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Skulls for the Skull Throne!
By Daniel Starkey on
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Stepping back into the world of Warhammer is always a fantastical journey, and with Total War: Warhammer 2, never before has an adaptation of the source material felt quite so natural.
With the second installment in its massive strategy game trilogy, developer Creative Assembly has begun flexing its design muscles. Battles are bigger and more expressively animated, and scores of soldiers of all different types--be they ghastly undead or blood-thirsty dinosaurs--sound impeccable, but the improvements run well beyond the aesthetic and into the fineries of tactical and strategic play.
Where the first entry in the series kept to standard Total War form with an open-ended, Risk-inspired campaign of territory control, now there's a directed focus--a vortex which is said to seal away legions of Chaos Demons.
Within the context of the Warhammer universe, Chaos is an all-consuming malevolent force that corrupts and distorts. Long ago, a ritual helped quarantine the forces of Chaos behind a seal so that normal life could thrive. Now, though, you, and a number of other forces across the map will be racing to take control of that seal--to whatever end.
Your target takes the form of a swirling Vortex comprised of magical energies. As you progress through a pre-made set of special quests, you'll be able to start performing rituals that will, in time, allow you to wrench control of the Vortex from everyone else. But, since all the other races of the world are pushing towards the same end, your progress will be marked along a track with five milestones. Each time you (or anyone else) performs one of the five successive rituals, the pace of the entire campaign picks up.
This mode still balances Total War's signature dualistic design. As you're worrying about the stability of the Vortex, you'll also need to manage cities and tax your people, as usual. You'll research new tactics, weapons, and monsters, and conduct diplomatic consorts with the various races of Warhammer. And, should talks break down and two or more armies meet, you'll be ushered into a tactical view that will task you with micromanaging your troops.
Rituals often take quite some time to complete, and, in the interim, three of your most powerful cities will be marked. Opposing factions will try to sack, capture, or raze any of them. And, if you don't control all three by the end of the ritual timer, you'll have to try again; and still deal with the invaders you directed to your lands.
Completing rituals marks major steps in the game, in part, because you'll need to ensure the safety of your home front while you presumably press battle lines across the map. It complicates play with an interesting, macroscopic challenge that every player will be able to approach a little differently.
The global quest tracker/countdown has been seen before in Masters of Magic-descended strategy games, but here it's backed with specific quests that play to the lore of each race within the Warhammer universe. Lord Mazdamundi, for example, is struggling to revive the great Slann mage-priests who once guided the feral Lizardmen on the fields of battle. And your quests will revive and recruit the long-slumbering Slann to use in your own armies. That's quite distinct from the approach the Dark Elves or the rat-like Skaven will take to victory, for example. The former specializes in naval combat and tailor-made invasion vessels known as Black Arks, while the chittering clan rats of the Skaven are better suited to hit-and-run attacks. Their whole civilization being subterranean means they need not worry so much about foes razing their ritual sites.
As you progress through the campaign, your foes become more numerous and the evil forces of Chaos will filter onto the map in an attempt to stop you. During the late-game, after 50 hours or more of play, they will be monstrously powerful. These are tests, in a sense, as they'll gauge how well you've distributed your forces and managed the challenges posed to you thus far. And they encourage you to seek help from your neighbors, as it's difficult to pull together the might all on your own. That brings up one of Warhammer 2's most engaging consequences of the Vortex rituals.
Progression yields huge impacts for diplomacy, encouraging you to forge alliances with those of your own faction. This make sense, in play, because each group's broad goals are distinct within the lore. Lizardmen, for example, believe themselves to be the only ones following the will of the old gods and they are among the closest this universe gets to an unambiguous 'good.' Dark Elves, by contrast, are fueled by torture and slavery and causing pain to others. Should they wrench control of the Vortex, they will, of course, use it for their own violent ends. This confluence of goals can lead to the creation of confederations, which are a fancy name for one of the most useful ways to build your empire. Like minds can, over time, be persuaded to let themselves be absorbed. This merges politics, economies, and research trees, and gives you a quick, sudden expansion of territory, often with a new legion of eager soldiers for your command.
This keeps the game from chugging in the middle and latter stages, where you'd have to take back razed cities from marauders only to carry the dead weight of a developing province for a while before seeing any return. The new system both fits thematically and boosts the importance of diplomatic and factional ties on the map. Generally you'll get along with your own groups better, but you'll also find yourself stepping into long-standing political alliances, many of which aren't always the easiest to navigate. The focus, of course, is still on the battles, but this breaks up long stretches of action with some careful maneuvering from time to time.
As you pick up more subjects and commission larger and larger armies, you'll no doubt unearth some of the other major new additions to play. Choke point maps, for instance, give you a lot more to consider in your approach to special in-game locations. Some will funnel your forces through a bridge, giving you a very narrow front on which to concentrate, others will use different types of land to give bouts more depth.
Through a thousand tiny tweaks, they've refined the experience into one of the most intriguing and exciting strategy games ever.
The effect on play with that alone is huge, as it means many powerful strategies aren't always applicable. At the same time, you may find that a holdout army formed of all cavalry can repel a far stronger force in the right conditions. In time, you'll learn where these battlefields lie on the map. That, in turn, opens up countless other broad-scale strategies designed to guide foes to the points where you've got the strongest defenses. You could always do this to a degree, of course, but the results are far starker here, on top of adding much-needed variety to play. Combined with the pacing changes that the race to control the Vortex brings, Total War: Warhammer II feels fresh, even though you'll be stepping into the same universe as last time.
Eye of the Vortex, as the single-player mode is called, is among the best a campaign of this type could be. It encourages the right amount of conflict to keep you moving, paces itself well, fits plenty of in-universe lore for diehard fans, and fine tunes about every other facet of its predecessor. Plus, as the game wears on, you can rest assured there's a definite, clean ending. Someone's going to complete the rituals--even if you don't. At the same time, the multi-part and complex victory conditions can often lead to some of the most nail-biting matches around, made that much better by diverse maps that encourage novel tactics with each bout. Nothing feels quite as exhilarating as holding a key province against multiple unsuccessful assaults thanks to your own cunning.
Every piece in Total War: Warhammer II is designed to force you to innovate and create new plans on the fly, testing your prowess over and over in new and exciting ways. In fact, Warhammer II surpasses its predecessor in nearly every respect. Everything except the camera--which doesn't zoom out far enough and has been a source of frustration for several Total War games now--and multiplayer.
The complaint with its online multiplayer is simple: there aren't enough factions for competitive play. At present, you can only use the four groups featured in the Eye of the Vortex campaign--Dark Elves, High Elves, Lizardmen, and Skaven. Given that the first game started with five for multiplayer and rapidly expanded from there, it feels like a step backwards to have so few options for now. Not being able to pit vampires against dinosaurs is a shame. And it'd be cool to see how Elven dragons fair against the mighty Dwarves, but that'll have to wait. There are some planned free content expansions coming, including a massive campaign map that spans the lands and races covered in both games, but that's some time off. Those fans who were put off by the monetization of content in the first will likely have the same complaints, though they can rest assured that the base game is robust on its own.
