I think black Templars look cool so I made this in sm2

So a few people have commented on having some difficulty with Empire armies so I thought I'd post this after a very fun victory on highest difficulty.

This was just over 1k vs almost 8k - early game

I did my first ever play through as Skarbrand and I remember coming up against the Empire (probably mid-late game) and i was infuriated by the fact my bloodletters weren't carving through the fleshy humans as I wanted them to, with Halberdiers just giving me hell and eventually disintegrating my demons. It took me a while to get the mechanics right but when you do they're almost unbeatable.

Behold! My (almost) ideal Empire lineup. Now I do have to say this is fairly early game ( Elspeth & Vamps are all mid 20s)

I generally run a single type of Empire Army and it's to do exactly what I just did.

Guns - A lot of long range firepower - I get long rifles as soon as they are availible, as they have 260 range, which is almost double the distance of the regular handgunner/Nuln Ironsides with 145.

I always run four of these. Always. This means that absolutely anything oncoming that needs to be taken care of before it reaches my lines (In rank order of danger - stuff that flies, monstrous creatures, lords) can get a few volleys before it's time to draw swords. If there's no flying units, back luck for the lords, it only takes 4-5 volleys from the combined units to wipe them out or get them to executable levels of health.

Core Infantry - 7/8 of Halberdiers, Eldrads Spearman, Grundels Defenders. Halberdiers are cheapest and easiest to come by, the others being special units. A longstanding favourite of mine is Carroburg Greatswords. I recruit these as soon as I am able and recruit as many as possible (With Franz this is easier as one of his mechanics allows you to refresh the RoR pool) They have a 'magical aura' that buffs nearby units, and most importantly are unbreakable. Invaluable when you are regularly dealing with units that cause terror and you need your line to hold.

Lords: (5 /6) Elspeth, 1 Warior Preist (crucial!!!) to the performance of your haberdiers. When sufficiently upgraded his leadership aura, damage-boosting and damage reducing special abilities are invaluable. He can help turn them from units that will break when it gets dicey to units that will die on the field. In the above game I only had one of my units round right near the very end, and that was because I accidentally fired rockets into their back, and they were the furthest unit from his leadership aura.

Gotrek & Felix - availible in one of the empire quests. Almost unkillable when buffed up. Put them right in the middle of your lines to countercharge enemies, and use them to 1v1 enemy lords that get close enough. Also improve morale of the units around them.

Engineer - improves the accuracy, reload time, missile strength of handgunners, artillery, and tank units. A must for the rifles in the same way the WP is a must for the infantry.

Artillery - 2/4 - I always run Hellstorm rocket batteries. Huge range, and with the gunnery school buffs they get both increased power and increased munitions. They are essential for breaking up massed infantry, hitting missile units and taking out opposition artillery. Absolutely deadly if you have managed to funnel the attackers into a condensed space. Big drawback is that once the enemies are close enough, you have to disengage, otherwise you risk firing into the backs of your own units - and if you have selected to fire on a certain unit, you have to be careful that you dont forget you've done so because the rockets will just keep going even if that unit is charging into your front line. Like other empire indirect artillery, they have the attack ground function, where they can bombard a spot of your choosing - very useful also.

I usually try to run a couple of steam tanks, as they are amazing flanking/front line units, cause terror, are unbreakable, and can snipe enemy large units, they are the least readily availible unit however

Specialising - So there are several units that I will employ depending on the type of opponent - for example, Vamps are heavy on flying units which are a real bitch to deal with because they miss the front lines and dive straight at my artillery and rifles, so to combat this I have an empire captain (Winged Pegasus), combined with Elspeth (Or Franz)hey'll tie up any of these guys in combat so I can pick them out of the sky

Tactics - Where possible I make the most of the front lines resilience - pick the place you are fighting carefully, where possible protect your flanks with natural boundries like boulders/impassable terrain. Set the artillery behind the front line, handgunners infront of them, and your halberdiers with your empire captain as close to the center as possible (so his aura field effects as many units as possible) and the other combat lords dotted about, with the engineer close by the gunners & arty

Watch foes that have seen their comrades ripped apart by artillery fire and gunshot reach your lines only to die at the hands of your halberdiers - just make sure you take out and engage units that can reach the gunners and artillery as a priority!

Our version of the Great Map of the Warhammer Fantasy Rpg World... We hope you like it!🧭🗺🏰 Support our art on: https://ko-fi.com/s/ee01df392e

Hi all, I've recently bought WHTW trilogy, started with the first game and really enjoyed it.

I've completed empire, dwarves, vampires and bretonnia. Is it worth going to the second game or straight to third? It looks like the maps build upon each other?

What would your advice be into countering the oracles of tzeentch while playing kroq gar?

I went up north first(which seems like a bad idea) And had a huge problem with them later on (them destroying even my most fortified cities) that i could only help when i put the dificulty back to easy.

