likely to start playing because you know everyone has an army and everyone can play with you! Even if you aren't personal friends with the folks at your local game store, you know that anywhere you go, the people you meet at the FLGS can play the game with you!

The more difficult GW made it to carry their products, the more game stores turned to alternatives to fill shelves. [[Spartan Games]] and [[Privateer Press]] quickly moved in to fill the void with creative new IP (at least until they ran into their own problems). [[Fantasy Flight Games]] upped the ante even further with Star Wars product that was table ready straight out of the box. The network utility of FFG's products was huge because it was so accessible, making it the go-to for casuals looking to buy into whatever had the most players, despite FFG's extortionate pricing.

Now, models (and games in general) have gotten more expensive; granted, only scaled in price with inflation, but since wages have largely stagnated in a lot of markets these past couple decades, to the typical consumer the costs still feel like they've gone up and the players notice the hikes. When a product gets more expensive, people naturally quit buying it. This thins the dedicated player herd.

Meanwhile, GW also drags its feet when it comes to codex updates, and when it does update, there's no telling whether or not a new codex is going to be a complete load of shit. The Tyranid codex being a huge let down for two editions running is probably one of the most critical examples. Anyone who collected Tyranids as a main army has pretty well given up hope by now, and they've quit collecting. Other players with armies in similar straits, likely feeling abandoned during 5th edition when GW focused exclusively on Space Marines, have also probably drifted away from the hobby. Of course, there have also been a few people who just quit playing out of disgust because their local meta was a bit too hardcore and there was no way to win games without exploiting the broken, disjointed lack of balance.

Although Games Workshop continued to hike up prices and showed fantastic profits in the short term, these issues probably alienated too many people, and as they roll along with the next edition and new codices, they're probably discovering, with great horror, that there aren't enough players buying into it anymore. Worse, the effect can snowball out of control, and GW will probably lose their market control in one big flash of failure. Almost overnight, it'll suddenly seem that 40k has evaporated.

When there are too few players in the game, it's no longer true that you can go to your FLGS and play with any stranger in the store. There's always that one guy - that rich asshole who owns every army in the book and consequently has some of the most boring, broken, frustrating army lists to play against. But do you really want to play against that guy every single weekend? Eventually, you quit showing up to play 40k as well, and once you're gone, even that dick with all his money has no more reason to play. The final pillar falls, and Games Workshop is no more.

In other words, the player base has always been the most important foundation of the company, and it was always GW's greatest strength. Not the model quality, not the rules, not the setting or any of the IP that they keep suing their fans over. The reason Games Workshop dominated was because everyone played their games. As soon as that's no longer the case, the company can't save itself by releasing new models or updating the rules. Their reign is over. They topple, because the foundations have shrunk.

===GW The Bully===
{{Topquote|It's like we're in an abusive relationship|Some random anon describing GW scumfuckery.}}
Games Workshop has long had a history of being one of the most litigious companies in regards to its IP in ''existence''. One needs look no further than our own [[Pauldrons]] article to get an idea of how bad it is, in that it uses its designs to openly fight any company that dares have any remote similarity to its own models in any way, shape, or form. You have any wargame with armored dudes with big pauldrons? Lawsuit. You run a company that makes third-party components for existing models? [[Derp|Lawsuit]]. You make anything remotely resembling any GW IP ever and aren't a massive company that could actually contest the giant copyright stick GW is swinging around and make them look like the idiots they are? [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies|LAWSUIT]].

Whilst GW has a lengthy history of overstepping boundaries in its war to enforce its copyright, it had decided to go [[Deathstrike Missile Launcher|nuclear]]. [http://boingboing.net/2013/02/06/games-workshop-trademark-bully.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter In 2013, GW launched the claim that it owns the phrase ''Space Marine''], ignoring that sci-fi has used the terminology for the better part of eighty years (and showing their hypocrisy as Games Workshop shamelessly stole the term 'Eldar' from [[Tolkien]]; yes, he invented the word 'Eldar'). The story in question "Spots the Space Marine" is about a middle age housewife, nicknamed Spots, being recalled back to the Marine corp (ie a Real Marine, in space) to fight giant enemy crabs (in space). It had nothing to do with GW's Space Marines or the Warhammer 40K setting.

*The History of the term "Space Marine"; The first known use of term 'Space Marine' was made by sci-fi author Bob Olsen (real name; Alfred Johannes Olsen, 1884-1956), who first used the term in his short story "Captain Brink of the Space Marines" from his "Amazing Stories" series, first published in '''1932'''. Warhammer 40K started as the Second Edition of Rogue Trader and was released in 1993, while [[Rogue Trader]] itself was released in 1987. Games Workshop was founded in 1975 and even its oldest founding member (Ian Livingstone) was born in 1949. Therefore, the term Space Marine was in use for forty-three years before Games Workshop existed and over a decade before any of the founders were even born. Plus, with a bit of use of copyright law, in 2026 (seventy years after Bob Olsen died), the term Space Marine could theoretically become public domain, then GW would no longer be able to copyright it then.

This means that what GW tried to do was plagiarism, which is a direct violation of copyright law. Games Workshop's strategy to make "space marine" less generic involved launching high profile, bullying attacks on every professional author or artist who isn't associated with a huge company who uses it, trying to make it so people hearing the phrase immediately conclude that [[Derp|it ''must'' be related to Games Workshop]], because ''everyone'' knows [[Eldrad|what enormous cocks]] they are whenever anyone else uses the phrase. These attacks were not, again, targeted at any opponent that could credibly fight back; this is because if it actually came to attempts to litigate over the phrase, GW would be laughed out of court. It wasn't not going to stop GW from being cocks, though. In fact, as of 2014, [[Herp|Games Workshop's website still has 'Space Marine' listed as one of their copyrights]]. This copyright backlash made them rename the Imperial Guard "Astra Militarum" (This is not the correct Latin declension for "Star Military." If it was the correct declension, then it would be just as hard to trade mark as "Imperial Guard"), but their hard-on for Space Marines stopped GW from renaming the codex something original, such as "Adeptus Astartes".

After the failure and fiasco of the suit against Spots the Space Marine, GW would post a lengthy and self defeating rant on their own Facebook page, which basically displayed the ignorance of those writing the post. Shortly afterwards, the Facebook page went down after the backlash it caused. Several who queried GW over the pages removal were told that GW wished for the experience with the fanbase to be more personal, thus people should be following their own GW stores.

Their bullying came back to bite them in the ass after a failed attempt at suing third-party manufacturer [[ChapterHouse Studios]]; when they refused to back down from GW's threats to sue them for making unauthorized models (specifically Mycetic Spores, the Doom of Malan'tai, and the Parasite of Mortrex), the lawsuit went to court- which GW [[FAIL|failed]] to argue the majority of alleged copyright breaches. Apparently, just writing up the rules for a model doesn't give you the sole rights to making that model after all. Undaunted, GW did the next best thing-[[Rage|they removed the offending entries from the Tyranid codex]], burning the fur coat to spite the fleas. Way to put the customer first, GeeDubs. At least now we know how to save the galaxy from the Tyranids: make and sell unsanctioned Tyranid models.

Now, despite their changes for the better, their hypocrisy came back to haunt them in August 2017 when[https://spikeybits.com/2017/08/games-workshop-is-being-sued-for-62-5m.html Games Workshop got sued in the US to the tune of 62.5 million for, among other things "...stolen Intellectual property of others to establish it’s Warhammer 40,000 game in the 1980s"] Fans felt bad, worried about the future of the hobby or cheered that what goes around comes around (the latter since GW sued people for far less; see "Spots the Space Marine" above). However, given the lawsuit's bizarre, poorly written and ignorant case (eg; H.R Giger does not own the idea of aliens who use other species for their reproductive cycle and accusing Games Workshop of being European Communists) Moore's case fell apart and was dismissed in October 2017. Imagine failing to sue GW over stolen intellectual property when 40K is essentially made of other people's IP. Perhaps this was intentional, assuming double jeopardy applies to lawsuits.

Of course GW's early copyright mistakes have also bit them in the ass; [[Tony Ackland]] still owns his Daemon designs as discussed above, and [[Kev Adams]] was only ever sculpting generic greenskins which he still owns the molds for. Both lend their talents (and IP work) to the company [[Knightmare Miniatures]], who produce Daemons based on the original [[Realm of Chaos]] art, the sculpts of Kev's greenskins both new and old, and a number of 40k-related works as well. If you're wondering why GW never went after them, the two are VERY popular among the tabletop gamer community so they could easily raise the funds needed to defend themselves in court (Kev himself has already demonstrated that given the money the community raised to fund surgeries for him after he got stabbed in the fucking eye by a burglar), and since GW themselves ripped off their work the same way most 3rd party companies rip off theirs then there's always a chance they could lose the rights to make Daemonettes/Plaguebearers/Horrors/Bloodletters/Black Orcs/Night Goblins and so on in a countersuit. While renaming Black Orcs and Night Goblins as Orruk 'Ardboyz and Gloomspite Gitz might be an attempt to deflect this, Bloodletters, Horrors and Daemonettes would still be vulnerable.

===The ₽₹¥€£$===
[[Image:1271198871887.jpg|thumb|right|250px|[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zSxQnZ3TM8 Games Workshop's typical meeting board]]]
'''In the grim darkness of the near future, the prices must beat inflation.'''

GW is infamous for their steep prices, and they would have been replaced by a more reasonable company for gaming dominance if their popularity wasn't XBOXHUEG compared to their competitors. These price hikes have been around forever, as the rise of video games (people buying fewer models in general over time) and currency inflation have necessitated "adaptation to a more niche market". The infamous price hikes that /tg/ will remember (and be ass-mad about) forever occurred within the decade span from 2005 to 2015. Between these dates, it is safe to say that every model kit raised its price 50%, with some kits doubling in price. Note that /tg/ came into being during the price hikes, and spent most of it's lifetime (and all of it's formative years) suffering under them.

Games Workshop also have a nasty habit of making prices proportional to how good a model/unit is in-game, rather than the actual cost of materials and manufacture.

Of course, if we really want to stop the price hikes, [[/tg/]] should probably start a legitimate campaign to give perspective and shine the spotlight on other wargames like Warmachine, but /tg/ can't get REAL shit done! Regardless, it definitely won't stop until Brexit related nonsense and the Corona Pandemic are over.

The prices didn't stop them or their model customers. However, due to GW's recent bout of shittiness, people have turned more and more to 3D printing only to discover just how vast an amount GW has actually been gouged people over the years. This revelation has gone viral in the 40K community and, unlike GW, the makers of BattleTech encourage fans to use 3D printing whereas GamesWorkshop has had a small meltdown on the subject. Talk about being hoisted by your own petard.

==Positives about Games Workshop==
Take this as virtues that outshine the bad, being damned with faint praise or anything in between as you will...

*Their art departments are (usually) top notch, with every race or faction being iconic (you can easily identify Tau, Eldar, Astartes, Lizardmen, Druchii, etc at a glance) and rich in visual details, and cool minis with great conversion potential.
*GW has legitimately ''good'' customer service. If you order something from them and it gets lost in the mail or it's got a botched cast on the sprue, they will replace it without hesitation, and stick a warp drive (and a fully-functioning gellar field) on it to make sure you get it as soon as possible.
**Scratch that if we're talking Forgeworld. ''Yes, sir, that 2mm mold line shift on the leg of your Terminator is perfectly acceptable quality''
*They usually have something for anyone when it comes to fantasy or scifi, their armies, while not often the most original, are still fun to collect and paint, and will often have fun lore with lots of characters, interesting plot twists and a lot of potentiality for YOUR DUDES.
*They have influenced the entire fantasy genre from staples like green orcs, Meso lizardfolk and non-evil undead nations to evolving wargames and creating the modern fantasy miniature market.
*Growth! They have become the entry point for many people into tabletop gaming, which in turn has allowed the tabletop industry to expand.
*Sense of humour, as a company they like to joke about themselves and their settings, while they can often be grimderpy and bland they use their social media to make clear they are aware about their own thematic shortcomings (And now open more Sigmarine Chambers!).
*They actually pay decent wages even to the people on the lower end of their corporate food chain, on top of bonuses when the company does well, and comply to labour union standards with little to no commotion. All around, not the worst employer you can have.
*Most of their products are made in UK-based factories. So no outsourcing to developed or developing countries with unethical worker rights. Exceptions are terrains, books and cardboards, which are still produced in other countries and backfired hard recently with the Cursed City disaster. The one reason Geedub doesn't produce their plastic crack soldiers in other countries is their fear of cheap copies. So instead they only contribute to climate change by ferrying tons of cardboard and other gaming materials around the globe. At least they don't have a fetish for cardboard like FFG. Oh, and their main factory recently installed a shit ton of solar panels on its roof. Environmentally friendly Space marines, or just calculating businessmen.
*It is impossible to believe that this has to be said, but at very least they never hired Pinkertons to harass someone who received a genuine shipping mistake and a made video on it. Don't believe us as to why this had to be said? Well, [[Wizards of the Coast]] actually did that.

==See Also==
* [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GAW.L?p=GAW.L&.tsrc=fin-srch The current Games Workshop stock values, and articles on their financial status.]
* [[Rage]]
* [[Casting]]
* [[Heresy]]
* [[Proxy]]
* [[Counts As]]
* [[C.S. Goto]]
* [[Matthew Ward]]
* [[Black Library]]
* [[Citadel Miniatures]]
* [[Forge World]]
* [[Citadel Combat Cards]]
* [[40K Rules Blooper Reel]], for GW's long history of shoddy editing
* [[Army compatibility between Warhammer settings]]
* [[List of GW's cash grabs]]

==External Links==
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zSxQnZ3TM8 This Video]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnPpfs120DA A measured response to changes in the Trade Agreement]

{{Model Manufacturers}}

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Age of Sigmar]][[Category:Publishers]][[Category:Games Workshop]][[Category: Model Manufacturers]][[Category:Tabletop Game Paint Manufacturers]]

Forge World

2023-05-18T20:51:36Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

{{HurfDurf}}

{{Topquote|Alas, expensive things are better than the cheap.|Janina Ipohorska}}

'''Forge World''' is a term associated with [[Warhammer 40,000]]. In-universe, it applies to planets owned by the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] devoted entirely to manufacturing. Out-of-universe, it applies to a division within [[Games Workshop]] that specializes in large and finely-detailed, hyper-expensive models. Seriously, you could spend the same amount of money on a decent used car as one of their premium lumps of plastic.

== Company ==
[[Image:Manta.jpg|thumb|Hello, I'm a Tau [[Manta]]. I am reasonably priced at a mere £1,100 (€1,360) ($1,705).]]
[[Image:Trumpeter-KT.jpg|thumb|Hello, I'm a Trumpeter 2-in-1 1:16 King Tiger. You can buy four of me for that.]]
The first meaning of Forge World is if you took [[Games Workshop]] and leveled it up a few times. It's a sub-division of GW and produces [[finecast|resin-cast models]] for 40k, [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle|Fantasy Battle]], [[Battlefleet Gothic]], and [[Epic]]. Forge World grew from one of the oldest official giant [[butthurt|stupid]] model projects, the early 40K lead [[Thunderhawk]] Gunship, which was originally created as a limited edition and routinely thrown at people who won GW contests. The Thunderhawk proved so popular that GW realized there was a serious market for giant stupid models, and thus Forge World was born to provide them, starting with [[Baneblade]]s and suchlike, working up to full-sized [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|40K Titans]]. Over time it's since gone about producing its own range of models and rule sets for a huge array of different factions, and even has its own home-grown [[Imperial Guard]] variants (the badass <s>[[Death Korps of Krieg]]</s> (or at least codified what was once little more than a doodle in the 3rd Edition IG Codex) and [[Elysian Drop Troops]]). The awesome-looking Chaos Renegades for [[Lost and the Damned]] also came from here.

More recently, Forge World has been spitting out gloriously beautiful and horrendously expensive Horus Heresy-era models, meaning every mark of Astartes [[Power Armour|Power Armor]], Cataphractii [[Terminator]]s, and older patterns of [[Rhino Transport|Rhino]] and [[Land Raider]]. This, in turn, creates the best and worst things ever; re-built, revamped [[Rogue Trader]] models. The horrible, goofy weapons, tanks, and dreadnoughts are back, in wonderful, goofy new resin kits. They all look amazingly terrible (and terribly amazing), but the icing on the cake includes [[Primarch]]s like ''[[Horus]] himself'' and ''fukken [[Jetbike#Imperial_Jetbikes|JETBIKES]].'' Yes, Forge World put out pre-Heresy Jetbikes, and they are everything you hoped and dreamed for (provided you hoped and dreamed for resin dicks with Spess mahrienss inside them), including a new forgotten weapon type (the [[Volkite Weaponry|Volkite]]). And now they also have Mechanicum models too- because who doesn't want to play around with the oft-forgotten Imperial Robots?

In addition, many of their older models (read: all the ones you want) are no longer available and command even ''higher'' premium prices, and all special models (read: all of them) require an attendant overpriced supplement containing rules that tell you how the hell to actually use it, since just including these as a printable PDF on the site would remove a valuable opportunity to steal your moneys. These are called [[Imperial Armour]] Volumes, and are handily abbreviated by [[Neckbeard|everyone here]] as '''IA''' (and then a Volume Number). People who claim they have these either do not actually have these and instead have [[Heresy|.pdf copies]] '''/''' only have one or two (generally out of date) and treat them like Gutenberg Bibles '''/''' have like 4+ and are [[Flash Gitz|way too rich for their own good]].

Also responsible for the [[Forgeworld Reserve Phenomenon]].

As of April 1st, 2016 (and no, it doesn't appear to be an April Fools joke), Forge World has apparently jumped onto GW's "Last Chance to Buy" bandwagon and has decided to do some housecleaning on their product range. Thankfully, it's mostly obscure bits that likely hardly anyone ever bought or used, but notable losses include the Ork Kill Krusha Tank, Macharius Omega, and almost the [[Rage|''entire'' MKIV Dreadnought line, ''both'' Chaos and Loyalist]]. Many other models have gotten the axe since, notably all the Elysian line, mark 2, 3, and 4 space marine armor, etc. Combined with the retarded markup they now give to buyers outside the UK and the Adeptus Titanicus <strike>fiasco</strike> [[Adeptus Titanicus| glorious]] [[Adeptus Titanicus/Tactics| rebirth]], Forge World is <strike>now seemingly becoming the hated company Games Workshop once was, while the main branch keeps rolling out PR successes.</strike> showing the true colors of Games Workshop as a whole once more - with their "faster shipping" fiasco proving that the entirety of their social media is merely a publicity stunt (like most corporations). It's worth nothing that FW represents GW as a whole - they are run by the same people on the highest levels.

As of 2022, their relevance has seen a decline. With the Horus Heresy, one of their most popular lines, getting a full-fledged reboot and its models being transferred over to the main studio, FW has been relegated to dealing with only the niche games, such as the LotR game and Blood Bowl...which GamesWorkshop ''also'' has stuff for on their main site. Even then, it's not very clear if they're the ones writing the rules to the games or if they're just making models. Their main claim to relevance with the 40K crowd right now seems to be keeping Death Korps of Krieg players content.

'''In conclusion:''' "Five hundred quid for a fucking titan? [[Rage|If I ever find the fucker responsible I'm going to beat them to death with their own]] [[HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhnnnnnnngggggg-]]".
Note: Look at the new Warlord titans, 900 POUNDS for a titan, 1240 with weaponry.

<font size=1>'''*This doesn't mean to imply that you're limited to only two models unless you happen to be a serial killer or a corrupt mortician.'''</font>

=== Notable Writers ===

*[[Alan Bligh]], who unfortunately died of [[cancer]] on May 26, 2017, and who was responsible for the creation of many rules concepts eventually used in the Forge World rulebooks. [http://www.john-french.com/2017/05/alan-bligh-remembered.html Read an obituary written by fellow GW writer John French here.]
*[[John French]]
*[[Andy Hoare]]
*[[Neil Wylie]]
*[[Anuj Malhotra]]

=== Things Forge World Loves ===
[[Image:Red_Scorpions_Marine.png‎|thumb|150px|right|Screw giving the Sisters of Battle some [[Sisters of Cleaning|much needed loving]], let's just concentrate all our resources on some [[Red Scorpions|obscure chapter that nobody cares about]].]]
* Your money
* The [[Horus Heresy]]
* Aircraft
* Rapiers
* [[Tau]] [[Battlesuit]]s <strike>(XV9s!! fap fap fap) (XV107s!!! fapfapfapfap)</strike> (HERESY! '''''BLAMBLAMBLAM''''')
* IG Tanks
* Have we said your money?
* [[Daemon Engines]]
* '''[[Red Scorpions]]'''
* [[Terminator]]s, all the Terminators (except for the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator robots originating from a certain movie], even though Games Workshop lifted from that movie to make [[Necrons|a race of robots for their setting]])
* [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Titan]]s and the price to go with them
* TEH [[Baneblade|BANEBLEHDS]]
* <s>[[Kroot]]</s>
* We may as well say it again, your money
* Charging 100$ for a book
* High quality Customer Service
* [[Space Marines]]
* [[Dreadnought]]s (they actually sell autocannons!!!)
** Now really only true for Contemptor/Leviathan/Deredeo Dreads, since they axed most of their Mk IV/V Dread stuff, including FW-exclusive variants like [[Chaplain]] and [[Noise Marines|Sonic]] Dreadnoughts.
* [[Death Korps of Krieg]] (enough so that many of their units aren't as overpriced, though still not for the stingy).
* Adding an extra "0" to the end of reasonable prices
* The word "siege" attached to everything
* Turrets & Immobile scenery
* <strike>Units that are broken to play against</strike> not anymore, GW realised they lost money because of that
* Your ''Opponent's'' money
* Selling towing vehicles to move that immobile scenery around
* Bringing civilian vehicles to battle. Seriously, a Sentinel [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(franchise)| Power-lifter]?
* Introducing Salvo Weapons on units that will never use the rules for salvo weapons properly, or making them so bad that no-one ever takes them.
* Papa [[Nurgle]]
* The [[Orks]], when [[Games Workshop|GW]] won't love them because they aren't serious enough
* [[Total War: WARHAMMER]] (Especially the Norsca DLC, which whilst [[Awesome]], was basically a playable Forge World advertisement! Until they stopped selling most of those things. But hey, they still sell the Mourngul and boob troll.)
* [https://i.imgur.com/BgYmszI.png Discontinuing items more-or-less at random], apparently. Including ones you might actually need for making viable Horus Heresy armies.
* '''Your Money'''

=== Things Forge World Hates ===
* Decent shipping
* Australians
* New Zealanders
* EU Citizens
* 'Rest of the World' citizens
* Anyone not in the UK, really
* Poor people (eg. most of the editors of 1d4chan).
* You.
* Making sure their rules all have models.
* Making sure their models all have rules.
* Making sure their weapons have weapon profiles.
* Making army lists (the rules for their models are fine; their lists, on the other hand, are not).
* Making sure their stuff is balanced.
*Making sure the £180 Fellblade Super Heavy Tank you just bought came with THE FUCKING TURRET
* Spell Chequing.
* The Sisters of Battle
* Did we mention you? You.
* Proofreading books before release for rules/timelines/basic logic errors ''(supersonic transports that cannot land?)''.
* Warhammer Fantasy.
* <strike>Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit.</strike> No longer true, ever since they were given full control over the range. Now it's one of the few things they still make stuff for.
* Chaos that isn't Khorne or Nurgle.
* [[Dwarfs]]
* The Empire
* Other games workshop stores
* [[Gabriel Angelos|Making faces that don't look like shit.]]
* Making their instructions anywhere near understandable.
* Making uniform base sizes.
* Making sure their weapons don't have similar (or in some cases, the same) names.
* Releasing anything they advertise until long after the initial hype has died down.
* '''You'''

=== An Alternative Point on the Price (which is your soul, by the way) ===
While it’s a tradition of neckbeards everywhere to bemoan having to pay an arm, leg, testicle and unicorn blood for Forge World, it could be argued that Forge World’s high costs do have the beneficial side effect of taking some of the overpowered weapons and wargear that are supposed to be rare in the fluff, and bringing them into the tabletop while still making them rather rare in the meta, as comparatively few people are willing or able to fork over the [[teef]] for the models and rules. This is a good thing because, well, everybody ''wants'' a Titan, but do you really want everybody to actually ''have one''? This way, it’s a bigger deal when this stuff actually shows up on the tabletop, as it should be, and if you’re the sort that doesn’t like to go up against that sort of cheese you’re not likely to run into it too often.... or at least that's how it WOULD be if Forge World units weren't such a mixed bag these days. Not everything they make right now is overpowered, in fact if they aren't they tend to be absolute shite.

