2d4chan - User contributions [en]

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T11:47:56Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Immortal Empires */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 Kurnous” 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 by 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 "Arrow 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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. The Glade Captain provides strider, melee support, and a Melee defense buff and the Sisters of the Thorn deals poison, buffs spells, and a debuff spell all together. 2-3 Stag Knight, the Glade Captain and the Sisters of the Thorn 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 or 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 and 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 Centigors 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 Anath Raema (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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are Furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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 hearthlands 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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T11:43:23Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Faction Counterplay */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 Kurnous” 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 by 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 "Arrow 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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. The Glade Captain provides strider, melee support, and a Melee defense buff and the Sisters of the Thorn deals poison, buffs spells, and a debuff spell all together. 2-3 Stag Knight, the Glade Captain and the Sisters of the Thorn 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 or 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 and 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 Centigors 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 Anath Raema (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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are Furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T10:42:30Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Drycha Campaign Units */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 Kurnous” 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 by 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 "Arrow 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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. The Glade Captain provides strider, melee support, and a Melee defense buff and the Sisters of the Thorn deals poison, buffs spells, and a debuff spell all together. 2-3 Stag Knight, the Glade Captain and the Sisters of the Thorn 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 or 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 and 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T10:33:47Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Drycha Campaign Units */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 Kurnous” 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 by 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 "Arrow 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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. The Glade Captain provides strider, melee support, and a Melee defense buff and the Sisters of the Thorn deals poison, buffs spells, and a debuff spell all together. 2-3 Stag Knight, the Glade Captain and the Sisters of the Thorn 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 or 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T10:32:43Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Monsters */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 Kurnous” 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 by 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 "Arrow 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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. The Glade Captain provides strider, melee support, and a Melee defense buff and the Sisters of the Thorn deals poison, buffs spells, and a debuff spell all together. 2-3 Stag Knight, the Glade Captain and the Sisters of the Thorn 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 or 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T10:28:10Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Melee Cavalry */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 Kurnous” 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 by 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 "Arrow 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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. The Glade Captain provides strider, melee support, and a Melee defense buff and the Sisters of the Thorn deals poison, buffs spells, and a debuff spell all together. 2-3 Stag Knight, the Glade Captain and the Sisters of the Thorn 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T10:24:35Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Missile Cavalry */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 Kurnous” 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 by 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 "Arrow 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T10:15:40Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Missile Infantry */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 Kurnous” 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 by 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 "Arrow 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T09:55:41Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Generic Lords */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 Kurnous” 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 by 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 "Arrow 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T09:51:05Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Legendary Lords */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 Kurnous” 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 by 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 "Arrow 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T09:48:02Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Cons */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 Kurnous” 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 by 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T09:45:04Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Pros */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 by 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T09:40:26Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Universal Trait */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 by 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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/Wood Elves

2023-06-15T09:35:39Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Why Play Wood Elves */

{{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 militias 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 (that's a grudgin') 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, flyers, 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 and fire damage. These guys are a fantastic ranged answer to the likes of Dwarves, Chaos Warriors, Lizardmen and Nurgle. 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''' - This is... a very painful matchup. For Nurgle. The only thing Nurgle can do to your skirmishers are furies and Ku'gath if your opponent brought him. Even Nurgle's cavalry will take a borderline eternity to cross the field, so take your sweet time to line up your shots. Starfire Shaft Glade Guard or Swiftsilver Deepwood Scouts can put out a lot of damage to basically everything Nurgle has to offer. Glade Riders with Hagbane Tips are an excellent skirmisher unit; fairly cheap missile cav with access to poisonous, magical arrows to just ruin the day of anything trying to trudge across the field. 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. When it comes time to close the distance, Tree Kin and Eternal Guard make pretty decent walls. Bladesingers with their magical attacks can carve through Nurgle's blubbery forces with relative ease and should be considered for your elite core.

*'''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

2023-06-15T09:18:58Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Multiplayer Strategies */

{{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 personal 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 when 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 foot lord 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 on 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 flyers, 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 Outriders 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 an 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.

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

Ghorgon

2023-06-15T08:16:16Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* What Are Ghorgons? */

{{whfb-stub}}{{AoS-Stub}}
[[File:The_only_ghorgon_art_I_swear.png|300px|thumb|right|The last thing you want to see in the Drakwald forest]]
'''Ghorgons''' are a mutated version of a [[minotaur]] in the [[Warhammer Fantasy]] world, created as a result of minotaurs cannibalizing each other. This triggers a mutation that warps the cannibal into a giant-sized monstrosity with a second pair of arms tipped with bony blades, whilst also cursing them with an insatiable hunger for flesh. Ghorgons can devour entire tribes of beastmen in a single feeding frenzy, and are some of the most feared predators of the Old Worlds forests as a result.
== What Are Ghorgons? ==
Ghorgons are believed to start off as a Minotaur (or some strain of Bullgor for [[Age of Sigmar|AoS]]), usually the largest of their herd and with a scaled up [[Bloodgreed]] to boot. This bloodgreed causes them to eat even when they aren't hungry out of an uncontrollable desire to [[Rape| desecrate the bodies of their foes]]. This goes to the point of cannibalism where they start eating weaker members of their tribe as well as chaos-tainted flesh. This consumption is what causes them to mutate into a Ghorgon as the chaos taint causes them to physically change as well as all the meat they consume causing them to grow large to begin with (in other words they are here to [[Tyranids|NOM]]).