With Warhammer II, Total War doesn't reinvent anything so much as it iterates on the ideas that made the first so special. At its heart there's still the marriage of Total War's big-scale strategy and Warhammer's precise tactical play. But, through a thousand tiny tweaks, they've refined the experience into one of the most intriguing and exciting strategy games ever.
I had some very nice things to say about Total War: Warhammer a year ago when I reviewed it, but over the last week I thought I’d check back in and see how it was faring after 12 months of updates and DLC. I was happy to find that a very good game has got even better.
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Total War: Warhammer: The Kotaku Review
I was so ready to hate this game.
Read more ReadIn the time between launch and July 2017 Creative Assembly have released a ton of new content for the game, some of it free and minor (like new Lords for certain factions), some of it costing money but certainly more ambitious (and generous) than we’re used to from Total War games.
The best of these are packs which added not just entirely new factions for players to control (like Beastmen and Wood Elves), but a new way to play them. In addition to letting you choose them as your side in the main story from the original game, you could also elect to play in smaller, more intimate campaigns, similar to the type that CA used to release as standalones (like Napoleon’s Peninsula War).
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The last such release was Bretonnia (which was actually free) and I’ve found it’s the best of the bunch. While not quite as unique as the all-new Beastmen and Elves, since while they’re just a very French flavour of the existing human races, I found the changes they made to the way you approach the game fascinating.
When you play as Bretonnia, everything you’ve learned about the game gets thrown out the window. They’ve got a cap on the number of units they can raise, because every man with a sword in his hand isn’t out in the fields farming his harvest. They’re powered as much by acts of chivalry as coin, so you have to be more careful making decisions like whether to kill prisoners or not. And their position at the edge of the map means you spend much of the game on grand crusades in foreign lands, rather than fighting to protect your borders.
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I had a blast learning all the new various strategies that went along with this, which I’ve found has been one of Warhammer’s real strengths: the ability to finish it then immediately want to restart as someone else and experience a very different way of playing the same game. The fun I had has me suddenly looking forward to the upcoming release of the Norsca pack, something I’d completely overlooked untilnow, who are also promising to shake things up (you can, for example, defeat then tame the giant monsters of the north and have them fight for you).
Aside from the new stuff, I went back to Warhammer having revisited a number of other Total War games over the past month (from Empire to Shogun to Rome II), and having played the older games so recently, it really struck me just how good even Warhammer’s base experience is compared to the games that came before it.
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Going back to Empire, Napoleon, even Shogun 2's excellent Fall of the Samurai, I was reminded of how Warhammer of all things had allowed Creative Assembly to fix so many of the fundamental issues those games had suffered through. Army spam is gone, but taken care of much more neatly than Rome II’s brutal solution. Trading for actual items makes more sense. Creating races that have their own diplomatic and colonization options brings a real flavour to the way games shake down. And the way army leaders are now full-blown personalities, with loot and gear to equip, makes them feel much more personal.
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The thing I still like most, though, is the game world itself, and how the map feels real, and alive. I just finished up a successful campaign as the Dwarves, and actually felt like I’d been hunkered down in a mountain stronghold, towering over the rest of the world. It had elevation, and substance, and weight, and even character, with its craggly peaks littered with old ruins, waterways and statues. It didn’t feel like a random piece of art that I just happened to be inhabiting, a particular piece of a map that looked the same across its breadth, it felt like my home. I hope Creative Assembly never go back to their older, flatter maps, even in historical games.
The Norsca pack will probably be my/our farewell to Warhammer as it exists today; Warhammer II is out soon, and it’ll take us to new lands with new factions (and hopefully an even defter refinement of the series’ fundamentals). What’s most interesting about the speed of Warhammer II landing, and most relevant to my refreshed praise of the first Warhammer here, is that these quick-fire sequels (like Napoleon, or Shogun’s two add-ons) used to be the place where you’d get the game-changing content and new factions.
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Here, we got a whole bunch of them before the sequel, which itself is bringing loads of fresh stuff only a year later. It’s a pleasant reversal of a practice that fans have long criticised Creative Assembly for, and it’s the one time I’m going to put aside the “there are too many Warhammer games” rule.
When Warhammer II is released in September, it’ll benefit from something Total War fans haven’t felt since the Shogun days: a sense that the series knows where it’s going and how to get there not just confidently, but in style.
Comments
- Head to Head, Malekith and Tyrion are the strongest.
They both have good defensive positions, they have lots of special sites that are nearby to buff their troops, and they have amongst the best and most elite armies. They also have the best economies.
Wood Elves and Lizardmen and Vampire Counts are tied for third, fourth, and fifth. Lizardmen are solid, but are just missing a tiny bit to compete with HE and DE. Wood Elves are fragile, and also have a somewhat weak economy once they expand beyond the initial five provinces. Vampire Counts are solid overall, but have slightly slower expansion due to corruption issues.
Dwarfs come in sixth. Dwarfs have a good position, but they have too many Greenskins nearby. Skaven come in seventh, cool units, but they have some economic issues.
Of the other factions, Greenskins have lots of problems. Empire is meh and surrounded. Bretonnia is cool, but has a weak economy. Chaos and Beastmen are nice, but Hordes are slow to expand and economically challenged. - @endur I think I will disagree a bit - for example :
Chaos in my opinion is a good faction, I have a campaign test I ran and in about 120 turns in I managed to have 6 armies all LLs already in campaign, the generals levels are 33,28,24,18,10,10(offmap) and 1(kolak). I got -7300~ only a turn with 5 20 stack armies with lowest tier unit chaos warriors and about 270k saved up.
Since it was just a test run (first proper game with chaos) I am sure with my calculations that I can reach a far better result the only reason I didn't do my second test run is that I have been waiting for the past few months for Norsca to arrive making them viable for head to head at the moment the 'Norscan' factions are empty shells and they provide you with almost nothing especially late game.
the weaknesses of the Chaos lies in the fact that it can't sack (which I love and hate - before it was purely exploitative) for a horde faction such as chaos but at the same time when other factions can sack in multiplayer it leaves chaos far behind. its possible through sacking to get a general to level 20 in about 20+ turn while with chaos ... its a bit more diffucult. + they don't have any way for late game catch up - no research or abilities ( except on Archeon to give more levels for recruited hordes. but otherwise they are really good. especially once Norcsa enters cause current Empire factions(+SR+Kislev) really suck so if they manage to lose early, mid start of late game to norscan factions now they will lose even more poorly once new Norsca is out with proper tools.
As for the woodelves - their power in campaign comes from Research + base strong units + movement on campaign + unbeatable homeland. What I mean by that chasing their armies won't help you - 1v1(armies) will end up with you losing and you can't go for their core settlements because with defenses and one army they already well set to kill probably anything .