A case in point of what happens when that little status quo is disrupted, with the release of affordable plastic Contemptor dreadnoughts and Cataphractii terminators, and with Angels of Death giving us non-Forge World rules for them, you can bet that everyone and their [[squig]] is gonna have the damn things now, even with the rather dumbed-down rules compared to Imperial Armour.

There is also the point to be made that FW intended audience never was your average 40k player or casual fans of the setting, but the hardcore hobbyists who have been in the hobby for years, if not decades and accumulated a vast amount of knowledge about how to even handle this stuff correctly. Indeed, most FW models are extremely difficult to put together, not helped by the fickle material they are made from. This automatically pushed them into a niche audience, which was FWs entire business model; giving die-hard fans the possibility to see and own pieces of the most obscure lore from head honchos of GW. As such, production runs of FW models likely never were produced at scale or had substantial amounts of stock, which is important in price calculations, as mass produced goods can be made with bigger machines which put out more stuff at less of a cost in time and money, which in turn, makes the finished product cheaper. In essence, your Tau Manta costs an arm and a leg precisely because your Manta is very likely to be a custom piece just made for you and this costs an extra premium on top of the massive costs for material, labour and taxes.

=== Common Misconceptions ===
You'll occasionally find arguments online or perhaps within local gaming groups about the validity or "official-ness" of Forge World products. This has become less prevalent in recent years as the general perception of Forge World has become more mainstream, though every now and then the prejudice rears its ugly head, usually when a [[That Guy|certain opponent]] [[Butthurt|won't let you play]] the FW model you forked out a small fortune for.

Lets make one thing perfectly clear: Forge World ''(and Black Library)'' <u>is</u> Games Workshop. They share the same trading address and legal identity. It is not a subsidiary company (which would be a separate legal entity, but owned by the parent) nor is it a [[Fantasy Flight Games|licensee]] (which is a third party permitted to use the IP).

By comparison, [[Citadel Miniatures]] was founded as a subsidiary company and had its own separate projects outside of Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 ''(so your opponent can [[Rage]] when you tell him your Forge World model has more direct legal provenance than his old metal models)''. GW also acquired Sabertooth games, which operated as an independent subsidiary, but both were eventually absorbed back into Games Workshop.

So, back to the issue with Forge World. Many [[Trolls|people]] had an innate dislike for the fact that Forge World models and rules were not actually declared by Forge World *or* Games Workshop to be "officially" part of the game; they would refuse to allow them on the tabletop, since they did not come from a Games Workshop primary rules source (such as a Codex, or the Big Rule Book). Forge World eventually started printing prefaces in their books explaining that their rules were official; but some still claim that since "Games Workshop" itself hasn't come out and said it, that they remain unofficial. However, since the spines of FW's books have always had the Games Workshop logos on them and the inside front cover have the legal copyright and property notices from GW, this argument seems specious at best; rather, much like how the Big Rule Book has no actual explicit declaration that rules from [[White Dwarf]] are "official", the Imperial Armour books themselves should be considered as canonical (what ever that means in 40k) as GW sources.

However, as with White Dwarf, GW hates you far too much as a gamer and customer to label any of their rulebooks/codices with edition numbers, much less ensure that their FW rules are always kept up to date with the current edition, and unlike Codices where you can typically determine the edition at a glance, a lot of Forge World books superficially "look" similar and may even have exactly the same name ''(to date there have been FOUR books with the title "Imperial Armour Apocalypse" but only two of them have sub-titles)''. This can be a major reason the rules are banned at tournaments, and an opponent might object for the same reason they might object to fighting a [[Squat]]s army under the current rules - however "obvious" the rules translation might be, some people are uncomfortable playing games across too wide an edition gap, as rules interactions may make no sense at all and/or have utterly pathological balance ramifications. '''Update''' this has become pretty much irrelevant with the release of 8th edition where Forge World have released complete indexes for pretty much their entire line.

We all know how [[ChapterHouse Studios|litigious]] GW can get with regards to "unofficial" products using their copyright, so you can bet if it wasn't official/legal Forge World would have had their asses handed to them, but it would seem absolutely stupid to sue the guys in the next office over in the same building as you. Seriously, there isn't even a divider between the FW and main parts of the store at Warhammer World anymore...

So next time you get to the table and your opponent starts whining about your Forge World models not being legal, just batter him over the head with your Imperial Armour book, which will be an order of magnitude heavier than his little codex and claim your victory by default.

'''As an additional side note''' - this has nothing to do with the perception of FW rules being either powerfully unbalanced or too focused on the narrative, but on reflection, that's no different from the [[skub]] surrounding [[Grey Knights|codex creep]] and [[Tyranids|painful nerfing]] already rampant within "core" GW material. So what's new?

If a Tournament Organiser decides that they don't want to include Forge World rules then that is entirely their prerogative as they will want the tournament to be as balanced or as hassle free as is reasonable, especially since FW have a tendency to publish their rules with minor variances across multiple "in-date" books, which can be a nightmare to manage, especially where some books have "current" rules alongside other rules which have been superseded elsewhere. Though with the advent of 8th edition, and all factions receiving simultaneous rule updates via indexes (Imperial, Xenos and Chaos Imperial Armour indexes), these rules are much easier to keep track of than ever before.

But these organisers ''(if they are smart)'' will also likely restrict "core" army selections too, so no Unbound lists or may exclude certain FOCs, because in the end which is more unbalanced and [[Cheese|cheesy]]? The guy who takes a contemptor dreadnought in his Combined Arms detachment or the guy who take an unbound army of Heldrakes? (Ha Held Rakes sound scary). If the tournament organizer is using the ITC standard for 40k, Forge World units themselves are in fact quite legal.

All that said however, there is a somewhat valid reason why someone may be a bit "model-shy" around Forge World rules; and that is information. There are 16 armies in 40k, and each dex tends to have more than one valid build; the Astra Militarum alone has six (tank heavy, artillery heavy, balance, flying circus, infantry spam, veteran spam). From a player's perspective, throwing MORE armies, rules, and models at them only compounds how much they need to consider. By counting Forge World, the number of army lists jumps to over 28 without considering supplements or mini-codices with only a handful of options, and again, each list can be played in more than one way, and then there are the (admittedly handful) of differences between Forge World and Games Workshop about the same model "is that the vanquisher with the coaxial? or not?" and then on top of all that you need to consider allies. While Forge World is legal from any logical standpoint, people are not logical, and may be daunted by just how much new information they have to learn in order to make proper gameplay choices and not lose, because they did not know that the Death Korp can give orders to artillery. Again, though Forge World is by any standard as legal as any codex, the other player may feel intimidated by your Space Marine siege army just because he does not know for sure what it can do and chose to walk way from it the same way he would if you brought an unbound army made of nothing but riptides.

== Planet ==
The second, fluffy, definition is a type of [[Imperial Worlds]] that refers to an entire world converted into a factory; one that runs at high capacity, even for its size. They produce everything from [[laspistol]]s to [[Land Raider]]s to [[Titan]]s, so they are needed to keep the Imperial war machine trundling forward. Many of them have particular specialties, such as Ryza's plasma weapons. Because of their nature, the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] highly regard these worlds as holy places, and the Mechanicus owns just about all of them, which is fine since there are only a few of them and the Mechanicus is best at maintaining that shit. Losing a single one is considered an unacceptable loss by the Mechanicus, and the Imperium as well since it'll be harder than fuck to fill in those planet-sized gaps in their industrial sector (with that said, it's frequent to see hive worlds being described as essential industrial centers, and many of them certainly live off of their industrial output alone, so being industrial centers alone doesn't make a planet a forge world). In the [[fluff]], there is actually a Forge World called [[What|'Zpandex']]. Turns out, many of them are actually [[Tomb World]]s.

=== A few Forge Worlds of note: ===
{| class="wikitable"
|+ '''Known Forge Worlds:'''
|'''Accatran'''
|Makes all the wargear for the [[Elysian Drop Troops]]. Their Titan Legion, the Legio Destructor, is the largest of all the Titan legions and their constant battles against Orks have made the Legio Destructor increasingly unorthodox in its outlook and behavior (read: Orky), and they have the awesome battlecry, 'big death, Big Death, BIG DEATH! <span style='color:green;'>'''BIG DEFF!!!!!!'''</span>'
|-
|'''Agripinaa'''
|One of the Forge Worlds near the [[Eye of Terror]]; too bad [[Typhus]] turned one of their Agri-Worlds into his own little Daemon World. Has kept itself independent and Chaos-free since the fall of Cadia by "recruiting" refugees into its Skitarii legions and occasionally making them into [[servitor]]s.
|-
|'''Angstrom'''
|Situated near [[Badab]]. Pledged loyalty to Ryza and doubles as an Explorator base and watchtower for the Maelstrom. When Lugft Huron's secession occurred they initially supplied both sides but ultimately fell in line with the Imperials and contributed the [[Adeptus Titanicus|Legio Crucius]] to the invasion of the Badab System.
|-
|'''Anvilus'''
|Prime maker of the [[Land Raider]] before the Heresy, as well as the [[Dreadclaw]] during the [[Great Crusade]]. Described as the only serious rival to Mars for manufacturing output once Phaeton was bullied into splitting its assets. Taken over by Horus's forces during the Heresy and if the lore of the [[Storm Eagle]] is any indication, suffered catastrophic damage during the war.
|-
|'''Aphret'''
|A minor Forge World during the Great Crusade. Contributed frigates to the Imperium's fleets, notably the ''Grey Talon''.
|-
|'''Arachnus'''
|A Forge World that seems to specialize quite heavily in big fucking lasers. They're the assholes that produce the "Heavy Laser Destroyers" that are sometimes mounted on [[Dreadnought#Deredeo_Pattern|Deredeo]] Dreadnoughts, as well as the ones used by Custodians. Despite this, their integration into the Imperium was a shaky one and when the Horus Heresy happened they declared their independence from both the Emperor and the Warmaster and began carving out an empire of their own. It would only be reconquered some time later. Home to the Legio Venator, whose renegade elements renamed themselves as the Legio Tritonis.
|-
|'''Atar Median'''
|Founded by exiles from Phaeton. Home to the Legio Atarus (Firebrands).
|-
|'''Chaeroneia'''
|A minor Forge World that turned traitor and started using extreme amounts of biomechanical tech to the point where literally every building, computer, and engine on the planet was at least half-biological. [[Titan_(Warhammer_40,000)#Castigator_Titan|An advanced AI]] was responsible for the world's fall, corrupting an Archmagos who subsequently converted the ruling class into a [[Chaos Cults|Chaos cult]] that worshipped the Chaos-corrupted AI as the Omnissiah.
|-
|'''Cyclothrathe'''
|Home to a particularly brutal sect in 30K, who followed Horus into rebellion. Used a House of enslaved and tortured Knights, and their warlord [[Draykavac]] became one of the most hated members of the nascent Dark Mechanicum.
|-
|'''Deimos'''
|One of the moons of Mars, a micro Forge World. Deimos is pretty much the size of an asteroid (and shaped like a potato); it made the old-school patterns of vehicles that we players refer to as "heresy era". After the Horus Heresy it was displaced and put into orbit around Titan to provide all the goodies to the [[Grey Knights]] instead, so it's now a moon of a moon. The functionaries of Deimos are mindwiped at both ends to prevent them knowing about daemons, but the moon still maintains three knightly houses with complementary skitarii ready to assist the Grey Knights should they need support. Apparently attending to one order of Knights wasn't enough; they need ''four'' to really be satiated.
|-
|'''Phobos'''
|In case you're wondering about the other moon: Phobos in 40k was covered in guns literally as Mars' last line of defence. In reality it is expected to slam into Mars at some point in the future (by 'future', we mean about 30 or 50 million years). But that's without having a shit ton of guns on it, and they can probably fly it somewhere like they did with Deimos, so who knows what its orbit is now. Interestingly, Phobos has a [[Monolith]] on it. [[wikipedia:Phobos_monolith|Seriously]].
|-
|'''Estaban III'''
|Had a feud with [[Ryza]] over the [[Thanatar-Class Robot]]. Home to the Legio Tempestus maniple which went heretic, and went with them. Eventually reclaimed by the Imperium.
|-
|'''Firestorm'''
|Homeworld of the [[Aurora Chapter]] located in the Ultima Segmentum, its manufacturing capacity can top that of several noted Forge Worlds combined.
|-
|'''Graia'''
|A Forge World made of space stations that orbit the planet Graia. Their Tech-Priests and Skitarii are so coldly logical and rational that even psykers struggle to breach their minds. The last known makers of the Rapier Laser Destroyer, and incur misfortune (like getting attacked by [[Orks]] in [[Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine]] and then eaten by the [[Tyranids]]) because GW ''hates'' the Rapier. Known for recently dealing with their frequent invasion problem by indulging in that most ancient of human tradition of taking ones ball and leaving, Graia no longer resides in its own home system. Poetically, [http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Imperial_Guard/Death-Korps-of-Krieg/GRAIA-PATTERN-RAPIER-LASER-DESTROYER.html Forge World loves Rapiers.]
|-
|'''Gryphonne IV'''
|Got wrecked by the [[Tyranids]], although some pretty cool artillery and [[Chimera Transport|Chimera]]s made from there still roll with the [[Imperial Guard|IG]]. Currently trying to find a place to rebuild as a nomadic Explorator fleet.
|-
|'''Incaladion'''
|A Forge World on the fringes of Imperial Space and constantly raided during the Age of Strife, it was home to the Legio Fureans ('Tiger Eyes').
|-
|'''Jupiter'''
|I know right? Bet you didn't know about this one. The Imperial Navy's foremost shipyard and drydock. It only makes ships. It is a hotly contested Imperial political debate as to whether Jupiter is sovereign to the Mechanicus or the Imperium. They went totally green though, the hippies.
|-
|'''Kai'''
|Once relatively close to Eye Of Terror. Due to [[Just as planned|an unfortunate flux]], the Eye expanded and engulfed it. Managed to maintain an Imperial presence for a time, considering that their weapons didn't have to obey the laws of physics. Eventually, they had to barter their services (and guns) to various daemons and Chaos Legions inside the Eye in return for protection. Made the legendary [[Bolter#Kai_Gun|Kai Guns]] during this time. Chaos being Chaos, the Machine Smiths of Kai got eradicated in the battle between daemons wanting their [[dakka]] fix. GW being GW, the hundreds of other strange and mystical weapons forged on Kai during its time in the Warp will never be elaborated upon.
|-
|'''Kaurava I'''
|A Forge World (continent-spanning Manufactorum, to be precise) which is capable of producing [[Vance Motherfucking Stubbs|over 100 Baneblades]] at any given notice. The status of this world is unclear, although it was likely abandoned or destroyed during the Kaurava conflict of [[Dawn of War|Dawn of war: Soulstorm]]. (Dawn of War III confirms that Gorgutz won the Kaurava Conflict)
|-
|'''The Lathes'''
|Actually a group of three Forge Worlds in one system, named Het, Hesh and Hadd individually. These planets all have an extremely odd orbit around their parent star, which somehow results in their native ores having unusual properties because of [[bullshit|"gravity fluctuations"]] (the truth is probably way more heretical). Besides being the centre of production for the Calixis Sector, their most famous exports are Lathe-forged Blades, which use the aforementioned ore to basically be indestructible, able to stand up to even power blades.
|-
|'''Lliax'''
|30K-era Forge World. Supplied Shadrak Meduson's warbands during the Heresy, but they seem to have been involved in subverting his command with the Cult of the Gorgon.
|-
|'''Lucius'''
|First colonized by [[Battletech]] players from the late Eighties. [[Awesome|A hollowed out world that has replaced its core with an artificial sun.]] Though everyone knows that someday the sun will fail, the Tech-Priests of Lucius hold that death in pursuit of innovation is the greatest offering once can give to the Omnissiah. Maintains the ancient Legio Astorum, better known as the Warp Runners, and supplies the [[Death Korps of Krieg]]. Most notable for their teleportation tech, as well as how they fought against [[Hive Fleet Leviathan]]: rather than concentrating all the [[Imperial Guard|meat]] in one futile last stand, they hunkered down in the hollow of their world and sent their military out piece-by-piece, accepting the loss of their servitors, but retrieving the undigested mechanical bits (presumably after they were shitted out) for recycling afterwards. Unable to breach the crust and access the gooey center of the mechanicus tootsie pop, the Hive Fleet fell back, losing more biomass than they gained. [[Tomb World|Does any of this sound familiar?]] They have exclusive patterns for some Titans which are cheaper to produce, [[skub|but not as sweet looking as Mars patterns]]. Didn't get super-heavy tank STCs for a while, which is why they were one of the few major Forge Worlds that launched Macharius tank production when its STC get re-discovered, while most others frowned on it as a "poor man's Baneblade". Unlike most other Mechanicus, they favour white robes for both their priesthood and skitarii, probably because it's the colour of hot plasma. So yeah, those unusually white-robed Enginseers from the Ciaphas Cain novels are probably Lucians. Although they've since been retconned into wearing dark red, so maybe not.
|-
|'''[[Mars]]'''
|The big boss of the other Forge Worlds and the go-to guy for [[STC|stock patterns]] of weapons. Home to the original three titan legions, the ''Triad Ferrum Morgulus'': Legio Ignatum (Fire Wasps), [[Dark Mechanicus|Legio]] [[Nurgle|Mortis]] (Death's Heads), and Legio Tempestus (Stormlords). Has a giant shipyard called the Ring of Iron in orbit, which claims to be one of the largest human-made objects in existence.
|-
|'''Metalica'''
|Home to the Legio Metalica. Also known as Metalicus due to GW not wanting to get sued. They maintain the only known [[Titans_40k#Imperial_Titans|Imperial Titans]] capable of out-rocking the [[Gargant]]s made by the [[Ork#Rokkas|Goff Rokkas]]. They also provide most of the Adeptus Mechanicus forces fighting on Armageddon at any given time, and are notable for [[Awesome|going on Tyranid safaris]]. Following the Charadon Campaign, its techpriests been preoccupied with keeping the techno-virus that [[Typhus]] infected it with from corrupting the planet. So far they've been relatively successful, but the virus has yet to be eradicated.
|-
|'''Mezoa'''
|A Volcanic Forge World where no Titan can walk for fear of falling through the planet's crust. Was besieged during the Horus Heresy and the Gothic War.
|-
|'''Mordax'''
|The one that got taken over by the [[Orks]]. They named it Mordakka ([[MOAR DAKKA|Yes really...]]) and [[Blood Ravens|Blood Ravens-ed]] the titans on it. Despite the dubious [[Canon|canonicity]] of the old 13th [[Black Crusade]] materials, Geedubs hasn't forgotten about Mordakka, giving it a place on the Skitarii 7th Edition Codex and AdMech 8th Edition codex's galactic map. It's more than can be said for other worlds on this list...
|-
|'''Morvane'''
|Mentioned in the [[Adeptus Custodes]] codex, Morvane is a "lost" Forge World and the only lead the Custodes have to a possible fix for the [[Golden Throne]].
|-
|'''M'Pandex'''
|Also called Z'pandex, Mappandax and Zaphadak. [[Lulz|You may commence laughing]]. (The original joke may have been that, during the Rogue Trader days, the Imperium needed a Forge World dedicated just to making all of the 80's-style spandex it would chew through.)
|-
|'''Orestes'''
|Supplied the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, but got attacked by Chaos Titans. [[Awesome|''And won.'']] [[Dan Abnett]] wrote [[Titanicus|a book]] about it. Presumably get overrun by Chaos with the rest of segmentum during the Night of Thousand Rebellions. It's apparently a Mechanicus-affiliated Knight World now. [[What|What the hell, GW?]]
|-
|'''Paramar'''
|Invaded and overrun several times during the Horus Heresy by both Loyalists and Traitors.
|-
|'''Phaeton'''
|Used to be where the standard Leman Russ, Chimera and Basilisk patterns came from, before GW changed the models to the Mars pattern. Home to the Legio Osedax (Cockatrices). It probably still is where the STCs were discovered, and Mars just "lifted" them for safe keeping.
|-
|'''Ryza'''
|Makes all the coolest plasma stuff because nobody else could keep their act together. Their Titan Legion is the awesomely named Legio Crucius (Warmongers). After fighting Orkz for so long their Skitarii have the most badass war cry among other Forgeworlds: "[[Rip and tear|Red in Cog and Claw!]]"
|-
|'''Sarum'''
|Forge World closely aligned with the [[World Eaters]]. Home to the bound daemon Sa'ra'ram, the source of Obliterators. It's since become a full-on Hell Forge, with all the Warp weirdness that goes with that, fading in and out of reality across the Golgothan Wastes.
|-
|'''Stygies VIII'''
|Makes awesome guns and ammo, as well as the (apparently rare) [[Leman Russ Battle Tank|Leman Russ Vanquisher]]. Cannot keep their act together, losing [[Vance Motherfucking Stubbs|''two whole Titan Legions'']] to [[Chaos]] and having to get another legion [[Fail|transplanted in.]] [[What|Also it is a moon.]] Their tech priests constantly get into fights with Deathwatch killteams due to their intense interest in xenos technology.
|-
|'''Toil'''
|Got fucked over by [[Perturabo]] invoking Nurgle, causing the factories to become living Daemon Engines. Completely lifeless, [[Fail|with dying horribly to the Iron Warriors being its only notable purpose]].
|-
|'''<s>Tigrus</s> Tigris'''
|Originally made/discovered the Vanquisher Cannon, the Fellblade Accelerator Cannon, and several other Great Crusade-Era Imperial ordinance pieces and ammunition. Like Anvillius, it got absolutely wrecked during the Heresy. Currently overrun by the [[Orks]], specifically the Murda Meks of Tigris. Most players generally consider the Orkish takeover a good thing, seeing as this world now makes the [[Kill Tanks]] from IA8.
|-
|'''Tigrus'''
|Sits on the "dark" edge of the galaxy-wide fuck-off warp rift known as the Cicatrix Maledictum. Notably ''not'' overrun by Orks. Unlike the above world of ''Tigris'', which is also conveniently in the Ultima Segmentum. Seriously guys, Tigrus ''just'' won a campaign against the Tau in M41! They ''totally aren't'' the same Forge World, and GW ''totally didn't'' [[derp|forget about one of the most famous Ork-held worlds]] between 5th and 8th Edition when the new Adeptus Mechanicus codex came out, and the ''totally unrelated'' former Forge World Tigris ''totally isn't'' a misspelling existing only in IA8! Why are you all looking at me like that?
|-
|'''[[Tolkien|Tolkhan]]'''
|[[Imperial Armour|IA Vol. 1]] gave us this gem. Oh [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|Rogue Trader]], how you haunt [[Games Workshop|GW]] to this day. [[/tg/|We]] love you so. Incidentally, it is home to the best named Titan Legion ever: Legio Pallidus Mor, the Pale Riders.
|-
|'''Triplex Phall'''
|A Forge World on the Eastern Fringe, nearly got shitcanned by attacks from Hive Fleet Kraken and the Death Guard. Used to produce lasrifles for the [[Solar Auxila]] and currently produces the M-Galaxy Pattern lasgun. Constantly pisses of Mars by hoarding archeotech while refusing to hand them over.
|-
|'''Urdesh'''
|A Chaos-tainted Forge World in the Sabbat Worlds Sector, and contested heavily during the Sabbat World's Crusade. It was a more general-purpose Forge World, in that it produced all sorts of munitions, from Lascarbines to Autocannons to APCs and much, much more. Its specialty, however, was a large number of tank designs, most notably the AT-70 ''Reaver'' and the AT-83 ''Brigand''. While not quite as useful as Leman Russes, they were capable enough for the PDF in the sector. It remained under control of the Blood Pact army of Chaos until sometime towards the end of the Crusade. The [[Tanith First (And Only)]] face off against a lot of production from this world.
|-
|'''Vanaheim'''
|Known for producing its its own pattern of the [[Medusa Siege Gun|Medusa]] and [[Basilisk Artillery Gun|Basilisk]] with a unique gunshield as well as being the Forge World of origin for the [[Salamander Reconnaissance Tank|Salamander]] and [[Centaur Utility Vehicle|Centaur]].
|-
|'''Voss Prime'''
|A ''prime'' example of [[Imperium|Imperial]] [[fail]], has no idea what to do with [[Plasma|plasma.]] On the other hand, it made a Lasgun 2.0 called the Voss Pattern Lasrifle (it was [[awesome]]) and supplied the entire [[Solar Auxilia]] with it, down to a man. Who cares about plasma when you manufacture enough flashlights to light the whole Galaxy up? Still manages to maintain the goofily-named Legio Invigilata though. Also makes Vulture gunships and Lightning Strike Fighters. Main supplier for the Armageddon fleet, and known for their unconventional ideas about escort ship designs (most of which were produced for all of about three weeks before Games Workshop decided to shitcan their molds).
|-
|'''[[Xana II]]'''
|A neutral Forge World that tried to play both sides during the Heresy, only for the Loyalists to fuck their shit up. Taken over by a hardcore motherfucker named [[Anacharis Scoria|Anacharis "I Eat Primarchs For Dinner" Scoria]] and became the first of the Dark Mechanicum Hellforges. Now drifts through the warp, selling Hellblades, Hell Talons and Harbinger Bombers to Chaos Warbands.
|-
|'''Zhao-Arkhad'''
|Also spelled Arkkad, the Anarcho-Capitalist Forge World that decided it was best to buddy up with the [[Thousand Sons]]. Their mistake led to their Forge World being razed during the Heresy. It would be re-founded in M41, and the schematics for the [[Crassus Armored Assault Transport|Crassus]] and Praetor found there. Once home to the Legio Xestobiax (Iron Vigil), who used heretekal Psi-Control cores in their Titans. It is unknown if this made Xestobiax titans Psi-Titans or not.
|}

{{40k-Planets}}
[[Category:Games Workshop]][[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Dark Mechanicus]]
[[Category:Model Manufacturers]]

Fire Kobolds

2023-05-18T20:48:48Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

In Warhammer Fantasy, Kobolds are merely a breed of skinnier, more angular goblins, similar to how Gnoblars are a breed of smaller, weaker goblin with huge noses and Snotlings are much smaller, much stupider goblins with a servile attitude towards larger greenskins. Fire Kobolds are a subtype of Kobold native to Fire Mountain, who have adapted to be covered in red, rashlike spots across their body, and are able to spit small gouts of flame and throw fireballs.

