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Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos Dwarfs

2023-06-22T00:36:39Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:DCF8:FA5C:E067:6D33: /* Artillery & War Machines */

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*'''[[Iron_Daemon_War_Engine|Skullcracker]]''': The dedicated melee counterpart of the Iron Daemon. This thing used to have the same stats as the Iron Daemon only with no ranged attack but after it got buffed it's now a scary remover of armoured infantry. Against factions like Dwarfs or Cathay it will allow you to pierce through the frontline to either get to the ranged unit or open the way for faster forces. Has very low melee defense though, so certainly not a fire and forget unit. Can also pull a Dreadquake Mortar

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

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

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

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

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Beastmen| Beastmen]]''': This is actually a match up where you don't want to invest too much into ranged units. Beastmen have a lot of fast AP units that can dive on artillery and blunderbusses and turn them into pulled pork. Only invest in Hobgoblin archers if you want ranged, as you don't need much AP in this match up and you won't miss them if they die. Bull Centaurs with Great Weapons will be your friends here, as they have the Anti Large to pimp slap Centigors and deal with the big monsters that the Beastmen are inevitably going to bring. Standard Hobgoblins should make your frontline since they beat Ungors and can at least do some damage against Gors, while your more armoured infantry can hold the line for your cav and monsters. Look into the Immortals for some good low armor infantry clearly. Hilariously, throwing your own cow monster can really do some work, as the Fear and Terror will scare off most of the Beastmen chaff and infantry. As such I recommend a Sorcerer Prophet on a Bale Taurus for magical and giant cow support. Just don't throw it at a Ghorgon, that is a bull fight you are not winning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Ogre Kingdoms| Ogre Kingdoms]]''': This one can be surprisingly difficult. Since almost every Ogre unit is a monster your big AoE spells and your mostly anti-infantry artillery isn't as useful. The Lore of Death is a good choice for dealing more direct damage to Ogres with Spirit Leech or Fate of Bjuna. If you bring the Lore of Hashut you can leave a lot of spells on the table so long as you keep Ash Storm, allowing you to pile on the fire weakness so your other units can take advantage of it. Blunderbusses are a good choice here, as they usually are against monsters and cavalry, though you'll have a hard time protecting them. Wolf Riders with fire arrows can also complement Ash Storm. Your best artillery choice is probably the Deathshrieker, as it's anti-large firing mode can accumulate a lot of value if the enemy doesn't shut it down. Bull Centaurs with Great Weapons are your best blocker options, having both the mass and the anti-large bonus necessary to stop a unit of ogres from pushing into your gunlines. However, bull Centaurs aren't cheap and Ogre Bulls are. Watch out for Ogre shooting as well, it's no joke.

*'''[[Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven| Skaven]]''': You are a hard counter against Skaven in a lot of ways. Masses of Skaven infantry can be tied up with Labourers and will be devastated by your artillery, as will Weapon Teams. Skaven monsters are low armor meaning both your Bull Centaurs with GW and your blunderbusses will make short work of them. The biggest danger the Skaven can offer in return is their own artillery but if you rout off half their army your Wolf Raiders will have unimpeded access to the back lines.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Dark Elves

2023-06-21T21:55:36Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:DCF8:FA5C:E067:6D33: /* Campaign Strategies */

{{Topquote|Skulls for Khaine! Blood for Khaine!|Game battle chant for the Dark Elves. [[Khorne|Why does it sound familiar...]]}}
{{Topquote|Sa'anishar! (Shields and spears!)|Slightly more original game battle chant for the Dark Elves.}}
This is the tactica for the [[Total War: Warhammer]] version of the Dark Elves.

==Why Play Dark Elves==
*Because you'd like your elves to take their arrogance to the next level and just start murdering people for the crime of not being elves.
*Because you believe that everything looks roughly 1000 times better when covered in spikes.
*Because you enjoy the inherent power fantasy that comes from playing a big spiky asshole out to conquer and enslave.
*You like a versatile unit roster with some serious killing power.
*Because being the good guy is just so boring sometimes.

===Pros===
*'''Flexibility''': One of the Druchii's biggest strengths that really can't be understated. While a lot of other factions are forced into a single tactic, the Druchii have more battlefield options than pretty much any other faction in the game, even the High Elves. While they are best at offense thanks to Murderous Prowess, their wide selection of unique units and powerful characters means they can also play defense, kite, use a heavy monster focus, combined arms, and all-around whatever tactic you can think of.
*'''AP for Days''': If you're playing Dark Elves and having a hard time with armoured troops, you're playing them wrong. A large chunk of the roster has majority AP damage, so armor should be the least of your concerns.
*'''Solid Range''': While you may not be the shootiest of factions, the Dark Elves are more than capable. They are fully capable of melting enemy units before they close to melee with the right build.
*'''Anti-large''': The Druchii are renowned for their beast-hunting prowess, and it shows in the game. Most of your unit archetypes have at least one solid anti-large option, whether it be monsters, infantry, or chariots.
*'''Mobility''': You're not as good at it as the Asrai, but Dark Elves have some of the best light cav and missile chariots in the game, if not ''the'' best. Combine that with infantry like Witch Elves and Sisters of Slaughter, and you are able to get around the battlefield pretty damn fast. Light Cav tactics are a favorite among Dark Elf players.
*'''Powerful Lords''': When it comes to lord options, you are spoiled for choice. Most of their lords are at the very least decent and some like Malekith can carry an entire army to victory if given the time.
*'''Strong Heroes''': While you aren't quite the Vampire Counts when it comes to character prowess, your heroes are still very, very good. Death Hags and Masters in particular provide great utility on the battlefield on top of powerful melee stats, and Sorceresses, like all elven casters, are a hero you really can't go wrong with.
*'''Strong Economy''': Your economy is god-tier, and this is even before you bring in trade. Raking in high numbers of slaves all but guarantees that your cash flow reaches insane levels which you can further boost by abusing the Master hero who reduces slave decay to the point that they literally cannot decay anymore. Combine this with the extremely generous discounts on Black Arks and your pockets will never be empty again.
*'''Naval Supremacy''': An often overlooked, but still important feature is that your Black Arks can dominate the oceans of the world and keeping your homeland secure from any threats. The only faction that rivals your naval power are (big surprise here) the Vampire Coast.

===Cons===
*'''Frail''': Okay, so you don't have it as bad as the Wood Elves, since many of your units are bringing actual armor to the fight, but you're still a glass cannon rush faction. Running into a faction that can simply outlast your burst of melee damage once Murderous Prowess proccs, can and will give you a lot of trouble.
*'''Limited Range''': Their ranged units aren't bad, in fact, Darkshards and Shades are extremely good, but they don't shoot very far. Even some [[Gunpowder (Warhammer Fantasy)|gunpowder]] units will outrange you, and most factions will get one or two shots off before you get in position.
*'''Lack of Healing''': You're the only Elven faction with no multi-target healing. The only thing you have is Soul Stealer, which only heals the caster. Combine this with your low health pools, and your units will die a lot faster than their tanky statline might lead you to believe.
*'''Expensive''': Not as much as High Elves, but still pretty pricey. Expect to be outnumbered most of the time.
*'''Poor Public Order''': Being the quarrelsome lot that they are, Dark Elves suffer from a multitude of public order penalties (especially once you have a lot of slaves) and don't have a lot of tools to counter them; managing it can quickly devolve into a frantic nightmare, particularly on high difficulties.
*'''No Encampments''': If you are away from your territory, you can't recruit new guys while encamping. This can be offset somewhat with Black Arks, though that's not an option in regions far from the coast.
*'''Temperamental Economy''': You make a ton of money when your slave count is high, but your income will nosedive if you go a couple turns without winning battles. This problem is exacerbated in Immortal Empires where slave decline is % based across your entire empire. True to lore, your economy will crumble the moment you run out of enemies.
*'''Powercreep''': Dark Elves really haven't had the best transition from game 2 to 3. The rework to your slavery system made it way less interactive and a ton of different campaigns got bumped up in difficulty. Building Black Arks is still fun but they require a huge investment. They're certainly one of the factions on the radar for a potential update.
*'''DLC''': Scourgerunners and Supreme Sorceresses are some of your best units. They also cost extra. As with most Non DLC factions, you will need to pay extra money to be consistent in multiplayer.

==Universal Traits==
*'''Murderous Prowess''': A passive, army-wide ability that gives all units on the map considerable offensive bonuses after you hit a certain threshold of kills (usually around 30-50% of the enemy force). Hard to time right and difficult to control, but extremely effective regardless. Seeing your Corsairs, Shades, and whatnot go into overdrive for 90 seconds is a scary and satisfying spectacle to behold. For a few units, the effect lasts 120 seconds instead of 90. Good in WH2, but terrifying in WH3 where Murderous Prowess also regenerates 1% vigor per second. Watch your entire army get a second wind and go from exhausted to fresh when it triggers.
*'''Slaves''': You get slaves by raiding, winning battles, and looting/sacking settlements. Slaves go to your cities to do the crapwork and are gradually worked to death turn by turn. The Druchii can make a hell of a lot of money by capturing slaves. However the more slaves you've got the harder it is to control them, which leads to unrest.
*'''Black Arks''': A special kind of campaign unit that acts as one of the two true "navies" in the entire game, Black Arks can only exist on the water but they are essentially floating garrisoned cities that can also let your other armies recruit and exchange from them. A powerful incentive for any Druchii player to adopt the raiding lifestyle and an excellent tool for mobile defence across Naggaroth's extensive coastline.