Greenskins while not being in a terrific shape are pretty good in my opinion especially if you compare them to Empire - Empire is one of the **** races unfortunately - the only saving grace is the magic that opens to them - they need to reach late game in order to have an agent that can block army .. their economy while being able to be decent is slowly to advance and their edicts and 'special race offices' are **** without the wizards I would place them lower then Beast-men. - Vampire Counts start in Sylvania, which is pretty good since they have 6 cities very close to each other with some vampiric corruption. It's easier to fend off intruders.
On top of that, the Raise Dead mechanic permit players to build armies in no time and they can bypass military buildings on top of that.
No range units but lots of summons, monsters, flyers, good cavalry, healing.. you can even mess up the imperials politics, i still remember a campaign when i managed to make a military alliance with almost all elector counts, then i declared war against the poor Karl FranzFlag0·Like - @Wargol5 would you take this faction against any faction in the game knowing that you can easily win ?
is this your pick for the best faction ?
Cause while I do like Vampire counts I think they are placed somewhere around middle ground not to OP not to weak - but certainly there is better factions out there. - edited April 2018
Well, i don't think there is one faction above all other, but rather a few factions higher than the rest : the top tier. I just thought the Vampires counts were in this top tier.@Wargol5 would you take this faction against any faction in the game knowing that you can easily win ?
is this your pick for the best faction ?
Cause while I do like Vampire counts I think they are placed somewhere around middle ground not to OP not to weak - but certainly there is better factions out there.
But i believe the High elves rank higher due to their starting position in Ulthuan, high elves are always ranked 1 in Mortal Empires.Flag0·Like - Senior MemberPosts: 9,911Registered UsersI feel like Kroq-Gar would have to get a mention simply by virtue of his amazing natural defences protecting his heartlands.'As a sandbox game everyone, without exception, should be able to play the game exactly as they see fit and that means providing the maximum scope possible.' - ~UNiOnJaCk~
- I’d say the strongest campaign factions by far are Tyrion and malekith. By a freaking landslide. Especially malekith as he is cornered and has no enemies to come at him from the. North or west at all, and skaeling/Norse are hardly worth mentioning. I leave 1 or 2 20 stack over in conquered aghol lands with max garissons as a detterant, and no one messes with that.
Next Is wood elves. They are the most annoying campaign to start, but once you confederate everything you can steam roll pretty much anything, and you have a great defensive position with everything being so close.
After that isn personally say Kroq gar/skrolk. They both start in corners, and although skaven have a rough start vs lizards, once u get some better tier units they start holding their own fine.
Chaos is great too. U can rush chosen by turn 30-40 and have a death stack army that will roll 2 of anyone else. Chosen are the best. - If we are talking SP campaign, then the DE, HE, and Dwarfs are the strongest of factions. All three possess extremely powerful end game armies. And all three have the economy and territory to support those Elite armies in ways other factions can't even hope to match. I would say Dwarves can eventually edge out HE and DE though. HE economy on its own won't match the dwarfs, and they run out of allies as the game drags on. After the dwarfs have maxed their military tech, their units become ludicrously powerful as well. Way beyond what most other factions could hope to match. A line of teched up, skilled up, high chevron Iron Breakers with a rune dude buffing them nearby simply can't be killed. Given these three as the big three, I'd say Dark Elves are capable of kicking off their early game better then the others with Slaves, High Elves are at the apex when they hold all of Ulthuan in mid game and still have Allies to Trade, and Dwarves easily start to eclipse all others once they own the lions share of the mountain resources and have the tech to back it up at late game.
Now I'd say these are the three strongest Empires simply because they back up Incredibly powerful units with incredibly powerful Empires. They can match their Quality with Quantity. But the strongest late game army goes to the Wood Elves. Their stacking buffs can get to extremes that simply arent fair, and their skirmishing archers will put down other factions elite melee units in melee with everything topped off. Their individual armies have absolutely no weakness the AI can capitalize on. Losing even a single model in a battle will become rare at the end of a Welf campaign, but they arent on top for one simple reason. They dont have the numbers to match the others. Even with every port and every settlement in ME you will never be able to afford more than 12 armies. Scaling down with difficulty. The dwarves can field that off the mountains, let alone the entire expanse of the rest of the world.
In a head to head campaign, Horde Factions rule all others. The simple reason is that unless you two are playing for fun, the most effective way to beat your opponent is to rush him at the start. Empire building factions cant afford this. It leaves them undefended and **** off people they tresspass through. They gain nothing but struggle if they reach the other player and if you lose, you wont come back in time. The two horde factions do not have this problem. Beastmen being better at it then Chaos. No matter which faction you pick, the Beastmen player can reach you quickly due tothe distribution of their Lords. Even New World factions are simple skip across the pond for Khazrack. Takes like 5 turns for him to be camping in your territory. The problem is, the player playing the horde faction has nothing to lose by just systematically raiding your territory spreading chaos corruption and gaining all the money before you have a chance to expand and set up shop. Even if you turtle up and hide out in some place like Altdorf or Athel Loren, all the horde player has got to do is keep moving, burning, and spreading corruption. If you can manage to corner and kill one of the hordes then youll get an advantage but good luck. With a Brayherd at their back the Beastmen player will win early game open field fights. The non horde player will just have his entire situation spiral down and out of control until the beastmen player finally has enough to knock over the walls of your capital because you could do nothing for 40 turns. For a chaos faction, they dont have the luxury of stealth and brayherds with which to harass the hell out of their opponent. But they dont need them. The Chaos player will get full stacks of chosen long before you get anything that can actually fight the chosen. When fighting a chaos player, because their early game army is so damn strong they can just burn a line across the map straight to the other player. Gaining money, growth, exp etc. as they go. The other player is playing on a timer. Because when the Chaos player reaches them its over. If you dont have a way of dealing with 1200 Chosen the moment he reaches your borders after beelining towards you, you have no way of winning.
The strongest non horde faction in a head to head is Welfs. Again these guys pop up, but again conditions apply. The reason is that they reach Empire Max at just the four settlements of Athel Loren. Then its just a slow burn to OP from there. In a head to head, a bad welf player will try to confederate the others. But a good welf player will immediately set about conquering Athel Loren and will have it under their control by turn 20. After that, they can just ignore everything else on the map and start sending armies after the other player. Each one more powerful than the last army you sent. And because the welf player has all of Athel Loren this early game rush can be upwards of three full 20 stacks by turn 50 since each settlement in Athel Loren can support a full 20 stack on its own. If in those three armies theres only glade guard, its still 60 units of glade guard with various arrows. Thats way too much high damage highly accurate ranged fire for almost any faction at the 50 turn mark.