[[Category: Orcs & Goblins]]
[[Category: Warhammer Fantasy]]

Fimir

2023-05-18T20:47:50Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

[[File:Warhammer Fimir.png|300px|right|thumb|When Chaos was cool...]]
'''Fimir''' are a race from [[Warhammer Fantasy]]. They were one of the primary inventions (rather than knockoff or reinterpretation) made by [[Games Workshop]] but were dropped due to low popularity regardless. Unlike many other GW "failures", they remained canon, if sidelined but returned as a set of high quality Forgeworld Models for Monstrous Arcanum, a set of units in ''Total War'', and a part of [[Grand Alliance: Destruction]]'s playable army in [[Age of Sigmar]].

==Meta Origin And History==
Warhammer had been born out of the fact Games Workshop was only a distributor of other games and their subordinate companies [[Citadel Miniatures|Citadel]] and [[Marauder]] (the two later merged) made minis for those IPs with some not selling as well (how many people need a unicorn in the first place, let alone more than one?). Warhammer turned the basics of D&D into a wargame to sell those minis, and when Games Workshop lost exclusive rights or the entire right to distribute an IP, they discontinued the line and rebranded them; for example the [[Broo]] minis they produced for [[Glorantha]] next year were rebranded [[Beastmen]] despite being the exact same sculpts.

Around the time of the explosion in Warhammer popularity as 2e transitioned into 3e (the first edition with a proper setting, and the inclusion of [[Chaos]]) as well as the imminent birth of [[Warhammer 40000]] the CEO of GW, [[Brian Ansell]], was looking to the bright future. He wanted Warhammer to have its own distinct copyrights, things recognizable as theirs and theirs alone (although it did not stop them from stealing from Moorcock and Starship Troopers wholesale). The most important innovation of this time was making [[Orcs & Goblins|Orcs]] green-skinned with red eyes and tusks, which spread into almost every other Orc in fiction since.

But Ansell wanted something truly belonging only to Warhammer. While [[Tony Ackland]] and later [[John Blanche]] with [[Adrian Smith]] largely created the distinctive "Warhammer" visual feel, Ackland's [[Daemonettes]] were still a concept taken from Moorcock and Blanche's [[Sisters of Battle]] were in the same vein as GW's [[Judge Dredd]] models. Adrian's [[Warriors of Chaos]] also were merely an extrapolation of the Deathdealer from [[Conan the Barbarian]].

So Ansell summoned two employees, [[Graeme Davis]] and [[Jes Goodwin]] and told them [[Meme|he wanted pictures, pictures of a unique concept]] (by using employees he unintentionally ensured GW would keep the rights to their creation, as many designers were hired part-time because it was cheaper and as a result kept the rights to everything they created; which is why everything Ackland designed exists only in old minis with the later ones changed enough to be their own).
His specific words were in fact a race "to be as distinctive of Warhammer as the Broo are of Runequest". Sadly...Davis and Goodwin took him too literally, and completely ripped off Broo-again-with a bit of alteration (to their credit, more than Beastmen got) leaving GW with yet another ripoff. But Ansell loved it anyway, and Fimir were put into 3e.

Fimir are the combination of Broo with Formorians, monstrous but not FORTHEEVULZ Feyfolk from Celtic myth.

Sadly, Fimir did not catch on with the public. Thanks to a horrible fuckup between concept and sculpt produced by [[Nick Bibby]] the Fimir wound up extremely large, Ogre-sized. This made them fairly expensive to buy a chunk of metal of. Their in-game stats reflected their intended only slightly larger than human (so Orc) size while their point cost was made higher to reflect large model size. Also, Fimir reproduction was parasitic, with Male fimir having to breed with human females to reproduce, unintentionally insinuating that the Fimir were explicit rapists, though the writers of the fluff did acknowledge that this wasn't their intent, it was merely an error if omission, with their actual intent being to have the Fimir be like fairies who spirit away women and impregnate them in a magical way (which is ''still'' ultimately just rape). Of course, the lore was read first while this was there, which seemed to be explicit rape. If you collect fimir and don't like this aspect of them, you could always just say that your clan has a mutually beneficial relationship with a human tribe where the human women interbreed with the fimir in order to gain the fimir as allies against other groups, which the fimir would likely agree to because it's way easier to have a willing ally than having to fight and then rape people just to scrape by. Essentially, any tribe that doesn't take this route if it's actually possible is stupid, or just needlessly cruel. While technically creatures of Chaos, they aren't [[Beastmen]] or [[Skaven]] and can be expected to act with a higher degree of logic. In Age of Sigmar, the fimir are now in the Destruction grand alliance, perhaps hinting at them abandoning chaos entirely.

So as a result Fimir were expensive to buy and were absolutely horrible for their stats. Most players weren't interested in them unless solely for the fluff as a result, and instead of fixing what was wrong by giving them the appropriate stats Fimir were dropped in 4e along with the idea of them being GW's mascot. They only made it into one other work, the first [[Warhammer Quest]] as a monster.

But that wasn't the end. The fan magazine for [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] called [[Warpstone (Magazine)|Warpstone]] made a 98 page expansion of the original threadbare Fimir lore (WFRP Bestiary, [[White Dwarf]] #102, 3e WFB) in issue 25. This caused a slow burning ember of love for them in the community (it should be noted that GW writers also read and sometimes borrowed from Warpstone).

GW put a minor reference to them in White Dwarf #310 in the [[Gnoblar Horde: The Unwashed Masses]] army.

Fimir also appeared in [[HeroQuest]] boardgame as one of the monsters, but they were never focused on, simply being there with no real explanation.

Fimir were also in a [[Black Library]] novel [[Empire (Novel)|Empire]].

[[Storm of Magic]] fully resurrected Fimir with the Balefiend AKA Dirach. They were large sized like the original mistake models.

The 8th edition rules included a reference to Fimir as well.

Three models were supposed to be released for [[Monstrous Arcana]], but were out on hold until [[Age of Sigmar]] where they are previewed as getting a complete revival as an army. They also eventually made an appearance in the Norsca DLC for [[Total War: WARHAMMER]], in keeping with that game's tradition of giving lavish attention to parts of the setting GW prefers to ignore.

==[[Total War: WARHAMMER]]==
Praise Creative Assembly they've done it, Fimir have been reborn once again! This time they serve as a unit choice for the Norsca faction.

Their Fimir Warriors share the same category with trolls as monster infantry with a few minor differences. While they can already deal armor piercing damage, they can also cause armor sundering that lower the armor rating of their opponents (even though their melee weapon never had that kind of abilities on tabletop, [[cheese|which is just CA's attempt at creating yet another power creep in order to bait people to buy their DLC]]). They also have "From the Mist" which gives them additional missile resistance. Oh, and they have higher morale compared to trolls, but no health regen, sadly. Overall, though, this means they're a pretty good investment unlike how they were in the tabletop.

Fimir Balefiends are also available as monstrous casters where they are able to cast magic and fight on the front line with their monstrous size as well as damage.

==Fluff==
Fimir are a race of swamp-dwelling cyclops men with a beak and a scorpion tail. They originate with, but not a part of, Chaos as they are "part Daemon" (children of mortals and Daemons have appeared sporadically throughout Warhammer). The race was once favored by the Chaos Gods, though this fell apart quickly when they found mankind to be far more amusing. The Fimir, essentially now the red-headed stepchild of the Chaos Gods, continue to revere them; though the Gods do not pay them any special favor as they once had, instead they're forced to bind daemons in order to get any sort of Chaos blessings. They think if they help out the forces of Chaos when the opportunity presents its self they will regain favor; especially if they break the veil between the mortal world and the Realm of Chaos. Their skin tones are earthtones, dark greens and browns. They hate sunlight.

They used to exist in large numbers in the Wasteland, but the Men of the Empire drove them out with great effort, slaughtering most of their tribes. Fimir still exist there in small bands, haunting the misty swamps.

Fimir females, called Maerghs, are rarely born. They lead the Fimir clans, and when a Meargh dies and they cannot find a replacement after some time, the clan breaks apart into mercenaries that find work with other evil races. There can only be one Maergh per clan, if a Maergh manages to have a daughter, the daughter leaves when old enough to lead her own clan. Both are generally magic users. Fimir have the ability to control mist. Dirachs are the Fimir who deal with Daemons.

Nobles are the next rank down, then Fianna Fimm AKA elite warriors. Warriors are, well, warriors. They’re bigger than the scrubs, armed with plate and big ass weapons and for some reason they have a club for a tail like some kind of chaos ankylosaur.

The lowest rank are Shearls, slave Fimir.

Since female Fimir are extremely rare (once again, one per clan), the race reproduces by raiding humans from out of the fog, enslaving and sacrificing men while raping the women.

Some Fimir ally with [[Gnoblar]], a more mentally stable variant of greenskin.

According to ''Total War'' they grudgingly sell their services as heavy shock troops for Norscan Warlords who can pay, and there's a sizeable population of them haunting the frozen bogs and swamps of Norsca.

That ...is basically all the Fimir fluff there is. They now live in [[Ghyran]] realm.

==Warpstone==
Warpstone Fimir are the same as the above, but with more detail.

They are secretive and regarded as myth by most. They have a mostly hate relationship with Chaos, seeking either servitude from weak Daemons or patronage from minor (read: not the Four, [[Hashut]], or [[Horned Rat]]) Chaos Gods. They will even serve gods like [[Morr]] who have access to Daemons (in early Warhammer lore all gods were Chaos entities who were simply far more benevolent; the modern equivalent is the [[Morghast]] as a "Daemon" of Death gods). Balor, Kroll, and Lisaart are Daemon Princes who are among their worshipped patrons. Some Dirachs keep Daemons as personal servants or friends. Fimir HATE [[Tzeentch]], believing the Hell-Mother incident was his fault. Frogs are a holy symbol to Fimir representing fertility, a fetus, and breeding rights if given a figure of one by a Meargh.

Their building is capable but not complex. They have limited smithing for the purpose of tools and cannot produce things like locks, but can summon Daemons or elementals to aid them in labor. They utilize special black wood that is harder than natural for boats and walls. They use poison plants and defenses like palisades. They use the waters of their home for sacrifices rather than altars. Dedicated altars are for Fimir who fall to true Chaos worship (the Four). Most food gathered is cooked into a single stew each day. Fimir trade with evil races when necessary but prefer to trade only with other Fimir. Due to not being a mining race living near such resources, Fimir technology is based on what they can take from humans or barter for up to Iron Age level of sophistication. Fimir keep anything they can scavenge or pillage even if not immediately useful. Pumps and digging implements are very valuable.

They believe their origins are a distant human kingdom called the Waterland, where the princess Maris fell in love with the Mud God Daemon Fimúl. Fimúl was killed (meaning sent back to the [[Warp]]) and Maris fled with her hideous children to the swamps where she taught them their father's ways. Some Fimir believe in a kingdom called the Wandering Island which travels the coasts of the world crowned with a magic obsidian castle where Maris and Fimúl (summoned back into the world) now rule while others believe their parents dwell among the humans somewhere. Its suggested in-universe the Waterland is the delta of the great river in [[Nehekhara]] or from [[Ind]]. The Wandering Island exists in human and Elf folklore and thus may actually exist. According to a saga written of the war, the hero Marius killed the Hell-mother with a long weapon of some kind but what kind is not known, supposedly she fell into the sea with it buried in her possibly making it a lost treasure, but Marienburg tavern songs and some scholar interpretations of the story refer to the spear as a penis [[/d/|with humans raping the Hell-Mother as revenge for what Fimir under her command did to the women of their tribe.]]

Fimir only have friendly relations with Gnoblar, and neutral relations with Albion humans (who send them criminals to sacrifice/rape) and Norse Dwarfs. Mearghs and Dirachs as well as some Nobles speak local languages and dialects, with the lower castes knowing some words. They have slightly higher pitched voices than a human although they use low tone and ample hissing when speaking to non-Fimir for intimidation.

Fimir have very long lifespans, Mearghs surviving 2000 years or more.

Fimir are divided into caste at birth based on appearance. This is lifelong and rarely has it ever been challenged. Almost all (there is variation) Fimir are around five feet with a natural hunch, six or seven if standing tall and have large bellies that they are proud of, long limbs that reach near the ground with a tail almost as long as they are tall, broad shoulders and chests, three fingers and three toes, very little hair usually, are fond of tattoos, look pudgy but have muscle regardless, have a beak with tusks, and a single pupil-less eye. Their internal anatomy is human save for round dark green organs with no known purpose in the torso supported only with connective tissue. Fimir have no external ears but instead an internal honeycomb structure that lets them hear direction easily in fog. They can't small but taste the air and ground to track.
All newborns look like Shearl until they enter a toddler transformation called "Svabhaavajam" ("born to his own nature") which determines lifelong caste.
* Shearl are not only slaves, but all parts of society other than warriors and magic users. They are still on the bottom, but craftsman Shearl are higher than laborer Shearl. Shearl are born buff (pale yellowish brown) color with smooth heads and tails. They may earn the right to use a mace as a weapon but otherwise can only use clubs and stave weapons. Some Shearl can taste the air and sense human females from a great distance, and these Shearls accompany warbands as scouts.
Fimm are the collective name for the warrior caste which includes Nobles, Fianna Fimm, and Warriors. Axes and maces are their favored weapons.
* Warriors are buff color with a club tail.
* Fianna Fimm are olive colored. Nobles are a range of dark earthtone colors with rows of spikes and a blade tip on their tail.
* Dirachs have dark yellow skin, smooth tails, and horns. They dual-wield weapons. They wear elaborate loincloths, kilts, and robes with many adornments. They use daggers and staffs.
* Meargh are shorter and skinnier than males, have a full head of lanky dark green or raven hair, usually but not always small horns, smooth tails, olive skin like nobles, and are equipped like Dirachs although due to carrying out monthly sacrifices they tend to have bloodstains on their clothing.
Fimir only wear clothes ceremonially outside of cold weather and to indicate caste. Nobles in particular love their cloaks, gold, and garnets (the color of human blood). Armor must be earned but even Shearl can do so, with a [[Ogre Kingdoms|belly-plate like Ogres use]] being the most important. Helmets with horns are beloved but must be shaped different than those of Dirachs.

Any information on Fimir is rare. Even knowledge of what they call themselves, most people refer to them as Bog Daemons or mistake them for some other monster like Trolls. Female Fimir are called Hags, Hag-queens, and Witch-Queens. Most knowledge of Fimir comes from Norse [[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dwarfs]] (who are politically neutral with them) and humans; other Dwarfs and even [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Elves]] know little of them.

Fimir call [[Mannslieb]] "Fimúlneid" AKA "Fimúl's Eye" and use it to regulate their society and rituals. Fimir do not respect or worship [[Morrslieb]].

Because Fimir have never been part of an important event and only raid unimportant communities, as well as the near impossibility of tracking them, they are largely unknown and those who are aware of them give them little thought. According to myth the Fimir created the Wasteland waging total war against [[Skaven]] for territory.
Only once did Fimir unite, under a Meargh known as the Hell-Mother, and she began a war with the human tribes in the time of [[Sigmar]] around what would become [[Marienburg]]. The Fimir lost. Badly.
The survivors swore to always remain secret and never unite. The Hell-Mother is known as a curse and hated figure in their history.
Fimir are best known in scandalous and lewd plays, novels, and songs. The Tower card of the Bretonnian Tarot deck depicts a Meargh at the top of her tower, although only in silhouette.

Fimir reproduce by kidnapping and raping human women. They find humans attractive (human males ironically being their idea of femininity) but consider all females equal for breeding and all males equal for sacrifice and labor. Meargh choose which males may mate with captives, more than one for each so the father is uncertain. All females are fed well and treated sternly but gently, and compliant females are given the freedom to roam the settlement with armed escort. Mearghs or Dirachs who know healing magic assist in the birth and a Shaerl is appointed as a servant to mothers. Mearghs are born at a rate of one per clan per century, usually fatal to the mother due to the horns of the baby causing massive bleeding. A Meargh born to a clan with a young Meargh is given to another in need, with old Mearghs taking young ones as apprentices. The necessity of rape to survive is not considered a shame or a curse, but the fact that Maris pursued Fimúl out of love while her children must force themselves on her people has importance to their faith. Rarely a human woman comes to the Fimir for protection, or offer themselves as mothers to learn magic from Mearghs. Fimir "farm" communities, knowing they can't push too far to keep anonymity or wipe out a settlement. Fimir are not unnecessarily cruel (they revere Maris, a human, remember) and have been seen using human males as competitors in games like swimming and wrestling. Fimir keep human males to sacrifice, as without one they must sacrifice their own people. Due to the strain of supporting a human, they only take males intended for eventual sacrifice.

Fimir have a written language for magic, and pass on most knowledge orally. Their spoken and written language is Fimar, a combination of Daemonic and an unknown ancient language.

Fimir are social creatures who will interact in a friendly way even with other castes as long as rank is respected, playing music and games as a community. They carve toys and trinkets, which are sometimes sacrificed to Maris and Fimúl by throwing them into the water which eventually wash up on beaches and are believed by humans to be made by Sea Elves and Mermaids.
Ordeals are community events to determine if a Fimir has the right to a belly-shield. They often are simple pain endurance tests, group beatings, a challenge to defeat a strong opponent or kill an enemy, but rarely involve a quest away from home or a riddle. Mearghs set the task and decide success.

Fimir have a degree of immunity to swamp-related diseases but are extremely susceptible to venereal disease which spreads rapidly thanks to a tattoo and blood ritual culture. Those who go mad from the disease flee their kin and attempt to infiltrate human population centers to enact bizarre plans for unknown purposes.

Fimir are found mostly around the Old World including [[Albion]] and [[Kislev]]. Since the Empire has only one major marsh, the Schadensumpf, very few Fimir live in Empire territory. Most are neighbors to Marienburg, Norscans, and Albionese. Fimir always dwell near water in swamps, bogs, moors, on lakes and rivers, or coastlines. Most are a month travel from a human settlement. They prefer to set up permanent settlements on existing ruins to build up from, and create towers mimicking the fabled obsidian castle of the Wandering Island for their Meargh.

Some Mearghs survive alone in the wilderness.

==Gallery==
{{Promotions}}
<gallery>
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</gallery>

{{Template:Norscan Forces}}
{{Template:Playable Factions in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar}}

[[Category: Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category: Chaos]][[category: Warriors of Chaos]] [[category: Albion]] [[Category: Norsca]]

Fellblade

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2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

[[File:Fellblade2.jpg|400px|right|thumb|The Space Marines felt jelly when they saw the Imperial Army and their wide assortments of superheavy tanks. So they produced their own...to kill superheavy tanks.]]

The '''Fellblade''' Super-Heavy Tank is a [[Space Marine]] tank based on the [[Baneblade]] chassis, used during the [[Horus Heresy]]. Like the [[Predator Tank]]s of that era, it has a hemispherical turret (like the [[T-62|T-62M]] and other post WW2 Soviet tanks), though it also built with a more durable internal structure and power plant (apparently, it took nearly thirty thousand years to get the secrets of arc reactor technology from Stark Industries). This tank, along with many other tank classes during the Great Crusade, was equipped with a Flare Shield. This is basically the E-Web from Babylon 5; it reduces the energy (kinetic or otherwise) from concentrated strikes and it spreads any damage out across the armor and shields. It's a lot more potent than it sounds (seriously, think about it - the reason the bullets and weapons generally work at all is by focusing energy onto very small points. It takes a lot of energy to punch through solid metal, but you generally only need to bust through a small area of it to deliver murder to the delicious squishy internals. The smaller the area you can deliver force to the lower energy needed to reach punch through because that's how pressure works, force over area. So if the shielding can increase the effective surface area of projectiles even by small amounts it hugely decreases the rounds ability to punch through armor.) Its superheavy role is currently succeeded by the Primaris' [[Astraeus Super-heavy Tank|Astraeus]].

On the other hand, you might have been here looking for the ''other'' Warhammer item of note by this name, the legendary [[warpstone|warpstone]]-[[Gromril|gromril]] blade of the [[Skaven]] that was used to fell [[Nagash]]. [[Fellblade#Warhammer_Fantasy|See the bottom of the page instead.]]

*'''Length:''' 12.5m
*'''Mass:''' 302 tonnes
*'''Crew:''' 4 crew
*'''Max Speed:''' 32kph
== Model and Rules ==

[[Games Workshop]] first released rules for Space Marine super-heavy tanks in a [[White Dwarf]] expansion to ''Space Marine'' (the game that later became [[Epic]]); these were the Glaive, the equivalent of the [[Baneblade]], and the Falchion, a [[Shadowsword]] equivalent.

The Fellblade name first appeared in the [[Horus Heresy]] collectible card game, around the year 2005, though it would not receive rules until after the release of [[Apocalypse]] in 2007; inspired by the inclusion of Baneblades and other super-heavy vehicles in 28mm-scale [[Warhammer 40,000]] games, Bell of Lost Souls wrote a datasheet for the Fellblade, based on the Baneblade datasheet. It was generally well-received.

Around 2010, some guy called Machinator wrote updated rules for four Fellblade variants - the Glaive, the Lance (anti-tank las/plas variant), the Broadsword (anti-infantry/fast dakka/flamer variant), and the Warmaul (anti-fortification [[Vindicator|giant Demolisher Cannon]] variant). He did this partially because it's cool, [[Blood and Skulls Industry|and partially to sell bits from his eBay store]].

In 2012, [[Forge World]] released a line of books and models tying into the [[Horus Heresy]] era, and the Fellblade is part of their first wave of models, coinciding with the release of the first book, ''Betrayal''. It looks like a Baneblade with smooth sides and a larger engine (presumably representing the ceramite armor and arc reactor, respectively), topped with a monster Deimos [[Predator Tank]] turret with a twin-linked rape cannon on the top. And that's in addition to the hull Demolisher Cannon, the twin-linked hull heavy bolters, and the two quad lascannon batteries (just like ones on the [[Spartan Assault Tank]]), for a total of THIRTEEN BARRELS OF HELL (all for only 25 points more than a vanilla Baneblade, if you don't spring for the +1 BS upgrade). If that's still not enough guns, it can also be outfitted with hull-mounted [[Combi-weapons]], a [[Havoc Missile Launcher]], and a [[Hunter-Killer Missile]] Launcher. Marine fanboys everywhere wet their pants.

== Variants ==

Like the Baneblade, there are a few Fellblade variants; unlike the Baneblade, Space Marines are creative with naming their super-heavy tanks, as opposed to rolling dice which say "Bane," "Sword," "Storm," "Shadow," "Blade" and "Hammer" on them.

=== Fellblade ===
[[Image:Fellblade.jpg|right|thumb|300px|13 Barrels of Hell for Marines.]]

