Total War: Warhammer II is out and it’s a blast. Like all Total War games, it is also a complex beast, and it can be hard to get your head around at first. We have specific guides for playing each of its four races, but we also accrued many more miscellaneous tips that will help you seize the Vortex no matter your allegiance. Read on.
Ah, but why is it a blast? For our reasoning, check our Total War: Warhammer 2 review.
In campaignGit good(y huts)
Hire a new Lord, put them to sea, and hunt down every Skull Reef you can. Do this on your first turn. Skull Reefs each give 10,000 gold plus a magic item, which is obviously a hugeboost, especially early in the game. You can’t go wrong with looting encounters at sea generally, but Skull Reefs are worth braving almost any hazard for.
Protecting your characters
Lords and Heroes can now attain level 40, but we have noticed they tend to get killed (rather than wounded) a lot more often. First thing to note if you want to protect them is the new Immortality skill at the top of the character sheet, which will ensure that a bit of wounding is the worst that ever happens to them.They will then be available to recruit again after a few turns.
Stop marching
Related to the above, March stance is much more precarious now in that it no longer allows you to retreat when attacked. Use it recklessly and you risk finding yourself in unwinnable battles and losing that promising Lord. It is now for rushing around your heartlands to squash that last Chaos invader, not for advancing into enemy territory. *Wags finger.*
Garrisons are that hot new thing
Between ritual-spawned Chaos stacks and Intervention attacks, Total War: Warhammer II can conjure a lot of horrible threats out of nowhere. Unless you have sentries in the ocean (or the High Elves’ Maritime Empire tech), threats can also sneak up on you from across the pond.
In this context, garrisons are the new settlement configuration meta (which is definitely a thing). Provincial capitals also have more building slots, so you’ve plenty of space to bolster your defences. A fully upgraded garrison building in a tier-five settlement has enough troops to see off almost any single-stack army, and even in a tier-three settlement, your rivals can’t attack with real confidence until they’re fielding their elites. You will also note that the ritual currency building chains in appropriate settlements will add yet more forces to the garrison.
Your empire is far more vulnerable from many more angles in Total War: Warhammer II, so you should put garrison buildings in any settlement that is likely to be attacked (to the extent that you can predict such attacks) or that you simply don’t want to lose.
Winning
What with all the hype around the Vortex campaign, it is easy to forget that you can technically win Total War: Warhammer II the old-fashioned way. For the Domination victory, you need to eliminate all Legendary Lords not of your own race, and to control 50 provinces through either direct ownership, vassalisation, or military alliances.
Compared to the Vortex victory, this is hard. And in pursuing it, you will probably get most of the way to the Vortex victory anyway – you will capture a number of settlements rich in ritual currency while dominating everyone else, and even ordinary settlements each produce a tiny trickle of the stuff, so all of this conquest will probably put you ahead in the race for the Vortex whether you want to be or not. All you have to do is attempt the rituals. To win by Domination, you would have to actively choose not to win the Vortex victory, andstop everyone else from doing it first.
How rituals work
When you are attempting a Vortex ritual, you are guaranteed some unwelcome visits by the ruinous powers. In addition to whatever intervention armies your rivals may choose to send your way, rituals will spawn a mix of Chaos and, later, Skaven stacks in your territory, along with Marauder warbands out at sea.
The first ritual spawns just one Chaos Warriors stack, and it won’t even be full. The third is a big escalation, spawning three stacks of both Chaos and Skaven, along with two Marauder warbands, all full. The fourth spawns five full Chaos and Skaven stacks. The fifth and final ritual, which lasts 20 turns rather than ten, does this again, but twice – once when you start the ritual, and once again halfway through.
Self-defence
Preparing for these invaders is key to surviving them. We reloaded autosaves and played around with our army placements to see if we could anticipate their arrival, only to find that their turned up somewhere else, which is bloody annoying. Our current theory is that they avoid your armies as a first priority, and spawn near your ritual cities as a second, without a bias for any one of them (unlike Interventions, which generally spawn close to one unlucky settlement).
This can lead to some very weird spawns – as High Elves, one of our ritual cities was Tor Elasor, while the others were all on Ulthuan. This resulted in Chaos stacks appearing halfway between the two in Araby, miles away from anyof our settlements, which suited us fine. Trying to engineer a helpful spawn as the Lizardmen, however, we managed to get all five stacks to drop on the western half of Lustria when all of our ritual cities were across the mountains to the east, near our most vulnerable cities. All observations suggest that they only ever move toward a ritual city, but they have no qualms about razing vulnerable settlements on their way.