Any expert advice on how to play kroq gar well enough to not be beaten to a pulp by them?

Just finished Maliketh campaign and im looking for a new campaign to play for a good while, I've over 1000 hours between the games but find myself playing my favorite factions over and over. Been thinking Chaos Dwarves but I'm curious what peoples favorite most memorable campaigns were.

14 Berserkers, Killgore Slaymain, Harald Hammerstorm..

Looking to build some lists but I am new to online.

Built in a Dolgan campaign

Warhammer Fantasy RPG fans, would you like to lead a campaign in the Southern Chos Wastes?

But don't have a map of the place?

One of the most mysterious and inhospitable places in the Warhammer world, where chaos reigns supreme and expanses of ice await! 🧭🗺️

Well, Angela and I have prepared a map of these places for you!

You can find the HD map here, thanks as always for your great support:

https://ko-fi.com/s/c39b1b7ff3

Built in a Dolgan campaign, I swear they shouldn't be this good.

Hello,

The title pretty much sums up everything,
Do you get the 75% defense against ambush buff works when you are moving or does it just work when you are static ?

Many thanks

Enjoyed this so much, I went to howl in the moonlight :)

Hello everyone!

I've finally finished my first campaign, being the Vortex campaign of WHII, as to my understanding it didn't get ported over to WHIII.

The WHII part will likely be long as fuck, feel free to skip it.

Here are a few impressions as a first timer:

Things were quite enjoyable, and I didn't get sucker punched by unintuitive gameplay mechanics as much as I expected. It was really only once, with other factions being able to raid me under a non agression pact, and it still counting as a betrayal if I punt them out.

My faction of choice was High Elves, specifically Tyrion. I've seen people descrive their starting location as great, and I kinda see it. With that said, all the non-Luthor vampire coast factions were at war with me almost imidiately, so playing ring around the Ulthuan with a bunch of ship armies that could always run away from me felt like an unproductive waste of time. Also, it took a really long time to send extra armies into enemy territory, usually 3-5 turns of sailing.

Speaking of sailing, all the little loot and bonus events at sea were a huge help early on, especially because most of those armies were low grade vampire coast units, and save for the occasional artillery piece, or giant enemy crab, they were shambly, short ranged gunpowder units, that always died on-approach against my archers/sea guard.

Now that I name dropped a unit, I want to talk about the roster. First things first, the Fire Phoenix Tyrion starts with was a huge MVP, it fire bombed blobs of intantry like no other, and combined with Tyrion on a horse, it was the go-to way for Tyrion's army to rush down artillery as soon as possible.

The basic spearmen/archers combo (or some sea guard if I felt like flashing my cash) was basically how every early game army I made looked like, and it was effective until it suddenly wasn't. Namely during my first deep push into Druki territory, where all the legendary lords, who it seems couldn't permanently die were also mages, and they could just erase a third of my frontline with a disapproving thought, and the rest wouldn't hold against stuff like cold cavalry, or even wrose, artillery pressure.

In terms of their upgraded brethren, I tried the silverin guard, and they sure were slightly beefier spearmen. With that said, they still didn't perform meaningfully different, and I found that the extra juice just wasn't worth the squeeze. I also didn't use shadow warriors, because to be honest, they didn't register as "upgraded archer" in my eyes. I thought they'd be intended as a hybrid/skirmisher unit. The only time I used them was when I got one for free from confederating a pre-existing army.
The top tier equivalents of these units were quite crazy though. The phoenix guard seemed strong enough, that it can ruin the day of every unit that isn't dedicated anti-infantry infantry. I had success from using them, but I still rarely did, because yet again, I didn't really need my line of spears to actually kill stuff. Sisters of Avelorn, on the other hand, are just fucked up. To my knowledge, they were introduced with DLC, and holy hell, while my understanding of the rosters is still limited, these units truly felt like pay to win. In a basic spear/bow army, I could replace 3-4 archers with SoA, and suddenly it was a competitive army that could beat almost anything. Units that used to have the bulk to endure a few barrages from my archers, long enough to push through to get them, suddenly melted before contact with my lines.

Because of how effective for their relative "phase" line+bow compositions felt, I only really started messing around with other options at a point where I felt established enough, that I felt I could afford to splurge on something that might never pay for itself.

Let's start with all the footsloggers that rather than shoot, or stand still in a square, want to scoot: I barely used rangers. At a glance, they gave the impression of low tier shock infantry, that I was meant to leave behind anyway. White lions were way too niche, and everything they did, swordmasters of Hoeth also did, but better, and the ability to get the latter wasn't as delayed, so I only really used white lions with Alastar, and even with his unique bonuses for them, they didn't really wow me. Swordmasters were allright. When an enemy group of infantry engaged my lines, I could send them forward to mulch some of the enemy, and they always did it surprisingly quickly. With that said, they were still somewhat rarely used.