The worst head to head faction is player dependant. Everybody has that one faction they simply can not play. But if I had to pick the ones who would fail first, its the factions with no safe way of stopping the early game rush. So that would be Belegor, Skarsnik, the Tomb Kings are laughably easy to rush down with Malagor, and Brettonia. Special nod to Brettonia as easily the worst head to head faction of the bunch. Not only are their armies just the worst at the beginning of the game, but they never get the economy necessary to field enough units to make uo the difference. They're too tech reliant on expansion, slowing them way down to wait for the confederate. Plus they start out directly next to the welfs. A head to head that involves one player playing any of Brettonia and the other player playing Orion or Durtha is going to be a long walk off an extremely short pier for the Brettonia player. Im talking head to head campaign over by turn 30. He will immediately see how well peasents fair against Glade Guard, and find out that knights of the realm and Eternal Guard do not get along at all. I took out a Carcassonne player in 11 turns as Orion. - If we are talking SP campaign, then the DE, HE, and Dwarfs are the strongest of factions. All three possess extremely powerful end game armies. And all three have the economy and territory to support those Elite armies in ways other factions can't even hope to match. I would say Dwarves can eventually edge out HE and DE though. HE economy on its own won't match the dwarfs, and they run out of allies as the game drags on. After the dwarfs have maxed their military tech, their units become ludicrously powerful as well. Way beyond what most other factions could hope to match. A line of teched up, skilled up, high chevron Iron Breakers with a rune dude buffing them nearby simply can't be killed. Given these three as the big three, I'd say Dark Elves are capable of kicking off their early game better then the others with Slaves, High Elves are at the apex when they hold all of Ulthuan in mid game and still have Allies to Trade, and Dwarves easily start to eclipse all others once they own the lions share of the mountain resources and have the tech to back it up at late game.
Now I'd say these are the three strongest Empires simply because they back up Incredibly powerful units with incredibly powerful Empires. They can match their Quality with Quantity. But the strongest late game army goes to the Wood Elves. Their stacking buffs can get to extremes that simply arent fair, and their skirmishing archers will put down other factions elite melee units in melee with everything topped off. Their individual armies have absolutely no weakness the AI can capitalize on. Losing even a single model in a battle will become rare at the end of a Welf campaign, but they arent on top for one simple reason. They dont have the numbers to match the others. Even with every port and every settlement in ME you will never be able to afford more than 12 armies. Scaling down with difficulty. The dwarves can field that off the mountains, let alone the entire expanse of the rest of the world.
In a head to head campaign, Horde Factions rule all others. The simple reason is that unless you two are playing for fun, the most effective way to beat your opponent is to rush him at the start. Empire building factions cant afford this. It leaves them undefended and **** off people they tresspass through. They gain nothing but struggle if they reach the other player and if you lose, you wont come back in time. The two horde factions do not have this problem. Beastmen being better at it then Chaos. No matter which faction you pick, the Beastmen player can reach you quickly due tothe distribution of their Lords. Even New World factions are simple skip across the pond for Khazrack. Takes like 5 turns for him to be camping in your territory. The problem is, the player playing the horde faction has nothing to lose by just systematically raiding your territory spreading chaos corruption and gaining all the money before you have a chance to expand and set up shop. Even if you turtle up and hide out in some place like Altdorf or Athel Loren, all the horde player has got to do is keep moving, burning, and spreading corruption. If you can manage to corner and kill one of the hordes then youll get an advantage but good luck. With a Brayherd at their back the Beastmen player will win early game open field fights. The non horde player will just have his entire situation spiral down and out of control until the beastmen player finally has enough to knock over the walls of your capital because you could do nothing for 40 turns. For a chaos faction, they dont have the luxury of stealth and brayherds with which to harass the hell out of their opponent. But they dont need them. The Chaos player will get full stacks of chosen long before you get anything that can actually fight the chosen. When fighting a chaos player, because their early game army is so damn strong they can just burn a line across the map straight to the other player. Gaining money, growth, exp etc. as they go. The other player is playing on a timer. Because when the Chaos player reaches them its over. If you dont have a way of dealing with 1200 Chosen the moment he reaches your borders after beelining towards you, you have no way of winning.
The strongest non horde faction in a head to head is Welfs. Again these guys pop up, but again conditions apply. The reason is that they reach Empire Max at just the four settlements of Athel Loren. Then its just a slow burn to OP from there. In a head to head, a bad welf player will try to confederate the others. But a good welf player will immediately set about conquering Athel Loren and will have it under their control by turn 20. After that, they can just ignore everything else on the map and start sending armies after the other player. Each one more powerful than the last army you sent. And because the welf player has all of Athel Loren this early game rush can be upwards of three full 20 stacks by turn 50 since each settlement in Athel Loren can support a full 20 stack on its own. If in those three armies theres only glade guard, its still 60 units of glade guard with various arrows. Thats way too much high damage highly accurate ranged fire for almost any faction at the 50 turn mark.
The worst head to head faction is player dependant. Everybody has that one faction they simply can not play. But if I had to pick the ones who would fail first, its the factions with no safe way of stopping the early game rush. So that would be Belegor, Skarsnik, the Tomb Kings are laughably easy to rush down with Malagor, and Brettonia. Special nod to Brettonia as easily the worst head to head faction of the bunch. Not only are their armies just the worst at the beginning of the game, but they never get the economy necessary to field enough units to make uo the difference. They're too tech reliant on expansion, slowing them way down to wait for the confederate. Plus they start out directly next to the welfs. A head to head that involves one player playing any of Brettonia and the other player playing Orion or Durtha is going to be a long walk off an extremely short pier for the Brettonia player. Im talking head to head campaign over by turn 30. He will immediately see how well peasents fair against Glade Guard, and find out that knights of the realm and Eternal Guard do not get along at all. I took out a Carcassonne player in 11 turns as Orion.
I FOrgot dwarves! How could I.
But agreed. Even with new patch stomping dawi tide a bit, once you edged out greenskins and take the worlds edge mountains, it’s pretty smooth sailing. And karak Azul seems to not get gutted so quickly anymore, so eventually you can confederate them, which usually brings u 1 full stack and 4-6 territories.
And we all know about dwarf economy. And white dwarf faction bonuses..yeeesh. And the fact that end game dwarf stacks with iron breakers as a main line will hold even chosen an entire battle just about. Not to mention one organ gun blast will paste half a unit of Hescy Calvary, which keesnuoir flanks secure, and there’s isn’t much enemies can throw at you. Especially the AI. - Playing as Setra has been by far the easiest campaign I have ever had (on the Vortex Map). Even when cranking up the difficulty to Legendary, because TKs get no additional army upkeep and the public order penalties are being easily countered by Setra's buffs.
In addition, Setra has no opponents nearby that constitute a major thread. True the Followers of Nagash are in the vicinity, but they are often at war with multiple factions while Setra can befriend these and pick his targets as he pleases. - edited April 2018It depends on how well you understand the game, more specifically the factions and the latest changes affecting them. For examples,
1, Lizardmen was pretty insane due to the blessed units because it was very easy to get those units and on top of that those units can be leveled up. But after the Tomb King patch, it becomes harder than you can get those ROR (other factions). For example, I had my first late game blessed unit event asking me to form a treaty with Morathi while I had an over -100 relationship (normal difficulty).