Talented [[Bray Shaman|Bray-Shamans]] can control or at least influence the actions of the Ghorgon as traditional methods of control will not work with them as they are too big and strong to be physically compelled. When in battle they will [[RIP AND TEAR]] with their arm blades and use their hands to eat what they kill and they are never satisfied (Basically [[Throt the Unclean]] but with cowbell and 10 feet taller). They are essentially the beastmen equivalent of giants or gargants but with bovine features and four arms.

== Named Ghorgons ==
In Age of Sigmar there are 2 named Ghorgons.

*'''Vorhargh'''- Ghorgon of the vilehorns beastherd, he's said to be a particularly nasty ghorgon and from [[Ghur]], which doesn't help things.

*'''Daesek's Bane'''- Ghorgon of the vilehorns beastherd known for killing some aelven hero named Daesek.

{{Template:Beastmen_Forces}}
== Gallery ==
<gallery>
The_only_ghorgon_art_I_swear.png| The only art specifically of a ghorgon.
Ghorgon.jpeg| The model for tabletop
Ghorgon and oxyotl.jpg|Ghorgon and [[Oxyotl]] in Total War Warhammer 2
Distraction Ghorgon.jpg|Ghorgon in the background of art
</gallery>
== See Also ==

*[[Cygor]] - A similar Beastmen unit with one eye.

*[[Gorgon]] - Source for the name.
[[Category:Warhammer Fantasy]][[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Beastmen]] [[Category:Beasts Of Chaos]]

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen

2023-06-15T08:14:50Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Monsters */

{{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 personal 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 when 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 foot lord 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 on 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.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen

2023-06-15T08:03:20Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Heroes */

{{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 personal 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 when 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 foot lord 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 on 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.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen

2023-06-15T08:01:18Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Lords */

{{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 personal 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 when 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 foot lord 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.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen

2023-06-15T07:59:59Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Legendary Lords */

{{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 personal 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 when 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 foot lord 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.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen

2023-06-15T07:56:01Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Cons */

{{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 personal 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.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Warriors of Chaos

2023-06-15T07:51:41Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Sigvald */

{{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. Archaon 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 outlast 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.

==Legendary Heroes==

*'''[[Harald Hammerstorm]]''': One of the OGs of Warhammer Fantasy is here, as ol' Harry has come to the game in full glory. He is more or less specked to fight the Undead, with his uniqe trait "Bane of the Undead" outright removing the Undead trait from units and lowering their leadership. This means that not only can he hilariously make undead units like Zombies run away, but he also completely negates undead healing as most of it requires the unit to be undead in the first place. His other big ability is an AoE explosion ability that devastates low armor. He is also stupidly tanky and unbreakable. Sadly he doesn't come with mount options so while he is fantastic against Undead factions he's only kinda OK against everyone else.

==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 are now a solid melee lord though somewhat lacking in AP. Can take Marks of Khorne or Slaanesh. 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 Cavalry 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 missiles. 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 to 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 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 a goon 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. Marauders 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 asrai 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 on 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 Archaon 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]''' 
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]''' 
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]''' 
''Gifted Unit farming'' 
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'' 
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'' 
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 evers 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 abilities 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 Archaon's vassal effect or gifts of Slaanesh at generating souls overall. Both marked heroes 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 marauders, 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/Warriors of Chaos

2023-06-15T07:50:23Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Festus */

{{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. Archaon 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 outlast 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.

==Legendary Heroes==

*'''[[Harald Hammerstorm]]''': One of the OGs of Warhammer Fantasy is here, as ol' Harry has come to the game in full glory. He is more or less specked to fight the Undead, with his uniqe trait "Bane of the Undead" outright removing the Undead trait from units and lowering their leadership. This means that not only can he hilariously make undead units like Zombies run away, but he also completely negates undead healing as most of it requires the unit to be undead in the first place. His other big ability is an AoE explosion ability that devastates low armor. He is also stupidly tanky and unbreakable. Sadly he doesn't come with mount options so while he is fantastic against Undead factions he's only kinda OK against everyone else.

