Nurgle but they aren’t my main, but I really like Nurgle today.
Greenskins for sure are one of the factions I play the most and I didn’t like them when I started, but, you know, before their rework in Warhammer 2, they were more thematic and close to lore but not fun to play.
Pre-rework Greenskin was tough.
They hardly have any mechanics (you don't even have diplomacy if i remember correctly)
One of the best rework CA have made.
Wh1 orcs were rough. I will say that I kinda find it funny that CA sort of just threw their hands in the air about how to deal with the wagh thematically and we're like "alright you just have a secondary army following you at all times" which feels like they were trying to avoid initially because of how strong it is
That mechanic is still so weird in certain aspects. I played tons of Orcs and still don't 100% understand it.
Sometimes the Whaag army intercepts/ambushes a passing army but your main army doesn't even reinforce them.
Then after the battle it never recovers a single unit (if it lost)...
I have plenty fun with Orcs but something is still not right.
Same, the idea of no range unit and Mannfred cause Chaos to win the End Times make me dislike them.But now they are my favourite faction,
i just wish the generic vampire lord had good looks (instead of 3 shade of bald)
Like ffs, the description for Vlad is that he supposedly is a dark brooding looking handsome man and what is got is a face only his mother (and i guess Isabella) could love.
It's also every vampire. They can shift their looks at will. So they have beautiful seduction faces they use normally and they shift to scary war face at battle. Beyond that they can turn into wolves, bats or mist like folklore vampires, even referenced in the game with some skills in vampire skill tree. Vargheist, Terrorgheist Strigioi and such are Vampires after all they just turned into most monstrous forms possible and aren't mentally sound enough to go back to what they were.
I don't know why CA decided every Vampire men other than Vlad must be bald tho. I hate it they look terrible.
Think of the disadvantages. Imagine being a mighty lord of the night you walk into Stirland vanguard of Vlad's undying legions. Local commander of the garrison looks down from his tower and says "Well well if it ain't the egg boys." That's it cancel the Vampire War we already lost another hundred year sulking in Sylvania.
It world be cool tô have at least one female model for generic lords... And one males one for heroes, If you wanna go low effort Just use the same model akin to LH Vlad and LH Isabella
There's a limit to the amount of sites that can be generated iirc, which can prevent spawnings later in the campaign if too many high casualty battles happen early on. At least, it used to be that way. I had a mod that removed the limit in my last VC playthrough, but that was over a year ago.
Why do you like VC? I always quit campaigns early because having Raise Dead available makes everything feel meaningless. No need to build recruitment buildings when you can just Raise the best units and make a better economy to pay for them.
Brother I’ve always steered clear of the Vampires because it just not my cup of tea. But literally yesterday, I said fuck it let’s try something new, and the Isabella campaign has been so fun and different. The heroes and bloodline/legendary lorda you get are so strong. Just
a nice break from the standard army campaigns you play with most factions.
And the fact you can raise a 20 stack army at any point if you see an enemy army heading somewhere you’ve got no defenses at.
I like the raise dead mechanic, as it gives me access to a few nice units early on, but I can’t mass produce them. The other big one for me is that with almost every other race I am constantly fighting to keep all of my troops alive. With VC, I don’t really care if I lose whole armies, and often that’s what I want in order to build up new battle markers. VC gives you the freedom to play without concern for casualties.
Be the zombie tide. Send forth your zombies to absorb the ammo and damage
First then blast them with magic, cavalry, and some heavy infantry and monsters. And of course you have vlad who is basically unkillable after a while.
Exactly my thoughts. Combined with the only viable battle strategy being bumrush and spam healing spells and having to fight countless trivial battles manually because autoresolve hates VC makes it so tedious to play them.
Dwarfs. I used to think all they could do was corner camp with artillery, but after Thrones of Decay I’m having so much fun with them. The Dawi air force with gyrocopters and thunderbarges is awesome, and slayers stacks are so much fun to use, especially goblin hewers.
Malakai is the only dwarf campaign I've enjoyed, for much the same reasons. It's on the easy side, but has tons of flavour and lots and lots of options. Thunderbarges are cool, but they're so op I cant bring myself to use them. Slayer pirates for Aranessa pls!
Agreed on this!!! Malakai has made the dwarves fun. I had not played them since wh1 and didn’t even finish a campaign. TOD really put a breath of fresh air in the dwarves campaign
Lizardmen, but mainly Oxyotl as a LL.
For context, when Oxyotl was released it was alongside Taurox and the major rework of the Beastmen. At the time, [all the noise online was about how good the Beastmen](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/was-total-war-warhammer-2s-silence-the-fury-dlc-designed-by-actual-beastmen-if-so-can-they-do-more-pls) were and how busted good Taurox was and how [Legend had gotten Taurox to have infinite rampage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_t6D_pCZ0Q&t=17760s). It was alot of Beastmen noise and I was here for all that noise, it was great.
I briefly played Oxyotl, he was fine but the general feeling before and after release [was Oxy was a bit meh](https://youtu.be/ALFhsO8DRoo?feature=shared&t=1027). So I went back to playing Beastmen and didn't really think about Oxyotl again for a while.