The "original" Space Marine super-heavy, released in ''Betrayal''. The Fellblade was most notable for its use of both Mechanicum atomantic arc-reactor technology (clearly it took the Mechanicus 28000 years to finally get the STC off of Stark Industries) and a reinforced metaplas alloy chassis superior to that of the Baneblade. It mounted a twin-linked [[Accelerator Cannon]] as its primary weapon and would also take to the field equipped with a suite of secondary weapons: a [[Demolisher Cannon|demolisher cannon]], sponson-mounted quad-[[lascannon]]s or [[Laser Destroyer|laser destroyers]], hull-mounted twin-linked [[Heavy Flamer|heavy flamers]] or [[Heavy Bolter|heavy bolters]], and a variety of pintle-mounted weapons.

At 302 tons, the Fellblade is lighter than the Baneblade. This can be attributed to its reinforced metaplas alloy which seems to be far lighter than, but just as strong as (pound for pound), the ceramite armor found in most Imperial vehicles. This is akin to advanced composite armor in comparison to conventional homogeneous rolled steel.

Rules-wise, its primary weapon is the above-mentioned twin-linked turret-mounted [[Accelerator Cannon]] that can either fire high-explosive shells comparable to a super-charged Battle Cannon (S8 AP3 7" Blast) or armor-piercing shells comparable to the Vanquisher battle cannon (S9 AP2 3" Blast, rolling 2d6 for armor penetration), so it's good for nearly any situation. Also comes equipped with a demolisher cannon and twin-linked heavy bolter. It has double twin-linked lascannon sponsons as well, for extra [[dakka]], which can be switched out for laser destroyers if you have to fight another superheavy. Fancy enough that Argel Tal, arguably the Word Bearers' most senior Chapter Master, had one as his personal tank.

=== Glaive ===
[[File:Glaive.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Nothing like the smell of burning chaos in the morning. Scaled up, that barrel would be more than five feet wide.]]

Released in Book Two: Massacre, the Glaive Super-heavy Special Weapons Tank or '''Fellglaive''', was a variant of the Fellblade, armed with a [[Volkite Carronade]], designed to destroy xenos beasts and enemy light vehicles in a single overwhelming shot. Its primary weapon is so ridiculously overpowered that the Techpriests of Mars only agreed with some acrimony to the Emperors demand that only a tank could be armed with it. 'Cause even the Imperium have standards.

Though all eighteen Legiones Astartes received limited quantities of Glaives, the [[Salamanders]] and [[Dark Angels]] were noted to operate them more regularly. Its rarity was because the Glaive was an overcomplicated trainwreck to produce and cost an equally ridiculous amount of Imperial moolah. The Dark Angels were given specialized Fellglaives for use in the [[Dreadwing]] which were designed by the Emperor's greatest armorers. [[Cheese|These vehicles were equipped with]] [[Warp Weapons|Vortex Weapons]] in place of its volkite carronade, [[That Guy|because they're Dark Angels,]] [[Bullshit|why the fuck not?]]

On tabletop, the Glaive has that big [[Volkite Carronade]], which fires a big beam that hits everything in front of it at S8 AP2; combined with Haywire and the Deflagrate ability inherent to Volkite weaponry, its short range is compensated for quite nicely with its knack for vaporizing anything in front of it (unfortunately, this includes any allied units which happen to be in the beam's path, so use carefully). In addition, should it hit a Super-Heavy or Gargantuan Creature, they take an extra D3 hits. Doesn't have a Demolisher, though.

=== Falchion ===
[[File:Falchion.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Oh Lord! There are too many lasers! Too many lasers! Quickly someone tell [[C.S. Goto|CS Goto!]]]]

Sure enough, announced as part of the run-up to Book Three: Extermination, we have the Falchion Super-Heavy Tank Destroyer. Also known as the '''Mammoth''' in a clear and blatant nod to [[Command and Conquer|a particular RTS game.]]

The Falchion uses a potent weapon which combines technologies fielded in the Fellblade and the Shadowsword super-heavy tank. It's got a [[Anal circumference|''twin-linked'']] [[Volcano Cannon]] guaranteed to ruin the day of any [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)|Titan]] or super-heavy tank that gets in range. Like the Glaive, it misses out on a Demolisher and twin-linked heavy bolter, though unlike the Glaive, it must bodily aim its Volcano Cannons at the target: the capacitors for the twin cannons are too bulky to put inside a turret. The miniaturization of the Falchion's Volcano Cannon's power source as well as the fact that they need to twin-link it, made the Falchion a stupidly expensive investment even when compared to its sister tanks, so don't expect to see that much of them in the 41st Millennium.

Interestingly enough, the Falchion was developed long before the outbreak of the [[Horus Heresy]] and as such its prey was not the enemy Titans it would later see such extensive combat against. As the [[Great Crusade]] expanded ever outward, the Expeditionary Fleets encountered a staggering array of foes, some of whom were of a truly gargantuan scale, but all were turned to molten swiss cheese once this tank rolls onto the fields.

The best upgrade for the Falchion is the Neutron Wave Capacitor. Forcing any vehicle that survives the laser volley to only fire snapshots. Hilarious when used against Knights and Titans. The major downside is Feedback which is Gets Hot for vehicles that only happens when it misses. The drawbacks can be made almost non-existent if given a Space Marine Crew to increase its Ballistic Skill to four.

{{Marines-Forces}}
{{Chaos Space Marines}}
{{40k-Imperial-Vehicles}}
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
{{40k-Imperial-Ships}}
{{40k-Chaos-Ships}}
{{clear}}

==Warhammer Fantasy==
In [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles]], the Fellblade is the name of a legendary magical artifact, a sword crafted by the [[Skaven]] Grey Seers from a cocktail of [[warpstone]] and gromril, bathed in the most potent killing curses the Grey Seers could invent (inscribed with runes so deadly simply reading them would kill the reader). The result, in the game, is a weapon regarded as one of the most outright killy in existence, so deadly even holding the thing will eventually kill whoever is wielding it.

The Fellblade was created for one purpose, and one purpose only: to kill [[Nagash]], who at that time was preparing to perform his Great Ritual, which eventually reduced [[Nehekhara]] into the land of the dead that it is today. Also Nagash was sitting on a big vein of Warpstone, which was the reason skaven wanted the Great Necromancer dead in first place. Using a human pawn, the Skaven succeeded, inflicting the first death of Nagash. In fact, they did even better than they knew; according to the 8th edition, the Fellblade not only killed Nagash, it kept on killing him, leaving a curse that meant each subsequent reincarnation of Nagash was weaker and weaker. For this reason, the Fellblade was one of the artifacts sought to resurrect Nagash before the beginning of [[The End Times]], with [[Mannfred von Carstein]], [[Mortarch]] of Shadow, eventually recovering it during The Battle of Mordkin Lair. During the dread ritual that restored unlife to the Great Necromancer, the Fellblade was destroyed, undoing its baleful effect on Nagash's spirit.

The most recent rules for the Fellblade were in the 7th edition Skaven armybook. It's a magic weapon that costs an insane 100 points with the following effects: attacks from it are Strength 10 and force a reroll of successful Ward saves, with each unsaved Wound being multiplied into D6 wounds, but the wielder must roll a D3 on the end of each of his turns; on a 1, he suffers 1 Wound with no armor saves allowed.

Familiar

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2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

A '''familiar''' is a magical spirit in the shape of an animal (or something vaguely ''like'' an animal) which serves as a loyal minion to a [[witch]], [[warlock]] or [[wizard]]. Originating from real-world beliefs about witches, it is a concept that has been deeply invested in many roleplaying games.

==Dungeons & Dragons==
In [[Dungeons & Dragons]], the presence of a familiar as an option for [[wizard]]s began in the days of [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]]; in BECMI, wizards had no familiars.

===1st Edition===
In 1st Edition, wizards acquired a familiar by casting the 1st level spell ''find familiar''. It took 1-24 hours, and required a D20 roll at the spell's completion; if you rolled a 16+, you failed to summon anything, though you also subtracted -1 for every 3 levels you had. Either way, once you'd cast this spell once, you couldn't cast it again for a whole year, and you can only have one familiar at a time. Familiars granted you a few extra hit points equal to their own, and the normal animal types were good sentries and spies, while the special ones possessed their usual special powers; brownies were pretty awesome, because they gave you 18 Dex, +2 on all saving throws, and you couldn't be surprised (but brownies were only for Lawful Neutral/Good wizards). The downside was pretty bad, though: if the familiar dies, you lose twice that hit point bonus '''permanently'''.

Overall, this version of familiars sucks pretty bad, and the only real reason to take one is for role-playing and similar reasons.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:600px">
'''1st Edition Familiars'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
;Player's Handbook
* Black Cat
* Crow
* Hawk
* Screech Owl
* Toad
* Weasel
* [[Quasit]]
* [[Pseudodragon]]
* [[Brownie]]
* [[Imp]]

;A Cast of Strange Familiars (Dragon #84)
* Bat (Large and Small)
* Cat (Domestic and Wild)
* Civet
* Coati
* Cockrel
* Crow
* Dog
* Fisher (the larger members of the mustelid family; marten, mongoose, etc)
* Fox
* Gull
* Hare
* Hawk (Small, Medium or Large)
* Kinkajou
* Lizard (Small or Large)
* Monkey (Small or Large)
* Otter
* Owl (Small, Medium or Large)
* Parrot
* Raccoon
* Rat
* Rave
* Skunk
* Snake
* Squirrel
* Toad

;Familiars With a Special Use (Dragon #86)
* Telperan
* Glissan
* Baltir
* Tabur
* Orrek
* Quark
* Nalg
* Durocib
* Haudhla
* Veeru
</div>
</div>

===2nd Edition===
2nd edition still used the ''find familiar'' spell to summon one up, but the spell was changed pretty heavily. It took 2d12 hours to cast (meaning an average time of 12-13 hours), and cost 1,000 gp of materials. The familiar had 2-3 points more Intelligence than others of its kind, along with having 2-4 hit points, +1 hit point per caster level. They now granted the wizard a flat +1 to surprise checks, and the familiar had a specifically defined empathic link, allowing the wizard to issue mental commands to it up to 1 mile away. The familiar used the wizard's saving throws while in physical contact, and for save-or-damage effects, the familiar took half damage on a failed save, or no damage on a success (a very early version of the improved evasion mechanic in 3rd edition).

Likewise, the drawbacks of familiars were different. The familiar loses 1 hit point each day they are separated from the caster (and there's no specification what "separated" exactly meant). If the familiar dies, the wizard immediately rolls a System Shock check; if they fail, they die, and if they succeed, they loose 1 point of Constitution (as in permanently).

In theory, there were options for obtaining special familiars in various supplements and in certain Dragon Magazine articles (#181 and #200, for those interested). In practice, unfortunately, these had no actual mechanics behind acquiring them, because 2nd edition was even more of a Rule Zero game than its predecessor, leaving much of its workings up to DM fiat. While some [[grognard|grognards]] grunt appreciatively at this, suffice it to say that you were only one argument with the DM away from getting royally [[Anal circumference|ass-invaded]].

So once again, there was little real reason to have a familiar, other than role-playing and other bullshit.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:600px">
'''2nd Edition Familiars'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
;Player's Handbook
* Black Cat
* Crow
* Hawk
* Screech Owl
* Toad
* Weasel

;Complete Wizard's Handbook
* Bat
* Cat
* Chipmunk
* Crow
* Dog
* Fox
* Gull
* Hawk
* Hare/Rabbit
* Lizard
* Monkey
* Mouse
* Otter
* Owl
* Parrot
* Raccoon
* Rat
* Rooster
* Raven
* Skunk
* Snake
* Squirrel
* Toad
* Weasel
* Wolverine

;Familiar Faces (Dragon #200)
* Bullfrog
* Chameloen
* Compsognathus
* Euparkeria
* Iguana
* Garter Snake
* Toad
* Crow/Raven
* Hawk
* Falcon
* Owl
* Parrot
* Rhea
* Armadillo
* Badger
* Common Bat
* Cat (Domestic or Wild)
* Mouse Deer
* Wild Dog
* Ferret
* Fox
* Jackal
* Monkey
* Opossum
* Otter
* Rabbit
* Raccoon
* Wood Rat
* Skunk
* Squirrel
::Humanoid Mages
* Vampire Bat
* Bloodhawk
* Huge Centipede
* Common or Giant Rat
* Large Spider
* Large Scorpion
* Stirge
* Vulture
* Weasel
::Underdark Mages
* Common Bat
* Fire Beetle
* Burbur
* Huge Centipede
* Small Lizard
* 1HD [[Myconid]]
* Giant Rat
* Large Spider
* Stirge
::Sea Mages
* Barracuda
* Weed Eel
* Small Fish
* Lobster
* Octopus
* Sea Horse
* Stingray
::Special Familiars
* [[Faerie Dragon]]
* [[Pseudodragon]]
* [[Brownie]]
* 1HD [[Mongrelfolk]]
* [[Buckawn]]
* [[Atomie]] type [[Sprite]]
* [[Imp]]
* [[Jermlaine]]
* [[Quasit]]

;Greater Familiars of Faerun (Dragon #228)
Note: This issue of Dragon introduced more advanced familiar types, Companions and Minions, through spells that summoned them. You can have one each of a familiar, companion, and minion.
::Find Companion Creatures
* Raccoon
* Badger
* Winged Serpent
* Rat
* Spider
* Iguana
* Talking Owl
* Falcon
* Vulture
* Bat
* Monkey
* Snake
* Stag
* Otter
* Fox
* Wolf
* Horse
* Cooshee
* Brown Bear
* Cheetah
::Find Minion Creatures
* [[Owlbear]]
* Elven Cat
* Blink Dog
* [[Umber Hulk]]
* [[Unicorn]]
* [[Pseudodragon]]
* [[Displacer Beast]]
* [[Peryton]]
* [[Pegasus]]
* [[Dragonne]]
* [[Hippogriff]]
* [[Griffon]]
</div>
</div>

===3rd Edition===

For the most part, the early 3.0 rules did a hell of a lot to fix the problems with familiars in days gone by. Rather than being a spell (which Animal Companions still were for some reason), it was simply a class feature you could do any time you had 100 gp to spend on the ritual to call up a familiar, and on top of that you don't roll random or have a chance to fail the ritual, you basically get to choose the familiar you want. This meant that you probably didn't start with a familiar at 1st level, but you certainly could acquire one cheaply soon after.

The benefits were enormously better: the familiar gave you a passive bonus to one type of roll (almost always a skill check or saving throw), or possessed some trick ability (ravens could speak, snakes had venom, etc.). Both familiar and master gained the Alertness feat when in physical contact with one another (making it easier to Listen or Spot), and the master had a 1-mile empathic link (similar to previous editions). More than this, the familiar was just plain tougher: 3.0 familiars have way more hit points, better saving throws, better AC (which improves over time), and improved evasion right out of the box at level 1. It had Hit Dice equal to the master's character level, which is useful to determine how certain spells and effects work on it (i.e. if it has enough HD, it simply ignores certain things or they affect the familiar less).

As if all that wasn't enough, though, familiars now also got something else special: they had skill ranks as normal for a normal creature of their kind, '''as well as any ranks the master had in any skills'''. This seemingly neat feature is broken by the master getting ranks of Use Magic Device... allowing a familiar to activate anything that doesn't require speaking, and allowing ravens and any other talking familiars (like almost everything you can get with Improved Familiar) to activate scrolls, wands, etc.

But wait, it gets better. In addition to all this, your familiar also gets higher Intelligence and additional special abilities as you level up. It can deliver touch spells, speak with the master and/or animals of its kind, gets spell resistance, and you could even eventually scry on the familiar once/day. The 3.5 update made familiars even better: they could now share spells, meaning that a caster who used ''mage armor'' or ''polymorph'' could choose to have it cast on the familiar as well, for free, straight up. I'll give you slower folks a moment to realize the implications of this as you realize that, yes, your little kitty cat familiar could now potentially turn into a griffon for a short time.

Now, you may be smirking about what the drawbacks of a 3rd edition familiar are. Well, this is it: you lose 200 XP per level, half that if you make a Fort DC 15 save (and you can't go under 0 XP). That's literally all you suffer. So basically if your familiar dies, you sort of stunt your progress a bit, but this happened in 3rd Edition if you made magic items, cast (''limited'') ''wish'', etc., so it was a semi-negligible drawback even back then. You don't lose Constitution or permanent hit point, you don't die, you just fry your brain a bit and have to relearn some stuff.

Acquiring a special familiar was no longer either a matter of luck or DM fiat: you bought a feat called Improved Familiar, and selected a new and improved familiar based on certain things like alignment, caster level, race, Base Attack Bonus. (No shit on that last one: if you had a high enough attack bonus, you could acquire a hippogriff or a fucking hellhound familiar.) Later sourcebooks and Dragon articles went from an already impressive list to a fuckhuge cyclopedia of familiars, including extraplanar buddies like fiends and elementals.

Now, there's a healthy argument to be made for ditching your summon familiar class feature for other features out there, especially some of those found in places like Unearthed Arcana (where conjurers could ditch a familiar to get all ''summon monster'' spells cast as 1 standard action instead of a full-round action, which is Goddamn amazing). But don't worry! You, too, can cheese the shit out of this by ditching your familiar, then you trot over to Complete Arcane and get the feat Obtain Familiar once you hit CL 3rd... and now you not only have a familiar again, but you can multiclass and get prestige classes and your familiar gets even better than they would have (because your familiar only gets stronger from class levels that give you a familiar; most prestige classes do not, in fact, give you familiar advancement). Incidentally, Obtain Familiar can be used with any class that advances arcane caster level, allowing bards and even warlocks to get them.

Dragon Magazine #338 offers the interesting addition of Imbued Staffs, which replaces a living being familiar with a staff that gains various powers as the caster levels up. This includes enhancement bonuses and weapon abilities, as well as scrying on or summoning the staff at will.

Note that the Item Familiar feat in Unearthed Arcana is '''not''', in fact, a replacement of the summon familiar feature; it is a totally separate thing that anyone, even non-spellcasters, can get and benefit from. You could have both a regular living-creature familiar as well as an Item Familiar.

[[Ravenloft]] introduced a variant of the regular familiar called the ''Dread Familiar'' in this edition, which is basically a loyal but utterly evil familiar that essentially tries to act out all your dark thoughts without any concern to how this might screw you over, yet another of the many ways that the setting tried to stop you from playing a [[wizard]].

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:600px">
'''3rd Edition Familiars'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Spells (Note that these are all based on the 3.0 rules.)
* [[http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20011209a| Animate Dead Familiar]]: Makes your dead familiar undead.
* [[http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20011109a| Elemental Familiar]]: instant duration; Turns your familiar into a tiny elemental
* [[http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20011020a| Planar Familiar]]: Turns your familiar into a Celestial/Fiendish/Axiomatic/Anarchic creature. (Weirdly its a cleric spell but it can only be cast on your own familiar, so you need to either UMD a scroll or use Limited wish.

Feats:
* Construct Familiar (#280 p62): Turns your familiar into a construct
* Extra Familiar (#280 p62): Lets you take a new familiar each time you take this feat.
* Undead Familiar (#280 p62): Turns your familiar into an undead.
* Token Familiar (#280 p62): Turns your familiar into a little item and back at will
* Shadowform Familiar (CoR p22): Turns your familiar incorporeal, Krinth only
* Stitched Flesh Familiar (LM p30): Turns your familiar into an undead
* Shadow Familiar (ToM p138): Grant you a familiar with the the dark template or give it to your already existing familiar, Need Shadowcaster 3rd level

Prestige Class:
* Alienist lvl 5 (CAr p21): Grants pseudonatural template to your familiar
* Bonded Summoner (MH p16): Replace familiar with an Elemental, starting at medium size and ending as an Elder Elemental.
* Fleshwarper (LoM p189): Change your familiar type to Aberration, and give him up to four ability.
* Fiend-Blooded (HH p102): Grants fiendish templates to your familiar.
* Nar Demonbinder (UE p25): Grants an Imp or a Quasit familiar as with the improved familiar feat.
* Arcane Hierophant (RoTW p108): Grant the ability of a familiar to your animal companion.
* Spell Sovereign (Dragon Magazine #357): Allows you to take a Living Spell as your familiar.

Also, the [[Dread Necromancer]] (HH p84) gain a familiar at 7th level from the following list: Imp, Quasit, Vargouille or Ghostly Visage (a [[Fiend Folio]] creature).

;Standard 3e Familiars
::Player's Handbook Familiars
* Bat (+3 on Listen checks)
* Cat (+3 on Move Silently Checks)
* Hawk (+3 on Spot Checks in bright light)
* Lizard (+3 on Climb Checks)
* Owl (+3 on Spot Checks in Shadow)
* Rat (+2 on Fortitude Saves)
* Raven (+3 on Appraise Checks, can speak 1 language)
* Tiny Viper Snake (+3 on Bluff Checks)
* Toad (+3 on hit points)
* Weasel (+2 on Reflex Saves)
::Dungeon Master's Guide Familiars
:::Tiny or Smaller Masters Only
* Ferret (+2 on Reflex Saves)
* Hedgehog (+1 to Natural Armor)
* Mouse (+2 on Move Silently Checks)
* Screech Owl (+2 on Move Silently Checks)
* Thrush (Speaks 1 Language)
:::Huge or Bigger Masters Only
* Dire Rat (+2 on Fortitude Saves)
* Leopard (+2 on Move Silently Checks)
* Monitor Lizard (+3 on Hit Points)
* Medium Owl (+2 on Move Silently Checks)
* Wolverine (+2 on Reflex Saves)
::Sandstorm Familiars
* Horned Lizard (+2 on Will Saves)
::Stormwrack Familiars
* Albatross (+1 on Spot Checks)
* Eel (+3 on Escape Artist Checks)
* Fish Owl (+3 on Spot Checks in Shadow)
* Octopus (+3 on Grapple Checks)
* Parrot (+3 on Appraise Checks, can speak 1 language)
* Sea Snake (+3 on Bluff Checks)
::Frostburn Familiars
* Arctic Fox (+3 on Move Silently Checks)
* Gyrfalcon (+3 on Spot checks)
* Lemming (+2 on Listen and Spot Checks)
* Snowy Owl (+3 on Move Silently Checks)
* Penguin (+2 on Fortitude Saves)
* Puffing (+3 on Survival Checks)
::Dragon Magic Familiars
* Huitzil (+3 on Sleight of Hand Checks)
::Serpent Kingdoms Familiars (requires [[Yuan-ti]] race)
* Dung Snake (+3 on Bluff Checks)
* Reed Snake (+3 on Bluff Checks)
* Sewerm (+3 on Bluff Checks)
::Monsters of Faerun Familiars
* Hairy Spider (no bonuses)
::Dragon Magazine Familiars
* Compsognathus (#318, +3 on Hide Checks)
* Ramphorhynchus (#318, +3 on Initiative Checks)
* Critic Lizard (#319, +2 on Reflex Saves)
* Floater (#319, +3 on Sense Motive checks)
* Speckled Hurrum (#319, +3 on Diplomacy Checks)
* Jankx (#319, +3 on Listen Checks)
* Kes'trekel (#319, +2 on Fortitude Saves)
* Mulworm (#319, +3 Hit Points)
* Ramphor (#319, +3 on Spot Checks)
* Z'tal (#319, +3 on Intimidate Checks)
* Turtle (#323, Optionally Abjurer Only, +1 AC when prone or behind cover)
* Hummingbird (#323, Optionally Conjurers Only, +4 on Initiative checks)
* Fly (#323, Optionally Diviners Only, +3 on Gather Information Checks)
* Mink (#323, Optionally Enchanters Only, +3 on Diplomacy Checks)
* Spider (#323, Optionally Evokers Only, +3 on Sleight of Hand Checks)
* Fox (#323, Optionally Illusionists Only, +2 on Will saves)
* Vulture (#323, Optionally Necromancers Only, +4 on Fortitude Saves vs Disease)
* Caterpillar (#323, Optionally Transmuters Only, +3 on Disguise checks, at 5th level can be changed into a Butterfly or Moth to grant +3 on Spellcraft Checks instead)
* Chameleon (#341, +3 on Disguise checks)
* Crow (#341, +2 on Fortitude saves)
* Dark Chanting Goshawk (#341, +2 on Will saves)
* Dog (#341, +3 on Sense Motives checks)
* Flying Fox (#341, +3 on Sleight of Hand Checks)
* Iguana (#341, +3 on Climb checks)
* Monkey (#341, +3 on Tumble checks)
* Night Lizard (#341, +3 on Hide checks)
* Platypus (#341, +3 on Swim checks)
* Rabbit (#341, +3 on Listen checks)
* Squirrel (#341, +3 on Jump checks)
* Vampire Bat (#341, no bonuses)
* Badger (#352, +3 on Knowledge (Arcana) checks)
* Badger (#277, 3.0 rules, +2 on Will saves)
* Chipmunk (#277, 3.0 rules, +2 on Reflex saves)
* Dog (#277, 3.0 rules, +2 on Sense Motive checks)
* Eagle (#277, 3.0 rules, no bonus)
* Groundhog (#277, 3.0 rules, +2 on Fortitude saves)
* Lizard (#277, 3.0 rules, +2 on Climb checks)
* Monkey (#277, 3.0 rules, +2 on Pic Pockets checks)
* Otter (#277, 3.0 rules, +2 on Swim checks)
* Small Constrictor Snake (#277, 3.0 rules, No Bonus)
* Bird (#280, 3.0 rules, variable bonus)
* Dog (#280, 3.0 rules, +2 on Sense Motive checks)
* Fox (#280, 3.0 rules, +2 on Reflex saves)
* Hare (#280, 3.0 rules, +2 on Listen checks)
* Lizard (#280, 3.0 rules, +2 on Climb checks)
* Mouse (#280, 3.0 rules, +2 on Hide checks)
* Otter (#280, 3.0 rules, +2 on Swim checks)
* Raccoon (#280, 3.0 rules, +2 on Pick Pockets checks)
* Skunk (#280, 3.0 rules, musk attack 1/day - master is immune)
* Squirrel (#280, 3.0 rules, +2 on reflex saves)
* Golden the Clockwork Cat (#299, 3.0 rules, as Cat but has Construct type)