==Lords==

===Legendary Lords===
*'''[[Malekith]]''': Warhammer's rendition of Darth Vader with severe mummy issues arrived on the scene, and he doesn't mess around. This dude is among ''the'' best Legendary Lords in the game bar none. A monster of a Hybrid LL, he is everything the likes of Azhag the Slaughterer and Arkhan the Black wish they could be. He punches hard, gets a Dragon relatively early on and his spellcasting doesn't disappoint either. His economy buffs are ridiculously strong, boosting an already ridiculous economy. His buffs to Black Guard and Dragons are also very useful. You can hardly go wrong with Malekith.
*'''[[Morathi]]''' : Morathi is a ''very'' weird animal (There's gotta be a sex joke in here somewhere). Unlike many other Legendary Lords, her skill tree is the only one in the game where you actually get to make meaningful choices, as she can alternate between ridiculously powerful spellcasting and good backline harasser, both paths are viable. What sets her apart from other Caster Lords as her spellcasting is concerned is that, like Teclis, she doesn't specialize in single Lore and her pool of spells draws from the Lores of Dark, Death, and Shadows and favors all-out offensive spells from all of them. Arguably the second-best Caster Lord in the game, just behind Teclis. Unfortunately her campaign mechanics are badly broken, she has to spread corruption but doesn't get public order benefits from it, only downsides. This makes her campaign more difficult than you'd expect simply due to serous public order issues. They even nerfed the building in Quintex that made the public order manageable for no apparent reason. With Immortal Empire's she now spreads Slaanesh corruption and her public order issues have been fixed, she can also recruit both regular and Exalted Demonettes from her public order building. which is a nice step in the right direction. They forgot to make them affected by her red skill/techs as usual though. Honestly she is just begging for a dedicated rework to make her into a hybrid faction at this point, it would be awesome to see a true cult of Slaanesh faction. I don't know why they didn't give her the cultist of Slaanesh hero given that they are literally Dark Elf cultists. They did unfortunately significantly nerf her enchanting beauty and her weapons debuff abilities so she can’t tank melee stats into the ground just by existing anymore, despite other lords like demon princes having aura's of similar power in campaign. Bizarrely they also removed her -50% upkeep for hero's, I guess someone was convinced her faction was too good, despite none of it being super strong or unique (vampires get -50% hero upkeep and way more from bloodlines).
*'''[[Hellebron]] (DLC)''' : Hellebron exists in her own little niche. Barely armored like Witch Elves, but really, really bloody fast and a buffmachine for your already busted murdermachine frontline. She excels in prolonged combat, preferably against lightly armored chaff and will rack a high kill count very quickly but will cave against elite units and other single entity monsters or characters.
: Get a unique campaign mechanic of her vitality slowly draining way and have to progressively sacrifice more slaves during the Death Night to keep the faction buffed instead of Debuffed, but also create a new stack of frenzied elves to attack [[Ulthwe]].
*'''[[Lokhir Fellheart]] (FLC)''' : Lord of the [[Black Ark]]s. He is a cheaper blender lord in comparison to Hellebron, being a well-armored Infantry blender while on foot like a Vlad von Carstein without magic. CA also gave him his own Dragon mount which only makes him better than a Dread Lord on dragon when he pops his attack buffs.
: The Druchii pirate lord starts in the thunder dome that is Lustria but can have a lot of freedom by starting with a middle settlement that is a Black Ark.
*'''[[Malus Darkblade]] (DLC)''': An unremarkable lord until he lets the daemon take over, and then he is a melee powerhouse. Using Malus in combat is like burning a candle wick, his Tz'arkan form and abilities are powerful but drain his hit points so know when he should be in daemon or Malus mode. He does have Resistance and Healing in combat so he won't burn out as fast in a fight. Switching to daemon mode restores all his health and vigor and makes him unbreakable so it's best to wait until the last moment before switching.
: In campaign his battle with his inner daemon is a game mechanic, with having a possession meter, giving you greater campaign bonuses while Malus is mostly in control, but as Tz'arkan slowly takes over, he gains greater battle prowess but at the cost of large penalties to your empire. You control the possession by drinking a potion that gets progressively more expensive until you finish his storyline to make it free. Tz'arkan will also offer an additional quest to increase the possession but with very good payoffs. For your start position, you get a Black Ark in the Southern Land, in addition, have your traditional Druchii hold, [[Hag Graef]], that you can sell for a lot of money but have to listen to [[Malekith]] (which will be an AI) or make it harder by having to run and protect the damn place yourself while also declaring on the big cheese. -disappointingly he is actually more effective if you confederate him then if you play as him, confederated he gets the benefits of full possession with no downsides, making him insanely tanky. His faction benefits are actually more of a hassle than they are helpful.
*'''[[Rakarth the Beastlord]] (FLC)''' Your man you pick if you want to go for a full monster build. He comes with heavy armor and Anti Large to deal with enemy big monsters while also providing buffs to his own beasties. He will also have a Scourgerunner for skirmishing, a Manticore and a Dragon for a straight up brawl. He serves as your best counter to mounters, with his whip being able to strip Fear and Terror from monsters (leaving said monsters susceptible to fear and terror) and armor that gives him buffs as enemy monsters are around him. He's also being voiced by [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Ramsay Bolton]].

===Generic Lords===
*'''Dread Lord (Melee & Ranged)''': Your two generic lord with one focused on melee and has a shield while the other is a hybrid that focuses on shooting. In multiplayer, their ability change to help them buff their respective areas, Sword & Shield having buffs to melee attacks and debuffing enemy damage, while Sword & Crossbow supports other crossbows unit while also being a sniper, and gives a burst bonus to Ld. Note that the lords have almost identical melee stats once you put them on a black dragon and the melee lord looses her shield when mounted on one while the ranged lord keeps his ranged weapon. at high levels i cant see much reason to use the melee version instead but she will be better in melee until they get the dragon.
*'''Supreme Sorceress (DLC)''': Makes a Sorceress as a lord for money-saving cost. Somewhat feeble in combat until she levels up enough to get a black dragon mount, after which she fights better than many dedicated melee lords. Student of the Dark Tower is an amazing skill, providing lower cooldowns, reserves, and miscast reduction all in one. These girls are pretty much your best generic lord in a faction with already pretty strong lords.
*'''High Beastmaster (DLC)''': Your monster hunter Lord. Though he looks like a chronic masturbator, he can fill a surprising amount of battlefield roles. Not as tanky in melee as a Dread Lord but deals a good amount of anti-large damage in addition to his burst of additional weapon strength. Also is supportive by giving a single unit a big buff as they charge into melee (don't yet specify anything except can't be used on characters, so go crazy on an Executioners charge). Can come on a Scourgerunner Chariot (roll through everyone while armed with a ballast) or ride a Manticore which has proven to be cost-effective flying monsters. Can give a big boost to Cold Ones and monsters in campaign as well as recruiting them faster. If running cavalry or monster stacks, likely your best option. The big MA/MD/ and charge boost they give Colds Ones really makes them perform better.

==Heroes==
*'''Death Hag''' : Single-entity Witch Elves dialed up to 11. Death Hags excel as extremely vicious infantry blenders with a lot of speed of behind them and, as an added bonus, a variety of buff abilities that make them even deadlier. They tend to get the shorter end of the stick against dedicated duelist characters and their only mount option consists of the Cauldron of Blood, which, to be frank, is a waste, since it sacrifices offensive power and speed for more durability, something that Death Hags with their high Melee Defense don't really need. - I’m not sure what the above was talking about, death hags kinda suck on foot like most foot heroes, the mount is good vs infantry and makes them actually pretty tough plus buffs nearby units. Always mount in campaign, foot may have more use in multiplayer I guess.
*'''Sorceress''' : Caster bitches in the flavours of Death, Dark, Shadows, Beasts, and Fire. Better than most other caster types, and Morathi has some great factionwide buffs for them.
*'''Khainite Assassin''' : Good on campaign map, terrible in an actual fight. To expand, Khainite Assassins get high assassination chance, and are really useful at deleting enemy characters from the game. This is exacerbated by some good hero action buffs from techs, and from a few lord skills. Their passive ability increases the amount of slave income in the province they are in, which sounds useful on paper, but isn't really needed since Dark Elves make all the money they could ever want after a while. Their 'scavenge' ability can help armies pick up more money in the early game as well. In battle, they're a dedicated character duelist meant to sneak around the back line with their vanguard and stalk, and kill enemy high-value stuff with a powerful short-ranged missile attack and pretty good melee stats. Honestly though, in melee they kind of underperform vs other duelists, and they're pretty squishy on top of it all. Their ranged attack is... fine, I guess? But it's super slow to reload and very short ranged. This is on top of the fact that they DON'T GET A MOUNT which really limits their mobility, and therefore their usefulness in battle. Seriously, these guys are tailor made to be flying around on manticores or something! Even a freaking horse would increase their usefulness incredibly. As it is, they'll probably get surrounded and killed off pretty quickly. Death Hags and Masters are really, really good heroes, and will fill every battlefield role that you could want, while Sorceresses and your regular missile units can provide crazy ranged utility. Keep these guys for killing off enemy heroes and scouting other provinces on the campaign map.
*'''Master (DLC)''' : Tyrants in Training who never graduate in game to Dreadlords. Masters are your tanky Dark Elf hero. You can’t really overuse these, they are amazing. Ap anti large heavily armored high stat combat monsters with great mount options, the guardian skill, easy recruitment from a tier 3 building, the ability to reduce slave decline to zero if stacked, access to martial names of power granting incredibly powerful bonuses, easy to recruit at level 9 and up in any 4 city province. A doom stack of these with the regeneration or hunger/frenzy skill name of power and access to the extra melee attack army wide or leadership reduction traits is probably the campaigns deadliest hero doomstack, rivaling or beating Isabella vampire stacks or lizardmen hero spam. Really, really good heroes. And easier to spam than any comparable hero. Recommend cold one for ground duty (extra armor and ap) or Pegasus for flying (fast and flying with good charge but no shield). Foot is ok too but generally mounts are more than worth it for mobility alone. Immortal Empires removed their role in the slave mechanic but they are still extremely stong melee hero's, probably use them in your armies exclusively now.

