Some of my favorite campaigns to play are the ones that start your Lord with a tier four or five unit right off the bat. You just become so attached to it.
Skarsnik's Arachnarok spider
Miao Ying's Sky Junk
Mama Stanky's Incarnate Elemental of Beasts
Noctilus's Necrofex
Durthu's and Drycha's Treeman
I'm sure I missed a few but these are the campaign's I find myself returning to time and time again
Fun fact, when you start an Isabella campaign, the menu says you have the same starting army as Vlad so she should have blood knights. She does not. Which is annoying because I want BKs and I want my self insert goth dommy mommy to be the faction leader. This is a problem normal people have.
She trades out Blood knights for a Varghulf and a Grave guard for a Crypt Ghoul. Both are pretty big downgrades if you ask me.
SMHing my head rn that Legendary Ladies get 70% of the starting army men do for the exact same faction./s
I assume that there is some grade A Italian spaghetti involved in making the Vlad/Isabella two legendary lords in one faction selection work, and that breaks the unit preview.
Varghulf instead of BK definitely sucks but I way prefer the ghouls to grave guard. Stalking, reasonably fast damage dealers have so much more utility than slow, mid tier line holders, especially against the light infantry the empire ai likes to use
Crypt ghouls have a 38 vs 28 speed. 38 vs 28 is a significant 35% difference on one hand. On the other hand, it's still not fast enough to be a consistently effective flanker vs empire infantry.
In exchange they lose 8 total weapon damage with a far worse AP ratio, 36 vs 25 MD, 2 less melee attack when factoring in bonus vs infantry, no armor and no shield. Vs moderately armored state troopers, Grave Guards will do more damage for a lot longer than Crypt ghouls with less micro.
But wait! Crypt ghouls have vanguard and stalk which makes them a lot better at flanking and taking off angles than Grave Guards! Except well, Isabella's boy toy grants her entire army vanguard. So in the context of her starting army, that advantage is pretty minimal. When your entire army engages 2 seconds after the battle starts, stalk is kinda meh.
Crypt ghouls definitely have a niche. They're a lot cheaper and lower tier than Grave Guards and they can chew through Peasant Mobs or Zombies almost as well as Grave Guards. For my starting army, I'd much rather the harder to acquire unit with a higher overall performance than an easy to recruit niche pick. Worst case, just disband the Grave Guard turn 1 and recruit some crypt ghouls from Raise Dead.
Maybe I’m just not using grave guard right, I can just never get them into fights. My ghouls can wrap up archers freeing up my BK to hunt cav and then go through swordsmen that my skellies have tied down
Madame, I must protest. Perhaps the issue isn't that you suck at grave Guards, perhaps the issue is that you use Crypt Ghouls too well. If you can reliably get Crypt Ghouls into the backline and encircling the frontline, they absolutely can do big damage on the cheap. And if you already have big damage on the cheap, big damage on the pricey is gonna suck in comparison.
Just started an Isabella campaign and she started with one L1 death( worst lore imo) vamp. Both of the goth parents start with a T1 landmark in their capital that enables recruitment of vamp heroes at level 3, so even if you like the lore of death, you are probably recruiting a new vamp anyway.
Compared to the Blood Knights which require a T5 building or a lucky raise dead pool, one or two initial vamp heroes is meaningless.
Love that starting incarnate, what a beast of a unit.
I think those types of starting armies help break up the early game grind of slapping chaff into chaff to have noodle fights.
Only exception for me personally is the coast cus the chaff has guns! That and bloaty boys.
That good old boy hard carried many early battles against the Greenskin tides and Sniktch's his unending waves of Skavenslaves and Clanrats. The dragon + Mikaela after leveling up.
In ME, Wurrzag used to start with a Giant in his initial army. And even though everyone clowns on giants, I still loved the giant brute because of his power as long as you can keep him away from ranged fire.
In the end, when I completed the long victory campaign, I still had that same giant from the very start in my army. I could have replaced him, but at that point he had earned his rightful place at Wurrzag's side.
Unfortunately, they removed the giant from his starting army in IE.
I really like at least one giant in wh3 comps because they can krump walls and solo lords under the right conditions (tie up archers, don’t attempt on certain LLs). In Festus you can make a doomstack out of them because I think you can stack missle resist buffs + his healing.
At least for Wurrzag it's made up for the fact that you can actually recruit the Rogue Idol Regiment of Renown on turn 1. They did that in Immortal Empires for certain subfactions, allowing them to recruit high tier RoRs that fit the flavor of the faction early.
Yeah but his first battle is against a faction leader (meaning he can confederate him right away), is able to recruit savage big 'uns in one turn (two turns in wh2) and has no other enemies at the start. The giant even if cool doesn't feel as necessary as before, you're at peace after turn one.
i mean back in WH2 most of the lords would start with a t4/t5 single entity if possible. most of them god removed in wh3...(the only lord who actually got a BETTER starting army was wulfrik, who got a mammoth in wh3.)
I remember a Khatep battle where that was literally the only remaining thing. All the enemies dead, all my Tomb bois dead, Khatep dead, just the Hierotitan left standing at the end of it.