;Improved 3e Familiars
::Dungeon Master's Guide Familiars
* Shocker Lizard (Neutral Alignment, 5th level)
* Stirge (Neutral Alignment, 5th level)
* [[Formian]] Worker (Lawful Neutral Alignment, 7th level)
* [[Imp]] (Lawful Evil Alignment, 7th level)
* [[Pseudodragon]] (Neutral Good Alignment, 7th level)
* [[Quasit]] (Chaotic Evil Alignment, 7th level)
* Celestial Template Standard Familiar (3rd level)
* Fiendish Template Standard Familiar (3rd level)
* Small Air/Earth/Fire/Water Elemental (5th level)
* Homunculus (7th level)
* Ice Mephit (7th level)
::Complete Warrior Familiars
* Krenshar (Any Alignment, 3rd level)
* Worg (Any Non-Good Alignment, 3rd level)
* Blink Dog (Any Non-Chaotic AND Non-Evil Alignment, 5th level)
* Hell Hound (Any Non-Chaotic AND Non-Good Alignment, 5th level)
* [[Hippogriff]] (Any Alignment, 7th level)
* Howler (Any Non-Lawful AND Non-Good Alignment, 7th level)
* Winter Wolf (Any Non-Good Alignment, 7th level)
* Spark Guardian (7th level, Craft Construct, Spells: Lightning Bolt, Locate Creature, Minor Creation)
* Gauntlet Guardian (9th level, Craft Construct, Spells: Fabricate, Locate Creature, Stone Shape)
* Blade Guardian (11th level, Craft Construct, Spells: Fabricate, Locate Creature, Tenser's Transformation)
::Complete Scoundrel Familiars
* Small Monstrous Centipede (Neutral Alignment, 2nd level)
* Badger (Neutral Alignment, 3rd level)
* Small Monstrous Scorpion (Neutral Alignment, 3rd level)
* Medium Viper (Neutral Alignment, 3rd level)
* Small Monstrous Spider (Neutral Alignment, 4th level)
* Vargouille (Neutral Evil Alignment, 6th level)
* [[Mephit]], Any (Neutral Alignment, 7th level)
::Supplementary Monster Manual Familiars
* Fire Bat (Any Alignment, 15th level, MMII)
* Clockwork Mender (Any Lawful Alignment, 5th level, MMIV)
* Sailsnake (Any Alignment, 5th level, MMIV)
* Gem Scarab (Any Alignment, 5th level, MMV)
* Tirbana Eyewing (Lawful Neutral OR Lawful Evil Alignment, 5th level, MMV)
::[[Forgotten Realms]] Campaign Setting Familiars
* Eyeball Beholderkin (Any Non-Good Alignment, 5th level)
* Night Hunter Bat (Any Non-Good Alignment, 5th level)
::Players Guide to Faerun Familiars
* Deathfang (Any Non-Good Alignment, 9th level)
* Flying Snake (Any Alignment, 3rd level)
* Spitting Crawler Lizard (Any Alignment, 3rd level)
* Lynx (Any Alignment, 3rd level)
* Osquip (Any Non-Good Alignment, 5th level)
* Tressym (Any Non-Evil Alignment, 5th level)
::Serpent Kingdoms Familiars
* Jaculi (Any Non-Lawful AND Non-Good Alignment, 5th level)
* Mlarraun (Any Alignment, 5th level)
* Muckdweller (Any Non-Chaotic AND Non-Good Alignment, 5th level)
* Glacier Snake (Any Alignment, 3rd level)
* Tree Python (Any Alignment, 3rd level)
* Whipsnake (Any Non-Lawful AND Non-Good Alignment, 3rd level)
::Shining South Familiars
* Beguiler (Any Alignment, 7th level)
* Starsnake (Any Alignment, 12th level)
::City of Splendors: Waterdeep Familiars
* Watchspider (Any Alignment, 3rd level)
::Book of Exalted Deeds Familiars
* Celestial Standard Familiar (Any Good Alignment, 3rd level)
* Couere [[Eladrin]] (Chaotic Good Alignment, 7th level)
* Lantern [[Archon]] (Lawful Good Alignment, 7th level)
* Musteval [[Guardinal]] (Neutral Good Alignment, 7th level)
::Planar Handbook Familiars
* Celestial Template Standard Familiar (3rd level)
* Fiendish Template Standard Familiar (3rd level)
* Anarchic Template Standard Familiar (3rd level)
* Axiomatic Template Standard Familiar (3rd level)
* Small Elemental (Any Alignment, 5thth level)
* [[Imp]] (Any Non-Chaotic AND Non-Good Alignment, 7th level)
* Lantern [[Archon]] (Any Non-Chaotic AND Non-Evil Alignment, 7th level)
* [[Mephit]] (Any Alignment, 7th level)
* [[Quasit]] (Any Non-Lawful AND Non-Good Alignment, 7th level)
::Dragon Wyrmling Familiars (Draconomicon)
* White (Neutral/Chaotic Neutral/Neutral Evil Alignment, 7th level)
* Black (Neutral/Neutral Evil/Chaotic Evil Alignment, 8th level)
* Brsss (Neutral Good/Chaotic Good/Chaotic Neutral Alignment, 9th level)
* Green (Neutral/Lawful Evil/Neutral Evil Alignment, 9th level)
* Copper (Chaotic Good/Neutral/Chaotic Neutral Alignment, 10th level)
* Blue (Lawful Neutral/Lawful Evil/Neutral Evil Alignment, 10th level)
* Bronze (Lawful Good/Lawful Neutral/Neutral Alignment, 11th level)
* Red (Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Evil/Neutral Evil Alignment, 12th level)
* Silver (Lawful Good/Lawful Neutral/Neutral Alignment, 12th level)
* Gold (Lawful Good/Neutral Good/Lawful Neutral Alignment, 14th level)
::Dragon Magazine Familiars
* Spider Swarm (#329, Any Alignment, 3rd level)
* Bat Swarm (#329, Any Alignment, 5th level)
* Rat Swarm (#329, Any Alignment, 5th level)
* Locust Swarm (#329, Any Alignment, 7th level)
* Bone Rat Swarm (#329, Any Non-Good Alignment, 9th level)
* Centipede Swarm (#329, Any Alignment, 9th level)
* Corpse Rat Swarm (#329, Any Non-Good Alignment, 11th level)
* Emphemeral Swarm (#329, Any Non-Lawful AND Non-Good Alignment, 11th level)
* Swamp Strider Swarm (#329, Any Alignment, 11th level)
* Bloodmote Swarm (#329, Any Non-Good Alignment, 13th level)
* Dread Bloom Swarm (#329, Any Alignment, 13th level)
* Needletooth Swarm (#329, Any Alignment, 13th level)
* Hellwasp Swarm (#329, Any Non-Chaotic AND Non-Good Alignment, 16th level)
* Shimmerling Swarm (#329, Any Non-Lawful Alignment, 16th level)
* Brood Keeper Larva Swarm (#329, Any Alignment, 19th level)
* Choleric Imp (#338, Neutral Evil Alignment, 7th level)
* Melancholic Imp (#338, Neutral Evil Alignment, 7th level)
* Phlegmatic Imp(#338, Neutral Evil Alignment, 7th level)
* Sanguine Imp (#338, Neutral Evil Alignment, 7th level)
* Copper Asp (#341, Any Alignment, 3rd level, Craft Construct, Spells: Animate Rope, Melf's Acid Arrow)
* Razor Hawk (#341, Any Alignment, 3rd level, Craft Construct, Spells: Gust of Wind)
* Crystal Cat (#341, Any Alignment, 5th level, Craft Construct, Spells: Invisibility, Keen Edge)
* Glass Dragonfly (#341, Any Alignment, 5th level, Craft Construct, Spells: Colour Spray, Fly)
* Salvage Rat (#341, Any Alignment, 5th level, Craft Construct, Spells: Acid Splash, Shatter)
* Erudite Owl (#341, Any Alignment, 7th level, Craft Construct, Spells: Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Fly)
* Mercurial Spider (#341, Any Alignment, 7th level, Craft Construct, Spells: Polymorph, Spider Climb)
* Great Horned Owl (#341, Any Alignment, 3rd level)
* King Cobra (#341, Any Alignment, 3rd level)
* Small Paraelemental (#347, Any Alignment, 5th level)
* Monodrone (#354, Any Lawful Alignment, 5th level)
* Shadovig (#299, Neutral Evil Alignment, 3rd level? 3.0 rules)
* Cloaker (#322, Any Non-Lawful Alignment, 14th level)
* Dark Creeper (#322, Any Non-Lawful Alignment, 10th level)
* Darkenbeast (#322, Any Non-Good Alignment, 12th level)
* Small Darkness Pseudo-Elemental (#322, Any Non-Good Alignment, 7th level)
* Night Hunter Bat (#322, Any Non-Good Alignment, 5th level)
* Sinister Bat (#322, Any Non-Chaotic Alignment, 8th level)
* Shadow (#322, Any Non-Lawful AND Non-Good Alignment, 9th level)
* Shadow Asp (#322, Any Alignment, 6th level)
* Shadow Mastiff (#322, Any Non-Good Alignment, 14th level)
* Wraith (#322, Any Non-Lawful AND Non-Good Alignment, 14th level)
</div>
</div>

===Pathfinder===
Pathfinder's take on familiars is essentially the same as in D&D 3rd edition, though the way classes interact with them is a bit different: now wizards can pick between having a familiar or choosing a '''Bonded Item''' that gives them an extra spell per day. There is also no experience penalty for losing your familiar, so they definitely become less of a chore to own. Sorcerers don't get familiars at all unless they take the Arcane bloodline, though having new bloodline class features does help salve the pain. Sorcerers later got the ability to drop their first level bloodline power and delay their bonus spells by a level for a familiar, which was often worth it as first level bloodline powers often sucked though other alternatives to bad first level powers compete with it. Additionally the [[Witch]] class entirely relies upon using familiars as a kind of quasi-spellbook.

Also, thanks to the archetype system, a few other classes can pick them up, which can be great, since familiars largely suck on their own when they take their stats off of dedicated arcane casters. Having BAB scores, hit point totals and saves based off of [[Fighter]]s, [[Paladin]]s, [[Bloodrager]]s, or other meatier classes can turn what were essentially touch-spell delivery systems and/or spies into full-fledged members of the party.

Finally, they added archetypes for familiars themselves, allowing you to make further custom adjustments to your class-companion if you need them to fill roles such as bodyguards, performers or pickpockets etc. Meaning what was essentially a forced choice in 3rd edition D&D has now become an entire avenue for class building in Pathfinder.

The options for the Improved Familiar started out the same and gradually introduced a bunch of new ones. Many of these are awesome like imp equivalents for all outsider types, the Aether Elemental that telekinetic throws the big stupid fighter at enemies while being naturally invisible, and miniature dragons with their own spell casting.

===4th Edition===
4th edition, as always, changed things up enormously. They started by completely removing the familiar at first, pointing out how familiars had traditionally not been very well regarded; they were mostly ignored by players and considered more of a detriment than an advantage, since they were so frail and inflicted significant drawbacks on the player if they died. Familiars didn't resurface until the ''Arcane Power'' sourcebook, where taking a familiar became a Feat available to any Arcane class. Now, your familiar can switch between a passive move, in which they are sharing the player's space and immune to attack, or an active mode, in which they can move independently and use a special power depending on the familiar. For example, spiders can be used to haul small objects to different places with their webbing, whilst ravens can become living videophones for you. Plus, if your familiar gets killed, it automatically comes back to life good as new the next time you complete a rest. Those who were willing to give 4e a chance generally approved of the way familiars were handled in this edition, as they finally shook off the "more detriment than value" stigma they'd picked up way back in AD&D.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:600px">
'''4th Edition Familiars'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
;Arcane Power
* Bat
* Book Imp
* Bond Demon
* Cat
* Crafter Homunculus
* Dragonling
* Falcon
* Owl
* Rat
* Raven
* Serpent
* Spider

;Heroes of the Feywild
* Bat
* Cat
* Coure Attendant
* Falcon
* Fiddling Grig
* Owl
* Rat
* Raven
* Serpent
* Spider
* Sprite

;Heroes of the Elemental Chaos
* Arctine
* Automaton
* Chaos Phage
* Crysmalite
* Flame Serpent
* Hordeling
* Magmin
* Mud Wretch
* Nereid
* Pech
* Storm Talon
* Sylph

;Get Familiar (Dragon #374)
::Heroic Tier
* Arcane Eye
* Badger
* Canine Construct
* Disembodied Hand
* Fire Lizard
* Lightning Lizard
* Ooze
* Parrot
* Rootling
* Scout Homunculus
* Skull
* Toad
* Weasel
::Paragon Tier
* Air Mephit
* Arcane Wisp
* Beholderkin
* Blackspawn Darkling
* Bluespawn Nimblespark
* Earth Mephit
* Fire Mephit
* Grayspawn Shortfang
* Greenspawn Banespike
* Ice Mephit
* Rakshasa Claw
* Redspawn Spitfire
* Stone Fowl
* Whitespawn Snowstepper
::Epic Tier
* Blazing Skull
* Chaos Shard
* Gibbering Pet
* Shadow Incarnate

;Familiars of Eberron (Dragon #377)
::Heroic Tier
* Bantam Fastieth
* Bloodthorn Vine Barb
* Clockwork Scorpion
* Dragonmark Reflection
* Floating Weapon
* Gadfly
* Magpie
* Marmoset
* Octopus
* Saddle Squire
* Soarwood Wings
* Summoner Homunculus
* Tome Caddy
* Warforged Faceplate
::Paragon Tier
* Ambush Vine Shoot
* Crawling Clot
* Dimensional Pet
* Living Infusion
* Minor Foulspawn
* Smith's Hammer
* Tinker Feyling
::Epic Tier
* Lingering Nightmare
* Silver Lamp

;Familiar Power: Wizard (Dragon #382)
* Specter
* Least Air Elemental
* Tiny Gelatinous Cube
* Least Earth Elemental

;Winning Races: Eladrin, Beyond the Spiral Tower (Dragon #390)
* Fiddling Grig
* Coure Attendant

</div>
</div>

===5th Edition===
5th edition goes for a strange blending of 2e and 4e approaches to familiars. Once again, the familiar is hidden behind the 1st level spell ''find familiar''. As in 4e, familiars are considered to be magical spirits (thus they have to take the Celestial, Fey or Fiend creature type) manifesting in the form of an animal chosen by you. Certain monsters in the [[Monster Manual]] or other bestiary sources are called out as valid options for your ''find familiar'' spell. However, as in 4th edition, there are no drawbacks to having a familiar: if one dies, it has no effect on you, and it will return with a simple recasting of ''find familiar''. When you don't need your familiar, you can dismiss it, causing it to vanish to some other plane until you need it again, whereupon it teleports back to you; summoning or dismissing a familiar just takes an action. Familiars can take all sorts of actions, but they can't fight (which is kind of baffling, given some of the creatures you can make a familiar) - they do, however, possess a 100-ft. telepathic link with you, and they can act as a conduit for your Touch range spells when within that same distance. Whilst your familiar is within telepathic link range, as an action, you can "borrow" its senses, leaving you blind and deaf in regards to your own body, but letting you perceive everything that your pet perceives. The warlock has three versions of it's 3rd level class feature, one of which provides a superior familiar that can attack if you expend your own action.

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:600px">
'''5th Edition Familiars'''
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
;PHB Familiars
* Bat
* Cat
* Crab
* Frog/Toad
* Hawk
* Lizard
* Octopus
* Owl
* Poisonous Snake
* Quipper
* Rat
* Raven
* Sea Horse
* Spider
* Weasel

;Splatbook Familiars
* [[Al'miraj]] (Tomb of Annihilation)
* [[Chwinga]] (Tomb of Annihilation)
* Flying Monkey (Tomb of Annihilation)
* [[Gazer]] (Volo's Guide to Monsters)
* [[Imp]] (Monster Manual)
* [[Pseudodragon]] (Monster Manual)
* [[Quasit]] (Monster Manual)
* [[Sprite]] (Monster Manual)
* [[Tressym]] (Storm King's Thunder)

In addition to the above, an interactive map of [[Icewind Dale]] released for the 2020 D&D Celebration contained three puzzle-concealed Adventurer's League-legal unlockable familiars; the Gelatinous Ice Cube (a frozen miniature [[Slime|Gelatinous Cube]]), the Snowy [[Owlbear]] Cub, and the Arctic Stink-Squirrel (basically a skunk with a climb speed).

</div>
</div>

The [[Tome of Beasts]] series by [[Kobold Press]] does have a few unique familiars tucked away in its pages. Perhaps due to the [[Midgard]] setting originating as a [[Pathfinder]] system, many of these familiars actually work by different rules; these "pseudo-familiars" do gain the sense-sharing telepathic link, but don't have the normal reincarnative or dismissal abilities, nor can they usually channel magic - the Kuunganisha is unusual for this trait alone. Unlike true familiars, they can't simply be summoned with a Find Familiar spell, but must be persuaded to agree to forming a familiar bond - Find Familiar can make them show up, but won't guarantee automatic obedience.
* '''Clockwork Beetle (ToB1)'''
* '''[[Drake]], Crimson (ToB1)'''
* '''Library Automaton (ToB1)'''
* '''Stryx''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Witchlight (ToB1)'''
* '''Alkonost (CC)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Kuunganisha (CC)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Leonino (CC)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Living Shade (CC)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Wolpertinger (CC)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Aviere (ToB2)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Lantern Beetle (ToB2)'''
* '''Sniffer Beetle (ToB2)'''
* '''Blood Imp (ToB2)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Compsognathus (ToB2)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Keyhole Dragonette (ToB2)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Light Drake (ToB2)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Lymarien (ToB2)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Wicked Skull (ToB2)''' (Pseudo-Familiar)
* '''Yowler (ToB2)'''
* '''Bilby (ToB2)'''
* '''Fennec Fox (ToB2)'''
* '''Holler Spider (ToB2)'''
* '''Resinous Frog (ToB2)'''

==Warhammer==
In both [[Warhammer Fantasy]] and [[Warhammer 40,000]], familiars are a kind of lesser [[daemon]] that [[Chaos]] [[Sorcerer]]s have traditionally been able to take as wargear. Daemonic familiars come in a vast array of shapes, but over time have had their roles simplify. For example, Warrior Familiars are unusually strong and aggressive for their kind, and generally provide some free attacks to their master.

In 2nd edition [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] (the one by Black Industries), familiars are discussed in "Realms of Sorcery", the sourcebook on wizard PCs. Familiars are the very first entry in chapter 7, "Magical Tools": according to this book, there are three ways to get a Familiar in the Warhammer world.

Firstly, you can craft a [[homunculous]]; a little artifical man or beast made from artificial material (or flesh & bone, if you wanna be gross) and then bring it to life with magic. This option requires Magic (3), Academic Knowledge (Magic), and Arcane Language (Magick) to have both the raw power and the learning to complete the ritual, as well as the magical affinity for Death, Fire, Light, Metal, Shadow, Chaos or Necromancy magic in order to breathe life.

Secondly, you can use magic to form a soul-bound with a living creature. This is easier than making a homunculous, as you only require Magic (2) and the Charm Animal skill, but it is restricted to those with the magical affinity for Beasts, Fire, the Heavens, Life, Light and Shadow magic, or those who possess the Witchcraft talent.

The third option is to summon and bind an imp-level [[Daemon]] - these methods are only undertaken by Chaos Sorcerers, for obvious reasons, and are detailed in the splatbook ''Tome of Corruption'' instead.

The big reason for bothering with this? Firstly, companionship; being a wizard is a lonely affair in the world of Warhammer. Secondly, every familiar has at least one of several magical bonuses:
* Aethyric Reserve allows a familiar to store a spell and then unleash it on its own.
* Link of Psyche gives master and familiar a telepathic bond - which, aside from being useful for using your familiar as a spy, also boosts both the wizard's Int and Willpower stats ''and'' the familiar's own whilst they're both conscious.
* Lucky Charm causes the familiar to generate 2 Fortune Points per day.
* Magic Focus allows the familiar to double an attribute of a spell, at the cost of making it more unpredictable.
* Magic Power means that the familiar's presence effectively raises the wizard's Magic Characteristic by 1.
* Master's Touch allows the familiar to serve as a "stand-in" for casting the wizard's spells.
* Master's Voice allows the wizard to project their voice through the familiar from afar, which means it can effectively act as not only a living telephone, but also let the wizard cast even if he's gagged.
* Voice of Reason makes the familiar into a natural magical dampener, giving its master added protection against Tzeentch's Curse.

[[Category: Warhammer Fantasy]] [[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

==Deadlands==
In the [[Deadlands]] roleplaying game, having a Familiar is a 5-point Huckster-only [[Edge]] found in the splatbook ''Hucksters and Hexes''. With this Edge, the huckster forms a spiritual and mental link with a single small animal - no bigger than a medium-sized dog. The familiar's presence boosts the huckster's ability to manipulate magical energy, giving them a +1 to Hexcasting rolls. However, if it's slain, that spiritual link causes a huge backlash; the Huckster must make an Incredible (11) Vigor check or be Stunned until they can pass it, and even after they shake off the stunning, they suffer a -2 modifier to all Trait and Aptitude rolls for the next 1d6 days.

Add in that it costs ''triple'' the Bounty Points ''and'' a month of study ''and'' a Fair (5) Academia: Occult roll to replace a dead familiar, you better be treating it right, partner!

==See Also==

*[[Genestealer Familiars]]

Everwinter

2023-05-18T20:39:16Z

2A01:CB19:7C8:DB00:CA72:A72D:CE73:7B68:

[[File: Everwinter .webp |thumb|In the wake of the Everwinter some Ogor Mawtribes have decided to become nomadic rather than deal with Sigmar constantly hitting them with fines over them not shoveling the sidewalk!]]

The Everwinter is strange destructive magical weather phenomenon which folks in the mortal realms aren’t quite sure what to make of but some believe is a god of destruction and all rightly fear. A perpetual cold front of epic proportions it constantly seems to follow after certain [[Ogor Mawtribes]] specifically the ones known collectively as the [[Beastclaw Raiders]], who have come to name their leaders the Frostlords since its emergence, and freezes damn near everyone who comes into contact with it eventually although the [[Ogors]] can withstand it longer than others due to being EXTRA THICC and chonky. What makes it even weirder is that its manifestation seems to vary from one raider clan (or Alfrostuns in the Ogor tongue) to another, for example for those in the Boulderhead Mawtribe it manifests as a furious barrage of fist-sized hailstones while the ogors of the Winterbite march to war enveloped in a blanket of white fog and the Thunderbellies bring a booming gale that drives their foes inexorably backwards.

As to why the cold front follows these tribes no one is quite sure and a variety of tales have sprung up to try and explain how it began. Some lay the blame on Baergut Vosjarl, the first Frostlord from way back during the Age of Myth. Before his time the Beastraiders were simply known as Gorkamorka’s favorite scouts and hunters. That all changed when Baergut became clan chief and betrayed [[Gorkamorka]] by bragging about how the Ogors held ascendency over all beasts which to him included the [[Orruk Warclans]]. Angered by this, the god’s kunning but brutal half [[Mork]] decided to punish the Ogor for his arrogance by leading Baergut into a wasteland, where no food existed, on the promise of a great battle. When the ogor eventually stumbled upon the lair of Jorhar the ur-bear, Baergut was almost mad with hunger and attacked it. After a savage fight, the Frostlord hacked open Jorhar and greedily ate its innards, including the monster’s still-beating frozen heart. The organ however was so powerful it refused to be digested, and from that day, with each beat a cold wind was called to Baergut and the Raider clans. Frostlords claim that on the wind’s howl, the sound of Jorhar’s heart can still be heard, summoning winter to the Beastclaws.