==Units==

===Infantry===

*'''Dreadspears''': Your most basic spearmen unit in the DE roster. They're... alright? They lack an offensive punch and High Elf Spearman performs better at the job they are supposed to be doing, being to hold the line to stop enemy cavalry punching through to your precious archers. They work fine in the early game, as well as being cheap, but don't rely on them for too long. Their stats are even better with Immortal Empires now.
**'''The Hellebronai (RoR)''': Dreadspears that are a bit better in general with poison attacks.
*'''Bleakswords''': The offensive counterpart to Dreadspears. With the release of Immortal Empires they are now surprisingly very solid and killy basic infantry, there's a lot more reason to use them over spears now and they are going to be a very cost effective chaff unit in both multiplayer and campaign.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs''' : ...These guys. Oh, these guys. Frail as all hell, but worth it. Corsairs should make up the majority of melee troops of your midgame armies as soon as they become available. Their raw damage output as well as their armour (having a value of 90, putting them on the same level as Dwarf Warriors!) makes them a solid frontline and they will cut down all basic infantry used against them with ease and surprising speed. Their easy availability combined with a reasonable price makes sure they are always a good choice, especially against horde-centric factions. One glaring weakness is their lack of AP damage. - Whoever wrote the above likes Corsairs way too much, they’re good but non synergistic with usual Dark Elf campaign strategies of crossbow spam. And they aren’t worth using after the early game. You can honestly never use them and just go Dreadspears/Bleakswords and Darkshards and usually do better in the early campaign. I hear they are nice in multiplayer, but campaign wise meh.
*'''[[Witch Elves]]''': Talk about glass cannons, Witch Elves are a really weird bunch. They have no armour, but (try to) compensates this with 20% physical resistance and a 5% ward save after you research technologies. In exchange, they excel in melee attack and apply debuffs to enemy forces attacked by them. The debuff in itself is very unique, as it not only debuffs enemy melee stats but also sends them on a rampage; causing them to stay way longer in a fight which they otherwise would be comfortable with. This is especially useful against all elven factions, since you can lure their expensive specialized elite tropps in matchups that they are not equipped to deal with (i.e. Swordmasters against a Hydra or a Dragon) and ''reliably keep them there''. Well at least as long as your Witch Elves survive the encounter, which, given that their only defense is a meager 28 melee defense and a 5% ward save, might not be that long. no real reason to use them unless you just need/want the rampage ability. Sisters of Slaughter are much better.
**'''Sisters of Singing Doom (RoR)''' : Schizo Witch Elves with slightly improved melee stats, a steep cost markup, and fear/terror. Generally not worth it, they still cause rampage on hit which is the last thing you want when you're trying to scare a unit away. Save some money and bring vanilla Witch Elves if you want to rampage enemies or a Manticore if you want to terror bomb them.
*'''Sisters of Slaughter (DLC)''': They wear even less clothes than Witch Elves do, yet are more resilient. Their extremely high melee defense and their 20% physical resistance make them surprisingly tough. As one of the few resilient Dark Elven melee units, their job is to hold the line and grind down other infantry where their poisoned attacks, melee defense, and bonus vs. infantry lets them reliably come out on top. In addition, they have a unique passive that boosts their melee defense and physical resist even more if they are losing their current encounter, which makes them surprisingly viable as a tarpit against enemies like Black Orks who would otherwise dumpster them. Competes with Black Guard as your best frontline infantry. Keep in mind that their high melee defense doesn't protect them from missiles or impact damage from enemies on the charge. Back them up with Dreadspears or Black Guard so they don't become the red paintjob on an enemy chariot.
*'''Executioners''': The offensive counterpart to the Black Guards, your ol' reliable murderers of heavy armoured elite troops and anything in between. They won't last long, but kill everything in their path. Frail, especially against missiles, but as a Dark Elf player, you're used to that. I don’t recommend these, they’re fragile, slow and they have weirdly low melee stats compacted to your other elite units. You can replace these with Cold One Dread Knights even. Seriously with the change to primal instincts Dread Knights have massively higher stats especially with Beast Master lords skills. And otherwise fill the exact same role but do it better and faster. They got a slight buff and immune to psych so that's something. If you insist on using them, the Name of power Khaine mark gives them 15% ward save and reduced upkeep, which is actually very solid.
**'''Blades of the Blood Queen (RoR)''' : Gets frenzy + an aura that gives physical resistance to nearby heroes + lords. Very skippable since their stats are low for an elite infantry unit and your lord will probably be on a mobile mount instead of hiding with the infantry.
*'''Black Guard''': Extremely beefy, these are your dedicated elite line holders and monster slayers. Remember murderous prowess makes them into an absolute force of destruction. And they have very good stats, the only downside is knowing that they’ll never be as awesome as Phoenix guard. Even if they can be offensively much deadlier the survivability of Phoenix guard is insane. they received stat buffs and murderous mastery with Immortal Empires so are even better now.
*'''Daemonettes''': Exclusive to Morathi's campaign. basically way better Witch Elves for the same cost, but not effected by red skills or techs because they always forget to do that.
*'''Exalted Daemonettes''': Also exclusive to Morathi's campaign, actually a really good option, they are like way better Executioners with no armor, hold the line with Sisters of Slaughter and flanking with these will be potentially extremely strong. Throw in Morathi's debuffs and a Bloodwrack shrine and you should destroy any infantry in the game frightfully quickly. Really you can argue that the Dark Elves much more well-rounded roster actually uses Exalted Daemonettes better than the Slaanesh factions.

===Missile Infantry===
*'''Darkshards''': Basic Dark Elf ranged unit and all and all pretty darn good for the entire game. Indirect fire with pretty good AP makes them very useful, especially when focusing on firing key targets into oblivion. For a little extra, you can get these guys with shields which makes them excellent in an arrow exchange, which is important given [[High Elves|who one of your biggest foes is]] always go shields.
**'''The Bolt-Fiends (ROR)''' : The cool thing about these guys is that they degrade and nullify shields.
*'''Black Ark Corsairs (Repeater Handbows)''': A mixed bag, making up for the relative lack of skirmish units in the Dark Elf roster. Surprisingly mobile and difficult to catch, their biggest strength is easily their flexibility. Nice vs Skaven early on.
*'''Shades''': Don't let the low model count discourage you, Shades rank among the best missile troops in the game. The high rate of fire, high damage output, and even decent in melee, especially with greatswords. Actually not really that much better than Dark Shards if you just use them as archers, much more expensive for only slightly better ranged performance. However if combined with a shadowdart name of power lord can be as good or better than Sisters of Avelorn. 210 or more range, crazy ap, and better in melee than the sisters by a large margin due to AP and anti infantry. Even with all that taken into account you need a specific name of power, some later technologies, and the red skill tree to make them as good/slightly better than the sisters. And they cost 50% more upkeep with greatswords than sisters do. Which really just shows how op sisters are in campaign.

===Cavalry===
*'''Dark Riders''': Your extremely quick light cavalry, comparable to most other units of their class. One key feature is that they are actually fast enough to chase down most other missile cavalry. If your micromanagement skills hold up, Dark Riders can terrorize the enemy backline very efficiently and do so at the highest speed any base game cavalry unit offers, but they get vaporized the instant their charge bonus wears off, so will need to keep the cycle charges going. One of those units you should probably not use in campaign but can be good in multiplayer.
*'''Dark Riders (Crossbows)''': Ranged harassment cavalry that uses repeater crossbows, they fire two shots of primarily AP damage. Is always useful to annoyingly poke an enemy to death but also those higher armor units that are normally resistant to those shenanigans (most other factions only get close-range hand axes or more squisher handguns).
**'''The Raven Heralds (ROR)''': Rather distinct from their vanilla Dark Riders, these guys ride Dark Pegusii and can fly around the battlefield. Usually passed up for vanilla crossbow Dark Riders since the Raven Heralds have fewer models and vanilla Dark Riders already have the speed to stay out of trouble.
*'''Doomfire Warlocks (DLC)''': Really, really weird hybrid unit. In melee they have actually pretty good attack with magic and poison and charge, plus an AoE melee attack animation. They also have 40% physical resist to help keep them alive. One key advantage they have over comparable light to medium cavalry is their ability to fling around the Doombolt spell from the Lore of Dark and Soulblight from the Lord of Death as bound spells. A unit of these is pretty much always useful if nothing else, plus they look great. They lose access to their bound spells if they drop below 50% HP, so fire them off early so you don't lose them later.
**'''Slaanesh's Harvesters (ROR)''' : Doomfire Warlocks with a slightly increased statline that replaces Doombolt with Soulstealer to drain the HP from single entities. While they're usable in campaign, they're completely unusable in multiplayer where they're more expensive than Grail Knights and Demigryphs.
*'''Cold One Knights''': they were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in Total War Warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait.
*'''Cold One Dread Knights''': They were considered bad because of rampage but primal instincts was reworked later in Total War Warhammer 2 so that it only triggered at 20% health and then again for the third game its been changed and the rampage is gone completely, now primal instincts gives buffs to combat stats at low leadership. They are actually cost effective now. Took a long time to come into their own but it was worth the wait. The dread knights aren't going to be the go-to over the regular ones but they are a solid unit now.
**'''Knights of the Ebon Claw (ROR)''':

===Chariots===
*'''Cold One Chariot''' : A chariot pulled by dinosaurs. They're pretty much meant to be your anti-infantry melee chariot, and they have ap and an ok charge bonus which is nice. They also have a small ranged attack, but don't go using them as a missile chariot, that's what Sourgerunners are for. These guys are overshadowed by Scourgerunners due to the sheer amount of utility and killing power the former brings to the table, but as a melee chariot they can be decent especially in Malekith's army.
*'''Scourgerunner Chariot''' : One of the best units in your roster, Scourgerunner Chariots are your jack of all trades chariot, that has a special boon in being on the very few ranged units in the game that get a bonus vs. large on their ranged attacks. Their key advantage is that they also move at Dark Rider speed, which makes them extremely difficult to catch or even hit, and in a pinch, they can even reliably dispatch basic missile troops and infantry, thanks to a bonus vs. infantry. Bring 3-4 of these guys and have them work as a team, and they can swing battles for you.
**'''The Ravagers of Rakarth (ROR)''' : A Scourgerunner Chariot with poisoned attacks and a persistent AoE ability that slows down all enemies around it. Get one if you plan to use multiple Scourgerunner Chariots to delete isolated monsters/infantry.

===Artillery===
*'''Reaper Bolt Thrower''': Essentially identical to the High Elf counterpart (in spite of the significantly more badass name), the Reaper is likewise probably not going to be winning any prizes for the best artillery piece. Alright, it does hit a bit harder and has a smidge less range, but this is not something people would notice much in most situations. Nevertheless, it remains a useful and versatile addition to a Dark Elf army. Just don't go in expecting a WMD. Like the repeater, they possess two firing modes and can be particularly useful for sniping enemy artillery. In short a decent, if not exactly exceptional, artillery unit.
*'''Bloodwrack Shrine (DLC)''': A Bloodwrack Medusa with a Go-Cart. Despite being described as a chariot don't use it as such, it's too slow to pass through a unit. Use it more like a Mortis Engine or Grail Relique, and you'll find it's a surprisingly versatile unit with support ability, decent melee stats, and even a ranged attack. Provides +7 MA and -7 MD to nearby allies/enemies respectively. Similar in purpose to the High Elf Frost Phoenix but offensive. Quite effective if you want your melee units buffed. Plus ok ranged damage from the Medusa herself.