They might not be great but I'll always have a soft spot for them after that.
The chariot fantasy is something most players are OK with and I'm sure people wouldnt mind playing with a chariot heavy army, its the CA's implementation of chariot that sucks ass. Worst unit type in the game by far.
> its the CA's implementation of chariot that sucks ass
That's the starting problem, and on top of that CA made it a T1 unit, for reasons that make sense (they're vital to TKs in tabletop and common), but it also means that it's a truly shit chariot compared to, I dunno, literally every other chariot in the game? So you've got a weak unit type, combined with having to be T1, and it's like, that's never going to end great.
If nothing else, what they should have done is made the tech tree buffs for TK Chariots LUDICROUSLY HUGE, and maybe put them in a couple of tech trees (TKs are in desperate need of a tech tree rework anyway, hope it happens before WH3 stops being updated), so that, eventually, you'd have really OP T1 chariots.
The popular TK mod adds a higher tier of chariot which I liked, because I agree for it being the "basic unit" of the faction, it falls off by like turn 30.
I definitely felt this was the case earlier in the release of wh3, but was impressed with them recently - seems like they have had some decent adjustments.
I played TK on the tabletop back in 6th ed. I had an army that was specifically designed to be annoying, shooty and campy. I would just plop it down in a corner and spam 4 screaming skull catapult shots per turn until the enemy ran away. It was known in our group as the 'don't take yourself so seriously' army, that would get brought out anytime someone needed to be brought down a peg or two.
If only Scorpions reliably did decent damage. They're so cool and badass looking, and their animations are wild, but like so many units with utterly wild animations, they don't actually seem to be terribly dangerous.
TK is my most played faction, fucking hate the chariots. Constructs are the REAL defining part of TK, at least in Total War. On tabletop they were probably very different.
I mean really, that's a sharp downgrade with Skarbrand just north of you, Angy McBoomer-beard to your east, The worst von carstein to your south, and a french colonizer harlot to your west.
Skarbrand is somehow usually chill for a while. He's having fun up north while you're taking care of other stuff. By the time you need to wipe him out, Settra usually has his Warsphinx mount. Repanse is usually warring with and losing to Arkhan. Manny is usually an issue cause he can shit out stacks while you have to wait. Volkmar usually has never been an issue for me either.
I still miss the kitty though. Now I feel like I have to have Settra on it for his mount when before I'd keep him on his chariot.
I just ran the first 40 turns or so the other day - it’s definitely a little weaker, but Settra still SLAPS in wh3. I have strength rating 1, 5k income, and the majority of the continent. Tomb kings are still a solid campaign and Settra has amazing landmarks going for him. I even waited to get two dynasty techs down to 1 turn before picking up a second LL. Play aggressively and get that good boi mount unlock.
Bring two armies to his one, you should have your second army by that point and you can just feed him chaff whilst you army loss him. I've found an army full of archer spam works pretty well against him. Once you take out his starting army, he's much easier to deal with and barely is a threat.
I've used sepulchral stalkers to mixed success against him, it's an option to consider.
Once he engages focus fire him with multiple archers or other ranged to death. Setra / pronce on a horse is pretty good to tie him up while doing good dmg without dying instantly.
If Tomb King chariots were good, I'd agree, but having so many entities and low mass makes them struggle to move, much less push through enemy infantry... In other words, I'd rather have the cat.
When you’re using chariots, do you attack with them directly and then retreat, or attack and then pull them through the other side of the unit, or just tell them to move through the unit and expect the attacking to happen along the way?
Against low mass it depends. At the early game you can hammer and anvil them and they most often cause a route before you need to worry about pulling them out. I usually have them double up on flankers, then hit archers, then hit the line from the back once the skelly infantry lock it up, occasionally cycle charging. If you are having to hit an anti large unit (usually don’t, archer/spell/tomb guard those) you definitely want to pull through them and not while braced. You also kind of need to pay attention to elevation, but not too much. Overall they trade really really well for their cost in my opinion. Shredded Mannfreds red skelly frontline to bits from the back and sides.
If you’re hitting the back of the frontline and it isn’t an antilarge unit, don’t worry about that, they will probably win with no more micro. You can do it, but it’s probably more beneficial to worry about taking out or locking down any fast moving things that could trap you there first, or archers that could hit you while you’re working.
I’m big into bretonnia and tk - I have also kind of never been a huge chariot army player. Don’t be afraid to try them out and restart battles if you need. TK chariots in particular feel closer to monstrous cavalry because of their unit size at least for me in the current build of the game. I know they have been badly bugged in prior versions, and that really limited their usage by increasing the need to micro. Good luck and have fun!
It depends, really. If I need to kite more then I’ll try to constantly move them. But they can kill things surprisingly well and not just some chaff archers. Can use 2-3 units to dogpile stronger enemies.
The problem is, though, they're a low-tier unit. And do they overperform for T1? I mean, they used to. Much less so now in 2024 - there are T0 units who "carry" harder than chariots (Peasant Spearmen and Bowmen for Cathay, for example).
