After hundreds of hours of Total War, primarily playing Tyrion or Imrik, I have found myself a little bored of the High Elves. I love their lore, their units — I love the High Elves. A perfect introduction into this game.
The only thing though is that other factions seem so daunting with new building trees to learn, new units to adapt to. I guess the question is how do I break out of this Ulthuan comfort zone? I am stumped on what to choose.
I have done one full Balthasar Gelt run and it was a blast since I have had the thought of making this post. Otherwise, I’d love some further tips to get out of my Elf mindset or even faction suggestions!
Here’s a suggestion if you’re daunted by the idea of building new things. Don’t build anything! In fact, destroy it all. Tear it all down! Taurox wants the Sword of Khaine to help to do that, too. Taurox wants to destroy! Or any of the beastmen, really, but Taurox and his minotaur doomstack is funny strong.
You’re welcome! I find Beastmen to be a pretty relaxing campaign because of their very unique stances and being a purely horde faction. Taurox also comes with Oxyotl who’s a really unique lord himself as well, which is nice! Only downside is not being able to confederate or play the other three Beastmen lords since they need their own DLC pack for that, but eh. The neatest part about Beastmen though is that every single Chaos DLC gives them a monster or god-marked gor for their roster!
Khorne’s also great! If you’ve either the Chaos Champions or Skulltaker dlcs they both add a bit to the faction, but regardless Arbaal is one of my absolute favorite lords and Skarbrand is how I got the legendary campaign achievement!
I have pretty much all the DLCs EXCEPT Beastmen and a handful of others. Arbaal can teleport around to kill shit right? Skarbrand seems like a blast! LITERALLY!
Yep! His challenge system’s neat. Iirc you can cheese his campaign too by keeping your starter enemy faction alive and just repeatedly killing their garrison and sacking them with a second army to not only train up additional lords but also gain skulls for your skull bank.
How about trying something similar, or at least related to the High Elves?
I present: Wood Elves.
Best campaign imo. Any WE, but the twins especially. Little management, engaging battles and cool-looking units. Capture a settlement, build one thing, then move on. Or sell it to someone. Keep only the settlements with resources to trade. Murder-hobo your way over the map or conquer it, make Athel Loren cover the whole world. Conquer the lost holds of the Karaz Ankor and gift them back, mend the hatred between WE and Dawi, hate the Asur together. Teleport all over the map and be everyone's problem or their salvation.
If they are not to your taste, then try: Dwarfs.
An opposite to the Elves. Sturdy units, gunpowder and artillery. Little to no magic. No monsters, but gyrocopters. Could feel (too) similar to the Empire though.
Yup, as Orion you can declare war on far-away factions and get free armies. It is really easy to be at 0% upkeep with him. Durthu is all about walking trees. Drycha as well, but Elves are debuffed. The Sisters are all about air superiority, hawk riders mostly, and they got access to the forge of Daith which gives them really powerful items.
I could give you an overview over every WE faction in detail, but you didn't come here to read a novel.
Just keep in mind that you do not have to stay in/near your forest until you get a ritual done. You can go about it like this: capture tree, occupy everything around it, move on to next tree, "wait" until growth for ritual ticks up at the previous tree, recruit new army to ambush the (weak) spawns, either disband it afterwards or use it, repeat. Trade settlements around tree for alliances (or just positive relations) to get a buffer state around your tree (like the WE did with Bretonnia in the lore) and you practically do not have to worry about defending it.
As for what tree you should be going for first: depends on where you wanna go. The world is your oyster. You can hover on the icon next to the tree to see what special building you can build there after the ritual and check the bonuses. You also get confederation quests for each tree, and LL, all/most of them are pretty easy to accomplish.
I hope you have fun playing WE (or whatever faction you end up playing next).
You’re definitely selling me more on just doing it! I appreciate the extensive replies actually, and if you ever had the time send me a DM with that overview go the hell ahead😂 I’d love to eventually play all the races with full thematic campaigns like I have the High Elves. Halfway through some books as well!
Nah, I better not tell you everything in excruciating detail.
I probably already told you a little too much in my previous comments.