Others claim it was [[Sigmar]] who cursed the Beastclaw tribe for their excessive gluttony – that the God-King created a winter storm to deny the ogors prey, though they learned to stay ahead of its killing cold. There are also legends of how the ogors opened the Icefell Vaults of Shyish, unleashing the dreaded Winter Gods from the prison [[Nagash]] had crafted for them. Others consider the storm an aspect of Gorkamorka made manifest, namely his bellowing shout from the highest mountain tops, and pray to it for power. The Gutbuster ogor clans meanwhile consider the Everwinter to be a curse that haunts those who have failed to properly appease Gorkamorka and many Tyrants and Overtyrants openly scorn the Beastclaw Raiders for this great shame, and more than one brutal civil war has been initiated as a result of just such an unwise insult. Others just think it’s just an Endless spell that the Beastclaws accidentally unleashed with a botched magic ritual back in the Age of Myth.

Out of all the myths it’s probably the ones linking the storm to Gorkamorka which have the most evidence supporting them as the lesser tribal chiefs known as Huskards who enforce the Frostlord’s will and act as Beastclaw priests to Gorkamorka, seem to be able to channel the Everwinter’s power to some degree through prayer, and can summon and communicate with the simian creatures known as Icefall Yhtees. The highest ranking Huskards known as Torrs are said to be chosen by a call from the Everwinter itself and also get a boost to their casting thanks to aid from their Thundertusk mounts, creatures who according to legend were created in the Age of Myth from Gorkamorka when he climbed up the highest peak in all the Mortal Realms, the Alvagr, so he might bellow from its summit. Supposedly as he neared the top of the mountain, ice formed on his fingers and between his knuckles, and the shards he brushed off fell into the Realm of Beasts, becoming the Thundertusks – creatures forever filled with the cold of that impossibly high peak.

Regardless of whether the beasts actually came from Gorkamorka or not it is definitely true that the beasts help to channel the storms power. This is especially great for one clan, the Jarkan Alfrostun lead by a Frostlord and former Huskard Torr named Asger, who have become especially skilled at manipulating the Everwinter. Their aptitude for manipulating the storm can supposedly can be traced back to a battle with [[Tzeentch]] arcanites which killed the Jarkan’s previous Frostlord and unleashed a magical mutation which tinted the skin of the clan and their mounts a glacial blue and caused ice to constantly fall off them. Combined with the power boost from the Thundertusks they have become especially nightmarish to fight.

Following the Shyish Necroquake unleashed by [[Nagash]] the pattern of the Everwinter has become ever more erratic. As the immense surge of deathly magic birthed in the aftermath of Nagash’s spell swept across the lands, it battered against the blizzard’s fierce storm front. This resulted in a series of intense supernatural tempests that devastated great portions of the realms. Swirling ice blended with clouds of ethereal matter, and wherever the black clouds gathered, hosts of ice-taloned gheists spawned. Worse still, many Alfrostuns found their hunting grounds stripped of prey and rendered barren and lifeless by the spectral tempests. Forced to divert, they ranged across new frontiers, the damage wrought upon the ogors’ migratory trails bringing the Gulping God’s children into conflict with new prey.

While several Alfrostuns and warglutts were entirely consumed by the raging deathstorms of the necroquake, frozen in the final throes of death, other Frostlords looked behind them to find the skies were bright and clear in all directions and the Everwinter’s grasp had loosened. However, the Huskards of these Alfrostuns have warned that this is merely a temporary reprieve – Gorkamorka’s hunger is eternal, and even death cannot quench it. What makes this receding of the storm in places even more troublesome for people is the fact that in many cases its retreat has lead to a great thawing. As a result, many imprisoned Beastclaw Raiders have at long last been freed from the icy prisons they were trapped in during earlier ages. Driven entirely mad by their long existence without the taste of fresh meat and gore upon their lips, these ogors – and in some cases entire Alfrostuns – have embarked upon a desperate search for food which is bad news for anyone who crosses their paths.

As to what’s happened to the Everwinter storm since the Age of Beast began, following [[Teclis]] spanking Nagash to end the Necroquake and [[Alarielle]] resurrecting the Oak of Ages with the rite of life and unleashing a wave of Ghyran life magic everywhere, that remains to be seen.

{{Destruction-Gods}}
[[Category:Everwinter]]

Estalia

2023-05-18T20:38:25Z

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{{Topquote|Estalia is different.|Slogan frequently used by the tourism board of many of the Estalian kingdoms.}}

{{Topquote|Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen. I will not lie, the chances of your survival are small - some may even turn against your friends as living corpses... But you have my word that I will use my arcane gifts to ensure your bodies are given unto Morr's garden. This is the greatest reward, more than even gold, for the fate of your soul is an eternal concern! Now, come. Follow me, strike down the Undead that rise against us, allow me to find this eldritch amulet. I ask not for my own selfish studies, but for the good of the Empire!| [[Balthasar Gelt]] doing his [https://youtu.be/PoK20MzDtTg 3rd tour of duty.]}}

Estalia is (or [[The End Times|was]]) one of the regions of the [[Old World]] in the [[Warhammer Fantasy]] universe. Situated on the southwest side of the continent, it is the equivalent of the Iberian Peninsula, with most of its history, geography and politics closely resembling those of Iberia.

==Geography==
Estalia is located in the Southern Old World, a very mountainous peninsula to the southwest of Bretonnia. The Peninsula borders the Great Western Ocean to the north and west and the Southern Sea to the south (duh). Most of its surface is occupied by mountains, with the Irrana and Abasko Mountains to the north-centre and the east respectively. Going even further into the north, we find the two small mountain systems of Cefiro and Feroz Hills, and part of the western side of the peninsula is occupied by Miramar hills. The Irrana Mountains is the source for many of the rivers of Estalia, with Tagos, Eboro, Guadariz and Tamos being some of the most important, having quite a number of pòpulations around them. Most of the forests also grow close to the Irrana Mountains, most likely profiting from the high levels of humidity left by the winds that collide with the mountain ranges. The southern part of the Peninsula is full of plains that have allowed the growth of many important docks and sea cities around the coast.

Due to the extreme isolation of the Estalian Peninsula (it is geographically far away from threats such as Chaos), it enjoyed a lot of relief from most of the major threats of the Old World, which would come and bite the Estalians in their asses during the End Times.

==Economy and demography==
The population of Estalia is quite different depending on their location. By general rule, Estalians were hardy people, and many of their tales and legends say that they were the first humans to have settled in the Old World, a claim that is mostly ignored by the rest of humanity. The northern kingdoms of the Irrana mountains are hill-fighters, used to defend themselves from Bretonnia's attacks, the occasional Skaven plague and the frequent in-fighting between estalian kingdoms. As such, it is very frequent to see solid fortresses guarding the mountain passes pop up here and there.

The southern part of the Peninsula is much less militarized, although that doesn't mean infighting is less common there. Due to the conditions of the land, many cities were able to develop an economy based on craft, fishing and trade. Some of their cities have managed to grow enough to create colonies on Lustria, in the search of gold and conquest.

Estalians have had a long-lived rivalry with the Tileans, and it is considered a great offence to call an Estalian a Tilean, or address them in the Tilean tongue, and vice-versa. This isn't helped by the fact that both Tileans and Estalians affirm that they're the chosen people of the goddess Myrmidia & that she was born in one of their nations. The rivalry is deepened as Tileans claim to have not only their own birthplace of Myrmidia but that Estalia is nothing more than a colonial extension of Tilea. Outside of their comedic rivalry with Tilea Estalia is renowned for its Diestros, skilled duellists & mercenaries who sold their services across the Old World.

==Politics and History==
The kingdoms of Estalia have been fighting each other for a long time. The biggest cities of the region, Bilbali and Magritta, have a long and extended history of conflict between them, with Bilbali dominating a good portion of the northern peninsula and Magritta a good portion of the southern peninsula. Estalia was briefly conquered by the sorcerer Jaffar, who was trying to conquer the Old World from Araby, although it was ultimately driven back by a coalition of the Empire, Bretonnia and the Estalian and Tilean powers (who were also under threat of conquest).

During the End Times, the massive Skaven invasion utterly steamrolled the Estalian Estates, basically profiting from the chaos of the world at the time and the political divisions of the Estalian Estates.

==On The Tabletop==
Whilst [[Tilea]] sort of kinda got a tabletop presence with the [[Dogs of War]], Estalia is similar to [[Cathay]] or [[Ind]] in that it never had an official army book ([[Nippon]] and [[Araby]] at least had fully fledged armies in 2e and 3e). [[Games Workshop]] was content to leave Estalia blank. Cue the [[Warhammer Army Project]], which took it upon itself to correct this void, even creating an entire roster of special characters for a nation that had never been detailed enough to have one before.

But that's not really telling you anything useful, so let's try and break things down a bit, shall we?

Similarly to [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|the Empire]] - and, since this is another European-based pseudo-historical [[human] faction, expect a lot of comparisons between the two here - the ultimate leaders of the Estalian forces are drawn from the vast and sprawling ranks of the aristocracy; as Estalia is basically the Border Princes with a coherent greater national identity, there are, in effect, hundreds of "kings" in Estalia, though how potent those "kings" are varies from place to place. The Hero-tier leader is called a '''Captain''', answering to a Lord-tier '''Grand Commander'''.

The core of the Estalian army invites more comparisons to the Empire, consisting as it does primarily of regular human men equipped with specific weapons... well, that's kind of inescapable when you're doing a [[Low Fantasy]] human force. All are united, however, in their willingness to face the [[Skaven]] and the [[Undead]] with only strength of arms and a big set of brass balls.
'''Pikemen''', '''Crossbowmen''' and '''Handgunners''' are fairly self-explanatory, and little different to their Imperial counterparts to the north. But then we start getting into the realm of the semi-exotic.
* '''Rodeleros''' are the Estalian equivalent of Imperial Swordsman, specialized in the use of sword and buckler.
* '''Caballeros''' are the landless [[knight]]s who swarm through the fractured, feudal landscape and make up the backbone of the Estalian cavalry forces.
* '''Genitors''' are their javelin-armed light cavalry counterparts, though even Caballeros prefer speed and mobility to the heavy armor of the Empire and [[Bretonnia]].
* '''Almogavars''' are fearsome infantry skirmishars drawn from the ranks of the near-tribal hunter-gatherers from the monster-haunted Miramar Hills.
* '''Marines''' are the specialist troopers that support Estalia's considerable fleet.
* The '''Royal Guard''' are the elite arquebus-wielding warriors that protect the many petty kings of Estalia.
* '''Conquistadors''' are Estalian-born mercenaries, legendary for their love of adventure and loot.
* '''Grenadiers''' carry pistols and primitive frag grenades, as the name suggests.
* '''Mountain Bandits''' are a plague throughout Estalia, whose feudal society echoes some of the darker elements of [[Bretonnia]], but they may be pressed into serve as scouts.
* Estalia has two '''Knightly Orders''' of its own; the ''Knights of the Righteous Spear'' are the largest and most widely spread, whilst the ''Knights of the BLazing Sun'' are devotees of [[Myrmidia]].
* '''Diestros''' are elite sword-wielding master duelists, capable of using the sword to incredible effect.

The Cult of [[Myrmidia]] is even more prevalent in Estalia than the Cult of [[Sigmar]] is in [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|the Empire]]; Sigmar is merely "First Amongst Equals", with Imperials freely worshipping an older pantheon, whilst Myrmidia's cult is the one true and accepted religion of Estalia, and likewise has its presence amongst the armies.
* The '''Myrmidian [[Inquisition]]''' is effectively Estalia's euivalent of the Empire's Witch Hunters, striving to root out the secret forces of [[Chaos]] and the [[Undead]] - true, the former is much rarer in Estalia, but as far as the inquisitors are concerned, that makes their job all the more important! That said, the Inquisition also serves as a tool for political control by Estalia's legion of petty kings. On the tabletop, they function much like [[Warrior-Priest of Sigmar|Warrior-Priests]] of [[Sigmar]], except they must purchase their holy miracles rather than having a small but defined miracle list.
* The '''Priestesses of Myrmidia''', on the other hand, are basically female Warrior-Priests who focus more on holy magic than on cracking skulls. They have access to a trinity of standarized holy prayers, can dispel enemy magic, and may even go to battle riding a holy Altar of Myrmidia.
* The '''Sisters of Fury''' are Myrmidian nuns; in peace time, they administer to the sick, poor and needy, similarly to the Sisters of [[Shallya]]... but in times of war, they don armor and take up spears, following their goddess in her militant aspect.
* The '''Black Watchmen''' are the elite warrior-servants of the Inquisition, serving as its military arm and characterized by their blackened full plate and iconic halberds.

Standing apart from all the rest, there are the '''Battle Magi''', the [[wizard]]s of Estalia. Whilst many travel to [[Altdorf]] to study at the Colleges of Magic, others study in local schools. However, use of battle magic isn't as accepted as in the Empire; the Inquisition keeps a close watch on their resident mages (to the point it's a game rule you must have at least as many Inquisitors as you do Battle Magi), whilst Estalians utterly forbid the use of [[Ulgu|Shadow Magic]], [[Shyish|Death Magic]] or [[Ghur|Beasts Magic]] - presumably, Estalian [[wizard]]s attuned to these three Winds go to the Empire for their training and never come home.

Whilst Estalia hasn't embraced gunpowder and technology to the same level of [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|the Empire]], they have adopted the use of two lighter forms of cannon; the '''Culverin''' and the '''Mountain Gun'''.

Lastly, there are the exotic animals that may be fielded by an Estalian army. These range from the humble war dog, outfitted with armor to protect it in battle, to the use of [[pegasus]] and [[griffon]] as exotic steeds for the Estalian commanders, and finally the so-called "Fire Bulls", which are ordinary bulls attached to logs that are soaked in tar before being set alight, resulting in a terror-fueled stampede fit to squash enemies flat.

==Threats to Estalia==
Compared to [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|the Empire]] or [[Bretonnia]], Estalia is a largely peaceful realm, unmolested by [[Orcs & Goblins|greenskin WAAAGHs]] or [[Chaos]] incursions, which is one of the reasons ''why'' the nation remains a disorganized and fractious quilt of petty feudal holdings. Still, it's not all sunshine and sweet lemon wine, even here, and Estalia does have its share of threats.

The greatest threat is, of course, each other - Estalia is more prone to infighting than either of [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|the Empire]] or [[Bretonnia]], as a consequence of its highly divided status. Their neighbors in [[Tilea]] are a very close second when it comes to warring, with Imperial and Bretonnian forces far less of a threat. There is also a long and bloody history between Estalia and [[Araby]], punctuated with many periods of peaceful trade.

As for the nonhuman threats...

Obiviously, [[Orcs & Goblins]] are everywhere, and whilst not as big of a threat as they are up north, they are still found here. Estalia has even been raided by [[Iron Orcs]], a subspecies previously only seen in [[Bretonnia]].

Like in [[Tilea]], the [[Skaven]] are a known threat in Estalia who are openly acknowledged by its people. Strangely, skaven don't actually attack Estalia much, despite how much they fight the Tileans. It's generally accepted that skaven find tunnelling through Estalia's hard, rocky soil more trouble than it's worth.

Being so far from the Chaos Wastes of the north means that the creatures of [[Chaos]], such as [[mutant]]s and [[beastmen]], are a true rarity in Estalia. Cults are still enough of a problem to keep the [[Myrmidia]]n [[Inquisition]] on a constant look-out for them, and the mountains are widely known to be home to greater chaos beasts like [[minotaur]]s and [[Dragon Ogre]]s.

The great fleets of Estalia are often attacked by [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dark Elf pirates]], though the nation's relatively good ties with the [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|High Elves]] of [[Ulthuan]] helps protect them.

Estalians have been raiding [[Lustria]] for decades, which needless to say has greatly pissed off the [[Lizardmen]] and the [[Slann]] masters.

Their close proximity to [[Araby]], and thus the blighted land of [[Khemri]], means that the [[Undead]] are the great boogeyman of Estalian folklore; the forces of the [[Vampire Counts]] have taken on the prominence that [[Chaos]] has in [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|the Empire]], having repeatedly plagued the land in massive wars comparable to Chaos Incursions, and the Inquisition is as focused on rooting out [[necromancer]]s and vampire servitors as they are Chaos cultists.

==Tactica==
* https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_Army_Project/Estalia

==Notable Estalians==
*'''Sienna Fuegonasus:''' Vermintide playable character, a Bright Wizard who has traveled the world and now finds herself as part of the Ubersreik 5.
*'''Sofia Fuegonasus:''' Sienna's sister, and a Necromancer.
*'''[[Isabella Giovanna Luccelli]]:''' High Priestess of Myrmidia.
*''' [[Juan Federico]]:''' Grand Master of the Order of the Righteous Spear.
*'''[[Santiago De Vivar]]:''' A legendary hero during Estalia's war with Araby.
*'''[[Grand Inquisitor De Hojeda]]:''' Grand Inquisitor and head of the Tribune.
*'''[[Francisco Cortez]]:''' Yeeeaaaaaahhhhh, totally not Hernan Cortez, destroyer of the [[Aztec]]s.
*'''[[Don Lomente]]:''' Don Quixote? Who's that?
*'''[[Alonso Diaz De Mirajo]]:''' A supreme Diestro.
*'''[[Maria De Salvo]]:''' A holy assassin.

{{Regions and areas of the Old World}}
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]

Endhammer

2023-05-18T20:32:58Z

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[[File:Endhammer.png|300px|thumb|right|Endhammer]]

{{Topquote|Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair|Ozymandias}}

'''Endhammer''' (also known as “AU9” or “[[The_9th_Age|9th Edition AU]]”) is a community-driven project to create a campaign setting for [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]], [[Mordheim]], and [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] in the wake of the End Times. It is also an experiment to see how easily /tg/ can come up with a better story than Games Workshop.

With the aim of demonstrating that the plot can be “moved forward” without squatting the entire setting, '''Endhammer''' provides a broken and divided [[Warhammer Fantasy]] world, where brother fights brother, maps are redrawn, and the lizards didn't fuck off to space. In doing so, parts of [[The End Times]] are retconned and [[Age of Sigmar]] is entirely scrapped. The world isn't dead, but it's also not in good shape.

Seeing this for the first time? This is still a work in progress and comments/new ideas are welcome (especially if you're good at making up rules). Check out the "Discussion" page to see what's being talked over and what ideas are most controversial (lookin' at you, Khaine).

==What's Different?==
Three major points of divergence are responsible for the "Endhammer" setting:

[[Thanquol]], realizing that Screech Verminking and [[Archaon]] were getting all of the glory and credit for ending the world, decided to do his thing and cock it all up. With lots of warpdust. He annihilates a good third of the Hordes of Chaos after inhaling what some ratmen reported to be a slave's weight in warp snuff. At the moment, he's fled towards Khuresh with [[Clan Eshin]] assassins on his tail.

In general, the [[Skaven|Underempire's]] attack was not as successful, and some humans survived in [[Estalia]], [[Tilea]], [[Araby]], and [[Bretonnia]]. In fact, Bretonnia's doing pretty well.

[[Valten]] doesn't die via Verminlord killsteal. Instead, he and Archaon take each other out at the First Battle of Middenheim. After tanking a warpstone bullet from [[Brunner the Bountyhunter]] (who, let's be honest, was the real hero of the story), Archaon and Valten went toe to toe. The fight goes as it did in the End Times, but some Butterfly Effect bullshit causes the Verminlord's glaive to miss Valten and stun the Slayer of Kings instead. Ghal Maraz once more proves itself the bane of the Everchosen, and the armies of Chaos are scattered, but the Herald of Sigmar dies in the process.

==The Setting==
Set ten years after the End Times, the world of "Endhammer" is still a broken and bloody place. Archaon may be dead, but the largest Chaos invasion the world had ever seen still occurred. The apocalypse was only averted at the final hour. [[Lustria]] remains a cratered mess. [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|The Empire]] is burning and survivors squabble over the ashes. Refugees strike out to establish new nations and colonies, leaving their shattered homelands behind. And unto this, [[Conan the Barbarian|Grimgor]], destined to bear the jeweled crown of Cathay upon a troubled brow...

===[[Beastmen]]===
* Beastmen are the principle inheritors of the eastern Empire. After Archaon's hordes burned and killed their way to Altdorf and Middenheim, the massive herds moved in to pick up the spoils. Now, they hunt down errant survivors in the deep forests of Hochland and Talabecland and dance in the ruins of Bechafen and Wolfenburg. Yet, they are wary of a new power gathering in northern Ostland.
* With Khazrak One-Eye and Malagor the Dark Omen both dead, new chieftans are rising among the disparate herds of Beastmen.
* Moonclaw has Beastmen drag pieces of Morrsleib to set up a ritual circle to court the Chaos God's favor.
* In far-flung Ind, Arbaal the Undefeated personally took the heads of the thousand living gods. The human kingdoms were shattered and exotic beastmen of all kinds poured from the jungles. A kingdom of beasts is growing in the subcontinent, led by the engimatic "Raj," a man with a tiger's head. The mutated rule and pure-born humans work as slaves.
* Getting bored of the same forested ruins, Ghorros Warhoof heads east with a tribe of Centigors on a round-the-world bender.

===[[Bretonnia]]===
* Bretonnian Lore from the 6th Edition book is removed and deleted.
* Fair Bretonnia has fared far better than its eastern neighbor, as the Empire took the brunt of Archaon's invasion.
* This doesn't mean the situation is good. The north is covered in Norscan raiders, and Mousillon is becoming a petty kingdom of ghouls. The Civil War and the subsequent Battle of Altdorf have devastated the kingdom's population and robbed it of much of its knightly class.
* [[The Green Knight|Gilles le Breton]] has returned to Bretonnia as its King to right the ship.
* Gilles le Breton has kept the Lady of the Lake's true identity a secret. Better his knights think they continue to serve as champions of a human goddess rather than pawns of an elven one.
* With much of Bretonnia's knightly class lying dead at Altdorf or in Mousillon, leaders among the peasantry have been knighted by the country's new God-King.
* Errantry Wars were called to reclaim Tilea and Estalia from the Skaven hordes to much success.
* Men who had been petty hedge knights or peasant sergeants in Bretonnia now rule as Crusader Lords in Estalian and Tilean cities like Bilbali, Tobaro, Pavona, and Miragliano, much to the chagrin of the refugee locals.

===[[Chaos Dwarfs]]===
* The Plains of Zhar and the fortress at Zhar Nagrund were broken by the passing of the greenskin hordes. With their mightiest war engines and most skilled engineers busy taking the Great Bastion of Cathay or aiding Archaon's armies in the west, the tower of the Chaos Dwarfs was sundered by the Ironhide.
* Chaos Dwarfs regroup at the Tower of Gorgoth, the Black Fortress, and the Daemon Stump to the south and at the holdfast of Uzkulak in the north, cursing the Hung and Norscan for pulling them into their foolhardy wars and drawing their armies thin. Hashut is ascendant, venerated even more in the face of the failure of the Four. Those who question whether Hashut is merely an ''aspect'' of the Four are killed.
* The Fire Mouth's explosion caught the attention of newly dispossessed daemon-engineers. A great forgeworks/temple has been built over the abandoned home of the Firebelly ogres, its volcanic energy used to power the infernal machinations of the Chaos Dwarfs. [[Boatmurdered|Ogres attempting to retake their home and assault the new fortress are met with moats of magma.]]

===[[Dwarfs (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dwarfs]]===
* Ungrim Ironfist is once again denied the opportunity to fulfill his slayer oath as he is pulled between his twin duties of dying in battle and leading his people. With Thorgrim Grudgebearer dead by a cowardly Skaven's blade and other leaders such as Thorek and Belegar having similarly kicked the bucket, Ungrim is ''de facto'' leader of the surviving Dwarfs.
* An exodus from the World's Edge Mountains occurred as the last holds were sundered. Dwarfs joined the host of Ungrim Ironfist making its way through the Empire, first to break the siege of Averheim, then to recover Nuln, and finally to find safety in Karak Norn, one of the last surviving holds in the Grey Mountains.
* Many Dwarfs complain, either because the Grey Mountains are incredibly poor in resources compared to the World's Edge (“What? You're mining ''tin''?!”) or because the Grey Mountain natives are resentful of their insulting kinsmen (“Tin is used in many things! Such as cups! And pans!”)
* While no High King has been elected, Dwarfs naturally look to Ungrim Ironfist for guidance. A council of the surviving thanes is called to determine which of their holds should be recovered first: Karak Eight Peaks or the Everpeak. The Grey Mountain Dwarfs say they're quite happy where they are, thank you very much.