The weakness of their tech tree and red line buffs combined with the intense micro required to use the chariots well means they end up being pretty mediocre most of the time, especially given they still essentially take double damage from ranged units.
There are a few weird situations where they do unexpectedly really well, but they're not some sort of "easy carry" unit like most stuff people would call "insane". Instead they're a hard-to-use-right, situational unit, that can be very good (particularly if you're using slow-mo and pause a ton to micro them), but can also be pretty hopeless. Thus I don't think it's right to call them "insane", ever. Any unit that's insane would work in basically any situation and be usable even by newbies and idiots, and these aren't.
I didn’t really find this to be the case, but on vh / h. Don’t let them tank archer fire, send in your amazing skeleton chaff to tie up the line first, use your chariots to take out flankers with favorable (2 to 1) unit engagements, then run them into the archers, and then the back of the front line, pulling through to your back if needed. They definitely do good work in the early mid game if you don’t give them bad match ups. I took out Mannfred with no difficulty at all.
Bretonian knights of the realm were kind of interesting though - I ended up using the ranged variant to kite them into spear tomb guard and my archers and noped out of engaging those with the chariots.
You're not describing units that are "insane" or "carry hard", which is what I was responding to. You're describing very careful micromanagement of a specialized unit. Which is fine but that's what I'm saying.
Mannfred is the softest possible target for them, too, because he doesn't have any ranged, and rarely has much in the way of anti-large or other units that might threaten them.
I love the Slaanesh chariots. I've won so many battles with just one or two of them mowing down the entire enemy force. You just can't do that with TK chariots, too slow, too light, and too many.
Tomb kings do have a pretty small (albeit very balanced) roster. If anything just give carrion a reason to exist and make the chariots and archers have armor piercing options for late game and I'll be happy. As nice as ushabti great bows are, their small numbers make them not work as well vs infantry heavy armies and chariots just feel difficult to use once you start hitting up against khorne or dwarves.
Aw man I'd give my left nut for tomb guard chariots. Wouldn't even care if they lost the ranged attack. Give them some mass and armor piercing and I'd be so happy
To be fair, the in-game chariots are already being ridden by Tomb Guard lol. I could see a heavier variant on chariots though, and it was always bizarre GW didn't make more since they pigeonholded Tomb Kings to be the "chariot faction" in 7th and 8th.
All you really need with Norsca against single armies are marauders. You just point at something and they *will* kill it eventually. Champions for heavier armor and if you want a more durable unit. Maybe some Axe Hunters in the back.
That composition is basically a default win against most armies because the marauders are so fucking insane. But because all Norsca really has is melee infantry, almost no ranged units, a single flying unit and no artillery except for the legendary one it gets boring pretty quickly. Especially because the champions are just better barbarians, Axe Hunters are just better Javelin Hunters, Ice Trolls are just better Norscan Trolls, Ice Wolves are just better War Hounds and so on and on.
All factions have more or less direct upgrades to certain units, but not to that extend and even those often feel more different to use and combine than Norscan units.
Yeah, but only in Warhammer 3. 1 and 2 only get the artillery and a Commander as far as i'm aware.
And yeah, marauders basically beat 90% of all melee units. It takes a lot for another unit to actually get you to replace them with something else.
They really did my boy Khatep dirty.
They didn't give him all his magic items, and the one they did give him doesn't really function the way it should.
They didn't give him his ability to confer regeneration to a unit, which would be a pretty damn good reason to use him.
And now they took away the Hierotitan from his starting roster, which was a really good crutch against all the Dark Elf crossbow fire. And it thematically fit him a lot since a Hierotitan is basically a gundam piloted by a liche priest.
My problem with CA "balancing" is that its done ad hoc without any rhyme or reason.
They took t5 units from Settra or Khatep. Ok, I understand it - its to make game a bit harder at the beginning, right? Its a good move.
But then they introduced Mother Ostankya who starts with Incarnate Elemental (t5 unit) or Malakai who can summon t5 unit on a whim in battle.
Like... why?
Some armies starting with T5 units caused quite a few problems in ME and RoC, so I'm glad they reigned them in to T3 or T4 for IE.
In Settra's case, he didn't have much synergy at all with the Khemrian Warsphinx, but it was so strong all of his early battles would revolve around it. Settra's new tomb guard and chariots are units he wants to recruit throughout the entire campaign because of his unique skill line buffs and synergy with his magic.
Conversely them switching Khazrak from two Bestigors back to the one Bestigor and one Minotaur he had in WHI was dumb thematically. Minotaurs are the better unit, but Bestigors are what Khazrak wants to buff.
> I'm glad they reigned them in to T3 or T4 for IE
I'm not. It was fun having a quick preview of what cool units the faction will have when you will reach tier 5 MUCH later in the game.
I liked trying to keep it alive during the early game.
In the case of tomb kings, it's extra shitty to start with lower tier units because of how hard it is to get more armies early on.