Given all of this, we have some tips for surviving late-game rituals. At the very least, you will want a high-tier garrison building and a fully stacked army in each of your ritual cities. Invading stacks rarely combine forces, so this should guarantee that they will besiege you rather than risk a direct attack. You can then break the siege yourself if you are strong enough, or send reinforcements.
In diplomacyYour Vortex rivals are not your friends
Both the Vortex and Domination victory conditions will require you to fight the other major powers at some point, so don’t get used to cordial relations.
If you are chasing the Vortex victory, you will accrue escalating diplomatic penalties with all rival races for each ritual successfully completed. While these are an obstacle to useful trade deals and the like, they aren’t insuperable until you complete the fourth ritual, after which you are locked into a non-negotiable state of war with all rival Legendary Lords. The Domination victory also requires you to eliminate them all.
To win, you have to fight the other Vortex chasers, so plan with that in mind.
Who does everyone hate?
Diplomacy in Total War can sometimes feel like swimming upstream. You finally have enough spare gold to send someone a gift, to try and land that lucrative trade agreement, but they are still not biting. After a while they forget about your present, but that great power modifier is souring relations just as it ever it did. It is tough being such a big deal.
A good question to ask is: who does everyone hate? Check the diplomacy overlays to isolate the faction with the most current wars. Then go join the pile-on. You will get an instant boost just from being at war with everybody’s grudge, and any substantial losses you inflict on them will earn you further credits. If you are trying to befriend one faction in particular, the same advice applies – just pick on their enemies specifically.
It is a fairly elementary trick, but you would be amazed how far it can go. In my Tyrion campaign, I was able to make three or four highly profitable new trade deals when it finally came time to take out Clan Pestilens – I even got to neutral standing with a Dark Elf faction. Had I noticed that everyone else hated the Skaven as much as I do, I would have attacked them much sooner.
Confederate with care
Whichever Legendary Lord you choose, you’ll begin with only a handful of settlements, and the rest of your civilisation will be fragmented into many smaller factions. Obviously you will have to expand in order to win, and you have only two options to do so: conquest and confederation. The latter option is bloodless and efficient, but only other factions of your race are eligible. Before they will accede, you will need to be quite a bit more powerful than them in military terms, and to share close relations – a defensive alliance is generally a minimal requirement.
Your trustworthiness rating is also crucial, so terminate non-aggression pacts well in advance of declarations of war, if at all possible. This is a good tip for successful diplomacy more generally, and High Elf fans – who can make a truckload of money from trade agreements if determined – should take particular note.
There are hazards in confederation; mainly, that it incurs a lengthy diplomatic penalty with all other factions of your race. It may be tempting to absorb tiny Nagarythe just because they are willing right now, but if Teclis’s Order of Loremasters needs a little more encouragement, it is probably better to butter him up a while longer for a bigger reward, than to put him off for ages with this confederation penalty.
I found a Marauder Lord named Kylass Deathmetal
Less a tip, this, but everyone deserves to know that it’s possible.
Happy conquering! If you have any tips of your own, share them in the comments.
As games become more accessible and widespread the people who play them become more diverse. Nowhere is this more evident than in strategy games, a genre that not only allows for but actively encourages a variety of playstyles.
This is particularly true in Creative Assembly’s Total War: Warhammer games. These are divided between broad strategy on the overmap and intense tactics in the real-time battles, and feature a massive selection of races, factions, and units.
You can side with the Skaven and charge at enemies with teeth at the ready. Or go with the Tomb Kings and you can call upon ancient rites to grow a huge undead army. Then there’s the Lizardmen that wield magic to send their scaly influence across the land.
Perplexed by the dazzling array of choices? No worries, we’ve broken down several major playstyles and locked in the best faction for each, and even thrown in a bonus reserve option if the top dog in each category doesn’t appeal to you.
WARMONGER
Being one of the most popular approaches to the series (the games are called Total War, after all), those looking to be a warmonger will find a lot of suitable options among the roster of factions, but perhaps the best is Chaos.
Chaos is one of the horde factions, meaning they don’t occupy settlements in the traditional way, so the need to continue moving and conquering is built into their DNA – perfect for anyone looking to pick a fight every chance they get. Chaos also have some of the sturdiest melee units in the game, which is key for any faction that relies on combat to survive.
Infantry is the backbone of an army, and these units are crucial for drawing the line in battle and shaping an engagement – not to mention pinning enemies in place while your cavalry and monsters wheel around to the flanks or rear to deliver crushing hammer blows. With great stats across the board and plenty of armour, armour-piercing, and anti-large, Chaos infantry is some of the best and most flexible in the game.