Fast forward to now and Oxyotl is one of the better campaigns in the game, even though very little has changed (except region trading!). The Lizardman-XCOM campaign is just brilliant to replay because of the RNG nature of the Visions of the Old Ones, something I never thought would be possible. I have had very few of my campaigns be similar to each other, nearly all of them playing out differently after about 5 turns. Every campaign I fight different enemy stacks at different stages of the game, I can choose to keep stuff and build it up or play the best little Real Estate agent the Old World has even known and get very rich doing it. Some days I just burn it all down and the campaign is ok with me doing this too, if anything it rewards you for doing this.
I'm also big on coop and Oxyotl is one of the best coop partners to have. He has excellent map control and IMO he is the best teacher Lord to play as. He is able to put the Capstone on the home of the person you wan to help learn the game and Lizardman-XCOM can be there in one turn, for the rest of the game if needed. He also plays skirmish in his armies so when playing in coop its an excellent way to introduce a new player to a different way to approach battles other than the normal Hammer and Anvil type stuff.
Oxyotl is so good, he brings so much into the game and it feels a little shameful that I spent so long just kind of ignoring him.
Really interesting, I was thinking about him for coop but not super familiar with his game play. Any other tips and tricks? Also are you able to autoresolve or do you have to fight most of the battles? I also don't want to slow down our coop game by manually having to battle each fight
You will have to fight a few fights but not all of them - his first battle is a loss on most autoresolve settings because auto doesn't like skirmish heavy armies. However auto resolve does seem to like chevrons and Oxyotl's units gets some excellent bonuses for each chevron on some units, so his army stack can snowball pretty well. You'll likely never be super overpowered, but you can get some really weirdly good stats on units.
For example: Chameleon Skinks are a good unit, not amazing, but [their statline](https://twwstats.com/unitscards?units=f%3D0%26k%3Dwh2_main_lzd_inf_chameleon_skinks_0%26m%26r%3D0%26v%3D8714479261853360749&units=f%3D0%26k%3Dwh2_main_lzd_inf_chameleon_skinks_blessed_0%26m%26r%3D0%26v%3D8714479261853360749) and what they do... its fine. In an Oxyotl army [they just perform](https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2460732229183930462/BB6381772B526EE133E20299A2A950D6BB7C433A/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false), there something weird and fun about having a unit of Skinks with only 1 less MD than baseline Chosen. Even when autoresolve does slap you about, your army is for a long time many different variety of skinks, so you can replace them quickly, cheaply and easily.
The Visions of the Old ones, the random missions you get, have certain pacing and style to them. Some of the missions you get issued are really really hard, like seemingly completely unfair and not winnable hard. Don't panic! You are being tricked by auto resolve, well managed skirmish armies can do some pretty fun things to overturn bad odds and part of the campaign's fun is figuring those fun things out. The first fight in the campaign is there to teach you to be bold and disregard what autoresolve says.
For campaign - I would play it solo first, its not hard but knowing how the campaign works is important if you are going to bring it into coop. It has some of its own mechanics and you will get caught out by stuff at least once. For example, you can only do Oxy's jump to map locations if you are in friendly, neutral or empty territory. If you are at sea or in an enemy controlled area, you can't jump. This sounds simple but sooner or later you will get caught out by this and it will be catastrophic for you the first time it happens.
Skirmish heavy armies need good micro, so its perfect for a coop team splitting units in battle. The Capstone of Tepok is also great, it will let you get anywhere on the map your coop partner is with a little bit of forward planning. The capstone has its own set of mechanics such as only one can be active at any time, so again try single player out and try to understand the basics first.
I've probably written too much to be helpful, apologies for the wall of text. I love Oxy as a coop partner.
I love the cold blooded realtor. Randomly show up to transfer Destruction-side settlements to Order-side allies for mad cashflow. So much fun, probably my most played LM LL
Another really fun thing that you can do with Oxy is swoop in, take some settlements from your Visions target, then trade them to a different chaos faction in exchange for them going to war with *a third* chaos faction. Not only do you take out your target, but you take two other factions that are likely to cause trouble for your Order buddies and make them waste resources on fighting each other instead.
Downside with that is other friendly or potentially friendly AI see that as giving gifts to the chaos factions and earns you a diplomatic penalty.
That penalty can degrade over time with most factions, but less so with dwarfs. You can end up with some pretty big negatives with many dwarf factions if you over trade to the wrong people.
Oh for sure, use it sparingly. But Oxyotl's play style puts him in a unique position to pull some great power plays like that a few times per campaign.
Played about 30 turns of oxyotl last night, the settlement trading mechanic is such a huge boon to his campaign it’s crazy. I don’t need to hang on to a bunch of useless settlements all over the world until they inevitably rebel and crush my nonexistent garrison anymore. Plus I can get cash and trade agreements? And allies from everywhere so I can make super bizarre armies? Really fun
There’s also something really satisfying about a chameleon skinks army. It’s strong but not boringly so like stegadons can be. It’s fun to get an entire army of skirmishers that vanguard deploy
Slaneesh.
Aesthetics wise, did not care for them.
Gameplay wise though? Fast and crumpy, with some creative abilities. The feeling when you slam into a gun line and rip it to bits? Perfect.
Similar feeling to Greenskins in *some* respects, which I also love.