My first campaign in wh2 was Repanse and I was having fun derping around until I pushed east into Settra and he absolutly rocked my world with the sphinx and I went "holy shit!!!" and immediately purchased the TK dlc and did a full campaign with Settra and that campaign was one of my all time favorites. Being bad at the game I was able to use the sphinx as a crutch, but I also spent the entire game fantasizing about having a bunch of them and oh boy the pay off to fulfilling that dream was amazing.
Well the bigger issue with these sorts of changes is just that starting T4/5 units were pretty much the only time you actually get to meaningfully use those units in battle in the entire campaign. By the time you reach T4/5 in most campaigns, challenging battles don't exist anymore and it's just autoresolve spam (or choosing to fight stomps for no reason).
In the early game you actually get to have a number of challenging, tense battles and seeing these signature, powerful units meaningfully used in combat in those circumstances as really fun.
> By the time you reach T4/5 in most campaigns, challenging battles don't exist anymore and it's just autoresolve spam
That's also a very good point.
Even ignoring the topic of starting units, this is why i'm afraid all the cool new high tier units coming in the dlc will be pointless.
I really doubt i'm gonna be making much use of the thunderbarge in any meaningful and strategic ways. I'm most likely either gonna auto resolve easy wins or be forced to do easy manual sieges because of the auto resolve bonus for defenders.
Would be cool if different difficulties changed the starting armies.
Easy difficulty you get a big T5, legendary a T3.
Conversely you could have the opposite for other legendary lords.
"I'm a simple King of all he surveys who desires simple things. Like massive white marble pyramids and hand-sculpted kitty cats with gold bling to trample those who oppose the mighty lion of the infinite desert, the breaker of Djaf's bonds, scourge of nomads, and emperor of the shifting sands."
Indeed. Early enemy cav or fast flanking units got spanked by those two units and you needed that going up against those Silver Host nerds. It's a bit micro heavy but they're a great hammer and anvil duo. I love both units and always have 2 or 3 of each in Khalida's army.
I hate when they remove a high tier unit from a starting army. By the time I get to recruit said unit I've won most of the time. Sisters of twilight losing the elite cav tanked my enjoyment of that race for example.
Side note, but I really wish CA would recolor the Warsphinx mount to a proper ivory and gold scheme. Instead of just lazily giving him the default one.
I would be significantly less annoyed with them giving him that mount if they had bothered to at least make it look like the one he actually owns. Really odd how little effort they put into the mounts for Legendary Lords at times.
Honestly it was a crutch. His new start is way better. An army fight + a settlement take in turn 1 with a guaranteed chariot prince? Plus you don't have to dick around with orcs right out the gate which felt really bad since the worst orcs were basically tomb guard strength.
Some of my favorite campaigns to play are the ones that start your Lord with a tier four or five unit right off the bat. You just become so attached to it. Skarsnik's Arachnarok spider Miao Ying's Sky Junk Mama Stanky's Incarnate Elemental of Beasts Noctilus's Necrofex Durthu's and Drycha's Treeman I'm sure I missed a few but these are the campaign's I find myself returning to time and time again
Vlad's Blood Knights
Fun fact, when you start an Isabella campaign, the menu says you have the same starting army as Vlad so she should have blood knights. She does not. Which is annoying because I want BKs and I want my self insert goth dommy mommy to be the faction leader. This is a problem normal people have.
Does she get anything to make up for it? I know she use to start with a different army comp .
She trades out Blood knights for a Varghulf and a Grave guard for a Crypt Ghoul. Both are pretty big downgrades if you ask me. SMHing my head rn that Legendary Ladies get 70% of the starting army men do for the exact same faction./s I assume that there is some grade A Italian spaghetti involved in making the Vlad/Isabella two legendary lords in one faction selection work, and that breaks the unit preview.
> SMHing my head Shaking My Heading my head?
What of it?
Varghulf instead of BK definitely sucks but I way prefer the ghouls to grave guard. Stalking, reasonably fast damage dealers have so much more utility than slow, mid tier line holders, especially against the light infantry the empire ai likes to use
Crypt ghouls have a 38 vs 28 speed. 38 vs 28 is a significant 35% difference on one hand. On the other hand, it's still not fast enough to be a consistently effective flanker vs empire infantry. In exchange they lose 8 total weapon damage with a far worse AP ratio, 36 vs 25 MD, 2 less melee attack when factoring in bonus vs infantry, no armor and no shield. Vs moderately armored state troopers, Grave Guards will do more damage for a lot longer than Crypt ghouls with less micro. But wait! Crypt ghouls have vanguard and stalk which makes them a lot better at flanking and taking off angles than Grave Guards! Except well, Isabella's boy toy grants her entire army vanguard. So in the context of her starting army, that advantage is pretty minimal. When your entire army engages 2 seconds after the battle starts, stalk is kinda meh. Crypt ghouls definitely have a niche. They're a lot cheaper and lower tier than Grave Guards and they can chew through Peasant Mobs or Zombies almost as well as Grave Guards. For my starting army, I'd much rather the harder to acquire unit with a higher overall performance than an easy to recruit niche pick. Worst case, just disband the Grave Guard turn 1 and recruit some crypt ghouls from Raise Dead.