2, Dark Elves, who can get a 10k - 20k income province like them? Know how powerful Shadowdart lord can be? Know how Ark's level 3 bombardment can do? Know how witch elves and shard work best in battle?
3, High Elves, Tyrion is an undead God in battle with proper item. Know how to equip him like the AI does? Know how to make full use of Influence?
4, Dwarfs, know you can build things without money?
5, Undead, know losing cheapest units in war on purpose to spawn battle sites everywhere?
6, Greenskins, know how to double your armies in time and attack in one go? Know to use underway to get your prey and run to your next target and do it all game? Know how to plan your series of targets for razing/sacking?
7, Empire, know how to buff your population growth in no time? Know how to prioritize your threats and take them out one after one (/ make them your friends).
8, Magic. Magic makes a big difference in the game. It changes stats of units. So basically all the talks around unit stats have been meaningless to you when you know you have some good mages and you know you buff/de-buff properly. - @Fear_The_Wolf The talk was about Multiplayer campaign simply cause AI doesn't apply any challenge and in order to get a true answer of who is the most powerful faction you need to ask it in multiplayer setting - will you pick up that faction to grantee a win.
So thank you for the details about SP but I will disregard that part of the text simply cause it doesn't help to get an answer - personally I had no problem to steamroll with every faction I played with on VH and Legendary.
Since its presented as hypothetical question you can't really pick your human enemy faction and actually for the sack of argument lets consider that more than one enemy human player can be in the campaign so while I agree if you start an ME campaign some factions can stomp others on early game. Beastmen and carcasson / WE and carcasson - good examples for a very fast unbalanced game however I would clearly state that taking the other two beastmen vs Bretonnia will yield in a much more balanced match while even if WE started in the same distance as Nagarrond from Bretonnia the WE Still will win at ease.
I don't know if you head to head before or not but horde factions are sure not OP a decent DE player would definity will be able to make short work of any Chaos army that will dear to cross the sea - each turn not sacking / growing / fighting is less experience and less armies and development for a horde. As I wrote I think if done correctly its possible to reach to about 8 armies in 120 turns ~ with chaos ( I reached only 6 in that time frame in my test) however in my Bretonnia campaign head to head in 140 turns I have 12 armies most of which are composted of at least 2 Grail knights 2 hyppo knights 2 Guardians and a bunch of footmen and archers with about 7 generals with 20-40 in levels. Game I had been rushed at by horde players ended up in my favor as they hadn't grown enough and didn't had enough experience to match up to my generals which ended up with them dying .
As for the dawi - its the easiest army to kite around - I had a game vs a WE player where he would just attack and pull back every time after finishing his ammo - my cannons couldn't do **** and there is no chance you will reach to the point of researching all of your tech even if you were fighting against a faction on the other side of the world. Taking the boost skill for tech with Dawi lords is just not worth it and getting enough agents is a mass. If anything its easier to get 400% research rate with Bretonnia and Empire then with the dwarves.
Now for the WE - while its true that you can't master with them as many armies as other factions even with not playing with lighting strike (which is a broken feature and all my Head to heads are played without it) you are most likely will never be able to catch a WE army and surround him with your armies.. if he underpath even in interpretation its 1v1 which will most likely end up with your army losing. They don't need lots of armies simply cause their outposts aren't that important and once they master a strong enough army they can just walk to your cities and **** them up and run away with the underpass .. empire building factions will have to defend in order to not get demolished .. and horde and empire building factions have no chance of attacking the forest not in a rush and not in late game one defending stack can make short work with garrison to about anything that comes into the forest. That is the OPness of the WE add the epic research and stacking buffs and you got a winner - @Jowen
A) reread the text the chat was about ME
So do you think its the best faction in the game ? would you take it up against another player/s in a fight for the Motral empires campaign knowing that you would almost certainly win never mind what the other player/s faction is ? cause to be honest will I really like the Tomb kings and their playout - they are a late game faction and not the kind that gets benefited like the Dwarves do - they just get more armies as time passes not necessarily stronger armies just more armies. I find it a huge disadvantage to have to decided whether you want to spend your time at sea and not get another army and experience for your general or to scout for new trading partners and bonuses of sea treasures in a multiplayer scenerio as the one we are talking about in this thread - this will leave you far behind the other player/s. that why I won't rank them high at all - if you think otherwise feel free to expand and share.
@Grimgor_the_CAke
I am not sure what your post is about , what are you trying to say ? What is my knowledge have to do with anything ? the question is regarded to you as a reader and participant of this thread its up to you to weigh in and give your 2 cents on who is the strongest with your knowledge and if you are not knowledgeable enough maybe other people will come to contrast your opinion. - @The_baron
My point is clear. That is, if we know the game well, they are more or less equally powerful. I have no idea why my post made it sound like something offensive to you. Anyway, ignore what I said then. I have no interest / fun to type wall of words to make other people feel bad. Thank you for your understanding and I won't bother your thread if you do not welcome it. Sorry anyway. - @Grimgor_the_CAke I am not offended my friend but I was trying to understand the connection to the thread - unfortunately it wasn't clear. Now that you wrote it down it makes a bit more sense.
However while factions are played differently and each features its own advantages or weaknesses unfortunately the game isn't well balanced and some factions are stronger then others. That is why I wrote the post
The dwarves were not brought in as a viable head to head best faction. Rather I specifically mention them as eventually being the most competitive SP faction. The sheer amount of time it takes to get there, 120 turns plus, means its not an option in head to head. You dont have the time nor resources to drive off and take back from the now endless hordes of orks and hope to be ready for a developed player.@Fear_The_Wolf
I don't know if you head to head before or not but horde factions are sure not OP a decent DE player would definity will be able to make short work of any Chaos army that will dear to cross the sea - each turn not sacking / growing / fighting is less experience and less armies and development for a horde. As I wrote I think if done correctly its possible to reach to about 8 armies in 120 turns ~ with chaos ( I reached only 6 in that time frame in my test) however in my Bretonnia campaign head to head in 140 turns I have 12 armies most of which are composted of at least 2 Grail knights 2 hyppo knights 2 Guardians and a bunch of footmen and archers with about 7 generals with 20-40 in levels. Game I had been rushed at by horde players ended up in my favor as they hadn't grown enough and didn't had enough experience to match up to my generals which ended up with them dying .
As for the dawi - its the easiest army to kite around - I had a game vs a WE player where he would just attack and pull back every time after finishing his ammo - my cannons couldn't do **** and there is no chance you will reach to the point of researching all of your tech even if you were fighting against a faction on the other side of the world. Taking the boost skill for tech with Dawi lords is just not worth it and getting enough agents is a mass. If anything its easier to get 400% research rate with Bretonnia and Empire then with the dwarves.