===Monsters===
*'''Harpies''': Harpies fulfill essentially the same role as war hound and fell bat units. They're intended to be fast-moving harassers best used to hunt down or disrupt enemy missile units and artillery crews. When used in their intended capacity they can get some work done, just don't expect them to do much against anything with actual staying power. Even some of the sturdier archer units can prove a bit too much for them. If you're up against an opponent with a heavy focus on ranged firepower they can be a valuable addition. However, sending them in unsupported against basically anything else is a good way to end up with a whole lot of dead bat-ladies. Rakarth makes then a lot better, giving them bonus Melee Attack as well as a smidge of AP damage.
**'''The Crows of Khaine (ROR)''': Basically Harpies with Fear and the ability to regenerate when fighting. Surprisingly tanky because of it, just watch out for units that counter them.
*'''Feral Manticore''': Surprisingly good backline harasser. Manticores make Harpies pretty much obsolete and make for great mid-tier carnage against everything that doesn't have a bonus against large. They are very susceptible to Rampage, so take care of them. Manticores are best taken in groups of 2-4 in order to kill targets fast enough that they don’t die themselves. Paired with a flying master they can make a fast deadly Air Force for cheap which can act as a single unit killing gank squad. Can usually staggerlock foot heroes. And usually outfight other aerial units short of dragons or heroes.
*'''War Hydra''': One of your standout units, there are lots of nasty surprises with the Hydra, which acts as your standard frontline melee monster. One of its core features is its flexibility; it's effective against a lot of targets and can reliably hunt down infantry thanks to its speed and breath attack. It tends to get the short end of the stick against other monsters and anti large. In campaign you can get these 25% cheaper from a klar karond building. Super cheap and easy to spam regenerating monster.
**'''The Chill of Sontar (ROR)''' : Same regenerating monstery goodness as a normal Hydra, though it replaces its flaming breath in exchange for one that slows down whatever it hits.
*'''Kharibdyss (DLC)''' : OMNOMNOMNOM. A Hydra on steroids, trades the regeneration factor and flaming breath for poisoned attacks, anti-large, and lots of AP goodness. Works best against armoured monsters, so if the enemy brings big scary beasts it can go toe to toe. If you want to blend infantry though, you’re better off with the Hydra.
*'''Bloodwrack Medusa (DLC)''': Combination monster and short rate direct fire artillery. Can delete chunks of elite infantry very quickly. These snake waifus have really great utility, but need to be micro'd well to reap the rewards. They aren't like most monsters in the game, so don't send them into melee and forget about them. Their speed, powerful ranged attack, mass and charge bonus means that you should be using them almost like a chariot. Have them blast infantry from range, charge into melee for a short time, and then escape to do it all over again. Got a pretty decent buff to their melee stats in Immortal Empires to make them a more well rounded pick.
**'''The Siren of Red Ruin (ROR)''' : Same as a normal Medusa, but gains a AoE ability that causes moderate damage to all enemies around her.
*'''Black Dragon''' : Evil Dragonny Goodness. Roughly equivalent to a Moon Dragon in terms of killyness and retains the devastating breath attack, high mass, and good mobility that other dragons have. More difficult to use than High/Wood Elf dragons, Dark Elves don't have the lores of magic to heal it.

===Rakarth Campaign Units===
*'''Feral Cold Ones''' :
*'''Explosive Squig''' :
*'''Giant Wolves''' :
*'''Sabretusk Pack''' :
*'''Feral Bears''' :
*'''Feral Mammoth''' :
*'''Feral Stegadon''' :
*'''Feral Carnosaur''' :

==Tactics==
===Multiplayer Strategies===
Long, Long ago in the distant times of 2017 Dark Elves where one of the top factions in the game with their massive amount of AP, powerful Lords and flexible army. Unfortunately after years of being beaten with the Nerf Bat they have fallen from grace. As of the Twisted and the Twilight patch they are considered low tier, they really only have one viable tactic, relying on Scourgerunners and Crossbow Dark Riders. Now just because they are considered low tier doesn't mean you can't win with them as they still have some favorable match ups. As of right now, you are a bit of a one trick pony so you may have to get creative.