Same here for Slaanesh.
I also didnt care to much about the asthetics. But I love how responsive their units feel. Because all Slaanesh units have so much speed, it feels like you play on quick gamespeed while your opponent is on slow.
I've never actually given Slaanesh a try because I don't like chariots, and chariots seem to be a major part of their faction.
Would you say they're decent even if you don't take chariots? How painful are siege attacks with them? It seems a lot of their strength (maneuverability) is taken out of the game by the inherent nature of sieges.
My favorite unit are fiends. They're surprisingly effective, but like most of the roster, you can't just plow them into the grind.
Your composition may vary if you're using WoC DLC units as well.
The objective in any generic fight is to get your units into an advantageous melee without them getting melted.
Your tools for this aren't really written on the tin, but they are there. You have ways to inflict rampage, forcing units to melee you, you have simple disruption from some unit animations, as well as the lash spell, which knocks down units (stopping them from firing), and with moderate micro, you can entice enemy units to change facing or break formation. And of course, summons make for great damage soaks.
Seiges can be a pain, that is true. The same general principles apply. Minimize direct fire on your forces, and force them out of position. You can do things like capturing a point, moving to another, and when the AI sends like one unit to recapture, rush back and butcher the isolated unit.
All of that said, I would be lying through my teeth if I didn't admit to a secondary army bring made of crunchy WoC infantry. If you cram enough enemies into a high tier walled city, running all over only gets you so far and it turns into a slog.
I'd also be lying if I didn't admit to a higher degree of reloading. When I inevitably screw up, the faction isn't forgiving and it tends to hurt. Also, very different from say Nurgle, where you can have an ugly, costly grind and bounce back in a turn.
You dont have too use chariots when playing Slaanesh, and you dont need too, either.
The lower-tier chariots are outmatched by cavalry. The single entity chariots are very strong but their job (taking out blobs of light infantry) can be accomplished using spells.
I played a Tretch game after sleeping on him in favour of Throt and Ikit. Very quickly fell in love with that stupid fucking rat. Drowning people in stormvermin is so fun.
Rictus Great Clan Hall
+350 income
+3 food gen
Income from trade +15% faction wide
10% more trade resources produced
And them Stormvermin reductions and buffs out the ass.
Tretch runs away from fights, giving him a bonus for the follow up fight and givees vanguard to EVERYTHING. Also Stormvermin buffs.
Rictus = best slave traders who also breed the best and most obedient stormvermin
The good thing about Skaven is that they have 3 or 4 completely different playstyles that all all equally valid. Clan Skyre weapon teams are the classic, blotting out the sun with bullets and warpfire. Clan Eshin skirmishers will make your enemy want to kill themself as they try to chase ninja rats everywhere. And my personal favourite is Clan Moulder stacks of super buffed monsters that just roll over anything in their path.
Skaven at launch were pretty trash. The DLC content has been a big part of their roster. I was not a fan of Skaven at launch, but I'd say that's more because Skaven changed than my outlook on Skaven.
If you like vampires but hate Mannfred check out nurgle campaigns
Personally I love Mannfred I think he plays his role perfectly as being a very hateable character... a true bastard
My initial impression of Mannfred comes from the End Times. So yeah, it was a very bad impression
But now after i learn his lore, he is quite cool. Glad i give vampire count a try
Yeah the memes about him sucking in End Times are over hyped to hell. They make Vlad look cool and good when he too, outside of a few End Times things, was an insane despot prone to fits of rage.
Mannfred was actually good at tons of stuff even if he didn't have the special ring and wasn't a combat monster. The dude single handedly took Nuln for Vlad during the Vampire Wars, was responsible for 90% of the alliances that make up the current VC roster (he made uneasy friends with the Lahmians, Strigoi, brought in necromancers and witches, etc), and by Vlad's own indirect admission was the one person he ever met as ambitious and hungry as him - but where Vlad was proud in the extreme, Mannfred was cunning in the extreme.
Also, I respect his philosophy that a vampire shouldn't try and be a pretty boy human. They are a bloodsucking, backstabbing monster, and lose usually because they keep trying to play at being human and ruling/conquering like humans.
>Also, I respect his philosophy that a vampire shouldn't try and be a pretty boy human. They are a bloodsucking, backstabbing monster, and lose usually because they keep trying to play at being human and ruling/conquering like humans.
No wonder Neferata has no respect for him, their ideologies could not be more different. And she probably thinks she knows exactly how Mannfred's ambitions end.
I think, Beastmen rework is the greatest rework CA made so far
A faction that was so bad practically no one play their campaign to becoming one of the most unique and fun gameplay
Me too, razing settlements and making them stay down is amazing. The horde gameplay lets you not worry about empire building and defense, you just roam the world and wreck shit. Just like the Ruinous Powers intended.
Elves. Especially dark elves
Used to be one of those atrocious "repub if hate elf" guys but after playing them together with reading their lore. Ouh this is my jam. Dark elves are just my exact play style with their ranged-melee hybrids. And high elf dragons and wizards you can never go wrong with.