Now for the WE - while its true that you can't master with them as many armies as other factions even with not playing with lighting strike (which is a broken feature and all my Head to heads are played without it) you are most likely will never be able to catch a WE army and surround him with your armies.. if he underpath even in interpretation its 1v1 which will most likely end up with your army losing. They don't need lots of armies simply cause their outposts aren't that important and once they master a strong enough army they can just walk to your cities and **** them up and run away with the underpass .. empire building factions will have to defend in order to not get demolished .. and horde and empire building factions have no chance of attacking the forest not in a rush and not in late game one defending stack can make short work with garrison to about anything that comes into the forest. That is the OPness of the WE add the epic research and stacking buffs and you got a winner
Also we are in agreement that the Welfs are the strongest Head to Head empire building faction. Capable of both having an incredibly tough to crack core and nothing stopping you from just endlessly sending strong early armies right at the enemy player. And the welf tech tree is both quick to burn through and very strong.
And as for the horde factions, here we will have to agree to disagree if for nothing else than experience. Dark elf players meet the same fate as any other when they get hit too soon by Chaos forces. I will give that having ap missiles gives them some advantage compared to most. But I'm personally of the mindset that darkshards are grossly exaggerated. Dark elf infantry is strong, but not Chaos strong. Corsairs struggle against warriors let alone chosen. Even should you populate your armies at tier five, the only advantage you can populate against the warriors of chaos is the AP missiles. AP missiles which have a difficult time producing decent casualties over the top of a melee. From missile troops who will die if they get hit by even marauder horsemen. Let alone Chaos Knights.
You also specifically mention that its possible to reach x state by turn 120. The turn 120 blows my mind. My SP campaigns are over by turn 120 let alone head to head. Where I am specifically targeting you and only you above all others. The fact you had a bret head to head that lasted 140 turns is mind boggling, no **** way. All my head to head games are 60 turns or less. I conquer exactly what I need to set up for the attack. Then I rush the other player. Being on the defensive in TW is always a bad thing. Even should you bunker down behind solid walls and garrisons you can not be everywhere at once. And this is why Horde armies excel in head to head. I have nothing to defend. I will never be on the defensive. And I have no set up to assault phase. At turn 1, I'm going to draw a line through every settlement between me and you. I will burn down those settlements in a straight line to reach you and stay wealthy and healthy. This part never takes longer than 20 turns unless youre playing one of the lizard factions. Thats a long walk. As soon as the horde reaches you regardless of the faction you are playing, one of two things happen. Option 1, playing Chaos. No sneaking here I'm just going to draw a line through your least defended settlements and whip back around to hit any major settlement you arent defending. Draw you away from the walls. Fighting Chaos Chosen at turn 30-40 on the open field is suicide, no matter what faction you are playing.
Option 2, play beastmen. Remember that Campaign battles are not the same as a skirmish. Units that suck in general can become godly here. Nowhere is that more apparent then the humble ungor. With the freight train on wheels that you get called a Gorebull, you can completely negate their normally low lds. In fact it gets so high they'll fight almost to the last man. With only a slight amount of tech, and the proper lord skill picks, ungors can have 60+ melee attack easy. Negating their normally low melee attack and normally low lds all at once. And its accomplished on the way to the enemy player, in the first 30ish turns. Couple the surprisingly powerful ungors, which includes their ranged varient having the 60+ melee attack, with the fact they will pick up a brayherd en route to the enemy player and that player has a serious problem all before turn 40. Brayherds usually include better units than should be on the field that early.
Say you are playing welfs. I'm going to wipe 2/3rds of Estalia out, move up through Carcassonne if you havent already, pick up a brayherd in the process, then immediately figure out where in Athel Loren you are not defending. If you've bothered expanding into Athel Loren at all yet. It takes two turns to move from one settlement to the other in Athel Loren. You can certainly take your army and move to block one settlement. But I have three armies. The two hordes I started with and the one brayherd. You move to defend one, you will lose the other. Tier 1/2 Welf garrisons cant stop a player controlled army on their own. Losing even one of the four settlements in Athel Loren is punishing. And then I'm just going to leave, provided burning Kings Glade to the ground wasn't your only expansion in Athel Loren. Build another brayherd by burning Brettonia, and come back around for round 2. Rinse repeat. You never get the chance to build up your amber stocks since its too early to have expanded properly. You cant leave Athel Loren or you'll lose Athel Loren. The Horde player can simply set up shop and starve you out with his two opening hordes and associated brayherds. Until you're willing to come out of the one settlement you hold. Say you tried to stop me in Carcassonne to prevent Athel Loren getting pincered. Thats still two armies vs your one, and beastmen are one of the few armies who can actually catch and kill a skirmishing welf player on the field. Their basic infantry are just as or faster than welfs. Regardless of your decisions, our entire campaign is going to be decided in a fight stacked against the Welf player at turn 15.
Finally, dark elf players are annoying true. Use to be safe out there on their little distant island. Luckily, Tretch is there now. And since skaven ambush mechanics are abusable and broken beyond belief, he acts as a specific answer to anyone set up in Naggaroth. His stacking ambush bonuses combined with the incredible buffs his troops recieve on the ambush makes fighting him an absolute chore. In fact ambush alone would make Tretch the strongest Head to Head faction where it not for the simple fact the only people he can actually reach are Dark Elf players and Khatep. Food and public order problems means every other faction has time to get too strong for his obscene ambushes to matter.
I think the disconnect we are having, stop me if this sounds crazy, is the length of head to head games we've each played. It sounded as though 100 turns or more was normal for your Head to Head games. I'm actually envious of this as it gives both players the opportunity to play different factions against the opponent. Thats the best part of Head to Head. Controlling the AIs armies and making do with whatever hand you were dealt. Mine though, never last more then 60 to 70 turns. I can't bring myself not to do everything in my power to not be a problem for the other player and hordes are just better at this by the nature of being a horde.- Not sure what is the strongest but I agree Dwarfs are very powerful. The starting location is good, once you get alliances going with other dwarf holds you can rapidly dominate that bottom right corner of the map. From there you can work your way out, expanding while developing your holds, with a relatively easy to defend border since you aren't surrounded.
Of course when you start things can be a little hectic, because you ARE surrounded, by greenskins and vampires both of whom will give you trouble. But once you've established that powerbase in the Badlands you can establish a powerful economy and expand territory in a focused manner, westwards and northwards, with a very manageable frontier.
The Dwarf army itself is powerful but does require some experience to use properly. The lack of mobility is a huge hindrance so you need to learn how to use the superior firepower of your artillery and ranged units effectively. Going on the offense require a lot of strategic anticipation of everything that could go wrong, because if it does, it's hard to address.
Tech is good, economy is amazing, military is strong, diplomacy is decent, geography very favorable. They definitely have one of the more comfortable campaigns. - Senior MemberPosts: 881Registered UsersI think every race is easy, all you have to do is go crazy with the war declarations and sacking settlements for exp. Then you get level 30 generals in no time, and you beat Chaos easily. You don't even need to take territory, in fact, it's better that you don't because higher Imperium triggers the Chaos invasion sooner. So you just go around sacking everything, maybe making non aggression pacts with factions on one side while you attack the other side.