Advantages:
Downfalls:
Reserve choice: Greenskins
DIPLOMAT
Diplomacy in the Total War games has always been a dicey proposition. Nowhere is this more the case than in the Warhammer universe, where most of the races have at least some reason to dislike each other – and, in many cases, are torn asunder by aeons long, brutally violent blood feuds.
Lizardmen provide one of the best options for the budding diplomat
That’s not to say diplomacy isn’t a valid approach in these games, just that it’s a bit trickier and requires a deft hand… or claw, as the case may be. The Lizardmen provide one of the best options for the budding diplomat in that they don’t start with as many crippling attitude penalties from other races, probably because they’re remote, and it’s entirely possible the others don’t believe they actually exist.
It’s also fairly easy, particularly in the huge Mortal Empires campaign, for the Lizardmen to build an empire by only picking off neutral or minor faction settlements (and unifying their race), thus not provoking any of the other major powers.
Advantages:
Downfalls:
Reserve choice: High Elves
Dwarf Guide Total War Warhammer 2Turtler
For those that prefer a defensive stratagem, Warhammer offers one particularly strong and obvious choice. The dwarfs are kings of fortifying their mountain homes or burrowing deep down into the earth, lying in wait for any faction foolish enough to attempt to breach their robust defenses.
With one of the least threatened starting positions in the game, the dwarfs offer the security to stay out of affairs of the mortal world and focus on building and development while the other factions scramble to seize territory and best one another.
On the battlefield, the dwarfs wield a spectacular array of devastating artillery, meaning they can sit back and force the enemy to approach their carefully selected defensive positions, and then rain death upon them from tremendous distances. Even when the enemy does come to grips with dwarf units, their heavily armored melee infantry is more than a match for some of the best brawlers in the game.
Advantages:
Downfalls:
Reserve choice: Dark Elves, Lizardmen
RUSHER
The polar opposite of the hoarder, the rusher is the player weaned on the zerg in StarCraft – the sort that wants to push forward as quickly and decisively as possible, securing victory (or at least large tracts of territory) while other players are still building and planning their strategy.
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The Prophet and the Warlock's two camkpaigns offer mad fan service for the Skaven and a meaty strategic challenge for Lizardmen. We absolutely love it.
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This sort will find the Tomb Kings very amenable to their playstyle, with their ability to field huge armies early in the game without penalty. The Tomb Kings can recruit units for free and don’t suffer the crippling maintenance costs that haunt the other factions as their ranks start to swell, meaning they can pump out early game units and begin immediately sweeping them over lightly-defended settlements. Mid-tier units or a second army will require cash, but if you stick to a single army of low-tier units you can advance without fear of grinding to a halt because of an empty treasury.
Also, unlike their undead kin the Vampire Counts, the Tomb Kings have access to missile and artillery units, so even their early armies have a fair amount of flexibility and diversity.
Advantages:
Downfalls:
Reserve choice: Skaven
Hoarder
The allure of gold is a powerful one, and like the man said: money is power. With enough cash on hand almost any deficiency can be be overcome, whether it’s a waning empire or an underpowered military, so the temptation to hoard is a strong one. No-one does it better than the Amber-loving Wood Elves.
Though the Wood Elves offer a number of different builds that each lend themselves to slightly different playstyles, it’s possible to carefully develop them as an economic superpower whose cash flow is second to none. The key to this is their tech tree, which offers some massive bonuses that are proportionately more valuable the earlier you select them, from big discounts on building costs to improved income from the very buildings you constructed on the cheap.
Cardcaptor sakura eng dub torrent. Did you know?Total War: Warhammer 2 is the best strategy game
And, oddly for a faction that tends to dwell inland – in the verdant, primordial forests of the Warhammer world – the Wood Elves are capable of constructing some of the richest and most productive ports in the game.
Advantages:
Downfalls:
Reserve choice: High elves
HomePCTotal War Warhammer Walkthrough Strategy guide
welcome to the Total War Warhammer Walkthrough Strategy guide in which will provide you with tips and tricks to playing the different type of game and getting the best in game strategy. In Total War Warhammer you will be playing through the different races in the game such: The Empire, Dwarfs, Greenskins, Vampire Counts, Warriors of Chaos.
You will see that each of the Factions in Total War Warhammer have their own rosters, skills and different strategies for using them to give you the best change to advancing through the different level and enemies in the game.