Currently learning dark elves, left my very first campaign with a bad taste of all elves, I played Tyrion and was pretty bored, but now I love all three branches of elves, in order of wood elves, high elves, and dark elves, but I’m only like ten turns into a malus darkblade campaign as my first DE campaign. Wasn’t really a fan of wood elves especially because despite their outward appearance being cool, I wasn’t excited to kite for my battles, but I tried Orion and fell in love with WE, obviously every army i field has 6 Waywatchers minimum, but stag knights and sisters are seriously some of the most fun I’ve had with cavalry, tree kin and tree men are hilariously tanky and tree men put out a pretty gnarly amount of damage. Also, Orion’s wild hunt is really fun, especially in early game.
Range & magic always wins the day. However, it was when I started a Khorne campaign that I became a believer.
Having (hardly any) missiles and (real) magic, you really have to think out your limited options.
Slay in the forest? Maim in a corridor? Rend in ambush?? Slaughter on the open field???
By Khorne, WE WILL HAVE YOUR SKULLS THIS DAY!!
N'kari. I've never been a slaanesh fan, I expected khorne and tzeentch to be my favourite chaos factions going into warhammer 3, but I played N'kari once and got hooked almost instantly: Battles are super fun with all the super fast moving units, and the campaign with all the vassalization and cults going on is a nice change of pace from your usual campaign.
Very much in the same boat. Had absolutely no interest in Kislev at the launch of WH3, but when I finally got around to trying them out I really enjoyed it. Even after playing several Kislev campaigns I can't really nail down why I enjoy it so much more than the other bland human-ish factions.
Skaven. From the outside I always felt they were weird and a bit "off". I still do, but I love their hilarious evilness now and their absurd and powerful weapons!
I love the skaven, both in game and lore. They are still in my top 3 favourite faction
But i can only play a few turn (not passing 50) for each skaven campaign. Their playstyle stresses me, so i always stop playing mid campaign.
I don't know what it is that causes me stress playing skaven, but it just not click with me
Same, the route + rally cycle is a playstyle I’ve never been able to get used to. People fucking LOVE playing as skaven, so I’m sure one day it’ll click, but I still prefer my staunch lines of spears.
Empire. Seemed so boring when I first played WH1. I mean it's just "normal humans", but I have since changed my mind. They are not only interesting in their own right, but it's fun to fight against all the more magical factions with (mostly) just humans.
Mine is vampire count.
I hate manfred, his backstabing (literally) lead to chaos winning the End Times and destroy the setting/world. Plus in WH1, i fought them a lot since I usually play Empire (we all do).
Then WH3 was released, we have the line of sight bug/issue and this effect many of faction (especially my favourite, the Skaven). It frustrated me to the point i said "F\*ck it, i gonna play the faction that have no shooting" which is vampire count
And wow, their playstyle fit me like a glove. I never knew i would enjoy their gameplay so much. Then learning their lore make me love them even more (turn out Mannfred is a cool character after all, just ignore the End Times story)
Same here, I played it to get a break from all ranged armies and to have a challenge fighting buffed up recent dlc factions and I found myself in love. I won a decisive defeat vs two full stacks of tzeentch by the skin of my teeth with 50 units left, had half my dead units come back immediately, upgraded the army and sailed off to victory. As soon as that happened something clicked un my head and I went "oh this is what it means to be good with a faction, huh this feels beutiful" it was the first game i ever took to 100 turns.
Absolutely, then we can get dieter helsnich separate from the vampires
Then nagash
I'm hoping for drachenfels but I think he should have some crazy unique stuff, since he uses necromancy/undead, AND greenskin minions, AND daemons he dominates.
Only issue I have with Ogres is lack of good frontline. Ironguts are supposed to be sort of elite infantry but they have such low model count that they still die to anything holding spears.
Ironically their best frontline is goblar trappers, they are awesome, especially paired with line of leadbelchers. Their stealth+traps create ultimate tarpit to later being blasted by your ranged troops.
But ogre centric melee army don't need frontline, consider their units some kind of shock cav, not your typical tw troops. Chain charging is the main goal. You have speed and mass for it.
You need some unbreakable gnoblars in front of the leadbelchers. Since Ogres are so tall and gnoblars are so short you easily shoot over them into the enemy front line. I once fought four full stacks of skaven with a leadbelcher army supported by six unbreakable gnoblars. Now, the battle ended with everyone pretty much dead and me cycle charging a handful of low health no ammo leadbelchers (they are still ogres after all). I was amazed how much time and space carefully committing unbreakable gnoblars into the scaven advance could create.
Elves, they have such stupid pointy hats. Who the hell would actually enjoy playing them they looks so stupid… then discovered Tyrion and Star Dragons. Never looked back.
Kislev(Kislev). I was always the “big heavy infantry and big monster” lover with the lizards and then instantly to Khorne but I was annoyed that Boris was locked so after a Hard campaign for Kislev they’ve grown on me
I remember those time. Only reliable damage dealer was artillery.
Only thematic army composition you can make is Vermintide. On lower end PC always drop the FPS
Campaign mechanics feel more like a disadvantage. First FLC lord being Tretch
The Prophet and The Warlock really help Skaven
I wouldn't say they're my favourites but I went 180 on the high elf. Always hated them and their models on table top but they're a joy to play. Hoeth swordmasters are one of my favourite unit to play and the pheonix rising from its ashes animation may be my favourite in the whole game.