For example, The Empire. I usually attack either the Bretonnians or the other Empire provinces, attacking their armies, sacking but NOT razing / occupying their settlements, and generally just being a massive nuisance. When the undead declare war you can go after them too but because they are pretty far away it makes replenishment difficult since you have no owned provinces nearby.
Alternatively you can raid your own territory to generate rebel armies and kill them too. You could also do this alongside attacking other factions, as many battles per turn as possible to level up your generals faster. It's actually better to have low public order because of this.'Victory or death, there is no other outcome. Honour is everything. I am a knight of the Ordo Draconis, and I will achieve perfection.' - Grombrindal. Low upkeep for starting army. Super campaign bonuses from blue line and three gold mine provinces bordering eachother. So much gold. That has to be in with a shout if you can get to snowballing quickly.Flag0·Like
- @Blood_Dragon I am confused about your post. Did you read the previous posts before you ?
Yes vs AI it doesn't matter what I play and on what difficulty I will win on VH and Legendary without sweat .. but this isn't the discussion of the thread, the discussion is about who is the best / strongest / OP factions in game. which would you pick vs another player/players if you knew you wanted to win at all cost.
@Fear_The_Wolf
I am not sure if I understand it currently but from your writing it seems like you won all of your head to heads , if this is the case may I ask how many did you play and with what factions did you play against what factions?
Cause while I did had some short campaigns most of them whether they were aggressive and intense from the start or they were calm were longer then 60 turns especially in Mortal Empires map.
I can see how you end a campaign in less than 30 turns if you start on close positions such as Greenskins and Dwarves , Von Casrtiens and Vampire counts , Beastmen of Estalia and Carcasson . but I never start those kind of campaigns since you might as well sum it up in one battle just like quick player ^^.
But yeah we will have to agree to disagree cause going heads first with the Beastmen of the wastelands towards the jungles of Lustria or the frozen north will end up in an easy fight for the defender in my opinion and experience. Unless the distance is very short from my experience the defender will finish of the attacker .. people already tried to rush me with Chaos and lost so yeah it was short campaign but the horde didn't win - edited April 2018I’ve read the responses and debates and I still am on the side of @Fear_The_Wolf about hordes being a great choice for campaign. Especially chaos. I easily churn out chosen by turn 30-40 like he said. It’s really not that hard. Built alters and pick horde growth on small settlements, and larger capital settlements sack/raze and getting money. By turn 40 I usually have a full battle line of various chosen, 60,000 gold or more in the bank and a second legendary lord stack also full of chosen.
Sure I’m running -5000 gold per turn from costs, but then I stop horde growth and Just take money for sacking settlements. I can usually kill at least 1 per turn, as a stack of chosen can assault even walled settlements and win with no Towers or battering rams, especially since most turn 30-40 garrisons have less than 12 units of mid tier units.
I’m currently doing a mortal empire campaign for chaos and beastmen. Since I can’t just make a rush for one or two settlements and have to kill all kingdoms of man, it’s taken longer than a head on head campaign, but it’s turn 120 and all of empire and empire factions are gone for my chaos campaign, alone with part of bretonnia. And for my beastmen Campign all of bretonnians factions are dead, along with Karl franz empire faction and middenland areas, with only Ostland and kislev left.
And for beastmen, ungors aren’t even around for long anyway. You can get gors extremely quickly, and even minotaurs are gotten very early too. As said, gorebull used to buff troops with A stack of gors, few ungors and minotaurs/CEntigors or warhounds/harpies can take on any lower level armies in the open field fairly easy.
Especially minotaurs. I’ve yet to see anything Stand up to them. I just group 4 or 5 units together in one large group on the battle field and send them around the flanks. Once behind enemy lines I just send them to charge individual units rear and watch them break. Harpies and hounds tie down enemy skirmishers and ranged units so my minotaurs run unchecked in enemy rear lines. Even dwarf warriors/long beards won’t stand vs them.
So +1 for horde armies in my opinion. Your entire economy is dedicated to hiring troops, and all buildings take 1 turn to build, and are fairly inexpensive. The really expensive ones you won’t even need for a long time. - @Razmirth Although I have fondness to the Empire I still regard it as one of the weakest Factions even after the patch that updated them a bit, horrible edicts , trashy garrisons, your potential confederation partners are horrible and tend to kill each other and be killed by others. But even they from my personal experience can do good - by turn 40 yes you can do well as Chaos but if you dive the Empire played by another player - you will find yourself being slowed down and if not careful you will be outnumbered and even with those lovely chosen - a kitting army of outriders and pistoliers can do a a decent hit and run on your armies - replenishing ammo for next fight while your troops replenish someone slower . Playing vs **** AI isn't the same as playing vs human .. your elite army will get tethered and withered down with every step - and the fear extinction is always above your had when you only have 1/5 good stacks and nothing to fall back to.. so a wrong ambush and captain that damages the troops or a witch slayer that keeps your army in his tracks will be fearful to be the least ..
and that is from a faction I consider weak ..
So take a strong faction like Woodelves and try to dive on them from the frozen cascades of the north into the forest of Atheloren and see what happens - the moment you will be spotted enemy archer armies will kite you down to the death. - I think most of it comes down to you and your playstyle. For me Beastmen have always been the best faction to go straight for a win with. They are better than Chaos in my opinion, in campaign because of their ambush stance and beastpaths. You can get to where you need to be, and kill what you need to kill really easily once you learn the best way to do it ( not getting caught, obvioualy.)
After that, I like Skaven in campaign. Specifically Skrolk.
But if you want more of an objective answer as in who has the easiest time overall, it will always be High Elves or Dwarfs. They just have the most easy to manage starting areas and good economy.
But the absolute worst, on the other hand, is probably Empire. Or Tomb Kings. Specifically Khatep.
Personally I never found outriders/pistoliers to be an issue. Chaos warhounds (especially poison) will tie up and tear through pistoliers with out any issues. Even marauder horsemen will do the job. Outriders are a nuisance but struggle to get more than 20 kills a battle vs garbage tier units, let alone chosen. Break the main line and enemy general and eventually the rest will break as well. And eventually they run out of ammo and are forced to charge chosen with great weapons or halbreds. Good luck to them.@Razmirth Although I have fondness to the Empire I still regard it as one of the weakest Factions even after the patch that updated them a bit, horrible edicts , trashy garrisons, your potential confederation partners are horrible and tend to kill each other and be killed by others. But even they from my personal experience can do good - by turn 40 yes you can do well as Chaos but if you dive the Empire played by another player - you will find yourself being slowed down and if not careful you will be outnumbered and even with those lovely chosen - a kitting army of outriders and pistoliers can do a a decent hit and run on your armies - replenishing ammo for next fight while your troops replenish someone slower . Playing vs **** AI isn't the same as playing vs human .. your elite army will get tethered and withered down with every step - and the fear extinction is always above your had when you only have 1/5 good stacks and nothing to fall back to.. so a wrong ambush and captain that damages the troops or a witch slayer that keeps your army in his tracks will be fearful to be the least ..
and that is from a faction I consider weak ..