===Elves, [[Dark Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Dark]], [[High Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|High]] and [[Wood Elves (Warhammer Fantasy)|Wood]]===
* Malekith is crowned as Phoenix King, ushering in a new era of greatness (or terror) for elfkind. With the end of the world averted, Alarielle abandons him, returning to Tyrion to lead the High Elves as the Everqueen.
* Tyrion and those High Elves unwilling to serve the Witch King leave Malekith's court and declare everlasting war on him and their turncoat brethren. They have fled to the surviving colonies and established new homes in what remains of northern Lustria.
* A council of Asur and Druchii is founded to advise the Phoenix King, made up of notable heroes and villains like Prince Imrik of Caledor, Lokhir Felheart, and even Teclis. Caradryan joins the ranks of Malekith's personal bodyguards.
* Teclis remains behind, wondering if his machinations to put the Witch King on the throne were worth it. For now, he wanders the world, hoping to re-establish the ley lines and keep the threat of Chaos at bay.
* Two factions arise among Malekith's council in Athel Loren. They debate how the elves should move forward. Some urge the Phoenix King to return to the cold ruins of Naggaroth, as the heirs of Asuryan need a home. Others prefer the warm coasts of Tilea, and a return to old colonies long abandoned to the humans... their current occupants notwithstanding.
* Ariel and Orion want their guests gone. Soon. Malekith needs to make a decision fast.
* Korhil sides with Tyrion, appointing himself Tyrion's main bodyguard.
* Though she sides with the Phoenix King, Hellebron's loyalty to Malekith dwindles and she keeps Shadowblade close while deciding whether to try and overthrow Tyrion or Maketith. However, the first target of Hellebron's wrath is Morathi, who is more vulnerable than she's been in ages.
* Ulthuan has been destroyed. The region it once occupied is now an expanse of ocean broken by a few rocky islands. Sailors claim that strange and chaotic events occur in the "Ulthuan Circle."

===[[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|The Empire]]===
* Sigmar's Empire is in shambles after Archaon's nearly successful conquest of the world. Ostland, Ostermark, Talabecland, and Hochland are blighted wastes, infested with beastmen and fouler things. Pockets of defenders persist in isolated forts and outposts, surviving by strength of arms and a healthy helping of luck.
* Altdorf, Jewel of the Empire, is a broken ruin fought over between mutants, marauders, and pockets of survivors.
* Middenheim was spared when Archaon fell. Averheim was rescued by the one-two punch of a treacherous Thanquol and the host of Ungrim Ironfist. Nuln is reclaimed and Emmanuelle von Liebewitz returned to her palace.
* The sons of great men squabble over the ashes of the Empire. Heinrich Todbringer, the bastard son of the late Elector-Count of Middenheim, is legitimized by Ar-Ulric's decree and given the seat of Middenland. Ruling from Averheim, Karl-Franz's son, Luitpold II, takes the seat of Reikland. Both assume they will be Emperor.
* Talabheim has only recently broken its siege. Grand Duke Helmut Feuerbach is lost and presumed dead. Captain Eric Schmidt of the local Knights Panther chapter led the defense of the city-state and is its de facto leader.
* Luthor Huss has been elected Grand Theogonist. It helps that most of Sigmar's clergy were killed in the fall of Altdorf. Being the only significant leader left to the church, and wrapping a conspicuous scarf around his neck, the radical priest is throwing his support behind Luitpold, not wanting some northern pagan like Todbringer to take the imperial throne.
* Balthasar Gelt, ''persona non grata'' in most of the Empire after his necromantic shenanigans were discovered, has secreted himself in the Court of Emmanuelle von Liebewitz, Elector-Countess of Nuln. Gelt wonders why the Empire should even be allowed to elect a leader? Why not assure the Emperor is someone with true ability and vision; someone like the Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic?
* In Ostland, a mysterious Norscan has set himself up as Earl of Salkalten. Both errant raiders from the Everchosen's horde and what few survivors remain in Ostland flock to his banner as he cuts down the wicked beasts that prowl the eastern forests of the Empire and offers protection to those who will serve him. He and his huscarls cast aside the Dark Gods after witnessing Archaon's fall at Middenheim, and wonder which southern deity grants such power to the weaklings of the Empire. In addition, he seems to have a penchant for killing the living dead...
* Sylvania re-integrates itself into the Empire, since Vlad is now a legitimized Elector Count. This is controversial to say the least; simply voicing the idea that Vlad should be given a Runefang, as befits an Elector Count, sparks a fierce debate.

===Estalia===
* Most of Estalia got royally fucked by the Skaven invasion. Now, Bretonnians rule much of the eastern and northern parts of the peninsula.
* One bright light was Magritta, where the priestesses and guardians of the Temple of Myrmidia, Warrior-Goddess of the South, led the defense of the city. Being the gathering point of all of Estalia's surviving warriors, it presented the Skaven with the cream of the peninsula's crop.
* Magritta is now the only major, Estalian city still in the hands of Estalians. And they are ever more dedicated to their warlike goddess, who they see as responsible for saving their people from the rats. Like Tilea, the rest of the cities are in the hands of up-jumped, Bretonnian knights.
* Bloody priestesses of Myrmidia now roam the countryside, burning out Skaven and enforcing the goddess's will.
* Many disenfranchised Estalians are boarding ships and making way for Lustria, establishing colonies in the cratered archipelagos that once made up the southern continent. Great deposits of warpstone or “green gold” are making returning ''conquistadores'' rich, especially with so few lizards left to stop them.

===[[Kislev]]===
* Kislev was conquered when the End Times began, but the Tzarina Katerina, the Winter Queen, refused to give up. She leads a guerrilla resistance against the remaining forces of Chaos who despoil her country.
* Joining her is Valmir von Raukov, Elector-Count of Ostland who was trapped on the wrong side of the Auric Bastion when it fell, having led the defense of Erengrad. He knows little of what has happened to his province in the mean time, but Katerina promises him Praag if they ever prove victorious.
* Throgg's dreams of an intelligent troll race ruling over Kislev went up in smoke when a particular slayer got into the mix. Kurgans and Hung control the steppe-lands instead. Well, them and Chaos Spawn.
* Sigvald still decides to hole up in the ruins of Kislev. From there, he sends small armies to capture slaves, treasures or whatever catches his hedonistic eye. On his latest whim, he sent his army out, as he took a fancy to the Winter Queen and wants her as his personal plaything.

===[[Lizardmen]]===
* They didn't go to space.
* Instead, the flying pyramids of the Lizardmen landed in the northern jungles of the Southlands, joining Zlatlan and flattening trees and wildlife for miles (in addition to a Savage Orc Waaagh!).
* With their greatest Slann Mage Priests dead and their home a warpstone-cratered mess, the Lizardmen are trying desperately to recuperate. Tetto'eko works furiously as ''de facto'' leader, despite his extremely old age for a Skink.
* Kroq'Gar, still bitter over the loss of Grymloq, sets his eyes on the Skaven-infested ruins of Araby and the Lizardmen's new undead neighbors in Nehekhara.

===[[Ogre Kingdoms]]===
* Greasus Goldtooth gets his face krumped by Grimgor Ironhide, throwing the ogres into disarray, even as the world is cracking apart and falling around them.
* The Ogres settle in the mountain around the ruin of a Karak. There isn't much to eat until the next migratory season; which provides and abundance of deer and grass for the Rhinoxen. Though the local ecosystem undergoes a shift, soon the Ogres have carved themselves a new realm.
* The Tyrants start trying to give orders, but they find out that no tyrant is willing to concede to another. This sparks an eating contest (that is, eating each other) to determine who will be their next Overtyrant. So far Ghrak Ironskin is in the lead, as his opponents keep breaking their teeth on his armor and his large amount of Rhinoxen provide much of the Ogres food, along with his Rhinox riders making brutal enforcers that even the Mournfang Cavalry tread carefully around.
* Bragg the Gutsman is paid by Ghrak with useless (to Ghrak) gold to kill Golgfag, with the latter proving hard to find, and would be even harder to kill when actually found.
* Golgfag, the obvious favorite, is too busy bumming around Ind to participate.
* Skrag leads a group of ogre fanatics, both mutilated in body and mind, in a brutal gore pilgrimage to the Great Maw. The weak are dragged down and eaten.

===[[Orcs & Goblins]]===
* As in the End Times, Grimgor's Waaagh! conquered its way across the Dark Lands, into Cathay, and took the Great Bastion from the Chaos Dwarfs that had conquered it from the puny humies of the east.
* Rather than being teleported to the Empire in skubtastic fashion by Teclis, Grimgor and his boyz realize that Cathay is something of a paradise. The massive populations of the east result in almost endless streams of men on which the greenskins can blunt their choppas. And the Dragon-Emperor, having retreated to the rice paddies of the south, doesn't disappoint.
* Grimgor is Warhammer's Kublai Khan, setting up shop in the Dragon-Emperor's Summer Palace in northern Cathay, cutting down wave after wave of weak, Cathayan soldiers with one hand. An abortive invasion of Nippon was ended by sabotage from Clan Eshin sinking most of his ships and many of his boyz.
* But Grimgor's getting bored of Cathayan blood and he's setting his sights back west.
* Skarsnik comes to despise the Skaven.
* Wurrzag finds Skarsnik first. Declaring him the chosen of Mork (or Gork; the chosen of the kunnin' one), he anoints Skarsnik with sacred war paint, which saves his life against a Skaven assassin, who is turned into a squig by Wurrzag and eaten by Skarsnik himself. Skarsnik uses this to consolidate his rule over the Night Goblins.
*Gorfang Rotgut builds himself a kingdom in the ruins of Karak Eight Peaks. I'm the biggest orc in the world and I'm still the king!

===[[Skaven]]===
* Disappointed in the Council of Thirteen's failure, the Horned Rat annihilated Skavenblight in a very Skaven-like huff. The surviving clans (sans Pestilens, which is recovering after the “moonshot”), are now fighting over who will make up the new Council of Thirteen.
* They are also squabbling over where to locate the “new” Skavenblight, and the plagued depths of the Slayer Keep have never seemed so homey.
* Knowledge of the Skaven is now commonplace in the Empire, but it hasn't amounted to anything productive. It has only made already paranoid villagers even more suspicious, seeing rat-things around every corner.
* Ikit Claw sends an army of Skaven to the ravaged Zharr-Naggrund to seek a weapon that will tip the power struggle in favor of Clan Skyre.

===[[Tilea]]===
* Trantio, Pavona, Tobaro and Verezzo fell in the initial Skaven attacks. All except Trantio are now ruled by Bretonnian lords.
* Remas is now ruled by an iron-fisted Ricco and his “Republican” Guard. The Marksmen of Miragliano serve him as roof-top sentries and hunters for errant ratmen.
* Lorenzo Lupo and Leopold of the Leopard Company died in the final battles for Tilea. With the scions of the Leopard twins dead, Luccini elected Roderigo Delmonte as its new prince. He rules as a benevolent ruler, and the Alcatani Fellows finally live like kings.
* The northern Tileans, refugees from the Skaven, return to find that Bretonnian crusaders have claimed their farms and palaces. The Tileans have three choices: fight for what is theirs, submit to their new overlords, or abandon their country for the west, following Pirazzo and his Lost Legion to steaming Lustria.

===[[Tomb Kings]]===
* The lore breaks from GW's lore after Nagash entered the Black Pyramid. He doesn't conquer the Tomb Kings, Nehekhara is not destroyed, Settra does not get ripped apart or have any dealings with the Chaos Gods.
* Nagash underestimated the result of eating and taking the position of a god that oversaw a fundamental part of reality (like Usirian/Morr) and the reactions of the other gods once he'd done so. While Nagash was recovering, weak after defeating Usirian, the trap was sprung. Tzeentch, seeing the threat that Nagash's ambitions represented to the Chaos Gods and personally despising Nagash's unchanging vision, decided to personally deal with the burgeoning death god, sending armies of daemons to invade the Underworld. Though the dead outnumbered the daemons, Nagash pitted his newfound power against that of the second-strongest Chaos God. There was a tremendous magical backlash between the realms. The ground shook hard enough that many of those fighting at Nehekhara were knocked off their feet, with the Black Pyramid at the epicenter. The stormclouds shrouding the battle flashed with purple and blue lightning. A bolt struck the Black Pyramid, which crumbled in on itself in a massive implosion. The final collapse sent out a shockwave that knocked many of the combatants off their feet. Sylvania glowed with magical auorae temporarily, as Death Magic bound to Sylvania burst free of the binding Nagash laid on it; Death Magic still flowed to the land, but it would inundate the earth now and could be used by anyone. In the Underworld the consequences were much worse (depending on whose perspective we're talking about). Tzeentch's forces had been pushed back temporarily, but while Nagash was able to avoid oblivion, Tzeentch had bound Nagash to the Underworld as a particularly pissed off Hades, trapped, hoping that his henchmen, Krell and Arkhan figure out a way to get him out of this job of 'overseeing the dead' (or at least bring him a Persephone to keep him company). If he burst his bindings; the Underworld would be destroyed and the souls not claimed by the remaining gods would be cast adrift; easy prey for the Chaos Gods. Abandoning plans for vengeance for the time being, Nagash seeks a way out of his imprisonment.
* Nagash's crown was stripped from his head and cast back to the material realm. Whoever wore it would be a vessel for Nagash. However, with the destruction of the Black Pyramid it was Nagash's only handhold in the material plane. If it was destroyed, things would be dire for the Undying King. It currently resides under the rubble that was once the Black Pyramid, waiting to be found...
* With Nagash's disappearance, the vampires are defeated by the triumphant Tomb Kings. A few vampires are slain by the vengeful Tomb Kings, some flee. Thinking quickly, Neferata takes leadership of the rest and offers a formal surrender to Settra. Despite having the view the vampires need to pay for daring to invade his land, and not trusting the vampires one bit, Settra knows the threat of Chaos and knows that while his forces can beat the Vampires, there won't be enough left afterwards to secure Nehekhara's borders. After much deliberation, Settra accepts Neferata's offer of alliance; with the magic inundating the land from Nagash's rebirth, the alliance between Neferata and Settra forms the new Undead Legion equivalent, the Undead Legion of Nehekhara. In the aftermath of the battle, Settra manages to have his herald, Nekaph, brought back from death's embrace to serve Settra again.
* After the battle, Settra commissioned Rahmotep the Visionary and the remaining Necrotects to rebuild the damage done to Nehekhara during Nagash's invasion.
* Khalida is enraged by Settra's alliance with Neferata; for her part Neferata is willing to put her grudge aside faced with the war. Settra promises a trial for Khalida's murder after the war is done. Seething, but lacking the might to challenge the Khermrikhara, Khalida accepts the terms. However, even afterwards she makes plans. Wars are devastating and dangerous. Neferata may not survive, and if she does, Khalida will be waiting...
* Apophas is now an agent of Nagash. Infused with power, he becomes the Charon to Nagash's Hades.
* King Phar, impressed by Settra's seeming defeat of Nagash, offers his support but not servitude. Mindful of the situation with a fragile alliance, Settra grudgingly accepts, planning to avenge himself on Phar at a later date.
* Arkhan survives the battle. Though Nagash no longer walks the world, Arkhan can still commune with him. Arkhan offers his support to Neferata as a silent partner, which Neferata accepts with a willingness that surprises both of them.
* The undead alliance form three massive armies. With the fate of the world at stake, the undead agree to ally temporarily with the living. With much of Zandri's fleet decimated, Harkon's ships serve as transport for one army. Khalida oversees Harkon to make sure he stays loyal to the plan. The second armies is mainly Tomb Kings, led by Settra to purge the Skaven from Araby; once that is done he plans to expand Nehekhara's borders by annexing and rebuilding the ruined realm. The third is led by Neferata, and are charged with taking the fight to Chaos directly in exchange for Neferata regaining Lahmia.
* After the battle for the world is something of a power-play between Settra and Neferata, she knows she can't defy or challenge him directly without violent results for both sides but she works hard to assert herself.
* A Skaven force tunnels into Mahrak and steals much from the kings there. With the help of vampires and their pet Dire Wolves, an army of undead tracks the Skaven to their fortress and destroys them before fortifying the invasion route; the zombified Skaven serving as its first guards.
* A skirmish occurs between the undead of Rasetra and the Lizardmen after an initial expansion attempt by the former. This brings the undead to the Lizardmen's attention, with their leaders deciding to study the undead civilization before determining a course of action.
* The Skaven try to bargain with Settra while at the same time sending assassins to kill him. This backfires horribly. The surviving Arabyans settle in Numas and become citizens, with their dead being inducted as undead. But not all the Sultan's subjects are willing for this to continue and some consider heading to the Empire or Tilea.
* Recently Settra had set his eyes on a greater task, a bastion of evil to destroy; Nagashizzar.

===[[Vampire Counts]]===
* Vlad and Isabella never died and the End Times were averted! How lovely! So, now we've got a Vampiric power-couple wondering why Vlad doesn't put his hat in for Emperor. Again. Vlad takes leadership of the Von Carsteins once more. As per an old agreement, Abhorash sends the Red Duke and a force of Blood Knights (with the ranks of the Drakenhof Templars severely depleted) as allies and reinforcements.
* Mannfred, that fucking weasel, realizes he's probably not going to be welcome at daddy's castle any time soon. He decides to, ironically follow Arkhan's earlier path, heads to what's left of the Border Princes and sets up his own realm, declaring himself a Duke instead of a Count. With the Princes he turned into vampires, he carves out a realm and keeps tight reign on the borders, lending his might and armies to those who can meet his price.
* Abhorash, having reached an accord with Gilles le Breton, has returned to the Blood Keep to reform and improve the order of the Blood Dragon. He also pledges his support to Giles.
* Ghouls continue to gather at Mousillon, loyal to a new king – no, not the Red Duke, but Ushoran, progenitor of the Strigoi. Even as Bretonnia expands into Tilea and Estalia, a darker threat awaits in the Haunted City. The unity of the undead falters as ghouls and the finest unliving knights of Bretonnian chivalry do battle.
* The uneasy truce between Neferata and Khalida is shattered and eternal vengeance is sworn once more, but now Neferata has collected a new ally: Arkhan the Black. Her hand is stayed only by common need during her alliance with Settra. Things will take a deadly turn between the two women once the forces of Chaos are dealt with.
* Bereft of guidance with the loss of Nagash, Krell strikes out on his own, though occasionally supplies unlooked-for aid to the Vampires.
* Nagash's human and lich followers at Nagashizzar ally with the vampires. They are planning an offensive against Chaos to purge their master's enemies and to figure out a way to free him.

===[[Warriors of Chaos]]===
* ''Needs more.''
* Arbaal the Undefeated killed the living gods of Ind and took their skulls for Khorne. He curses the failure of Archaon and his cohorts ("Here I am, doing my job, in the ass-end of nowhere, killing an entire pantheon of gods by myself, and these fuckers can't conquer one measly kingdom").
* "Troll Country" has expanded to encompass much of the Empire's eastern neighbor. The steppes of Kislev are ruled by Kurgan warlords who feast in the Winter Palace of Kislev, in the shadow of a mighty Dragon Ogre Shoggoth who sleeps in the grand ballroom. It is an object of worship for the Kurgan, representing the corrupting power of their gods, and the weakest of their war parties are sacrificed for its meals.
* With the Great Bastion sundered, the Hung harass the Orcs in northern Cathay. Unfortunately, the greenskins seem to enjoy it and don't flee in terror like the forces of the Dragon-Emperor. This draws the Khorne worshippers, who are happy to meet a foe as eager for battle as themselves. Valkia joins them, seeking out the worthy to follow Khorne, having deemed the increasingly redolent Chaos followers in the West unworthy.
* Many Norscans return to Norsca with spoils from the Empire. While the trade routes with Marienburg are now defunct, many warlords will find themselves temporarily wealthy due to Imperial gold and silver.
* A small group of Norscans have remained in the northern reaches of the Empire, settling in the decidedly warmer and fertile country. However Khornate lord, Torgast the Brass Storm, found out. Enraged at this departure from their warrior roots, last anyone heard he's taking his army to pound some sense into them; preferably with the business end of his axe. But alot lays between him and them; the Skaven of what used to be Karak Kadrin, roving bands of Orcs, Ogre tribes, and a large undead army with a certain Vampire Queen at its head...
* A new chaos lord Agrod the Inheritor decries Archeon as a failed weakling and begins the trials to prove himself the true everchosen.
* Nurgle sends Valnir the Reaper to whip his forces into shape after the failure of the Glottkin and Festus, calling the various Chaos Lords of Nurgle, including the Maggoth Riders, to a "Blightmoot" to determine who will lead them.
* Egrimm and his forces make a plan to have a permanent entrance to Tzeentch's Crystal Labyrinth in their Silver Tower. If successful, Egrimm would be rewarded with daemonhood.
*Cultists of Chaos gods are building temples in the ruins of imperial cities.

===Geography===
* '''Lustria''': The fall of Morrslieb broke Lustria into a series of archipelagos. Water has flooded in to cover the abandoned Temple Cities and cool the warpstone meteors that shattered its surface. There are very few survivors. However, an Age of Exploration has begun as refugees flee the burned and bloodied Old World, looking to make new lives for themselves in the remnants of Lustria, establishing colonies and engaging in dangerous recovery operations for Lizardman artifacts and the ever-valuable “green gold.” Myrmidian missionaries try to convert the surviving Amazons of Anaconda as Estalians and Tileans establish the first of the colonies, followed quickly by a party of Hochlanders and Talabeclanders putting their foresting skills to use.
* '''Naggaroth''': Overwhelmed by Chaos and its cities put to fire by their own residents prior to the Dark Elf exodus.
* '''Ulthuan''': A continent lost beneath the ocean.
* '''Albion''': Flooded and broken by the fall of Morrslieb. Old mountain-tops and highlands now make up island chains: the remnants of the mystic isle.
* '''The Southlands''': Not nearly as injured by the Skaven moonshot as Lustria, though the southern tip was broken to pieces. It is now full to the bursting with Saurian refugees from its western counterpart.
* '''The Badlands''': What few Strigany remained are making the pilgrimage to Mousillon, happy for the chaos of this post-End Times world as many leaders are too distracted to pay attention to their usual punching bags.
* '''Araby''': Few of the Arabyan cities survived, but Al Muktar's trek into the desert ended with his return to Copher at the head of a small army of refugees, ready to rebuild their culture. Next the plan is what they're going to do regarding the Tomb Kings next to them.
* '''World's Edge Mountains''': Most of the Dwarf holds were collapsed, flooded, or lost during the End Times. The World's Edge Mountains are now the lonely home to a few greenskins and Skaven.
* '''The Dark Lands''': The land of the Chaos Dwarfs and Hobgoblins has been thrown into anarchy by Grimgor's rampage.
* '''Mountains of Mourn''': Thoroughly wounded by volcanic eruption, the Ogre homeland is now a volatile place, where the ground could open and consume a platoon without warning, or else belch out sulfurous fumes that would fell an Indish elephant.
* '''Ind''': The thousand gods of Ind were culled by the ''Undefeated.'' Now, Beastmen play at kings in their place, enslaving what few humans remain.
* '''Cathay''': Split between an Orc-held north and a southern half loyal to the Dragon-Emperor. If not for Grimgor Ironhide, all of Cathay would have been enslaved or put to the sword by the forces of Chaos. Otherwise, its territory is intact.
* '''Nippon''': Nippon and the Dragon Isles survived the fall of Morrslieb unscathed. This is not to say the humans of Nippon were spared by Clan Eshin.

==Would You Like to Know More?==
There are some factions which have had considerably more contributed to their stories than others. As we get more information, this is likely to balance out. The above is shorthand. What you'll read below is for those who really want to get into the fluff.

===What's the Deal with the Empire?===
With the Everchosen dead and the Empire saved, Sigmar's spirit left Karl-Franz's body at Averheim. The Emperor seemed to age half a century in a day, his anatomy burned out by housing a god. The greatest Emperor since Magnus the Pious died bedridden and infirm in the moment of the Empire's triumph, leaving it leaderless and divided. Boris Todbringer, the next logical leader of the Empire and Karl-Franz's only rival during his election... died after completing his mad quest to kill [[Khazrak The One-Eye]]. His only acknowledged bastard, Heinrich Todbringer, was quickly legitimized by Ar-Ulric and (lest some weak, southern Sigmarite become the new Elector-Count of Middenland).