Below find the different gameplay styles for each of the Factions:
How to play with Empire Faction:
How to play Dwarfs Faction:
How to play Greenskins Faction:
Ho to play Vampire Counts Faction:
Posted byBEEP BEEP1 year ago
Archived
Hi guys,
I just wrote up a Dwarf early game guide (Normal difficulty) for my friend who is just getting into the game, and he suggested I post it. I know TWW2 comes out in a month and no one will play Dwarfs then, but I figured I'd get it up on the internet in case it helps anyone. I've won with dwarfs on legendary but I'm no pro, so don't expect this to be flawless. I did most of it from memory anyways, so I wasn't able to be as specific as I'd have liked.
Alright, time to learn about the motha fuckin' DAWI.
The first thing you gotta know about the DAWI is that they aren't little bitches. That means they don't take shit from no one. So when they got some beef, they give that snitch a stitch.
Alright that was getting old. What I'm referring to is their core campaign mechanic, grudges. Any time something shitty happens (you lose a battle, an enemy hero sabotages/assassinates/does something to you), you'll probably get a 'grudge' that you have to fulfill. Generally it's something like 'defeat a Greenskins army' or 'assassinate an enemy hero.' There's a bar at the top of the screen that tracks grudges, and you can read about them in the book of grudges icon at the bottom right of the screen.
You don't want to let your grudges pile up. The more you have, the more public order penalties are applied (it's on a tiered system, you can see the penalties by mousing over the bar at the top of the screen). You can usually tolerate like 3-5 grudges before things get annoying.
This guide will be broken down into three areas: Strategy, Tactics, and What to Do
Let's talk Strategy. Your #1 goal as dwarfs should be to get a lot of trade and income to support your expensive troops. Every turn in the early game should start with you going to the diplomacy screen and asking every single neutral or friendly faction to trade with you. You want to get as many as possible right away to build your income. Start by asking for non-aggression pacts, then trade agreements. You can try for both in the same turn. This is because there is an economy building in your provinces that gives a bonus to trade income. It's global and it stacks. So you want to build that in every province. You also want to build the trade resource buildings wherever possible (furs, mining, beer, etc.). Finally, if you have room, you want to build the 'trinket maker' chain of economy buildings, which give you a flat income.
The way that I approach province build orders is this:
So you want to focus on capturing settlements that provide these bonuses early, so you can recruit troops from there all game. The province directly south of your starting province, called Death Pass, has both iron and gold resources. It's not super easy to hold, but it's a good one to go for early.
In the early game, I also usually build 1 growth building in each province. This helps you get to higher tier buildings faster.
You shouldn't need to build public order buildings on Normal difficulty unless you really fuck up your grudges.
Dwarf troops are expensive, so you can't field too many armies at once. I usually try to stay above 1000 gold in income per turn. That way if something crazy happens, I have a bit of a cushion. Because you can't have a bunch of armies running around (until lategame), you want to focus your aggression. Try not to war with too many people at once. Dwarfs are big on making alliances, so you should try to work with the humans and other dwarfs, rather than against them (remember that you can only occupy dwarf and orc settlements, not human/vampire/wood elf). If you are friendly with another dwarf faction, and they are weaker than you, you can often confederate them, which means you take over their lands and armies (and their debts, so be careful about your finances when you confederate. The AI likes to run in the red, which the player can't do). This is the easiest way to expand your empire and control more land. However, for dwarfs, you don't even need to own all the province to win; they can just be military allies! So don't fight other dwarfs, it's bad for business.
On to Tactics. Dwarf units are slow, and they have no cavalry. This means that you aren't mobile, especially compared to the orcs or vampire factions, which have lots of cavalry and flying units. To compensate, dwarfs have tons of armor, shields, and melee defense. Use these strengths! Instead of your typical 50% melee infantry, 25% ranged/artillery, 25% cav, go for 50% melee infantry and 50% ranged. Blow shit up. Dwarf quarellers (crossbows) are VERY strong early game against greenskins units, which have very low armor. They can win trades with pretty much any other early game ranged unit, so if the enemy has a bunch of goblin archers or orc arrer bows, just shoot back and kill them. Your ranged units will win unless they're severely outnumbered. Once enemy units start to have armor, upgrade to Thunderers (gunpowder ranged infantry). These guys have armor piercing but shorter range.
Dwarfs also don't have spear units. This means they don't have cheap counters to cavalry. It's important to tech quickly to Longbeards, which have charge defense against large units (large units are cavalry and monsters). These guys will make up the bulk of your infantry line for the whole game. Dwarf warriors are fine for the first 20 or so turns,but try to get longbeards pretty early and you'll have no problems with cavalry.