*'''Beastmen''': Fighting a bunch of naked goats calls your AP specialty into question, but you have quite a few ways to make this matchup work if you're clever. Witch Elves will trade well into any infantry the beastie boys bring, and while they won't beat Bestigors, making them rampage into your lines where they can't sustain themselves can give you quite an advantage. Dark rider Crossbows, usually an auto-include in most Dark Elf builds, are much more risky here due to Ungor Raiders and the inherent speed of the Beastmen army. You'll have a harder time getting value out of them. On the other hand, Scourgerunners throw a big middle finger to any monsters the Beastmen are foolish enough to bring (the one notable exception being the Cygor, which can be quite difficult to deal with if you don't shut it down early), so bringing some of your own monsters can be good way to clear out the remaining support.
*'''Bretonnia''': Their cavalry and airforce outclass yours, and that's where all their funds are going to be, so you'll be stuck playing the battle on their terms. Witch Elves to rampage those expensive cav options are going to be a good idea, and this is one of the few times where spending a bit extra for some Black Guard can be super valuable. Masters and Beastmasters can be great against cavalry as well, and are worth considering.
*'''Chaos Daemons''':
*'''[[Total_War_Warhammer/Tactics/Chaos_Dwarves| Chaos Dwarfs]]''': Dark Dwarves vs. Dark Elves. To show the stunties who the superior edgy splinter faction is, you're going to have to deal with their ranged prowess. At the time of this writing, Chaos Dwarves have only been out for a little while, so the following is subject to change as new strategies come out, but at the moment this seems like a quite interesting matchup, though I'd say the Druchii have a slight edge. Both factions rely on momentum, have armor and AP, and great character choices. However, broadly speaking, they have the ranged advantage while you have the melee and mobility advantage. You'll win the chaff fight laughably, as Dreadspears, Bleakswords, Witch Elves, and Sisters of Slaughter will run rampant over their nasty skulkers and orc/goblin fodder, but with blunderbusses, the ironsworn bombs, and their great artillery, on top of lore of Hashut which is great at blob destroying, your infantry is gonna get shot to hell even with good micro. *If* you micro them well and avoid ranged fire as much as possible, Dark Rider Crossbows can do a lot here. They are always a great tool in your arsenal, but here they can provide a ton of utility with their mobility and ability to target big monsters as well as armored up infantry, and even cycle charge artillery crews in a pinch. Now, a good player will know this and be looking to swarm you with Bull Centaurs and Wolf Riders, so make sure you have units to screen. The oft-maligned Cold One Knights w/ lances (STILL in need of a buff imo) will trade very well with Bull Centaurs and K'daai, and they have some ranged protection as well making them a good niche pick. In terms of characters, Malus is probably going to be your lord of choice here as frankly he has been a monster since the advent of Warhammer 3, and can take any lord the Dawi'Zharr can offer in a melee fight. Lore of Shadows or Dark is also a useful tool for dealing armor piercing damage and grinding down ironsworn.
*'''Warriors of Chaos''': What used to be a stomp in your favor is now a bit more balanced with the IE update. Dark Elves of course are specialists in dealing with slow-moving heavily armored factions, but the Warriors of Chaos now have a few tools you need to watch out for. Some fast flyers, like Doom Knights, might give you a hard time since they're difficult to shoot and pack quite a punch. Valkia and Azazel don't have much in the way of utility, but are small hitboxes flying around the screen and are great at dueling even your awesome spiky lords. They can also try going super wide using Hellstriders and low-armor infantry to keep you on your toes, while backing up with elite stuff. To counter this strategy, remember that you're one of the very few factions that can meet the Warriors on their own terms and win. Forget the skirmish and ranged stuff and just go full tin-can opener with Executioners and Witch Elves/Sisters. This matchup is tougher now, but make no mistake, it's still well in hand for a smart Druchii player.
*'''Dark Elves''': This mirror-match can actually get pretty interesting. I wouldn't bother too much with Scourgerunners here. Both players probably aren't going to be relying on their big threats to win the day, and even if they do, your ap missiles can give even a Hydra a hard time. Victory is probably going to come down to smart ranged play and good use of elite infantry. Harpies are a good choice to tie down Darkshards, and use your Dark Rider Crossbows to take out and Black Guard or Executioners on the field. Dark Riders with lances or shields can also be a good choice to get into that terrifying crossbow line.
*'''Dwarfs''': Sure, you could try your usual skirmish tactics, you have the heavy AP to pierce your opponent's stunties. Unfortunately, they have the firepower to shut down a lot of your ranged units before you can get close enough to return the favor, and rune of slowness can be disastrous, tarpitting key units at really inconvenient times. What is a much more interesting build that doesn't play into the Dawi's strengths is a heavy metal melee rush. You're one of the VERY few factions that can reliably cut through all that armor with ease, along with Warriors of Chaos and Slaanesh. Bring a couple Executioners, Bleakswords (Blades of the Blood Queen RoR can be a powerhouse if used right), and maybe a Master, and spread yourself out so they can't take advantage of their range advantage. Bring a couple skirmishers and Cold One Chariots to shut down their artillery, but don't focus too much on ranged power or monsters. As for lord choice, Lokhir on foot is a good option for dueling any single entities if you want to go cheap, Malus or Malekith if you want a more useful and expensive lord.
*'''Empire''': In campaign, this is a highly interesting and very fun matchup since both armies have such flexible rosters. In multiplayer though... you got your work cut out for you. Even with some slight improvements to Cold One Knights, they just won't stand up to Empire heavy cav, and you'll have a hell of a time trying to lean on your infantry while they're being cycle-charged by Demigryphs. They can also keep up in the skirmish department, with Pistoliers and Outriders doing their job competently. Harpies can deal with them, but require some micro. Putting your money into a hero goon squad, and perhaps relying on magic to get some ranged damage in, either with Morathi or a sorceress hero, can be an unexpected tactic that might pay some dividends. You'll rip them apart in melee, but the approach is really what will determine the battle.
*'''Grand Cathay''': To take some Chinese peasant slaves, you'll want to bring a rush-centric army. Similar to the Dwarfs, Cathay likes to box up and lean on it's artillery while jerking off to each other's harmony bonuses, making their box surprisingly tough to crack. Don't run around like a pansy too much skirmishing, cause that artillery is no joke. Instead, bring a more rush-focused army, and invest in a monster or two. Sisters of Slaughter can be a powerhouse against all infantry except Celestial Dragon Guard, and you'll want their speed, melee defense, and missile dodge chance. If you can micro them well, a few units of Harpies (maybe even the Crows of Khaine RoR for some extra tankiness) can get a lot done here, falling on Sky Lanterns/Junks, and tying down Cathay's more mobile artillery elements. You will have to watch out for Longma Riders in the sky with their 105(!) speed, and most Cathay players will bring at least one, but they're much more expensive than your 600 gold Harpies. Magic is probably the best way to grind those Longma down, they should be some primary targets to get off the field. You have fantastic monsters, but they're expensive, and you'll be hard pressed to bring more than one. Hydra is amazing here. Super survivable with it's regen and missile resist, and Cathay has absolutely nothing in the way of fire damage to exploit it (Except for that one Lore of Yin spell which imbues fire damage). Malekith on Seraphon is probably the way to go for your lord. With some support from Soulstealer and your missile units, he can fight Zhao Ming or Miao Ying on equal terms, and help out with any Terracotta Sentinels that might be brought.
*'''Greenskins''': Flex rosters? Benefit from prolonged melee combat? Aggressive infantry and magic? Fast movers and skirmishers? Yup, these two armies share quite a few competencies. While the Greenskins are more resilient, they're also lower leadership, and much worse at taking out large threats. This is one of the matchups where an infantry grind won't automatically go in your favor. Executioners might trade well with even Black Orcs, but bringing elite infantry here is just asking for them to get blown up with Doom Divers and Rogue Idol shots, or bad Nasty Skulker trades. Their monsters usually have a ridiculous amount of hp, but you're one of the best factions in the game at shredding through it with your Crossbows and Scourgerunners. Just remember they have good skirmish power too, and you don't want to waste your ammo on a bunch of Spider Riders. In a pinch, a Kharybdiss can also help quite a bit at dueling lords and monsters, and the boyz lack a lot in the way of AP ranged or anti-large to shut them down. You might further consider bringing a monster or Lore of Fire to counter Trolls who with their missile and magic resist are hard to shut down.
*'''High Elves''': The Asur cling to tradition! This is a pretty balanced matchup that will test both sides' knowledge and micro. You will destroy them in the infantry grind, especially because by the time Murderous Prowess pops, most of their units will be damaged enough to lose their Martial Prowess. Furthermore, Scourgerunners will kite any dragons or other monsters they bring into the End Times (but watch out for Bolt Throwers!). What you're really going to have to worry about is their heavy cav, since Dragon Princes will flatten your forces without good Scourgerunner play, and archers which outrange yours. Light cavalry is the best way to zone out the archers, and ap volleys and skirmishers are a good way to lessen the impact of their heavy cav. If you're confident in your anti-large capability and shutting down any Sisters of Avelorn, a Hydra can really do a lot for you with it's missile resist and regen. Play to your strengths, use Murderous Prowess well, and Malekith will be chilling with his feet up on the Phoenix Throne in no time!
*'''Khorne''': Just shove a spiky arrow up Skarbrand's ass and call it a day. Fighting slow, heavily armored factions is well within the Druchii wheelhouse, and while Khorne isn't exactly plodding in pace, you're faster than them by a mile. What you're going to have to watch out for is War Hounds that are super fast and can tarpit your stuff. The Dark Elves can be quite a threat in melee if they choose, but Khorne can out-fight even your best troops, so don't challenge them on their own terms, just lean into your skirmish and missile potential and you can carry the day.
*'''Kislev''': You'll need to win and win quickly, since Kislev's best shot at winning is simply outlasting you. You’re more than matchup in the infantry department at least stat-wise, Kossars and Streltsi won't be able to outfight your Bleakswords in a vacuum but By Our Blood makes them a surprisingly hard nut to crack, and trades that seem favorable might end up going the other way. You actually out-range most of their ranged troops as well, except when it comes to Ice Guard. If they're dumb enough to bring an Elemental Bear or other big threats, you have plenty of AP to challenge them. Ice magic can slow your skirmishers down, only for their own skirmishers to make up the difference. They are one of the few factions that can actually stand up to you in the kite game, so you want to lean into the rush element of your army, and make good use of Murderous Prowess.
*'''Lizardmen''': This is one of the matchups in which you shine. All their armored dinosaurs are extremely vulnerable to your wide selection of AP troops, with a special shoutout to Dark Shards and Shades. Lizardmen lack missile infantry beyond their rather frail Skink Skirmishers, though their Chameleon Skinks will prove particularly annoying due to their missile resist and loose formations. Scourgerunner Chariots will run circles around the Lizardmen and, with proper positioning, can easily slip around their screening units to chunk the bigger Artillery Stegadons/Bastilodons that could potentially retaliate against your ranged forces. Try to kite them as much as you can, whittle down their frontline before sending in your Executioners and Blackguard to clean up.
*'''Norsca''': Hmmm, look at that, another quasi-rush faction with big monsters, killy infantry, and a lot of anti-large? Unfortunately for the Norscans, the Elves are the superior race and they'll have a hard time proving otherwise. You're spoiled for choice when it comes to killing their big monsters, so most Norscan players who know what they're doing probably won't bring them. Rakarth is quite expensive, but on Bracchus or even a chariot, he can do a ton against their monstrous infantry and single entities, though he'll have a hard time out-dueling Wulfrik or Throgg. Flaming Sword of Rhuin is another great boon to dismantle Skin Wolves and Trolls. Your infantry is quite evenly-matched, but your advantage comes in with Murderous Prowess and Witch Elves that can rampage key threats when it procs.
*'''Nurgle''': While this may seem initially easy, given your excellence against slower factions, don't get cocky. If you aren't smart with your matchups and blow your load with Murderous Prowess too soon, Nurgle will just outlast you. The only infantry you have that will be able to take out Plaguebearers quickly are Executioners, and you probably don't want to be bringing elite infantry against Nurgle anyway. Fire sorceress is absolutely essential here, since your units' low base weapon strength and Nurgle's lack of armor means that you won't be as damaging as you usually are against other factions. Scourgerunners will still do very well against Great Unclean Ones, Pox toads, or any other large threat, while the Hydra can be fantastic for clearing out infantry with it's flaming damage and breath attack. Also, with their limited range and slow movement, this can be quite a good matchup for a Bloodwrack Medusa or the Siren of Red Ruin. Malus or Morathi are probably your go-to lords here.
*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': This is a matchup that your sadistic legions dream of, i.e. a one-sided slaughter in your favor. Rakarth on a chariot or on Bracchus really shines with his absurd anti-large capabilities, and him or a Beastmaster can really do work for you with a bit of micro. Malus is also great at punishing monstrous infantry. Your elite infantry gets a rare spotlight here, since halberd/spear spam lends itself extremely well to trading with the Ogres, especially when Murderous Prowess pops. Even Dreadspears will do some serious pushing above their pay grade, with Black Guard of Naggarond turning things up to 11. Scourgerunners are also a huge boon against low-model count large hitbox Ogres. They might try to bring some scrap launchers to put pressure on you, so a Reaper Bolt Thrower or some Dark Riders can deal with that. Honestly, your Dreadspears and Darkshards will have a field day killing anything they can get their hands on, you can pretty much take a nap until the Ogres get an update.
*'''Skaven''': Those filthy rats! This is definitely a matchup in your favor, but don't get complacent! The Skaven are one of the few factions to have as many AP ranged options as you do (in an equally wide roster), but where you rely on elite infantry and SEM's to make up the difference, the Skaven rely on drowning you in numbers and using their summons and magic to force the battle in their favor. You're fast enough and killy enough to buzzsaw your way through whatever the Skaven throw at you, but a savvy Skaven player will know this, and will try to take advantage of your squishiness instead. Rat Ogres and Brood Horrors can be quite a threat if you're not careful, and their summons can tie down your archers during valuable moments. For an unorthodox build, try bringing Morathi on Sulephet, 2 Manticores, and some Witch Elves, maybe even Sisters of the Singing Doom, to terror-bomb important units. Your hero core is fast enough to get to their ranged threats, and Morathi's combination of magic is everything the Skaven hate.
*'''Slaanesh''': Under Malekith, the Dark Elves have been fighting Slaanesh cults for centuries, and here you finally get a chance to show it. Both factions have AP out the ass, and both will find it difficult to apply that AP effectively, but your ranged and infantry options are far more flexible when it comes to taking on lower-armor threats. Also, your anti-large will be able to easily take down their chariots. Your flying lords and heroes should have no problems, and this is also a great matchup to bring the Raven Heralds RoR, since they can mostly just sit there and rack up points on anything valuable as long as you keep it away from Furies. The one thing they really have going for them is speed. Make sure your ranged stuff is well protected and screened by your infantry, and you should have no trouble. Unfortunately, your strategy is somewhat reliant on gaps in their roster, so as Slaanesh gets more DLC and updates, your advantage in this matchup is likely to fray.
*'''Tomb Kings''': Tomb Kings have a large flexible roster, but they don't excel greatly at any one strategy. Instead of your usual missile cavalry, consider relying a bit more on your missile infantry like Darkshards or even Shades to poke holes into their constructs. The Tomb Kings skirmishers are a living (undead?) joke most of the time, but they can be annoying here since you need to be selective about where you're sending those ap volleys. A Reaper Bolt Thrower or 2 can be quite good to zone out any Bone Giants or Great Bow Ushabti, two staples of the TK roster. Remember though, when it comes to artillery, you're definitely outclassed. I'd recommend against bringing a monster, since yours are pretty slow and vulnerable to getting shot up by Sepulchral Stalkers. If you want one though, Kharybdiss is probably the best choice as it's the only monster that can give the mobile anti-large contingents of Necropolis Knights, or even the Necrosphinx a run for it's money. Lore of Fire of course is a must here, which leaves your lord choices a bit limited. Supreme Sorceress on a Manticore or Malus can be good picks, but it really depends on how you want to build.
*'''Tzeentch''': You're fast enough to keep up with Tzeentch, and you'll need that speed to get into melee. First up, this is not the matchup to bring anything but your most basic infantry. Magical attacks will make your Witch Elves very sad, and Black Guard + Executioners don't have shields and will get shot up like it's a Detroit street corner. Your AP missiles would be great here, if your opponent has no brain and brings heavy infantry (which they probably won't do), but Tzeentch's barrier makes things a little difficult. You don't have tons of ammo, and every shot going into their Protoss shields instead of their health bar is value you'll sorely miss. However, your fast units may be able to put the team on their back, and tie down stuff for your Darkshards to shoot. A bunch of Dark Riders with Shields are fast threats, great for charging Horrors, and are as fast as Marauder Horsemen. This is a matchup where a unit of Cold One Knights (maybe the Ebon Claw RoR) might be useful just for the mobile killing power (though they don't really stand a chance against Chaos Knights, so micro them well). Bring Harpies to stuff up things like Burning Chariots, and act as meat shields in the air so you can grind Doom Knights down with magic or AP volleys. Scourgerunners are a fantastic pick against Soul Grinders and Chaos Knights as long as you keep them moving. If you can sustain your fire and keep the pressure on Tzeentch will melt, but their mobility and barrier can make it a challenging proposition.
*'''Vampire Coast''': There's no other way to say it, you'll just have to rush super hard. The Coast monsters will get shot up by your skirmish power, but if you can't get into melee without getting shot half to hell, it won't matter. They'll try to drown you in Zombies and summons, so make sure you have a Fire Sorceress for that wave-clearing potential. Corsairs (melee or handbow variant) can be pretty useful here as well, with their speed and high armor. Death Hags on foot can be a standout hero choice here as well, as she is fast, fantastic at grinding through infantry, and (if she can get into melee) can deal with any Coast hero except maybe a Mournghoul Haunter (which you should be filling up with your ap arrows anyway).
*'''Vampire Counts''': You can definitely make full kite work here, and it probably is the most meta tactic, but it can be risky. The Counts are very fast and deadly with their cavalry and lord options, plus kiting all day isn't the most fun matchup ever. For a slightly less powerful, but much more fun matchup, consider a monster mash to make things work. The Hydra can be extremely survivable here with it's regeneration and fire damage, while the Kharybdiss is great for dueling any Varghulfs or lords on Zombie Dragons. Hellebron on a cauldron can be great for mulching infantry and dueling the Vampire counts' slower threats. You'll win the infantry grind with 0 effort, and you have plenty of dueling options, but their cavalry and fast movers are the true threat of the night lords. If you can screen your Darkshards well enough, getting them tarpitted with Dreadspears and shooting them might work, but it's tough with their Fell Bats and Dire Wolves moving as fast as they do. If you're confident in your micro, rampaging them with Witch Elves is also an option, but tricky to pull off. Scourgerunners are also great here. Lore of Shadows caster + Malus Darkblade can be a potent combination as well, nuking any Blood Knights or ethereal units caught out of position with Pit of Shades while Malus is a melee monster who has a chance to take on even Vlad in combat with just a tiny bit of support.
*'''Wood Elves''': What do you get when you cross two glass cannon factions? A lot of broken glass I guess. Unfortunately their shooters and cav are just way better than yours, and they're fast enough to keep away from all but your speediest threats. If the opponent has any braincells, they won't be bringing any tree spirits, seeing as they'll be turned into paper by your AP. No, you'll be dealing with full Vietnam, and the only way to stand a chance is with your fast movers. Witch Elves, Sisters of Slaughter, Corsairs, these should be the core of your infantry, with some Dreadspears to protect them with their shields. Morathi on Sulephet is a great small target if you avoid the fire arcs of their ranged threats, and your light cavalry will have to put in some serious work. Doomfire Warlocks would be quite good if the Wood Elves didn't have so much magic damage, but as it is it'll be up to your Dark Riders/Chariots to win their key engagements.