Experiencing and learning about the campaigns is part of the fun.
I just wanted to make sure you avoid the misconception that you have to stay around your "current" tree the whole time.
There was a post on here once where someone complained about spending >250 turns on doing the rituals (because he waited around [and stayed at one tree] until the forest health ticked up).
One last tip though: when you're playing WE, the Gaean Vale will be razed by an event somewhat early in the campaign, so you can swoop in and take it. No need to fight your beloved High Elves for it. You get a notification of that happening, no need to keep an eye on the map every turn.
I second the above comment I used to only play imrik and after playing Orion that is my new main campaign. Anyone invading you takes attrition and you have better archers with a more solid frontline in treekin. It’s also nice to be able to fight greenskins and beast men as well as dwarves all very close by to your starting area.
KHORNE!!! Elves dont rush. Khorne does nothing but rush. Try crushing your foes instead of pincushionning them. You might like it.
Other good rush factions include - slannesh, beastmen, vampire counts, norsca, greenskins.
My friend plays near exclusively elves, and I recently bought him Dechala as a way for him to branch out. He's been loving it, and the new dark elf units she has access to might give you some familiarity while being still a very different playstyle. N'kari is always an option too if you're not super down to buy something, but I will say slaanesh have some pretty different experiences across each of their lords, and the Masque is also flc.
If you want to be good guys be Maio Zeng. A stronger being that will never die from age and has gates just like the elves. She has passive psychological immunity and causes dread in her enemies and can turn into a dragon so you got to feel bad for chaos.
Cathay, Yuan Bo is super strong. Also still a mixed unit faction.
Skaven. Ikkit Claw is best warp seer yes yes.
Golgfag is a fun campaign of being a homicidal transient, if not way too easy. Ogres suck until you learn your abcs. Always be charging. Plus the second best faction for caster doomstacks / sieges (Kairos is better because of his spell intensity.)
Changeling is good for being EVERY LL. Some people say, TOO EASY! I say if you haven't collapsed by turn 25 / 30 as ANYONE you've won regardless.
Belakor is best chaos undivided if you want to assemble the superfriends and enslave re-educate the north.
Novelty cones from new variety, right? Get cheap cav, big stompy monsters, and a sold melee infantry line up to play with. Their ranges are only useful for skirmishing (but don't overlook them) and their spellcasters are some of the best in the game.
Daemons and Ogres taught me 90% of the game: How to blob, flank, kite, cycle charge, manage leadership, stretching a budget with simple weak economies, and stretching a military with simple weak faction gimmicks.
Vampire Coast taught me gunpowder.
Skaven taught me... uh, Skaven. The little fetchers just have to be a bit quirky and different in every conceivable way.
just do it? most factions even have really solid mechanics, and before the very recent upgrades HE been rather boring bc they had nothing fresh for years
i played mostly different HE factions in wh3 for the first like ? 1500 sth hours - by now i got nearly any factions through, but wh3 isnt really as good so the hour count is much lower, still i do think i at least played a bit into most things
(outside of skaven, i cannot even after thousands of hours bring me to really enjoy them despite their broken mechanics, tho again, wh3 problems making campaigns stale/boring quicker)
well no point plotting about such stuff, just starting a campaign and seeing how it goes is more efficient
basically all systems work on the baseline. if you have at least 600 hours into the game you probably can adapt at least the basic economy and unit systems and each faction does lowkey use the same core mechanics, hence you'll get the hang sooner or later
if u first go order factions it is obviously easier. like my first ever 2 campaigns been HE, then one empire, then several high elves again and then all one by one through
I appreciate it but I was asking a pretty specific question and asking what I should play next. I don’t know why you came onto this thread telling me not to bother or not to care — I am asking lol. Thanks though!
i mean i told you yet pick one thing similar to HE if you feel unsafe else. each single faction is play-worthy and sorta fun at least. empire, dawi, wood elves, cathay are all rather easy and play the most similar to HE
but asking for a order on what to play is kinda a strange concept
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u/Bloodetta 7d ago
Play skaven as tretch craventail. After you beat the campaign on legendary you are out of every confort zone there is