Finally, Dwarf artillery is strong. Get cannons pretty early and use them to snipe down monsters (trolls, giants, arachnarok spiders) and cavalry.
In general, you want to be on the defensive in battles. Deploy so that you can get into firing range for your ranged units, then deploy your infantry defensively on all sides to protect from flanking cavalry. A strong melee core will hold the line for a long time, even if they won't outright win against other melee infantry. Use that time to kill the enemy ranged units, then flank the enemy with your quarrelers and thunderers and fire into the enemy flanks. They will break quickly.
Dwarf Guide Total War Warhammer
Lategame, you want your core infantry to be a few units of Ironbreakers (pretty much indestructible melee infantry. they just don't break), flanked by Longbeards to deal with charges. You can also include a few units of hammerers or Longbeards with great weapons to flank and do DPS. Then just get lots of thunderers (5-6 units) and cannons (1-3). Focus the thunderers on armored melee infantry (until they close into melee with your troops) and then switch to monsters. Focus your cannons on monsters and cavalry. You can also get 1-2 units of Slayers, which are unarmored, anti-large cavalry/monster killers. They're fast (for a dwarf), but they suck in melee against infantry and they melt to ranged fire.
For heroes, Runesmiths have excellent defensive mitigation spells. The rune of negation reduces ALL incoming damage by a big percentage, so focus on that. The Rune of Wrath and Ruin is great direct damage on cavalry. For your lords' skills, I'd focus on buffing your melee troops' attack and defense. You can make dwarf warriors pretty strong just by following that skill tree. Thanes are your assassin heroes, and they can be buffed to be strong in melee. I also usually take the blue tree skills that buff income or decrease recruitment or construction costs. Reducing construction costs make a BIG difference. You can save 1K+ gold per building in the mid and lategame.
Finally, utilize Regiments of Renown. These are recruited from a button next to the normal recruitment button. They have special names and purple unit cards. They're very strong, but they're also expensive. The best ones are the Warriors of Dragonfire Pass, the Old Grumblers, and Norgrimlings Ironbreakers. Also the Grudgethrower catapult has a morale penalty to enemies, so it's great for breaking low-morale units (like any goblin unit) before they even close to melee.
Now, What to Do. This is assuming normal difficulty.
First, make trade agreements and non-aggression pacts with ALL humans and Dwarfs (and wood elves, if you can). Try every turn for the first 5-10 turns. Trade agreements provide an ongoing boost to diplomatic relations, in addition to the aforementioned income. They're great. If you have surplus cash, giving gifts to other factions really boosts their opinions of you. You can give a gift (10K gold or so) and then make an alliance that they might not have wanted. Even after the gifts' effects wear out, the alliance will still be generating positive diplomatic relations for you.
Your first actions should be to consolidate your home province. I think you can defeat the bloody spears army at turn one, but if you think it's too hard, you can move to the edge of your province and recruit a few units before attacking them. Then go east and take the two settlements from the Bloody Spears. Once you have the province, get a few income buildings going. The Bloody Spears will now have settlements to your north and south. I would build a defensive building in your farthest east settlement to defend from attacks from the north. Using your new income, raise a small second army. Use this to defend also against attacks from the north. Keep building up your main army, and then start heading south into Death Pass. Once you've taken the southern Bloody Spears provinces, try to make peace with them. Taking their northern provinces can overextend you and force you to fight on two fronts, which is tough because you can't move very far in the mountains. You can deal with them later.
Make friends with Barak Varr and the Border Princes to your west. They will almost always be at war with the Greenskins, so having them distracting the greenskins is very useful.
Once you don't have to worry about the Bloody Spears to the northeast, turn your attention south to the Greenskins. They will probably confederate or capture some of the Bloody Spears settlements in Death Pass, so you'll end up fighting them . Build up a full stack or two, and head south to take the rest of Death Pass. Remember to use the Underway campaign movement stance to jump over mountains. Keep in mind though, if you try to travel under an enemy army, or land near them, they can 'intercept' you and fight you. Don't get a weak army caught this way.
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From there, things depend on what the AI does. In general, focus on advancing south against the greenskins. Help Barak Varr to the west when you can, as they can defend your western flank for you. I usually ignore the western badlands for a while and focus on going straight south rather than southwest. The settlements are really spread out over there, and it can be difficult to coordinate your armies across that much territory.
Good luck!
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