===Domination===

General Tier Rank: '''B-'''

They can actually be quite strong in domination, but they need a skillful player to take the game. Scourgerunners are highly mobile and can get good trades, good AP and monsters is always valuable, they have plenty of cheap, cost effective infantry, and of course their lord choices are almost all excellent. However, unlike other fast factions (e.g. Vampire Counts) the Druchii tend to run out of steam in this game mode without a real way to sustain themselves. Also, Murderous Prowess is awful, as it procs way too quickly to be useful in a longer fight (actually, CA has patched this, Murderous Prowess now has a higher threshold, so it procs at an appropriate time. It still isn't the big force it is in land battles, but at least it doesn't proc in the first 5 seconds of the battle). They're still very squishy, and tend to get run over by other factions heavy cav and monsters if you aren't on top of your game. With some practice though, they can be a very fun pick. One additional note is that Lore of Dark Magic is awesome in this game mode, with special mention going to Soul Stealer, a great way to punish blobs on points.

===Campaign Strategies===
Focus on economy in a few good provinces with 4 cities (Hag Graef, Naggarond, Ghrond, Quintex, Har Ganeth, etc) put income, slave pens, and then black roads or special resources on every city/town. Then put all slaves here. Add 3 or 4 Masters to reduce slave decline to zero and you have the strongest, easiest, and fastest to grow economy in the game bar none. Can field near unlimited armies of doom stacks. There you go, you win.

Actually, the most prosperous slave province for the Dark Elves is Yvresse owing to the unique Tower of the Warden building which generates 50 gold per 100 slaves. With a maximum slaveholding capacity of 15500 slaves, combined with the multiplicative effect of slaves on base province income and the ability to stack slave income multipliers through heroes that are essentially unlimited, it surpasses any Druchii province in gold-generating potential. Proving, once again, that Naggarond sucks. This wealth is also why it is viable for certain Dark Elf factions to abandon their starting capitals and conquer Ulthuan instead.- while that may be more profitable technically, it’s irrelevant. Any proper slave strategy give’s effectively unlimited money even in just the dark elf lands. Conquer Ulthuan first or not, either way you won’t need for money with even a little strategy.

Unfortunately they heavily nerfed the Slave system in Immortal Empires, the jury is out still on how good their economy is after the massive nerf, you now have to spend slaves as a global resource on your economic buildings and commandment. Will update as we find out how bad the nerf is but its already clear its going to be dramatically weaker than before. After playing 80 turns I can confirm the economy is still strong as long as you rapidly expand and keep fighting but slaves decline possibly too fast from buildings, and slave pens aren't that useful, all they do is increase capacity and give a tiny 5 slave per turn income, whereas a leveled economy building consumes 40 per turn, so only constant fighting and sacking will be able to keep your slave population up. The public order penalties for slaves are basically gone now. Assassins can now generate 10 slaves per turn by staying in your provinces instead of boosting slave income, but that is a waste of them. In general all the buildings or skills which give slaves per turn are completely useless, they are way too weak to keep up with the cost of buildings, you either have to constantly sack other countries or be continuously conquering territory. Don't Bother with Slave Markets or any building that give slaves per turn, the rate of gain can never keep up with the consumption and increasing slave capacity is useless. Having a large stockpile of slaves is actually more or less pointless, you only need 150 slaves to trigger the bonus income at the end of your turn and you don't get any meaningful bonuses for having lots of slaves. you can have a slave consumption of 1000-2000 per turn and all you need to do is get above 150 remaining after the decline before the end of each turn and there is no downside. So slave markets and any special buildings that increase capacity or give a few slaves per turn should just be skipped, this is bad design by CA but it at least frees up your building slots. overall the Dark Elf income is still extremely strong it just not as strong as before. Unfortunately once your empire gets large enough it will become almost impossible to trigger the bonus income because you can easily end up with -4000-5000 slaves per turn which will be impossible to keep up each turn. Fundamentally as your empire grows amounts of slaves decline per turn increase quickly but your ability to capture slaves remains largely fixed, unless you can simultaneous sack 4-5 provinces a turn (every single turn) it will be impossible to keep up slaves late game, and the slave buildings do nothing to help this. Unfortunately I feel like they failed to playtest the new mechanic adequately as it becomes almost completely useless late game.

As of 3.1 the slave system is... better, but still not really there yet. They removed the slave cap and rebalanced slave gain/bleed. They also added a new 'rush construction' feature where you can spend slaves to instantly complete buildings, which is a strong feature (though it kind of undermines the 'strategic' element of this 'strategy' game.). Slave bleed and gaining slaves from battles has also been rebalanced, and are a bit more palatable, though not perfect. But this system is hampered by bugs/poor design decision. First off, they removed ALL global bonuses for slaves besides the income bonus (and public order penalty) which has itself been nerfed. While you're not exactly poor now, it's definitely more difficult to build up money, and the construction time and other infrastructure bonuses are missed.

This anon's opinion is that the biggest problem with the current slave system is that... it's boring. Clicking on every settlement you own to enact your diktats is mind-numbing, especially when you have a larger empire. Managing it is still pretty tedious, even with the rebalances, [[FAIL| and, to add insult to injury, the Chaos Dwarfs get the Dark Elf slave system from Warhammer 2 (you know, the one everyone liked) not only copy-and-pasted over, but greatly expanded on with a ton of in-depth complimentary mechanics that are ''fun'' to use.]]

Dark Elves have a fun, strong army with powerful characters, but this overhaul to their mechanics have left them in a quagmire on the campaign map. Don't mistake them as weak, their faction is actually fairly strong, but they are much more boring to play than in Warhammer 2. Either the current slave system needs a MASSIVE upgrade/overhaul, adding tons of different things to spend your slaves on, and a global window to make management less terrible, or they need to rip the entire thing out and come up with a completely new mechanic/ set of mechanics for the Dark Elves. As much as it pains me to admit, neither of these things are particularly likely without a big push from the playerbase, so if you're a Druchii fan, make sure to complain to your local CA representative!

===Campaign Specific===
The section below is mostly only applicable for Warhammer 2 Mortal Empires. Several things have been changed in Warhammer 3, for example Malekith appears to be a much more difficult campaign with Valkia's new start that's right on top of him, Morathi isn't very viable in melee anymore, and Malus', Lokhir's, and Rakarth's campaigns all have new starts.
====Malekith====

*'''Beware Hellebron''': Malekith's campaign is generally pretty easy (and very fun!), but it can really depend on what Hellebron does at the start. Usually you can get pretty powerful early, build up diplomatic relations and just confederate her, but it's not unknown for her to just straight up declare war on you, which can really send your campaign down shit swamp. Furthermore, she can actually out-recruit you, making it next to impossible to confederate her. One strategy is to just rush to Har Ganeth immediately after securing Naggarond, while another is trying to out-recruit her in turn. Just ignoring her CAN be fine, but Har Ganeth is a good early game province, and you don't want to risk a civil war with her.

*'''Don't spend too long in Naggaroth''': Look, I get it, Naggarond's a great place with fine tourist attractions, but conquering Ulthuan as Malekith can and should be done fairly early in the game, because it takes a loooonnnggg time to take over all those provinces settlement-by-settlement. You definitely want to get Ulthuan conquered before the chaos invasion rolls in, as they basically spawn right on top of Naggarond, and constantly fighting them until someone knocks off Archaon on the other side of the map can be a huge pain.

*'''Tyrant is the way to go''': Malekith has OPTIONS and almost all of them are good, but if it's your first campaign, Tyrant can really bring your slave economy to the next level. More money -> more stacks -> Druchii supremacy, baby!