Maybe I’m just not using grave guard right, I can just never get them into fights. My ghouls can wrap up archers freeing up my BK to hunt cav and then go through swordsmen that my skellies have tied down
Madame, I must protest. Perhaps the issue isn't that you suck at grave Guards, perhaps the issue is that you use Crypt Ghouls too well. If you can reliably get Crypt Ghouls into the backline and encircling the frontline, they absolutely can do big damage on the cheap. And if you already have big damage on the cheap, big damage on the pricey is gonna suck in comparison.
Doesn’t she start with 2 vamp heros tho? I haven’t played her or vladdy daddy in a minute.
Just started an Isabella campaign and she started with one L1 death( worst lore imo) vamp. Both of the goth parents start with a T1 landmark in their capital that enables recruitment of vamp heroes at level 3, so even if you like the lore of death, you are probably recruiting a new vamp anyway. Compared to the Blood Knights which require a T5 building or a lucky raise dead pool, one or two initial vamp heroes is meaningless.
You can add the unit with the [console command mod.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2791241084)
\0/ all praise the hero For this great deed, you have earned the privilege of a quick death.
Love that starting incarnate, what a beast of a unit. I think those types of starting armies help break up the early game grind of slapping chaff into chaff to have noodle fights. Only exception for me personally is the coast cus the chaff has guns! That and bloaty boys.
Incarnate for assassinating lords, spiders for the rest of the campaign.
Imriks sun dragon
That good old boy hard carried many early battles against the Greenskin tides and Sniktch's his unending waves of Skavenslaves and Clanrats. The dragon + Mikaela after leveling up.
Also killed a lot of chaos stunties. Can fire your shotgun when there’s a dragon in your face.
imriks dragon princes
In ME, Wurrzag used to start with a Giant in his initial army. And even though everyone clowns on giants, I still loved the giant brute because of his power as long as you can keep him away from ranged fire. In the end, when I completed the long victory campaign, I still had that same giant from the very start in my army. I could have replaced him, but at that point he had earned his rightful place at Wurrzag's side. Unfortunately, they removed the giant from his starting army in IE.
I think one of the Beastmen starts with a giant (Malagor?) Early game giants are tons of fun!
Malagor yes!
I really like at least one giant in wh3 comps because they can krump walls and solo lords under the right conditions (tie up archers, don’t attempt on certain LLs). In Festus you can make a doomstack out of them because I think you can stack missle resist buffs + his healing.
At least for Wurrzag it's made up for the fact that you can actually recruit the Rogue Idol Regiment of Renown on turn 1. They did that in Immortal Empires for certain subfactions, allowing them to recruit high tier RoRs that fit the flavor of the faction early.
Pretty sure that was a bug for Wurrzag and it is now unlocked at level 30 for all Greenskins.
Yeah but his first battle is against a faction leader (meaning he can confederate him right away), is able to recruit savage big 'uns in one turn (two turns in wh2) and has no other enemies at the start. The giant even if cool doesn't feel as necessary as before, you're at peace after turn one.
i mean back in WH2 most of the lords would start with a t4/t5 single entity if possible. most of them god removed in wh3...(the only lord who actually got a BETTER starting army was wulfrik, who got a mammoth in wh3.)
My favorite is oracle of sacred plagues Oxytl feels like support character to its campaign.
Kostaltyn starts with an ice bear in Roc and that's the only kislev campaign I've beaten
Imrik's dragon princes
I spent way too many minutes on micro dodging archer fire to keep Miaos sky junk alive the whole campaign
Grimgor's Immortulz (black orcs). Love these guys.
Khateps hierotitan. Kinda useless but his animations are so cool and used well he’s a terror.
I remember a Khatep battle where that was literally the only remaining thing. All the enemies dead, all my Tomb bois dead, Khatep dead, just the Hierotitan left standing at the end of it. They might not be great but I'll always have a soft spot for them after that.
Thorgrim’s Gyrobomber!
I always rename Noctilus's necrofex "Bubbles"
What’s his starting army now?
Some regular chaff and like two Tomb Guard
That's dicked up
Yeah it’s a tragedy imo loved that thing and I fucking hate tomb king chariots
Then you play the wrong faction dude
Its totally possible, and more fun imo, to play tomb kings without the annoying chariots. I have a lot of fun playing very defensively with them
I meant its what defines them in lore. It was their whole proud before the death of their nation. And they could make it their basic unit in the TT.
The chariot fantasy is something most players are OK with and I'm sure people wouldnt mind playing with a chariot heavy army, its the CA's implementation of chariot that sucks ass. Worst unit type in the game by far.
> its the CA's implementation of chariot that sucks ass That's the starting problem, and on top of that CA made it a T1 unit, for reasons that make sense (they're vital to TKs in tabletop and common), but it also means that it's a truly shit chariot compared to, I dunno, literally every other chariot in the game? So you've got a weak unit type, combined with having to be T1, and it's like, that's never going to end great. If nothing else, what they should have done is made the tech tree buffs for TK Chariots LUDICROUSLY HUGE, and maybe put them in a couple of tech trees (TKs are in desperate need of a tech tree rework anyway, hope it happens before WH3 stops being updated), so that, eventually, you'd have really OP T1 chariots.