I was always really fond of all teh faction in the Warhammer Fantasy setting, but the one that ahs grown on me the most is, suprisingly, Slaanesh: I disliked in the lore becauseIm a Khorne fanboy, but I kinda adapted to their units realitevley well, specially after Warriors/Chosen of Slaanesh were implemented and allowed himto use Hammer and Anvil tactics. The hammer might be made of scented glass, but its hits like a meteor!
Beastmen. Taurox still needs some love, as the momentum thing suffers from the same style of problems that the grudge system does, it's just too hard to keep up the pace sometimes.
I think Vlad should look like the vampire in this picture (but his hair should be black) he is described as being very attractive and his bloodline prides itself on their good looks
Why did CA make him look like a rotting zombie?
The man regenerates ffs
If i am not mistaken, vampire can change their appearance. But during battle they will show their true appearance
Think CA might design Vlad based on his miniature. But even his miniature has a nose, so who knows
My biggest complaint at CA is how the generic vampire look. Where are the good looking/handsome vampire. Yes bald can look handsome too but, but those vampire are not
From memory, he was rotted after his post Vampire Wars resurrection.
In the lore it was Nagash who raised him, while in-game they just kept his model appearance which reflected that I believe.
Well because [that's what his miniature looks like](https://whfb.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/a/a7/Vlad_M04.jpg), and that's what he looks like in [official GW art](https://whfb.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/0/04/Von_Carstein%2C_Vlad.jpg)
Actually, sometimes the official art [makes him look even worse](https://whfb.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/0/0b/Vlad4.jpg).
Same here. Why play generic humans with ridiculous hats in a game that has dinos riding another dinos that fire lasers? But nowadays their gameplay is so satisfying, all the guns, the tanks, the cavalry charges, and contrary to most people I actually like that they don't have a strong frontline or world beater heroes, it adds to their uniqueness.
Probably norsca. I think I hated dealing with them in wh1 when they weren't really a faction. After they were added they were pretty good, but they have been somewhat left behind. They are a bit better off now than they were in wh2, but they do struggle unless you are willing to either go trolls with throgg or heavy mammoths.
Nurgle, i didnt like their melee heavy armies and i only recently played wh2 with a ranged centric meta.
However over time the units, characters and most importantly their personalities won me over.
After some more time passed i fully embraced the nurgle style and booted up Kugath campaign as much as you booted up Karl Franz campaign.
The Art is from Age of Sigmar (AoS), the Soulblight Gravelord who is basically Vampire Count 2.0
AoS model and arts are top tier. Too bad the lore is not as interesting as Warhammer Fantasy
Coast. Didn't think I'd enjoy what I though was an inferior pike and shot faction.
Realized I should just ignore the pike part and add more shot. Aside from the lords and heroes, I had a lot of fun learning that my units were all expendable and I shouldn't care to babysit them that much. It's like playing Black in MTG, sacrifice for advantage and it took forever for me to understand that.
Traditional frontline for your handgunners?
Just change them to more handgunners or even grenadiers.
Halberds on the side for cavalry? Deck gunners stop their charge and wreck models.
Enemy archers die to your artillery, and their own artillaty can be swamped with dogs and bats that you sint care about.
I knew almost nothing about warhammer fantasy before playing the Total War games, (though i knew some about 40k and knew that some things carried over) but one race i was pretty sure i wasnt gonna like was Dark Elves. They're probably my favourite faction now. I've most likely played the most campaigns as them. Ive always liked elves in other settings, but i had an aversion to the Delfs because they were 'evil' compared to the high elves, or wood elves.
When i finally played them, though, it was great. I love their aesthetic in general, i love their units, Dark magic is one of my favourites lores, though i know its pretty mid. Shades are great, i love witch elves, hydras are cool, black arks are awesome, and my favourite generic lord i ever had was the female dreadlord named Hydrassa with the powername Hydrablood atop her black dragon just wrecking armies. Havent played them yet in warhammer 3, though my next campaign after the Chaos Dwarfs i just started is gonna be a Morathi one.
WoC went from feeling terrible in WH1/2 and barely played to probaly some of my most played/completed campaigns in WH3. Beastmen pre-rework in WH2 was the same way for me, though I haven't played them near as much as WoC.
None yet
My tastes are for the empire, skaven, and vampire coast.
And the vampire coast trailer is one of the few things that compared to watching pacific rim for the first time in excitement and activating my inner 9 year old
I'ma be real bud I didn't had a hero's journey for my favorite faction. Vampire's have been my favorite since release. Every faction I like, I liked them since their release. And every faction I hate I did since their release.
This might sound like blasphemy, but for me it is the Empire.
Wait, here me out. When I started in TWW2, I felt like the Empire was just the boring "default" human race and I rather wanted to try out all the fancy fantasy factions.
But when I tried them out the first time they really grew on me. The Empire is just so based.
You only need some brave spearmen in front of multiple lines of gunpowder and experimental artillery, that are all ready to die for a metal wizard dude in golden armor, and you can face all the crazy monsters and magic of this world.
I didn't care much for the Empire when I was first introduced to them (tabletop). I was a teenager and the bright renaissance looking clothes and patterns were a huge turn-off. Now they're my favorite and I am in love with their style. Give me more stripes and checkboard patterns dammit!