====Morathi====
*'''The start. Oh god, the start''': Yeahhh, there's no getting around it. Morathi's start is a bitch and a half (kind of like Morathi herself!). She's surrounded by enemies who hate her guts, and one mistake here can spell doom for your campaign. Here's the thing though: she actually has all the tools she needs to deal with it (She's an incredibly strong Legendary Lord, and tier 1 Dark Elf units like Bleakswords and Darkshards are awesome even into the late game), it can just be tough learning the first few times around. You need to be EXTREMELY aggressive in consolidating your starting province, as the Ss'ildra Tor can just out-recruit you if you leave them alone long enough. Once you do that and deal with Alith Anar though, everything gets easier so have faith!

This is valid for Mortal Empires, your start in Immortal Empires is actually pretty chill. You may even have the chance to ally with Mazdamundi pretty early on if you fight the minor Skavens on the west and gift the frog some cities. Alith Anar also fucked off up north so you can consolidate your starting provinces and build up easily before starting to rape Ulthuan.

*'''You can use her in melee!''' A mistake I see a lot of players make is using Morathi as you'd use a typical caster lord, i.e. keeping them at a distance and shying away from any fight. If you do this though, you aren't getting her full value. Her unique weapon combined with one of her unique skills (Enchanting Beauty) can lower enemy melee attack by 18 and defence by 9 JUST FOR BEING NEAR HER. She can basically use her darksword as a strap-on to peg enemy melee stats. Be careful how you use her, because of course she isnt going to outduel dedicated melee combatant characters, but these passive abilities combined with Lore of Shadows make her great for absolutely dumpstering enemies that your units are having a tough time dealing with.

====Hellebron====
*'''Unpaid interns''': Hellebron requires a constant influx of slaves to keep active, which means that you are going to have to be ultra aggressive throughout your campaign, more so than other Druchii factions who can just sit back and let their slaves do all their work for them.

*'''Malekith''': It's harder (though not impossible!) to confederate Naggarond than vice-versa, and pissing off Malekith can really become a problem, since he usually skyrockets to strength rank 1 after turn 20 or 30. One strategy is just to leave for Ulthuan right away, but this can be very challenging. Rushing Naggarond is also an option, but you can also ally with them, which is what I'd recommend for less experienced players.

*'''Blood Fleets suckkkk''': Remember how the Greenskins WAAGGHH worked before their update? Theoretically it was a way to encourage aggressiveness and movement on the campaign map. How it actually worked was that they'd spawn AI controlled armies that would allahu-akbar themselves upon the nearest settlement. Wellll, Hellebron's voyages basically have the same idea and it's honestly worse because you can't choose where they spawn. Just don't rely on them to do any heavy lifting.

====Lokhir====
*'''Pillaging the East:''' In Immortal Empires, Lokhir now starts on the Cathayan edge of the map, just south of Villitch, seperated by an impassable (to you of all people) river, and the Great Bastion (and '''Eshin''') to the West. The entire Eastern half of Cathay is full of rivers and deltas so you can raid deeper into Cathay.
**'''Black Arks are "free:"''' Lokhir doesn't need to sacrifice to Mathlann to start a Black Ark in IE, so combine that with their absolute loyalty, cheap upkeep, and the many rivers of Cathay, you'll be taking a few of these.
*'''The Blender King''': Ah, Lustria. Let's see, the lizards hate you because they don't want a Dark Elf caravan on their land. Teclis hates you because he doesn't like your stupid face, the Dwarfs still bear a grudge, and Harkon hates you for... stealing all his treasure, I guess? Packing up and leaving for Ulthuan on turn 1 can actually be a pretty viable strategy here. Lustria-bowl honestly sucks for you, but if you're intent on doing it, allying with the rats can secure your western border, and allow you to focus on Teclis at the start, which takes one of the major pressures off your campaign.
*'''The Black Ark King''': Black Arks are awesome and should be your main method of recruiting units to your armies, especially in the early game. BUILD THE GROWTH BUILDING FIRST! You'll get to those higher tiers so much faster, and can laugh over the corpses of your enemies when your tier 5 Dread Knights are running over Red Crested Skinks.

*'''What to do with Karond Kar?''': Lokhir's campaign is pretty weird, because his unique item requires taking over the city of Karond Kar which is wayyyy in the middle of assfuck nowhere compared to where you start. You don't really want to manage a split empire in Warhammer 2, so taking Karond Kar by force isn't really advisable. Luckily, he now has a quest line that allows him to confederate Karond Kar remotely. I'd recommend confederating with them, and then just selling all the buildings and abandoning the province. Keeping it generally means dealing with High Elf deathstacks every two turns, along with Wood Elves and Taurox if he's still alive which will really make you want to deepthroat a cactus.

====Malus Darkblade====
Malus is a fan-favorite character, and CA honestly did him pretty dirty, which is kind of upsetting. His campaign is very difficult especially at the start, and he slightly boosts Cold One Knights, a notoriously cost-inefficient unit. He is a monster on the battlefield, but ''it's pretty much always better to play as another Dark Elf faction and confederate him'', since he gets all his battlefield strengths and none of the weaknesses. If you insist on playing his campaign though, keep these tips in mind:
*'''SNIKCH MUST DIE!''': Snikch must die unless you like having 30 million filthy rats coming over the border to take your land and deflower your sorceresses (oh, who are we kidding? There’s no such thing as a virgin sorceress, they literally worship the goddess of massive orgies). Sometimes you can even make a non-aggression pact with Imrik to focus on Snikch which I definitely recommend. After killing him, you can slow down a little, and pick off your enemies one-by-one, but it's an absolute miserable campaign experience if you allow Snikch to get his shit together.

*'''Black Arks are essential''': You start with a Black Ark and you NEED it to get past Malus' cancerous early game. You probably aren't going to have the money to spend on potions at the start, which means your troops will replenish at the speed of a glacier. A Black Ark can help a lot with this problem, and can provide a good base to recruit from.

*'''Keep your alliance with Malekith going''': Keeping your alliance with Malekith alive allows you to cheese the 'Tz'arkans whispers' mechanic a little bit, since the unique quests might be to declare war on a faction you don't care about halfway across the map. The rewards from these missions can be quite powerful, so complete as many as you can.

====Rakarth====
*'''Ulthuan''': Rakarth's starting place in Albion offers him a variety of options in theory. However, you're kind of forced into attacking Ulthuan which sucks. Once they discover you (which happens very early in the game), they will start sending stack after stack after you, and trying to expand eastward or southward just becomes unviable. Sure, Morathi can sometimes get super aggressive and start conquering Ulthuan early taking some of the pressure off you, but it's a gamble that sometimes doesn't pay off.

*'''Rakarth only for beastpen armies''': Beast pens areeee... interesting? The thing is, the only boosts to monstrous units from the beast pens come from Rakarth's army skills. For your generic lords, it's better to stick to your tried and true Druchii units, unless you're in an emergency and need units fast.

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

Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Skaven

2023-06-21T17:30:13Z

2A02:1810:4E2C:A900:DCF8:FA5C:E067:6D33: /* Tactics */

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Units==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Missile Troops===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Monsters & Chariots===

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Artillery===

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

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

==Tactics==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*'''Khorne''': Khorne powers up by killing your infantry. you have a lot of infantry. you can't outrun the Bloodletters with the majority of your units so at best bring Gutter Runners and pray he didn't bring too many Furies. bring what weapons teams you can and try and have a frontline of Heroes or Rat Ogres

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

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

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

*'''Ogre Kingdoms''': You've got a lot of options here. Ogre's high mass monstrous infantry can only do so much if you bring enough Skavenslaves. Ratling Guns and Jezzails will shred through the low-armour Ogres. The biggest threat to you are their Gorgers. Swamp the Ogres with chaff and rip them apart. I wouldn't recommend the kiting game with Gutter Runners as Sabretusks and Gorgers WILL outrun and eat them.

*'''Slaanesh''': Oh boy, this is not great for you. Slaanesh's monsters, chariots, and cavalry all clock in at around 100 speed, including their Lords. Their infantry is a about half that, close to Deathrunner speed. They will close the distance with you blisteringly fast. Once up close they are going to have a lot of leadership debuffs and armour piercing. Your infantry won't hold against them and the armour on your weapon teams means both jack and shit. If you bring any kind of ranged units you had better protect them very well. Assume your back line is going to get swamped. This might be a good battle to bring in the Moulder monsters. Slaanesh's AP means nothing to their lack of armor and with Throt and a Packmaster around you can keep their leadership a bit more stable. Some Eshin skirmishers might be helpful too but only as a distraction -- Slaanesh will easily run them down.

*'''Skaven''': Skaven excel at disruption and that also applies to other skaven. Bringing artillery and weapon teams is very risky, they're not going to accomplish much if the crews are getting pelted to death by Gutter Runner Slingers or blended by Doomflayers. Consider leaving the big guns at home and beefing up your infantry/monster game instead.

*'''Tomb Kings''': Watch out, Tomb Kings can move unexpectedly fast with a lot of chariots and monsters, and will hit your front lines a lot faster than you would like. The monsters are the biggest threat, and you can focus them down pretty quickly, but any TK player with half a brain will bring a Necrotect to patch up any injuries their constructs may have, so make sure you finish each monster before moving on to the next. And keep an eye out for their Screaming Skull Catapult, they cause even more moral damage than normal artillery and can quickly shatter the enemy rats.

*'''Tzeentch''': Flamers, Flamers, Flamers, bring Jezzails and take them off the field as fast as possbile, bring strong magic to blast through barriers and resistances and bring Rat Ogres and other mobile units, making sure Tzeentch never has the option to put up his barriers after the first engagement is critical.

*'''Vampire Coast''': Free fodder for your Ratlings. No really. You have the best ranged arsenal in the game at your disposal, it has better range than anything on foot the Vampire Coast fields and the Vampirates are also very slow. While many of their units cause Fear and Terror, if any unit reaches your frontline, you're playing Skaven very, very wrong. Get Ratling Guns, some Warplock Jezzails against the big stuff. Clanrats should do well enough against their frontline barring Depth Guard. Keep an eye out for Mournghuls; they have stalk, vanguard deployment, and move surprisingly fast for creatures with no legs. And if they do manage to hit your lines they have enough regeneration and anti-infantry damage to rip straight through your chaff and devour the big guns you were protecting.

*'''Vampire Counts''': The mobility of the Counts makes large gunlines and artillery a dangerous proposition, since Vargheists and Terrorgheists care very little about what may be going on on the ground and you can cast Howling Warpgale only so often. Luckily for you, the Twisted and Twilight happened and brought with it a scary arsenal of mutated horrors that match those of the Vampires. This is one of the few matchups where Stormvermin and Plague Monks can truly shine, as the Vampires Skeleton Hordes and Zombies stand no chance against them and Halberds have little trouble to come out on top against Black Knights, Blood Knights, and the like. Stormvermins better morale also helps out against the Fear every unit of the Counts cause. The occasional Chieftain and/or Mutant Rat Ogre helps a lot of with the Vampire Lords themselves, especially when the Chieftain sits on a Bonecrusher. You might also want to bring a Warlock Master for magic damage against Mortis Engines and/or Hexwraiths.