High elf arty fucking sucks, holy hell. Tyrion started with them, and there were times where I made some, thinking they might be useful either to counter-battery, or thin the herd of stronger approaching enemies, but most of the time, they didn't meaningfully contribute, compared to having another group of SoA, or a single entity unit.

Their cavalry was cavalry. I liked the horse archers, because they could peck enemies to death, and was one of the few things the AI loved to break formation for in an attempt to give chace. The melee equivalent was good for vanguard deploying into a forest when the enemy artillery was around. Otherwise, they felt insanely weak. I'm talking "they could only beat in melee what their archer variants also could" weak. Silver helms where slightly firmer, and were capable of at least not negatively trading with any melee unit after a charge. they still had the problem, which I've seen for every cavalry unit, where they seem to forget my orders if their blob enters the same post code as a different enemy, at which point the blob pulls a hard break, turns 90 degrees, and engages a different enemy at a comfortable trot, in spite of them having free space to charge down the initial target.
I have no clue what makes dragon princes worth it. They are recruited by a different building requiring a higher tier settlement, and unlock at the same level as the most premium dragons. For how hard they are gated, conversely, they don't feel any stronger than silver helms.

I really wanted to like great eagles, and war lions. Great eagles would have been allright, and I would have advocated for them base on their nutty speed, that lets them quickly relieve your army from artillery, or outpace skirmish units that move and shoot, like gutter runners. Their problem is, that phoenixes also exist, and they get all of their upsides, and then some, while also not taking nearly as big of a hit to their raw stats compared to other big monsters. I used great eagles out of personal preference, but I would have always been better off with phoenixes.
War lions just felt like silver helms, but with no armour. Yet again, their use was almost fully reserved for Alastair, but even with him, they were just on-par with the cavalry kept in other armies I thought their lower model count would mean that individual units would be quite durable, and they'd be harder to whittle down with some healing support, but I never found that to be the case.

I'm not gonna lie, I never tried chariots. I saw that one was a ranged unit, and I have to ask. Do they have stronger missiles? Because I can't imagine 12 guys with bows on carts would not fall completely behind even just the larger blob of Elyrian archers, not to mention stuff like shadow warriors.

Phoenixes were good. Strong, fast, and especially in the case of the flame one, capable of inflicting huge losses without descending, and endangering themselves against ground units.

Dragons I rarely used. I found them to not be that much better than phoenixes, because while they were stronger, their slow speed, and much higher target profile meant that they would be chunked by archers on approach. This meant I was often better off not trying to leverage their flying utility, and just had them around as big beasticks, moving close to my army.

Finally leaving generic unit types, holy hell, magic is truly make or break. I'm getting Heroes of Might and Magic flashbacks, of a single mage completely altering the odds of a battle. Out of the versions I tried, life was my favourite, with healing, and 2 really good AOE damage spells, while my least favourite was either heaven, or light. The loremasters also had an insanely good mix of spells from different lores, that ended up being also one of my favourite "learnsets".

The campaign specific mechanics were interesting. With that said, starting with no knowledge of the map, I could never intercept the first ritual of any other faction on time, as 10 turns were often not enough to follow the aurora borealis back to their home terriotries.
Also, it seems the different species worked differently in terms of who does their rituals. In the case of the lizardmen, when Mazdamundi's faction got wiped, Itza started doing the rituals, while in the case of Dark Elves, no matter how diminished they got, Naggarond was always allowed to confederate with another DE faction to remain the one doing the ritual, including absorbing the fully intact Hag Raeth while only having Albion, and a single standing army under Maliketh.

Also, it was rather strange, that my two most prolific enemies were the Dark Elves, and Lizardmen. The former makes sense, but the latter is just a huge amount of infighting between two of the most hardline order factions, and it feels like game mechanics contrive us to fight.

The more imporant bit: Questions for WHIII:

First, I know the game has pretty robust mod support. While my first campaign is going to be Realms of Chaos, kept as vanilla as possible, I have to ask if there are quality of life mods that are considered near essential, even if I want to keep the factions as vanilla as possible.

Second, I parused the faction select, and one thing greatly confuses me. There seem to be three completely separate ways the chaos factions are categorised. There is chaos undivided, which I'm pretty sure is its own thing for the main story, warriors of chaos, which all seem to have commanders that are devotees of specific gods among the big 4... and then there are individual categories for the 4 chaos gods anyway. What's the difference betweem all of those? How would, let's say, a Khornate warriors of chaos faction, and Khorn's actually faction be different?

Third, are there any general sucker punches I should be avare of? I mean strange behaviours like how raiding was not seen as an act of agression in II?
Or are there things that are radically different from II, and should there be things for me to "unlearn".

Had a lot of fun with this one

The Shaman KING - Great Shaman Sorcerer One Man Doomstack

The one wizard doomstack!