Total War: Warhammer/Tactics

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

This article is a stub. You can help 1d4chan by expanding it

Welcome to the general tactics dump for Total War: Warhammer and it's sequels. Something to help with noobs and lower the bloat on the main page.

Basics

In many ways, Warhammer II plays like your standard Total War game. It features real time battles with an army of roughly 20 units max on each side. There will be at least two armies on the field and whoever is able to completely shatter the other side first wins.

Each army has it's own collection of Infantry, Missile troops, Cavalry, Artillery and Monsters to play with, each offering a different play style. For instance, Dwarfs offer a defensive solitary play style focused around heavily armored infantry and strong missiles where as the Beastmen are an aggressive hit and run faction designed to get in, hit the enemy and break leadership, then get away before the enemy can counterattack. The asymmetrical play style of the factions is a massive part of the appeal.

The battle maps also play a huge role in how battle play out. Some maps are heavily forested, meaning missile heavy armies may struggle due to increased cover for the enemy. On the flip side, some maps have a lot of water, debuffing units unless they have the aquatic trait. It is smart to take a look at your terrains before you plan how you're gonna win.

If you play tanked multiplayer, there will be a limit to how many of a certain kind of unit you can bring, mainly to stop you from missile kiting your enemies to death with a mass horse archer spam. As such, focusing on what you might need for the match up is key.

Units

Every faction has a mix of different kinds of units. While they are all different, they each fall under one of these categories.

• Lords: The generals of your army and your most important unit. He can buff leadership and other stats and usually tends to be a beast in combat either through melee or magic. Problem is that if they die, the whole army suffers for it so you have to protect this man. You can also only bring one.
• Heroes: Your secondary leaders, usually coming in both melee and mage form. Not as much as a badass as your lord, but are usually cheaper and you can bring more than one.
• Melee Infantry: Simply put, the foot boys you are throwing into melee. These infantry tend to be slow but also tend to be pretty good at holding the line and dealing damage in prolonged melee compared to missiles and cavalry. Their job is usually to engage the enemy front line and either hold long enough for your other elements to do their job, or break through and begins pouring into the enemy backline.
  • Swords: Generally tend to be more DPS focused. If you are buying sword infantry, you get them because you want them to deal damage to the enemy frontline.
  • Spears: Your more defensive option. Not as good at killing things, but better at holding the line than swords. They also usually come with an anti large bonus, meaning they do more damage when fighting bigger targets.
  • Great Weapons: Infantry that usually carry two handed weapons like great swords and great axes. They tend to have majority AP damage, so they do more damage than normal sword infantry, but also don't have shields so missiles are very effective against them. Most units with great weapons also tend to have a low attack speed, leaving them vulnerable against hordes.
  • Halberds: Great weapons for spears, really. Same thing with great weapons, trades a shield for more AP damage.
• Missile Troops: Your ranged boys. Good at dealing damage from a safe distance but generally suck in melee. They tend to come either with arc fire or line fire. Arc fire like archers can shoot over allied troops and don't need line of sight, but do less damage. Line of sight troops like guns tend to do way more damage, but need to actually see their enemy before they can shoot, so if allies or terrain is in the way, they might not get a shot in.
• Hounds: Technically, these units can be any kind of very fast, cheap melee cavalry and not just doggies but whatever. These cheap puppers are used to harass and interrupt Artillery crews, chase off routing units, chew on squishy casters and Heroes and sometimes take out a ranged infantry unit. They're not tough by any means of the word but they're fast and can hold a unit back in a few crucial moments. Some of them are specialized to the point where they can be used for other roles, like the Poisoned Warhounds that can charge into the backs of the enemy line to apply a rough debuff.
• Cavalry: Boys on horse (or other fun creature) back. Mobile and has high charge but tend to fall apart fast in prolong melee.
  • Shock Cavalry: Lance cavalry with loads of Charge Bonus but little in the way of defense; charge them into the sides and backs of the enemy, retreat after 10-15 seconds and repeat until the enemy is mashed, red pulp on the ground... Or crushed bones, or green shroom-mush or what-else. One of the reasons you bring Spears and Halberds is to keep these dudes away from your lines. They're also often decent at countering other Cavalry units.
  • Melee Cavalry: Rare mounted troops that excel in longer engagements (but not forever; they're still cavalry). They usually use Great Weapons, Halberds or Sword'n'Board. Almost never used alone; they're better at quickly engaging and messing with a line battle you're already engaging with with you troops.
  • Skirmish Cavalry: The deeply annoying yet totally crucial lighter cavalry. Skirmish Cavalry can fight in melee but usually work better as ranged, mobile units harassing the enemy's ranged units, counter enemy Skirmish Cav and shoot into the back of the enemy line.
• Chariots: Those sweet ones that swing low. Chariots are a bit rare and are used to break through enemy lines with impunity, cycle-charging like a maniac. They are dismantled very quickly in prolonged melee and tend to not do a lot of damage unless they're charging. One of the hardest type of unit to use properly because they need to be micro-managed at every turn.
• Monsters: A category that covers a bewildering amount of different units, every Monster does something different for the faction it's found in. Usually they are either infantry-slayers, monster/cavalry-eaters or huge battering rams meant to break up the enemy's line. Some monsters (like Giants) are cheap and cheerful units you can just throw into the enemy for a spell, while others (like the Dread Saurian) can easily eat up a fourth of your money in multiplayer matches. The only faction without access to a monster is the Dwarfs.
  • Monstrous Infantry: Monsters that generally come in a small units size and feature slow, relatively tanky monsters designed to help out in the front line. Here's a tip, do NOT throw them in alone, team them up with other infantry. That way the enemy units will have to split their damage across 2 different units instead of being able to focus your monsters down.
  • Monstrous Cavalry: Faster, harder hitting but also squishier than the infantry option, they are meant to be used a lot like cavalry. Use them as heavy flankers and for pure raw charge bonus and can even be decent in prolong melee. Their downside often comes in the form of cost, frailty and lower model count compared to most cav.
  • Single Entity Monsters: Big super monsters meant to be a gigantic problem for the enemy and generally have impressive stat lines along with a combination of fear and or terror. However these guys tend to be expensive and have a massive target that says "Shoot me" in very language in the Warhammer world, so use them wisely.
• Fliers: Your flying units, ranging from cheap fliers meant to bog down missiles and artillery to fucking dragons. Their edge is that since they can fly they can engage on their terms and you can get them anywhere in the battle they need to. Their downsides comes in needing breathing room to take off again and generally frailty. Even dragons aren't a unit that can stand being in melee for too long, so you got to micro them well.
• Artillery: Your good old catapults, bolt throwers, cannons or what ever crazy contraptions your race can bring to the table. Can lay down an absolute whooping from very long range, some being table to take down even the scariest monsters with fairly little problem. However, they are garbage in melee and are solitary, meaning they need protection more than just about any other unit type in the game.