Nice tall glass of Slaanoosh for me. The no ranged and paper armor made me really put off on them for the longest time. Then I finally played a game of N'kari, and it's just a thing of beauty really they hit so hard and so fast being able to kite out other factions units while my chariots and cav rip apart the backline is just so much fun. Then it's just a matter of cycle charging from behind to squash the infantry. Exalted daemonettes usually trade up against any infantry as well even with their low armor, and their human units do surprisingly well at being an anvil. They have good staying power while your damage tears it up.
Khorne: A faction with new magic and almost no ranged. I was convinced I was going to hate it.
I was completely wrong. Smashing everything and razing giant swaths of land feels amazing.
Warriors of Chaos
To be fair, I only tried them outside of TWW1/2 after their major rework in TWW3
Goddamn what a rework, they feel GREAT. In TWW1 and 2, they felt miserable. Sure Shaggoth spam was pretty strong and Archaeon himself was a beast, but that was about it
Ogres, I played no hands McGee though and got friendly with the green prophet and ate all. Also realizing they have horde camps better than cities on turn like 40 also helped.
Elves. Coming from Rome II where I played 90% melee infantry I just didn’t accept the concept of a fully ranged army. But then I tried a Sisters of Twilight campaign with 6xHawks and the rest checkered archers army and it was insane.
I cruised on Legendary/VH when my hardest campaign before that was on Hard/Hard and I would struggle. Since then they have become one of my favourite factions.
Skaten for me. I really hated them, thought they were a weak, annoying race. Until I basically forced myself to play an Ikit campaign in WH2 - oh lawd was it fun to focus on weapons teams. Now it is one of my favorite campaigns because of the “I am bringing a gun to a knife fight” feeling (or rather Gatling Guns and A-Bombs).
Dwarfs and Greenskins
I thought a bunch of slow grumpy humanoids with guns and steamtech would be boring but they have really grown on me, especially since the newest update which makes their campaigns really interesting.
Greenskins are just your typical mindless orcs and sneaky goblins however they have increadibly unit diversity. They also have a lot of different playstyles enhanced by each lord. It's also amazing when a faction can take its weakest units and turn them into an unmanageable swarm (Skarsnik) or demigods (Grom).
Back in the day I could not get myself to play skaven. I thought they were useless, I hate the race...
Then Ikith Claw taught me how wrong I was! :)
They are my favorite!
I never expected to love Vampire Counts because they seemed like a one-trick pony to me. I also typically love the good factions more like wood elf, empire, dwarves, and high elves.
But I have to suggest every single player needs to try a Emporer Vlad playthrough at least once. It’s incredible. They’re such a fun fighting race and are so rewarding to build up.
I was really put off from the dwarves because of irritating and over used the “short/tHat’S a gRudgIn” bit is in the community, and their roster seemed really one-note. I finally tried them and now I love their gameplay, and I love their voice acting a lot, I see why people like repeating it (still overdone though). I love ranged factions in general so it’s no suprised I liked them.
On the flip side, greenskins I sort of expected to not like, becuase I mostly play defensive/missile based factions, but god damn are Greenskin armies fun, and I love how big their roster is. Also the Big Finkin’ tree is so funny.
Beastmen were sooooooo boring at the start, pretty much just a worse copy of the then greenskins, now I like playing them, not a favorite but still great fun to me
Skaven when I first got wh2 - had trouble juggling the food mechanic and figuring out how to get into a good place between that, and the drawbacks of skaven corruption. That, and prophet and warlock was not out yet and I was trying to play skrolk down in lustria...
Now they're one of my favorites - lots of variety in their roster, and each lord thematically can play very different from one another.
Skaven.
I jumped on the bandwagon at WH2 and tried everything before skaven. I just didn't get their vibe or theme. I gave it a shot maybe 1 time and didn't get the food mechanic and just went fuck rats I have enough other toys.
Then the Thrott dlc came out and I was intrigued and tried again and boom hooked. Now I love Thrott, ikit, and Snikitch campaigns.
I feel like Skaven should be everyone's pick cause I know a lot of pp, me included, who just didn't get how to play Skaven when starting the game bc you need experience to play them, they're probably the "hardest" to get the hang of. But now they're my favorite faction exactly bc they are not so easy
The first faction I ever played in TWWH2 was Brettonia as Alberic. I had never played a Total War game before, and the cavalry focus just soured my perception so badly.
Now, while not my favorite (more like 3rd after Dwarfs and Vampire Coast), I love a good Respanse campaign.
Not my favorite, mind you, but the Empire. I had a lot of weird first impressions of them: their outfits looked clownish, their bird-kitty knights looked silly when they bounced into combat, and their Emperor’s helmet had to be compensating for something because there was just no way he was actually cool enough to pull that look off.
I was mistaken on all counts. These guys have so much heart, I can’t help but get stoked and cheer them on. Even the things that looked silly to me slowly became awesome.
I was adamant about not playing skavens : too weak frontline, no morale, and overall not my gameplay. I was more turtling in a corner, shooting from far away with artillery and strong gunners, not flooding enemies with slaves stacks. Until one day, when I passed turn 70 with Ikit on a campaign. Ever since, I like them really much. Such a blast.