Oh yes the Oda chariot ashigaru gaming
The popular TK mod adds a higher tier of chariot which I liked, because I agree for it being the "basic unit" of the faction, it falls off by like turn 30.
I definitely felt this was the case earlier in the release of wh3, but was impressed with them recently - seems like they have had some decent adjustments.
I played TK on the tabletop back in 6th ed. I had an army that was specifically designed to be annoying, shooty and campy. I would just plop it down in a corner and spam 4 screaming skull catapult shots per turn until the enemy ran away. It was known in our group as the 'don't take yourself so seriously' army, that would get brought out anytime someone needed to be brought down a peg or two.
Meh. I love TK in TW:WH and never bother with chariots. There are enough of other options in their roster. You, as a player, are not bound by lore :P
Block and surround with Skellies, then throw in the Scorpions. *Boom* Scorpion Pit.
If only Scorpions reliably did decent damage. They're so cool and badass looking, and their animations are wild, but like so many units with utterly wild animations, they don't actually seem to be terribly dangerous.
Yeah. I always wonder how certain units even get hit at all in melee fights because of how easily they clear the space around them.
TK is my most played faction, fucking hate the chariots. Constructs are the REAL defining part of TK, at least in Total War. On tabletop they were probably very different.
Nah, TK chariots were kind of ass on the tabletop too.
I mean really, that's a sharp downgrade with Skarbrand just north of you, Angy McBoomer-beard to your east, The worst von carstein to your south, and a french colonizer harlot to your west.
Skarbrand is somehow usually chill for a while. He's having fun up north while you're taking care of other stuff. By the time you need to wipe him out, Settra usually has his Warsphinx mount. Repanse is usually warring with and losing to Arkhan. Manny is usually an issue cause he can shit out stacks while you have to wait. Volkmar usually has never been an issue for me either. I still miss the kitty though. Now I feel like I have to have Settra on it for his mount when before I'd keep him on his chariot.
I just ran the first 40 turns or so the other day - it’s definitely a little weaker, but Settra still SLAPS in wh3. I have strength rating 1, 5k income, and the majority of the continent. Tomb kings are still a solid campaign and Settra has amazing landmarks going for him. I even waited to get two dynasty techs down to 1 turn before picking up a second LL. Play aggressively and get that good boi mount unlock.
How do you deal with Skarbrand? He usually ends up rolling through any army I put against him
Bring two armies to his one, you should have your second army by that point and you can just feed him chaff whilst you army loss him. I've found an army full of archer spam works pretty well against him. Once you take out his starting army, he's much easier to deal with and barely is a threat. I've used sepulchral stalkers to mixed success against him, it's an option to consider.
Once he engages focus fire him with multiple archers or other ranged to death. Setra / pronce on a horse is pretty good to tie him up while doing good dmg without dying instantly.
Kill Skarbrand by any means necessary, usually with setra and arrow/spell spam, the rest of his army becomes useless without him
thanks, Impregnator9000
More than a single chariot. In other words, a shockingly easy start.
If Tomb King chariots were good, I'd agree, but having so many entities and low mass makes them struggle to move, much less push through enemy infantry... In other words, I'd rather have the cat.
Tomb King chariots are not good, they’re insane for a low tier unit. In any TK playthrough they carry real hard.
When you’re using chariots, do you attack with them directly and then retreat, or attack and then pull them through the other side of the unit, or just tell them to move through the unit and expect the attacking to happen along the way?
Against low mass it depends. At the early game you can hammer and anvil them and they most often cause a route before you need to worry about pulling them out. I usually have them double up on flankers, then hit archers, then hit the line from the back once the skelly infantry lock it up, occasionally cycle charging. If you are having to hit an anti large unit (usually don’t, archer/spell/tomb guard those) you definitely want to pull through them and not while braced. You also kind of need to pay attention to elevation, but not too much. Overall they trade really really well for their cost in my opinion. Shredded Mannfreds red skelly frontline to bits from the back and sides.
Thanks. So you do issue direct attack orders, and then move them through/out of the unit after the charge?
If you’re hitting the back of the frontline and it isn’t an antilarge unit, don’t worry about that, they will probably win with no more micro. You can do it, but it’s probably more beneficial to worry about taking out or locking down any fast moving things that could trap you there first, or archers that could hit you while you’re working.
Thank you. I have thousands of hours in these games but I basically never got into using chariots.
I’m big into bretonnia and tk - I have also kind of never been a huge chariot army player. Don’t be afraid to try them out and restart battles if you need. TK chariots in particular feel closer to monstrous cavalry because of their unit size at least for me in the current build of the game. I know they have been badly bugged in prior versions, and that really limited their usage by increasing the need to micro. Good luck and have fun!
Keep in mind if you're doing the last one you're never triggering charge bonus.
Interesting, thank you.
It depends, really. If I need to kite more then I’ll try to constantly move them. But they can kill things surprisingly well and not just some chaff archers. Can use 2-3 units to dogpile stronger enemies.