Stats

Each unit in the game has a unit card, which shows the player what they are generally good and bad that. Noobs might be confused as to what the fuck all these words and numbers mean, so here is the breakdown!

• Health: Fairly simple, how much health the unit has. If the unit has more than one model per unit, you can divide the total health by the number of models to see how much health each model has.
• Armor: This stat helps mitigate damage coming at your unit. If they are hit by a missile or melee attack, a RNG roll goes off to see how much of the non AP damage goes through the unit's armor. The more armor the unit has, the less likely non AP damage is going to get through. More info on AP and non AP damage below.
  • Shield: If the unit has a shield, this is where it's factored in. Shields help block missile fire coming at you it comes in two (technically 3, but you never see gold shields outside of campaign buffs.) tiers. Bronze shields block 33% of missiles where are a silver shield block 55%. Keep in mind this only works on small arms fire and not artillery because a shield isn't gonna fucking save you from a cannon!
• Leadership: How much morale the unit has. The higher the number is, the less likely your unit is going to rout and run for the hills. If it reaches 100, the unit may as well be unbreakable.
• Speed: Fairly simple, the higher the number, the faster the unit.
• Melee Attack: This determines the likelihood of your attacks hitting the other unit. The higher the number, the more likely the attack is to hit against an enemy. This number is often rolled against the next number in this list.
• Melee Defense: Widely considered one of the most important stats in the game. Melee defense is the likelihood your unit has to block the attack of the other unit attacking it, causing it to sustain no damage. If you have a choice to buff either Melee Defense or armor, take Melee Defense. Because what's better than mitigating damage? Not taking damage at all!
• Weapon Strength: How much damage your attacks do. This stat tends to be split into multiple categories.
  • Weapon Damage: How much damage is going to be rolled against the enemy armor to see if it gets through or not. Generally if this makes up the majority of your Weapon Strength you want this unit fighting unarmored units.
  • Armor Piercing Damage: Or AP damage for short. If your attack get through the other unit's Melee Defense, this is the amount of damage that's going to get through no matter what. If the Weapon Strength is majority this, then you want these guys going up against heavily armored units to tear through them.
  • Anti Large Bonus: Damage that is not factored into the roll unless they are fighting something the size of a horse or bigger. If they have this stat, throw them against cav or monsters.
  • Anti Infantry Bonus: Same as Anti Large, only meant against infantry or smaller. If they have this stat, they are infantry blenders.
• Charge Bonus: How much additional damage the attack does if the unit charges. Note walking into an enemy unit is not the same as charging, you have to actually make an attack order against them.
• Ammunition: A stat unique to ranged units, and tells you how much ammo they have. If the unit has 20 ammunition, then they can make 20 shots before running out. This stat goes down as they shoot, allowing you to keep track of how many shots you have.
• Range: Simple enough, the higher the range the farther they can shoot.
• Missile Strength: The same as Weapon Strength, only this stat doesn't worry about Melee Defense. If it hits, it's doing damage. Also has all the subcategories of damage listed under Weapon Strength.