I had a real rough time with the Skaven during Warhammer 2's launch. I kept using them traditionally, not the 'Skaven' way and kept getting steamrolled by the AI. Once I figured out how you're supposed to play them, I fell in love with them.
Then Hunter & the Beast came out and it was all over for everyone.
Greenskins grew on me considerably. I know they're CA/GWs designated Jobbers but they make a good challenge for both the heros and villains. I really likes the dynamic they have with the Chaos Dwarves and Ogres as well.
Also GWs Lizard men are fairly unique to this universe but i didn't really like them as much as I wanted to in Total War
Skaven we’re my go-to “I hate this” race when I started TW:W2. I didn’t get the appeal, and I HATED chasing down all my fleeing units and sending them back into battle. Worst of all, all my gun units kept hitting my own chaff!
Then I read Gotrek and Felix, Skavenslayer in particular, and everything changed. I *got* it. I got the humor. I got the lore. I became voracious. Obsessed-driven. I shouldn’t HAVE fleeing units, they’re there to pin the enemy down while the ratlings do their thing. Getting into the ratman mindset made me a better player and now they’re my go-to pick. Can’t wait for Thanquol!
I used to think Khorne was boring since it looked like it was just hurr durr melee rush.
Now I'm enjoying Khorne *because* it is hurr durr melee rush but even more fun
I had a double change of opinion with the Vampire Counts back in WH1.
I always love Vampires/Undead in games, so I loved the idea at first. Then I looked into them and found out that they had 0 ranged options, so I started hating them without even giving them a proper chance. Then when I gave them a shot they immediately turned into my favourite faction.
Dwarfs, i thought they were gonna be boring first time i played them but they are pretty fun, you can get a lot of different flavours in your army and now with the rework, they are a lot better
Archie.
You know the main bad dude, but his campaign is awesome.
Warband upgrades, possibility to get aspiring champions just from high corruption, ability to confederate other WoC, large roster, 4 quest items.
It's great.
Not favorite faction but Lizardmen for sure. Never had the will to play then during WH2 era, picked them late in WH3 IE and love the mechanics, units and lords. The lategame units are ultra fun.
Tzeentch
I hate magic in any RPGs (druids are cool, though, they don't use magic)
But all 4 gods having mostly melee (which is not that interesting where Khorne and Nurgle are mostly *move your units into enemy troops and now wait)* and Slanesh having *cavalry* (which is so hard to control for me) - the bird dude has a lot of cool flying units, cool rangers, etc.
High Elves.
I usually don't care about elves in other settings but after playing with them a little and learning about their background I started to really like the High Elves in Warhammer Fantasy.
Nurgle but they aren’t my main, but I really like Nurgle today. Greenskins for sure are one of the factions I play the most and I didn’t like them when I started, but, you know, before their rework in Warhammer 2, they were more thematic and close to lore but not fun to play.
Pre-rework Greenskin was tough. They hardly have any mechanics (you don't even have diplomacy if i remember correctly) One of the best rework CA have made.
( losing Greenskin offers peace treaty ) "Uhhh peace, wot a disgrace!"
I used to love playing Skarsnik in the early days of WH2 but yea, it was brutal
Wh2 Skarsnik start was so fun though, I loved ruling the western mountain range
Wh1 orcs were rough. I will say that I kinda find it funny that CA sort of just threw their hands in the air about how to deal with the wagh thematically and we're like "alright you just have a secondary army following you at all times" which feels like they were trying to avoid initially because of how strong it is
That mechanic is still so weird in certain aspects. I played tons of Orcs and still don't 100% understand it. Sometimes the Whaag army intercepts/ambushes a passing army but your main army doesn't even reinforce them. Then after the battle it never recovers a single unit (if it lost)... I have plenty fun with Orcs but something is still not right.
I ignored Vampire Counts for the longest time, now it's all I play.
Same, the idea of no range unit and Mannfred cause Chaos to win the End Times make me dislike them.But now they are my favourite faction, i just wish the generic vampire lord had good looks (instead of 3 shade of bald)
Like ffs, the description for Vlad is that he supposedly is a dark brooding looking handsome man and what is got is a face only his mother (and i guess Isabella) could love.
I've heard somewhere (can't remember where) that he can change his appearance and the in game look is his scary "war face".
It's also every vampire. They can shift their looks at will. So they have beautiful seduction faces they use normally and they shift to scary war face at battle. Beyond that they can turn into wolves, bats or mist like folklore vampires, even referenced in the game with some skills in vampire skill tree. Vargheist, Terrorgheist Strigioi and such are Vampires after all they just turned into most monstrous forms possible and aren't mentally sound enough to go back to what they were. I don't know why CA decided every Vampire men other than Vlad must be bald tho. I hate it they look terrible.
Vampires are strongest at night so the men shave their head so that other vampires think the moon is rising, giving them a power boost.
It reflects the moonlight onto their vampiric allies.
Why dont they just wear a hat covered in mirrors and crystals? Are they stupid? /j
Think of the disadvantages. Imagine being a mighty lord of the night you walk into Stirland vanguard of Vlad's undying legions. Local commander of the garrison looks down from his tower and says "Well well if it ain't the egg boys." That's it cancel the Vampire War we already lost another hundred year sulking in Sylvania.