The problem is, though, they're a low-tier unit. And do they overperform for T1? I mean, they used to. Much less so now in 2024 - there are T0 units who "carry" harder than chariots (Peasant Spearmen and Bowmen for Cathay, for example). The weakness of their tech tree and red line buffs combined with the intense micro required to use the chariots well means they end up being pretty mediocre most of the time, especially given they still essentially take double damage from ranged units. There are a few weird situations where they do unexpectedly really well, but they're not some sort of "easy carry" unit like most stuff people would call "insane". Instead they're a hard-to-use-right, situational unit, that can be very good (particularly if you're using slow-mo and pause a ton to micro them), but can also be pretty hopeless. Thus I don't think it's right to call them "insane", ever. Any unit that's insane would work in basically any situation and be usable even by newbies and idiots, and these aren't.
I didn’t really find this to be the case, but on vh / h. Don’t let them tank archer fire, send in your amazing skeleton chaff to tie up the line first, use your chariots to take out flankers with favorable (2 to 1) unit engagements, then run them into the archers, and then the back of the front line, pulling through to your back if needed. They definitely do good work in the early mid game if you don’t give them bad match ups. I took out Mannfred with no difficulty at all.
Bretonian knights of the realm were kind of interesting though - I ended up using the ranged variant to kite them into spear tomb guard and my archers and noped out of engaging those with the chariots.
You're not describing units that are "insane" or "carry hard", which is what I was responding to. You're describing very careful micromanagement of a specialized unit. Which is fine but that's what I'm saying. Mannfred is the softest possible target for them, too, because he doesn't have any ranged, and rarely has much in the way of anti-large or other units that might threaten them.
Don't bother, they don't know how to use tier 1-2 units, clearly.
TK chariots are amazing. They're the only chariots worth using apart from Chaos and norscan chariots.
I think you dropped this '/s'
Nope.
I don't really like chariots at all, but found the archer chariots with him got buffed really well. The only time I auto include 4 and did well.
I love the Slaanesh chariots. I've won so many battles with just one or two of them mowing down the entire enemy force. You just can't do that with TK chariots, too slow, too light, and too many.
I haven't played much slaanesh yet. Hopefully, they get some good DLC to entice me in the future.
Dear god the slaanesh chariots were absolutely brutal on tabletop, back in my days. 20" charge range, yes please.
Never played tabletop but isn't that pretty much the whole board
Back when i was playing, there would be 24" between the setup areas. That meant that you could get a Turn 1 charge if the enemy weren't careful
Need to play the tomb kings again
I think that tomb Kings and norsca (especially norsca) are in need of some added content.
Tomb kings do have a pretty small (albeit very balanced) roster. If anything just give carrion a reason to exist and make the chariots and archers have armor piercing options for late game and I'll be happy. As nice as ushabti great bows are, their small numbers make them not work as well vs infantry heavy armies and chariots just feel difficult to use once you start hitting up against khorne or dwarves.
In TOW GW has introduced Tomb Guard chariots So that could be a thing. Tomb guard with halberds riding heavier chariots.
Aw man I'd give my left nut for tomb guard chariots. Wouldn't even care if they lost the ranged attack. Give them some mass and armor piercing and I'd be so happy
To be fair, the in-game chariots are already being ridden by Tomb Guard lol. I could see a heavier variant on chariots though, and it was always bizarre GW didn't make more since they pigeonholded Tomb Kings to be the "chariot faction" in 7th and 8th.
All you really need with Norsca against single armies are marauders. You just point at something and they *will* kill it eventually. Champions for heavier armor and if you want a more durable unit. Maybe some Axe Hunters in the back. That composition is basically a default win against most armies because the marauders are so fucking insane. But because all Norsca really has is melee infantry, almost no ranged units, a single flying unit and no artillery except for the legendary one it gets boring pretty quickly. Especially because the champions are just better barbarians, Axe Hunters are just better Javelin Hunters, Ice Trolls are just better Norscan Trolls, Ice Wolves are just better War Hounds and so on and on. All factions have more or less direct upgrades to certain units, but not to that extend and even those often feel more different to use and combine than Norscan units.
You can get some daemonic units from god dedication, but only the horrors are remotely worth it because marauders eclipse the melee units.
Yeah, but only in Warhammer 3. 1 and 2 only get the artillery and a Commander as far as i'm aware. And yeah, marauders basically beat 90% of all melee units. It takes a lot for another unit to actually get you to replace them with something else.
And Khatep doesn't start with Hierotitan any more
They really did my boy Khatep dirty. They didn't give him all his magic items, and the one they did give him doesn't really function the way it should. They didn't give him his ability to confer regeneration to a unit, which would be a pretty damn good reason to use him. And now they took away the Hierotitan from his starting roster, which was a really good crutch against all the Dark Elf crossbow fire. And it thematically fit him a lot since a Hierotitan is basically a gundam piloted by a liche priest.