==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 are now a solid melee lord though somewhat lacking in AP. Can take Marks of Khorne or Slaanesh. 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 Cavalry 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 missiles. 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 to 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 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 a goon 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. Marauders 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 asrai 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 on 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 Archaon 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]''' 
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]''' 
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]''' 
''Gifted Unit farming'' 
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'' 
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'' 
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 evers 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 abilities 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 Archaon's vassal effect or gifts of Slaanesh at generating souls overall. Both marked heroes 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/Warriors of Chaos

2023-06-15T07:46:24Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Azazel */

{{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. Archaon 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 outlast 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.

==Legendary Heroes==

*'''[[Harald Hammerstorm]]''': One of the OGs of Warhammer Fantasy is here, as ol' Harry has come to the game in full glory. He is more or less specked to fight the Undead, with his uniqe trait "Bane of the Undead" outright removing the Undead trait from units and lowering their leadership. This means that not only can he hilariously make undead units like Zombies run away, but he also completely negates undead healing as most of it requires the unit to be undead in the first place. His other big ability is an AoE explosion ability that devastates low armor. He is also stupidly tanky and unbreakable. Sadly he doesn't come with mount options so while he is fantastic against Undead factions he's only kinda OK against everyone else.

==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 are now a solid melee lord though somewhat lacking in AP. Can take Marks of Khorne or Slaanesh. 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 Cavalry 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 missiles. 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 to 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 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 a goon 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. Marauders 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 asrai 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 on 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 Archaon 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]''' 
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]''' 
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]''' 
''Gifted Unit farming'' 
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'' 
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'' 
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 evers 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 abilities 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/Warriors of Chaos

2023-06-15T07:37:32Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Campaign Strategies */

{{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. Archaon 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 outlast 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.

==Legendary Heroes==

*'''[[Harald Hammerstorm]]''': One of the OGs of Warhammer Fantasy is here, as ol' Harry has come to the game in full glory. He is more or less specked to fight the Undead, with his uniqe trait "Bane of the Undead" outright removing the Undead trait from units and lowering their leadership. This means that not only can he hilariously make undead units like Zombies run away, but he also completely negates undead healing as most of it requires the unit to be undead in the first place. His other big ability is an AoE explosion ability that devastates low armor. He is also stupidly tanky and unbreakable. Sadly he doesn't come with mount options so while he is fantastic against Undead factions he's only kinda OK against everyone else.

==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 are now a solid melee lord though somewhat lacking in AP. Can take Marks of Khorne or Slaanesh. 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 Cavalry 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 missiles. 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 to 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 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 a goon 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. Marauders 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 asrai 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 on 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 Archaon 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]''' 
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]''' 
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]''' 
''Gifted Unit farming'' 
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'' 
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'' 
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/Warriors of Chaos

2023-06-15T07:36:37Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Multiplayer Strategies */

{{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. Archaon 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 outlast 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.

==Legendary Heroes==

*'''[[Harald Hammerstorm]]''': One of the OGs of Warhammer Fantasy is here, as ol' Harry has come to the game in full glory. He is more or less specked to fight the Undead, with his uniqe trait "Bane of the Undead" outright removing the Undead trait from units and lowering their leadership. This means that not only can he hilariously make undead units like Zombies run away, but he also completely negates undead healing as most of it requires the unit to be undead in the first place. His other big ability is an AoE explosion ability that devastates low armor. He is also stupidly tanky and unbreakable. Sadly he doesn't come with mount options so while he is fantastic against Undead factions he's only kinda OK against everyone else.

==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 are now a solid melee lord though somewhat lacking in AP. Can take Marks of Khorne or Slaanesh. 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 Cavalry 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 missiles. 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 to 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 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 a goon 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. Marauders 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 asrai 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 on 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]''' 
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]''' 
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]''' 
''Gifted Unit farming'' 
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'' 
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'' 
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/Warriors of Chaos

2023-06-14T20:02:39Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:8578:D7AD:D5EF:B781: /* Cavalry */

{{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. Archaon 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 outlast 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.

==Legendary Heroes==

*'''[[Harald Hammerstorm]]''': One of the OGs of Warhammer Fantasy is here, as ol' Harry has come to the game in full glory. He is more or less specked to fight the Undead, with his uniqe trait "Bane of the Undead" outright removing the Undead trait from units and lowering their leadership. This means that not only can he hilariously make undead units like Zombies run away, but he also completely negates undead healing as most of it requires the unit to be undead in the first place. His other big ability is an AoE explosion ability that devastates low armor. He is also stupidly tanky and unbreakable. Sadly he doesn't come with mount options so while he is fantastic against Undead factions he's only kinda OK against everyone else.

==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 are now a solid melee lord though somewhat lacking in AP. Can take Marks of Khorne or Slaanesh. 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 Cavalry 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 missiles. 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 to 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 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]''' 
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]''' 
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]''' 
''Gifted Unit farming'' 
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'' 
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'' 
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}}