So take a strong faction like Woodelves and try to dive on them from the frozen cascades of the north into the forest of Atheloren and see what happens - the moment you will be spotted enemy archer armies will kite you down to the death.
But I get what you’re saying, which is chaos can be bogged down fairly easily. But I find chosen suffer minimal casualties even in siege battles, let alone vs skirmisher armies. Vs wood elves would be different if they had a lot of armour piercing units, but honestly I just keep two full stacks of chosen close together once I start pushing into enemy main territories. Nothing like brute force to ensure victory. I’ve yet to face any army composition that take can on one stack of chosen, let alone two, by turn 40.
But yes, enemy heroes can delay and whittle down your troops, but so can your own heroe do the same to them. Which is why I can’t stand heroes. All they spend their time doing is trying to assasinste each other most of the game instead of actually doing anything useful. Unless u spam a ton of them which impacts your ability to field more armies.
But this is obviously an agree to disagree situation. You seem set in the opinion that horde armies are dealt with easily, And myself and others feel differently. But I think there’s merit to both sides.
Yep that is the part that was relevant to the thread ^^. I totally agree about your weakest faction picks and can see why HE is definitely on the top but I am curious why you think Dwarves are on top of the list as well ?
But if you want more of an objective answer as in who has the easiest time overall, it will always be High Elves or Dwarfs. They just have the most easy to manage starting areas and good economy.
But the absolute worst, on the other hand, is probably Empire. Or Tomb Kings. Specifically Khatep.- edited April 2018
Yep that is the part that was relevant to the thread ^^. I totally agree about your weakest faction picks and can see why HE is definitely on the top but I am curious why you think Dwarves are on top of the list as well ?
But if you want more of an objective answer as in who has the easiest time overall, it will always be High Elves or Dwarfs. They just have the most easy to manage starting areas and good economy.
But the absolute worst, on the other hand, is probably Empire. Or Tomb Kings. Specifically Khatep.
Like I said. Good economy and an easy start. If you have to flee DA GREEN TIDE you have plenty of areas to migrate to and set yourself back up to go back and kill Grimgor off. You, as the player, can also stall the Greenskin late game pain train by killing off the weaker GS tribes before they all confederate. Which is actually not that hard to do. It's just a long process.
To compare them to other factions in the same general area:
Tomb Kings have to play 'low and slow' in order to last until the later part of a campaign.
Skaven (Queek, obviously.) Cannot easily venture out with an army to go and kill off their major enemies. You have to commit several stacks to do that, wheras Dwarfs really only need one mid-tier army (Longbeards, artillary, some Slayers and ranged units) and they can send it mostly unsupported and defeat most cities outside of places like K8P.
Lizardmen are in the time out corner of the map and just take forever to get out of there, due to having to hack their way out through VC, Skaven, Greenskins, and TKs.
Lesser Greenskin factions just get gobbled up by Grimgor, or as the player now, you fight a war on almost all fronts (Wurzag. Skarsnik.)
Dwarfs just have it easier/better. - Strongest is Dwarves. Their early game has been made harder but that's mostly a speedbump really. Thanks to their ludicrously overpowered economy, they can be fielding 4-5 stacks of hardy troops by turn 50, and with their tech bonuses can easily create lategame armies upon which the AI will shatter.
Dark Elves are second. They have also been weakened by the arrival of Khatep and Tretch, but they still have a very powerful economy, relatively isolated start positions full of monuments, mighty armies and two enormously powerful LLs.
High Elves aren't that strong, I find. Tyrion is strong because of his start position. Playing as Teclis in either campaign is a different affair as your economy sucks without trade agreements. Your lategame armies are even more powerful than the DE's however so there's that at least. Overall they're definitely up there with Lizardmen, Vampires and Wood Elves.
Hordes are also fairly easy since you can cheese with them to kingdom come, but I find them atrociously boring to play. - One other advantage High Elves have is that visibility technology where they see throughout the Sea Areas. That is a big advantage in head to head.
- @Zergles From what I have seen so far Dwarves are usually wiped out by greenskins, correct me if I am on that one as I haven't tried up that head to head match up but I can still see how the greenskins can overpower the dwarves and make sure they don't establish their economy. So if you have to play vs player/s in ME you would go dwarves to grantee a win even if your opponent/s might pick greenskins ?
@Razmirth
I am not set on anything I just want a better explanation then - I just I beat everything in any situation just if it was AI. Yes horde players are probably the most likely to hate agents - but agents are part of the game - and their job is to kill, slow , attack and harass armies if you haven't taken them into your consideration then you haven't read my first post properly as I said it is a very important aspect of of a faction - so for example one of the reasons I find Empire to be weak while almost all factions have their caster as the 'block army' agent - empire need a witchhunter to block armies and to get it its very expensive and not very worth it in terms of investment, the empire player is literally in the grace of random chance of getting that hero - this is one of the reasons I place them as one of the weaker factions.
Now I think horde factions can be really strong but at the same time a few misteps and that rush tactic can turn to immediate lose just as likely as it can be an immediate win - unlucky block , unlucky ambush , unlucky lose of general droping back to a level one general on a horde is a painful situation and there is barely any mechanics to boost you back up to speed
So my position isn't : Horde suck its that your rush tactic from persona experience is a two edged sword and therefore I won't call Horde factions the best in the game - again if you can convince me that the factors I mentioned don't matter at all and you have experience to back it up - I would love to hear about it - Junior MemberPosts: 28Registered UsersHey, first post in the forum. Really liked the discussion so thought I’d give my two cents.
A few disclaimers - I’ve not played H2H in Warhammer and I don’t have the WE DLC.
However I’d still like to make a point regarding the horde vs empire debate. Specifically the role of ambush stance.
Defensively speaking ambush is the most decisive tool in the hands of a defending player. Not only does it allow you to surprise lone armies (if you’re lucky), but more importantly it hides your armies.
The attacking player doesn’t know where, how many and in what state the defending army(ies) is/are.
I used this once in a H2H as ERM versus Tanukhids in Attila. My friend was expanding into Anatolia and sent agents ahead - despite passing right by me the agents did not see my three armies - all protecting various routes he could take. Upon attacking one of my garrison and taking substantial losses to one of his 4 armies, I seized the opportunity in my turn, attacking 2 of his armies with my three. I won a close victory at which point we decided I won.
This could also be used in Warhammer. Imagine a Beastman player deciding whether to attack the northern or southern path into Athel Loren. If he can see everything, it is easy for him only to attack vulnerable settlements. But if the WE player hides his army well the Beastman player can never know when he is safe. A sudden strike and its game over.
I had other thoughts but in the interest of avoiding a long walk of text I’m gonna keep it concise . (Also writing on mobile sucks)