*'''Wood Elves''': Wood Elves are... complicated for you to deal with. In a straight ranged duel, you have the advantage; though they have very powerful and flexible archers, they lack any and all artillery to contest yours. Warplightning Cannons are great for sniping the giant, slow-moving Treemen and the Plagueclaw Catapults will chunk any of their infantry quite quickly. A combination of Ratling Gunners and Warplock Jezzails will deal terrible damage to a significant majority of their infantry as they get in range, though once they get ''too'' close you will start to have problems. As a glass-cannon faction, Wood Elves melee infantry can butcher vast swathes of your infantry at record speeds and are fast enough that kiting them will prove difficult even in ideal terrain. Death Runners and Wolf Rats are your best melee infantry unit against the unarmored Elves, though they'll evaporate against War Dancers and Wildwood Rangers. Units like your Rat Ogres, Hellpit Abominations and Doom-Flayers will kill virtually any Elf-thing you point them at, but the abundance of spear units in their front line will still deal not insignificant damage to them in the process. Beware their Great Eagles and cavalry; they're extremely fast and can effortlessly flank your units to get at your vulnerable ranged back line. Keep a few units of Stormvermin in reserve to block these charges.

==Campaign Strategies==

===General Advice===

*'''Keep an eye on your food level:''' If you're lacking food, raid your neighbours and fight as many battles as you can... without losing. Don't overuse Menace Below or taking a settlement at a higher level. The latter in particular eats a LOT of food, and the debuffs from being at low food levels (and the lack of buffs from being at high levels) may well cancel out the benefits of starting a settlement at a higher level, plus you may not even have the money to fill all the building slots you unlocked early. Skaven generally grow very fast anyway.

*'''Secure nonaggression pacts where you can:''' Skaven have an incredibly weak early game (ME Skryre arguably excepted), with Eshin especially lacking effective access to a lot of powerful units until you can get your clan reputations up. If you have potential opponents on multiple fronts, play the rat game: secure a nonaggression pact with one, take over the other, then stab the first in the back later. Otherwise, YOU may be the one getting stabbed in the back while you're busy cleaning up one of them.

*'''Play dirty:''' Abuse ambushes (Ancient Cunning in the blue skill tree is amazing and you should get it for every lord), manipulate other factions with diplomatic treaties that you break when it's convenient for you, troll enemy armies that can't use the Underway by tunneling across a mountain range... in general, don't play fair, or you're not a real rat. Everyone hates you anyway, so it's only fair you hate them right back.

===Campaign Specific Advice===

===Mors===

*'''Befriend Numas:''' This Tomb King faction is directly to the west of your starting location in ME, and they usually won't get wiped out for quite some time to come - so becoming friends with them means you will have one less flank to worry about for a while at least. Plus, as Tomb King opinion of you ''increases'' instead of decreasing as your empire level goes up, they'll be all too happy to trade and help out your weak early economy once you start taking a few settlements. An alliance might not be the best idea though, as Daddy Settra may shoot you dirty looks over it (assuming he doesn't get wiped early).

*'''Secure the mountain range:''' Push south afterwards and take the mountains from the greenskins and dawi holding it. With Thorek having been added recently, this became a bit harder, but also more rewarding, as his defeat trait gives the defeating lord more AP damage for '''his entire army''', which makes subsequent battles with the stunties MUCH easier.

*'''Clanrats are your friend:''' Don't underestimate these little buggers. Unless you're playing on higher difficulties, filling an entire army with Clanrats with 2-3 Chieftains backing them up is a surprisingly viable tactic, and Queek can buff them quite heavily - and with your Clanstone, you get lots of extra AP damage to get through dawi armour. Make sure to take the red lord skill that buffs them if you go for this, as well as rushing the upgrades in the top left of the tech tree.

* '''Immortal empires''' In immortal empires you start 1 region away from skarbrand. not province, REGION. prepare for assrape. more seriously rush walls as quick as you can and expand towards lybaras and kroq-gar as you don't have ANY options to counter khorne's basic bloodletters until tier 3 and 4.

===Pestilens===

*'''Don't forget about plagues:''' With other rat factions, plagues are more of an unfunny gimmick as they can backfire on you quite heavily, but this is not a worry with Pestilens as they are even ''buffed'' by catching plagues. And this is almost a necessity against the lizards you fight in early game, as it will be very difficult to grind through Saurus otherwise until you get weapon teams. Plan out your offensives alongside plagues if you can.
*'''Take it slow:''' You are surrounded by enemies on all fronts. Itza is ready to come knocking at any moment, Teclis may decide he needs some rat slippers, and that is just the tip of it. Be ready to be attacked by anything, and everyone at any point.
*'''Undercites are extra useful'''* Besides the general uses, Clan Pestilens as a unique undercity building that spreads an endless plague so as long as the undercity remains undiscovered. This can allow you to easily screw over entire provinces and buff your own. Using this on the city of Itza can make life much easier.

===Skryre===

*'''Just do it:''' In Mortal Empires at least, this is one of the easiest starts in the game. Skavenblight has a capital-tier garrison on its own, on top of costing a lot of movement to reach and causing attrition to most of your enemies. Just expand in whatever direction you please, honestly - going west and north into Estalia and then Bretonnia is the most common move, but you may need to deal with Khazrak on the way. Going east and taking Tilea may also be worth it as it's a very profitable province - just be wary as you may need to fight Belegar and the asrai if you do.
*'''Unite with important clans:''' Ikit's starting position, in Mortal Empires at least, is very convenient in the sense that it shouldn't take too long to reach other major clans to establish alliances(and confederations later). This can be achieved rather easily by hiring assassins and sending them out to whichever clan you need. Be warned tho, due to starting positions on the map, clan Pestilence and Riktus end up being destroyed around 15-20 rounds into the game. Sending the warlock engineer, that you get at the start, to seek out one of those clans (Preferably Pestilence) to establish relations early and bribing them into confederation can serve you well in the long run. Clan Moulder is a bit on the opposite, in terms of confederation timing. Due to some unfixed bug, if you confederate their faction '''before''' Throt reaches rank 5 and completes his "Whip of Domination" quest, completing this quest as only other faction will result in Ghoritch spawing as a member of the clan you've already confederated, without the ability to take him in.
*'''The more engineers the better:''' bonuses provided to your weapon squads by warlock engineers '''stack'''! Don't hesitate to hire several for an army, if you aim on using more than a few weapon teams. One of the best formations for Ikit due to his discounts is 1/4 engineers, 2/4 weapon teams and 1/4 meat shield. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7WnhDvGh-Y While one can go as far as filling their entire squad with engineers], you're very likely to end up in a battle you simply can't win.

===Rictus===

*'''Everyone hates you:''' To an even greater degree than other rat campaigns. In addition, your starting settlement is nowhere near as defensible, and you have Malekith/Hellebron in the north as well as Alith Anar and the Sisters of Twilight expanding from the south. The rule about nonaggression pacts applies double here - secure whatever flank you can, then expand in whatever direction you're left with. Yes, you get a Public Order boost for breaking treaties, but this is a stupid gimmick that does nothing but bait you into unfavourable situations.

===Eshin===

*'''Skirmish tactics out the ass:''' Both in Total Warhammer II and III, you start out surrounded by factions (High elves and Dark elves in TW2) (Dark Elves, Cathay and Ogres in TW3) that will absolutely trounce you in melee. However, because Clan Eshin is able to construct its military building at Tier 1 (Every other skaven faction need at least Tier 2 settlement to construct it), you're pretty much encouraged to hire Night Runners and Gutter Runners. The only thing they have that can catch your infantry is cavalry or monsters - if that happens, just let them eat whatever regiment they focus on while you keep skirmishing with the others. To avoid this happening, hire Eshin Triads that are available from "Den of Secrets" building (Tier 3). Remember, all rats are expendable.

*'''Do clan missions whenever they are available:''' Getting your reputations up is absolutely critical, as not only does this make it much easier to confederate, but it also gives you powerful campaign map bonuses (like each of your armies producing food for maxing Pestilens reputation), but they are ''always'' a net reputation gain unless the reputation you'd gain is maxed out already. You can recruit 1-2 Master Assassin lords and then disband them right after recruitment - they can be used to perform clan missions, but they don't need to be on the map to do so, and while they are in the pool and not on the map, they don't even cost you anything.

===Moulder===

*'''Packmasters are essential:''' Having a packmaster in an army that has moulder units is a good addition, but for a factions that specializes in them, packmaster is a must have. While, by themselves, they are a comparatively weak unit with bonuses against anti-large, the skills they can accumulate with experience make them worth while. Right out of the gate, their passive perk "Running with the Pack" provides small regeneration up for to 3 moulder units, that are currently fighting. Around 5 levels in, they can unlock “Tide of Death” and “Tide of Pox” skills, which gives them an ability to summon a pack of wolf rats with AP and a pack of poison wolf rats once per battle. Both skills can be leveled up again to gain another stack for each. Somewhere around level 13, they can unlock skills to decrease upkeep and increase replenishment rate for moulder units. At level 16 they get a brood horror mount, which makes them a great combatant, due to passive regeneration, speed and health pool provided by said mount. Last, but not least, with enough points invested in their combat skill tree, they can unlock "Shock Collar" ability which gives a +24 Melee attack and a +16 Leadership boost as well as "Immune to psychology" perk for a limited time to any moulder unit including themselves (provided they have a brood horror mount)

*'''Purchase mutagen upgrades early:''' There are several mutagen upgrades in the moulder lab, that give you several random mutations of the specific tier. A nice upgrade indeed, but to make use of it, one must have those preferred mutations unlocked by applying them to any squad/monster at least once. Don't hesitate to mutate your favorite monsters in early game, since mutagen accumulates rather quickly with frequent battles. In addition to that, a special upgrade can be purchased, that applies mutations to any skavenslaves squad purchased with a drawback of being unable to recycle them if they come out faulty.

*'''Don't hoard mutagen:''' Unlike warp fuel from Ikit campaign, mutagen is generated at a somewhat stable rate. However, one cannot stock up more than a 100 points of it. Otherwise, anything beyond that cap will start deteriorate, if left unused. While the storage capacity can be doubled with an upgrade, it won't be available until somewhere mid game.

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