Who is Heinrich Todbringer? Champion rider. Warrior extraordinaire. Dark of hair and broad of shoulder, and already father to numerous bastards of his own. He is exactly the kind of leader Middeland needs in the anarchy of "Endhammer." He is also a cruelly efficient man, and all of his half-brothers have been assassinated since he took the throne of Middenland. Even now, he leads sortes out into the Drakwald to clear out what remains of Archaon's horde (and engage in the futile effort of recovering his father's remains). After promising Theoderic Gausser the ruined city of Marienburg, Nordland swore to support him in his bid for Emperor. Even now, Gausser capers madly in the ruined manors of Marienburg, wearing a mask filled with mint and other “protective herbs.” The Glottkin's plague made sure there are no more Marienburgers to make good on their promise to behead him. In addition, Heinrich has sent messengers to the Norscan of Salkalten, wondering if he can't win himself another supporter by offering him the Electorate of Ostland.

Todbringer's rival is Luitpold Holswig-Schliestein II (A.K.A. “Karl's Jr.”). He rules the remnants of Reikland with the support of Grand Theogonist Luthor Huss. The surviving Reiksguard have also sworn for Luitpold, and while Stirland is considering its options, they appear to be in the Sigmarite camp. Luitpold is not a ruthless warrior like Heinrich, having learned far more from his father's role as a statesman. The makeshift palace at Carroburg is abuzz with messengers and diplomats, looking for support in Wissenland, Averland, and even far-flung Bretonnia.

Balthasar Gelt thinks both of these young men are fools. He finds the entire Electoral system foolish. After all, if you wanted a bloody republic, why limit the candidates to a group of inbred, overly suspicious Elector-Counts? He hides in the court of Emmanuelle von Liebewitz, living by her good graces and his continues supply of zombie sentries for the vulnerable Nuln sewer system. Feelers are being sent out to his colleagues and former pupils in the magical community. Why let these noblemen decide who leads the Empire? A man like Karl-Franz or Magnus the Pious comes once every half-millenium. Far better if the Emperor was the best man for the job, and not just the man with the deepest pockets or biggest army. And who could claim to be more skilled or more intelligent than Balthasar Gelt?

Meanwhile, Stirland, Averland, and Wissenland are full to bursting with refugees from the east. Kislevites and Hochlanders mix with halflings of the Moot. Realizing they can never return home, some turn to the western horizon, looking for new opportunity.

The authorities of the Empire once tried to conceal the existence of Skaven from the public, but that is now impossible. The terrified survivors perceive Skaven schemes everywhere. Political agitators accuse their opponents of working with them. Peasants sometimes accuse people with buckteeth or large ears of being Skaven in disguise. Corrupt politicians blame all the shortcomings of their regimes on "Skaven saboteurs". Posters are pasted around cities by religious orders warning the public not to fall into vice, as this is "just what the corrupting ratmen want them to do". A paranoid "Rat Scare" has gripped the Empire.

===And What of Fair Bretonnia?===
Mallobaude's Civil War and the looming End Times took a heavy toll on the Kingdom of Bretonnia. Its king and the greatest of the kingdom's gallantry fell at Altdorf, but now a resurgent Bretonnia is led by its once and... present king, Gilles le Breton. Chilfroy of Artois, Adalhard of Lyonesse, and Huebald of Carcassone raised their banners for Mallobaude and were defeated by the forces of the Green Knight. It was revealed that Chilfroy had long been consorting with the beastmen of his province, finally explaining why the Duke seemed to enjoy such success against the followers of Chaos. He was promptly killed by Gilles le Breton. Adalhard, ashamed that he'd joined in the scheming and betrayal which he had long disdained, chose honorable death in combat and joined Louen's march to Altdorf. The Battle of Altdorf claimed the lives of most of Bretonnia's peerage and many of its Dukes, including mighty warriors like Adalhard. Duke Armand of Aquitaine's luck finally ran out. The bold (some might say reckless) paladin fell trying to recover his old charge, the Battle Standard of Bretonnia, as it collapsed amidst of mob of Plaguebearers. Duke Hagen of Gisoreaux refused to leave Leoncoeur's side and perished protecting the body of his closest friend. Adalhard regained his honor by taking a spear meant for Cassyon of Paravon, allowing the young Duke to be one of the few survivors of the End Times. Theodoric of Brionne and Folcard of Montfort were both wounded during the fight for the Empire. Theodoric, the warrior-poet, succumbed to infection and left his dukedom in a succession crisis among his many bastards.

''(There will be more, later. But I'd like input on the style)''

===Tilea During the End Times===
Of the fallen cities... Lucrezzia Belladona took poison as Pavona fell around her, and most of the city's nobility died, starving in their tall spires while listening to the screams of the peasantry in the streets below. Marco Colombo, Prince of Trantio, raided his hordes of Lustrian artifacts as Stormvermin battered down the doors of his palace, looking for something that would save him (and his city, of course). No one knows what he found, but the Prince's palace exploded in a flash of brilliant light that scattered Lizardman gold and jade across the ruined city. Positioned so close to Skavenblight, Tobaro's defenders were taken by surprise. The Birdmen of Catrazza were killed before they could leave the ground and Vespero's Vendetta was last seen retreating into the Temple of Morr. Verezzo's colorful political parties were unable to agree on the manner in which they would respond to the Skaven attack and died debating whether they should hire Braganza's Besiegers or flee the city.

And of the cities that survived... The Republic of Remas got its shit together and came up with a unique decision: abolishing itself. With “Ragged” Ricco elected as dictator, the Republican Guard and the Marksmen of Miragliano blunted the nose of the Skaven invasion. Realizing the city was too tough of a nut to crack, the ratmen put it to siege and moved on to Luccini. Lorenzo Lupo and the princes of southern Tilea, dressed in the best armor that money could buy, met the Skaven in the hills around Luccini. Having seen the Skaven's failure to take Remas, Lupo knew it was his time to shine and take the battle to the rats as the Champion of Tilea. He died, wishing he'd never fired Golgfag and his Maneaters. With Lupo dead, Leopold and the Leopard Company were invited back to the city. The Temple of the Leopard empties its treasury, fattened by years of donations, bought the services of Pirazzo's Lost Legion, Braganza's Besiegers, and Bronzino's Galloper Guns. Roderigo Delmonte and the Alcatani Fellowship volunteered to defend the last bastion of Tilea after shepherding the population of the countryside into the city walls. Even Asarnil the Dragonlord was in attendance, his pride not letting him ignore a battle joined by all of the most famous mercenaries of the Old World.

The Plain of Luccini had never been so colorful as mercenary companies and regiments of renown, paid at triple their going rates, prepared to die as heroes. Leopold, the newly elected Prince of Luccini, directed the battle from a hill behind the Tilean forces. Again and again, the Skaven hordes threw themselves against the pike walls, steadily battering down the Dogs of War and pushing them to the coast, making room for a column to strike for Luccini. Roderigo Delmonte and the Alcatani Fellowship led a fighting retreat towards the city, buying time for the population to board ships and flee into the sea while the Besiegers, the Leopard Company, and the Lost Legion died on the beach. Asarnil the Dragonlord was last seen fighting beside the body of his jezzail-riddled dragon with his broken lance. Ships came into view over the horizon, and explosive cannon fire surprised and shattered the Skaven horde. The pirates of Sartosa had come to the aid of their old rival. They still claim there is no truth to the rumors that Long Drong promised to skin them all alive if they didn't give them the opportunity for a proper doom. Leopold's gambit to steer the Skaven towards the coast had paid off. It was a pity he died in the process.

===Beastmen? Important? What?===
The Beastmen have come into their own in the broken world left by the End Times. Across the eastern half of the Empire, mighty herds roam over ruined cities and blighted countrysides, having finally conquered the civilization that scorned and hated them. Even now, as Heinrich, Luitpold, and Balthasar Gelt scheme for the Imperial throne and worry about the walking dead of Sylvania, the mighty herds remain on their mind. However, it is not in the Empire where the Beastmen are truly triumphant. In far-off Ind, a Kingdom of Beasts has arisen under the direction of the ruthless and mysterious Raj Bhagha. The tiger-headed king of the sub-continent took the throne of Ayodhya, the relic city, after God-King Darahma was killed by Arbaal the Undefeated. The great Khornite champion left Ind in ruins, letting the beasts of the jungle enjoy the spoils. Raj Bhagha has established a perverse hierarchy of classes into which all of his citizens fall. The untainted humans; the lowest of the low, work as servants and slaves, tilling fields and sweeping the streets before their bestial masters. Those Beastmen that resemble service creatures, such as goats and pigs and horses, are the bulk of the Raja's infantry and make up the land-owning class, overseeing their human slave labor. Twisted and feathered beastmen resembling birds and serpents make up the priestly class, devoted to divining the future and overseeing the proper sacrifices to the new gods of Ind. At the top of Bhagha's caste system are the mighty predators of Ind's jungles: panthers, leopards, and of course, tigers, making up the warrior class of the Indish Animal Kingdom.

Raj Bhagha is not stupid like many of his fellow Beastmen. Already, he has sent emissaries to faraway kingdoms, offering trade and access to the untouched resources of Ind. But the Beastman King is arrogant and prone to violence. It is well-known in Cathay that one should always send two dignitaries to Ind: one to parley with Bhagha, and the other to serve as his meal. The mighty Raj Bhagha of Ind looks down on humanity as little more than work-horses for his kingdom, possessing all of the failings of animals, but none of their talents and filling none of their niches. No claws or hooves or sharp teeth. Good for little other than slave-labor and the occasional snack. Those human babes which show signs of stigmata are taken from their families to be raised as mutants among their fellow beastmen.

Leaders in the Empire, Bretonnia, and Tilea are unsure what to do about the new King of Ind. On the one hand, his panther emissaries are clearly the spawn of Chaos. On the other, they offer access to enough gold and spices to make a man Emperor three times over. Witch Hunters, frothing at the mouth in fury, must be restrained lest they insult these foreign dignitaries with their accusations of demonic corruption.

===Ulthuan becomes Atlantis. The Elves aren't butchered.===
For starters, Teclis doesn't destroy Ulthuan because he wants his capeshit fan fiction to become a reality, and Malekith isn't Darth Vader because he has anxiety issues. That being said, Teclis still helps Malekith become the Phoenix King, if only because he is the only person who can unite the Asur and Druchii under one banner to survive the apocalypse, which then causes the apocalypse.

As per End Times, Aliathra gets kidnapped by Mannfred and sacrificed to resurrect Nagash, and is revealed to be the daughter of Alarielle and Tyrion. However, <s>Eltharion gives a good account of himself in his duel against Arkhan and lives to fight another day</s>Eltharion still dies, as neither side backs down but Eltharion puts up a better fight than the last time. Tyrion's spiral into rage begins when he learns of his daughter's death.

Meanwhile in the New World, Malekith abandons Naggaroth to the hordes of barbarians and once again begins his invasion of Ulthuan, while the armies of Finnubar prepare to meet him. Unfortunately for him, <s>Teclis murders him and makes it look like a suicide</s> Finnubar commits suicide, starting a leadership crisis. Korhil suspects foul play, but Tyrion is too busy organizing the defense of Ulthuan to give his suspicions the necessary attention.

Unfortunately for Tyrion, Prince Imrik accepts an offer of allegiance to Malekith. Tyrion had humiliated and browbeat him enough when he tried to organize a new election to the Phoenix Throne. And considering that Ulthuan was most likely going to lose the war, it was probably the right decision. The armies of Malekith march through the Eagle Gate and Malekith makes a bee-line for the Shrine of Asuryan, where <s>Teclis wards Malekith as he walks through the Flames to become the "Phoenix King"</s> Malekith walks unharmed through the Flame of Asuryan, and reveals that he was the rightful Phoenix King all along (guess he needed to grow up a bit before he was deemed worthy...) It is also revealed that those before him needed wards to keep themselves from being burned alive, and thus were cursed by Asuryan. This curse ultimately resulted in the despondency and ennui that led to Finubar's "suicide." Unwilling to serve the Witch King of Naggaroth, the Phoenix Guard abandon their King. Caradryan sails to the Old World, his goals unknown. Teclis becomes Malekith's favorite advisor, much to the jealousy and rage of Morathi.

The reaction to this is mixed, to say the least. Hellebron's loyalty begins to wane, and pretty much every High Elf in existence is enraged by this turn of events. This includes Alarielle, who soon confronts Teclis about his bullshit. Teclis is persistent, however, and convinces her that Malekith is needed to save Elvenkind. Reluctantly, she agrees to marry the new Phoenix King and soothe the tempers of some of the Princes, while igniting the anger of one: Tyrion.

Furious at these betrayals, Tyrion confronts his brother, calling him out on his bullshit. Tyrion claims that, together with Finubar, they could have defeated Malekith once and for all. Teclis replies that Malekith, despite being a dick, is the only real hope that the Elves have to save their race (Tyrion might have brought up Alarielle cucking him, and Teclis might have brought up Aliathra in response....). At the end of the conversation, Tyrion, believing that everyone he loved is either dead or has betrayed him/elfkind (especially his brother), storms away and gathers a group of loyal high elves (along with their leaders, like Korhil and Prince Althran) to travel northward in the direction of the Widowmaker.

In the final battle between the Avatar of Khaine, and Malekith's forces, Orion, the Witch King, and Alith Anar combine arms to defeat Tyrion. But before the final blow was struck, Teclis tore open a portal in time and flung him to safety. Despite Tyrion's vow to wreak vengeance on Malekith and his traitorous brother, Teclis still felt a fraternal duty to save his twin. Unfortunately, it was not enough to quench the fires of civil war, and even now, Tyrion and his followers plot the ruination of the new Phoenix King and establish new colonies on the remnants of Lustria, still wielding the Sword of Khaine.

===Grimgor the Barbarian===
Grimgor Ironhide's trek eastward first brought his Waaagh! to the fortress city of Zhar Naggrund. There, he broke the capital of the Chaos Dwarfs' cruel empire and brought the Greenskin slave legions into his horde. When he met the wolfriders of Hobgobla Khan, he quickly cowed the goblins into submission and servitude to his mighty, world-turning Waaagh! When he met the scattered ogres of the Mountains of Mourn, he absorbed their mightiest warriors and killed those of their chieftans who refused to serve him -- a mighty feat for any Orc, black or no, while his Immortulz watched and cheered. Wurzagh's words rung true. This was the "Once-And-Future-Git!" The largest Waaagh! to ever walk the Old World finally came to Cathay and Grimgor's wolf-rider vanguard witnessed the fall of the Great Bastion. Finally, the reason for Zhar Naggrund's easy conquest was discovered: the Chaos Dwarfs had committed their forces to cracking the most formidable holdfast humanity had ever created. To prove he was the biggest and the strongest, he waited for the Chaos Dwarf priest-engineers to secure the Great Bastion and settle in before he took it from them. The Dragon Emperor's Summer Palace was empty when the Immortulz rampaged through its golden halls. And now, Grimgor sits on the Dragon Emperor's throne, his great Waaagh! roiling across northern Cathay, killing waves upon waves of Cathayan soldiers each summer during the campaigning season. But Grimgor don't stay put for long... and now he wonders whether the west doesn't perhaps deserve a krumpin'.

===The Mist Shrouded Land===
Albion has been devastated by the End Times, suffering the same fate as many lands after the fall of the Morrslib. The highlands and mountains are the only true remnants of the mystic island. The druids foresaw the devastation and were able to save some of their savage people by bringing them to the high ground. Most were stubborn and remained in their villages to be overtaken by the sea. And now, the taint of Chaos has killed many of these survivors. In addition, the seas around Albion have become deadly and tainted with warpstone, attracting great and mutated sea beasts. Serpents and sharks are the least of these new monsters, making travel between the islands an ordeal.

Albion was once one of the focal points to tame the Winds of Magic. Now unbridled, Chaos and the essence of the arcane seep into the world. With many of the old ones ruins and Ogham Circles destroyed, it has become a task that is almost impossible to do with just the mystic knowledge of Albion soothsayers. It is rumored that Teclis has traveled among the druids, researching the ley-lines; visiting what few ruins of the Old Ones remain. A fury of work can be seen around the great Ogham as the druids begin their mystic undertaking to rebind the magic with what ancient mysteries they can still glean from the carved rock.

===What about the Undead?===

===A new threat arises===
Something stirs in the Underdark passageway, with Dark Elf raids suddenly coming to an abrupt halt on the Old World's shores.

==The Rules==
===To be added to as we think of more stuff!===
* ''Rules for Age of Exploration?''
* Consider everything a work-in-progress until stated otherwise.

===Mordheim Scenario: Altdorf===
* '''Special Rules'''
** '''Wild Monster Appears!''' When Altdorf fell, most of the exotic animals of the Imperial zoo were eaten by the besieged or the besiegers or otherwise died in the mayhem of The Fall. However, certain creatures were big enough to do the eating, rather than be eaten. These monstrous, chaos-touched creatures now roam the ruins of Altdorf, feeding on each other and whatever foolish adventurers have wandered into the "Jewel of the Empire." After each Warband has had a turn, roll a D6. On a roll of 2-6, a monster is placed at the center of the map. Roll the artillery die to determine its movement after each turn. It fights whenever it comes into contact with a warband.
*** 1 = No monsters appear to be roaming in this part of the city.
*** 2 = Griffon.
*** 3 = Wyvern
*** 4 = Chimera
*** 5 = Hydra
*** 6 = Something BIG (roll another D6. On 1-3, an Imperial Dragon appears, and on 4-6, the Drakwald Gibberbeast, the Abomination of Stirland, and the Spawn of Hochland (three Chaos Spawn) appear.

===Mordheim Scenario: Talabheim===
* ''To be decided. Stuff we need: rules for movement on skiffs on the Pus Lake of Talabheim crater, rules for monsters swimming in the Talabheim pus lake''

===Balthasar Gelt's Automatons===
*''These goods need a looksee from somebody who knows their crunch''
* Can be taken by Empire Faction: Nuln. From the clockwork depths of Nuln, new warriors march forth. Designed by the steady hands of Leonardo di Miragliano and imbued with life by the arcane magicks of Balthasar Gelt, the metal men have no fear and feel no pain as they strike down the enemies of the Patriarch. Each of them wears a metal face sculpted to the likeness of their masked master. ''(If you really want to use Sigmarine models)''
* M4 WS4 BS3 S5, T4, W2 I3 A3 LD8, 3+ armor save, 45 pts/model
* '''Special Rules''': '''Unbreakable''' '''Structural Integrity,''' '''Incendiary Artifice'''
** STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: Unstable, Immune to Poison, Immune to Psychology
** INCENDIARY ARTIFICE: Whenever you remove a model from play the unit takes D3 wounds. This may trigger this rule again.

===Vampire Bloodlines===
* As in 6th Edition, we will be returning to differentiating the various Vampire Counts armies by "bloodline" or "dynasty." Different Vampire bloodlines will have access to different rules, items, and army make-ups.
* ''Note: If we are going with 8th Ed as a base (I am assuming we are), we will need to heavily edit both the 8th ed army book and this (I took a whack at it, based off of lore/what the armies previously had, and translated it to 8th). Not sure what to do about the Strigoi special unit that are in though, and we need to keep in mind about other people's armies. Feel free to point something out as well. -Grumpyfag''
* ''Note: Rare choices should not be allowed to be taken as core! Particularly Blood Knights. Their sheer power allowing for a total and complete deathstar is too strong. Having 25% for core, 25% for rare, 25% for lords and 25% for heroes allows 100% of your army being one giant deathstar with zero forced chaff is wrong. -AlsoGrumpy''
* Army Characteristics
** '''Von Carsteins'''
*** Von Carsteins are vanilla vampires; no stat penalties or bonuses. The only exception is that they can take the bloodline power "Summon Creatures of the Night" for free.
** '''Blood Dragons'''
*** Lords: Vampire Lord, The Red Duke (with revamped rules to bring him in line with this edition)
*** Heroes: Vampire, Wight King, Necromancer
*** Core: Black Knights, (all ''Nightmare mounts'' must have ''barding,'' and if your force is from Bretonnia, they fight in ''Lance Formation''), Grave Guard, Skeleton Bowmen (equipped with hand weapon and bow, 10 points each [Price needs changed, I suggest keep it at five like regular warriors and trade shields for bows. Raise it to 7 with an extra +1WS is also an option.])
*** Special: Skeleton Warriors, Bat Swarms
*** Rare: Blood Knights [Units should be able to be taken in 3+.] Black Coach, Dogs of War (if not in Lance Formation), Corpse Cart
*** '''Special Rules'''
**** +2 to Weapon Skill
**** Lords wear full plate armor (4+ armor save) for free, can cast spells wearing armor (as all vampires can, so ignore this), and generate one less power die from their Winds of Magic roll. As well, they cannot channel power dice.
**** The Blood Dragon with the highest Leadership in a unit must issue challenges and accept enemy challenges.
** '''Lahmians'''
*** Lords: Vampire Lady, Neferata from End Times: Undead (Can be put on a Coven Throne or even on foot)
*** Heroes: Vampire, Wight Kings, Tomb Banshee, Cairn Wraith, ''Swains'' (Heroes from any other Warhammer Book, with all of their magical items and equipment. If the Lahmian General, the object of their desire, is destroyed then the Swain gains ''Hatred'' for the rest of the game, even if normally ''Immune to Psychology.'')
*** Core: Skeleton Warriors, Bat Swarms, Dire Wolves
*** Special: Black Knights, Grave Guard, Spirit Hosts, Hexwraiths
*** Rare: Black Coach, Dogs of War, Coven Throne, Terrorgheist, Vargheist, Cairn Wraith
*** '''Special Rules'''
**** +2 to Initiative
**** All units/characters in base contact with a Lahmian Vampire get -1 to their Leadership
**** Cannot use mundane weapons and armor.
**** -1 to Weapon Skill
** '''Strigoi'''
*** Lords: Strigoi Ghoul King, Vampire Lord
*** Heroes: Vampire, Necromancers
*** Core: Ghouls, Bat Swarms, 0-1 ''Charnel Guard'' (Ghouls with WS4, S4, I4, LD7, 10 pts/model), 0-1 ''Strigany'' (Living servants of the Strigoi: M4, WS3, BS3, S3, T3, W1, I3, A1, Ld7, 5 pt/model, unit size 10+; equipped with two hand weapons, light armor (+1 pt/model), standard bearer (+10 pts), musician (+5 pts), and dommnu/sergeant with 1 extra attack (+10 pts))
*** Special: Crypt Horror, Skeleton warriors, Dire Wolves, Fell Bats, Spirit Host, Vargheist
*** Rare: Varghulf, Terrorgheist, Dogs of War
*** '''Special Rules'''
**** Vampire Lords have +1 attack, ''hatred'', and a +5 ward save.
**** Vampires have +1 attack, ''hatred'', and a +6 ward save.
**** Cannot use mundane weapons and armor.
**** Cannot use any magic items.
**** Cannot take any mounts except for Strigoi Ghoul King on Terrorgheist, which can be upgraded as normal.
**** Vampires cannot be given a battle standard.
** '''Necrarch'''
*** Lords: Vampire Lord, Master Necromancer
*** Heroes: Vampire, Wight Lords, Necromancers, Tomb Banshees, Cairn Wraith (''All heroes can ride <s>Winged Nightmares</s> Abyssal Terrors, which can be upgraded as normal'')
*** Core: Skeleton Warriors, Zombies, Dire Wolves, Fell Bats
*** Special: Black Knights, Grave Guard, Spirit Host, Hexwraiths, Corpse Cart, Cairn Wraith
*** Rare: Black Coach, Unridden Zombie Dragon, Terrorgheist, Mortis Engine, Vargheist
*** '''Special Rules'''
**** +1 to total rolled to cast a spell
**** Vampires have + 25 points to buy on magical items.
**** Can't choose mundane weapons and armor
**** -2 to weapon skill

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Endhammer_BotE_pt.1.0.PNG|Beasts of the East fluff. All WIP and subject to change.
Image:Endhammer BotE pt.2.PNG|Beyond bulls and goats, BotE aims to add optional flavor to a Beastman army.
Image:Endhammer BotE pt.3.PNG|Dubiously justified page by lack of existing WHF fluff. Discussion encouraged.
Image:Endhammer_BotE_ref_(WIP).PNG|BotE glossary.
Image:Endhammer_BotE_pt.0.png|Beasts of the East's justification for its content.
</gallery>

[[File:Old World Map With Borders.jpg|200px|thumb|left|The Old World's Political Divisions (Red: Bretonnia; Yellow: Estalia; Blue: Todbringer; Pink: Luitpold; Green: Nuln/Gelt; Orange: Surviving Imperial Counties; Purple: Von Carstein Vampires)]]

[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]]
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[[Category:Homebrew Rules]]

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