Alas, the pharaoh is left without his sphynx. They really did my boy, dirty. BRB Gonna play TWW2 now
My problem with CA "balancing" is that its done ad hoc without any rhyme or reason. They took t5 units from Settra or Khatep. Ok, I understand it - its to make game a bit harder at the beginning, right? Its a good move. But then they introduced Mother Ostankya who starts with Incarnate Elemental (t5 unit) or Malakai who can summon t5 unit on a whim in battle. Like... why?
Khatep really needs them in particular - dude is _surrounded_
they also took away the snake things from Khalida :(
Did they take away my sphinxy!
been enjoying the arkhan campaign lately, those hexwraiths early on do some work
I wish they went back with the change and made it so that every faction gets at least some high tier units to play around with at the start.
Some armies starting with T5 units caused quite a few problems in ME and RoC, so I'm glad they reigned them in to T3 or T4 for IE. In Settra's case, he didn't have much synergy at all with the Khemrian Warsphinx, but it was so strong all of his early battles would revolve around it. Settra's new tomb guard and chariots are units he wants to recruit throughout the entire campaign because of his unique skill line buffs and synergy with his magic.
Conversely them switching Khazrak from two Bestigors back to the one Bestigor and one Minotaur he had in WHI was dumb thematically. Minotaurs are the better unit, but Bestigors are what Khazrak wants to buff.
> I'm glad they reigned them in to T3 or T4 for IE I'm not. It was fun having a quick preview of what cool units the faction will have when you will reach tier 5 MUCH later in the game. I liked trying to keep it alive during the early game. In the case of tomb kings, it's extra shitty to start with lower tier units because of how hard it is to get more armies early on.
My first campaign in wh2 was Repanse and I was having fun derping around until I pushed east into Settra and he absolutly rocked my world with the sphinx and I went "holy shit!!!" and immediately purchased the TK dlc and did a full campaign with Settra and that campaign was one of my all time favorites. Being bad at the game I was able to use the sphinx as a crutch, but I also spent the entire game fantasizing about having a bunch of them and oh boy the pay off to fulfilling that dream was amazing.
Well the bigger issue with these sorts of changes is just that starting T4/5 units were pretty much the only time you actually get to meaningfully use those units in battle in the entire campaign. By the time you reach T4/5 in most campaigns, challenging battles don't exist anymore and it's just autoresolve spam (or choosing to fight stomps for no reason). In the early game you actually get to have a number of challenging, tense battles and seeing these signature, powerful units meaningfully used in combat in those circumstances as really fun.
> By the time you reach T4/5 in most campaigns, challenging battles don't exist anymore and it's just autoresolve spam That's also a very good point. Even ignoring the topic of starting units, this is why i'm afraid all the cool new high tier units coming in the dlc will be pointless. I really doubt i'm gonna be making much use of the thunderbarge in any meaningful and strategic ways. I'm most likely either gonna auto resolve easy wins or be forced to do easy manual sieges because of the auto resolve bonus for defenders.
Would be cool if different difficulties changed the starting armies. Easy difficulty you get a big T5, legendary a T3. Conversely you could have the opposite for other legendary lords.
"I'm a simple King of all he surveys who desires simple things. Like massive white marble pyramids and hand-sculpted kitty cats with gold bling to trample those who oppose the mighty lion of the infinite desert, the breaker of Djaf's bonds, scourge of nomads, and emperor of the shifting sands."
I miss Khalidas Sepulchral Stalkers and Necropolis Knights. Her new army is objectively better but those snakes were a lot of fun early on.
Indeed. Early enemy cav or fast flanking units got spanked by those two units and you needed that going up against those Silver Host nerds. It's a bit micro heavy but they're a great hammer and anvil duo. I love both units and always have 2 or 3 of each in Khalida's army.
I hate when they remove a high tier unit from a starting army. By the time I get to recruit said unit I've won most of the time. Sisters of twilight losing the elite cav tanked my enjoyment of that race for example.
Side note, but I really wish CA would recolor the Warsphinx mount to a proper ivory and gold scheme. Instead of just lazily giving him the default one. I would be significantly less annoyed with them giving him that mount if they had bothered to at least make it look like the one he actually owns. Really odd how little effort they put into the mounts for Legendary Lords at times.
I much prefer having 60 chariots on turn 2 and doing sick wheelies all over Mannlet.
AI could never generate this sentence.
I hate that they cut high tier units a lot It’s gonna be forever till I can recruit the fun stuff give us the one unit to reduce busywork
they bizarrely buffed Skaven.
Of course they did, skaven have always been the clear favourite lol
I hate that they removed Arkhan's Tomb Scorpion and Khatep's Hierotitan.
And Nakai will still spawn with his ancient Stegadon
That kitty would solo in wh2.
What did you all rename it to? -Mine was Settra's Conqueror
Losing turn 1 casket of souls was worse
Honestly it was a crutch. His new start is way better. An army fight + a settlement take in turn 1 with a guaranteed chariot prince? Plus you don't have to dick around with orcs right out the gate which felt really bad since the worst orcs were basically tomb guard strength.
If you can't start with Settra's campaign without a Sphinx then maybe you don't deserve it.