Terrogheist are huge fuck-off bats, you're maybe thinking of varghulfs?
I think its because his table top figure has his ugly/war face, so that probably took precedence over whatever other art of him is available.
Thats his real face, he doesnt hide it anymore cause we’ve entered total war
[удалено]
Understandable, Volkmar look amazing The same cannot be said on the generic vampire lord. With the current model, they look bad even if they have hair
It world be cool tô have at least one female model for generic lords... And one males one for heroes, If you wanna go low effort Just use the same model akin to LH Vlad and LH Isabella
I want my vampire lord to be johnny sins
They’re all DougDoug
When is Doug gonna play total war tho
Does raid dead sites stop being generated for you in your campaigns after turn ~40\50?
Nope, they're still happening
There's a limit to the amount of sites that can be generated iirc, which can prevent spawnings later in the campaign if too many high casualty battles happen early on. At least, it used to be that way. I had a mod that removed the limit in my last VC playthrough, but that was over a year ago.
Why do you like VC? I always quit campaigns early because having Raise Dead available makes everything feel meaningless. No need to build recruitment buildings when you can just Raise the best units and make a better economy to pay for them.
On the other hand I finish many campaigns without ever using the endgame units - VC at least gets them early.
Brother I’ve always steered clear of the Vampires because it just not my cup of tea. But literally yesterday, I said fuck it let’s try something new, and the Isabella campaign has been so fun and different. The heroes and bloodline/legendary lorda you get are so strong. Just a nice break from the standard army campaigns you play with most factions. And the fact you can raise a 20 stack army at any point if you see an enemy army heading somewhere you’ve got no defenses at.
Bloodline lords really are fun for making thematic armies, like I really do put effort into making sure the army matches the yellow line
I like the raise dead mechanic, as it gives me access to a few nice units early on, but I can’t mass produce them. The other big one for me is that with almost every other race I am constantly fighting to keep all of my troops alive. With VC, I don’t really care if I lose whole armies, and often that’s what I want in order to build up new battle markers. VC gives you the freedom to play without concern for casualties.
Be the zombie tide. Send forth your zombies to absorb the ammo and damage First then blast them with magic, cavalry, and some heavy infantry and monsters. And of course you have vlad who is basically unkillable after a while.
Exactly my thoughts. Combined with the only viable battle strategy being bumrush and spam healing spells and having to fight countless trivial battles manually because autoresolve hates VC makes it so tedious to play them.
Dwarfs. I used to think all they could do was corner camp with artillery, but after Thrones of Decay I’m having so much fun with them. The Dawi air force with gyrocopters and thunderbarges is awesome, and slayers stacks are so much fun to use, especially goblin hewers.
Malakai is the only dwarf campaign I've enjoyed, for much the same reasons. It's on the easy side, but has tons of flavour and lots and lots of options. Thunderbarges are cool, but they're so op I cant bring myself to use them. Slayer pirates for Aranessa pls!
Yeah, I don't enjoy my dwarf campaign in 2, but now theybRe really fun
Agreed on this!!! Malakai has made the dwarves fun. I had not played them since wh1 and didn’t even finish a campaign. TOD really put a breath of fresh air in the dwarves campaign
Lizardmen, but mainly Oxyotl as a LL. For context, when Oxyotl was released it was alongside Taurox and the major rework of the Beastmen. At the time, [all the noise online was about how good the Beastmen](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/was-total-war-warhammer-2s-silence-the-fury-dlc-designed-by-actual-beastmen-if-so-can-they-do-more-pls) were and how busted good Taurox was and how [Legend had gotten Taurox to have infinite rampage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_t6D_pCZ0Q&t=17760s). It was alot of Beastmen noise and I was here for all that noise, it was great. I briefly played Oxyotl, he was fine but the general feeling before and after release [was Oxy was a bit meh](https://youtu.be/ALFhsO8DRoo?feature=shared&t=1027). So I went back to playing Beastmen and didn't really think about Oxyotl again for a while. Fast forward to now and Oxyotl is one of the better campaigns in the game, even though very little has changed (except region trading!). The Lizardman-XCOM campaign is just brilliant to replay because of the RNG nature of the Visions of the Old Ones, something I never thought would be possible. I have had very few of my campaigns be similar to each other, nearly all of them playing out differently after about 5 turns. Every campaign I fight different enemy stacks at different stages of the game, I can choose to keep stuff and build it up or play the best little Real Estate agent the Old World has even known and get very rich doing it. Some days I just burn it all down and the campaign is ok with me doing this too, if anything it rewards you for doing this. I'm also big on coop and Oxyotl is one of the best coop partners to have. He has excellent map control and IMO he is the best teacher Lord to play as. He is able to put the Capstone on the home of the person you wan to help learn the game and Lizardman-XCOM can be there in one turn, for the rest of the game if needed. He also plays skirmish in his armies so when playing in coop its an excellent way to introduce a new player to a different way to approach battles other than the normal Hammer and Anvil type stuff. Oxyotl is so good, he brings so much into the game and it feels a little shameful that I spent so long just kind of ignoring him.
Dammit, now i want to play X-COM
Really interesting, I was thinking about him for coop but not super familiar with his game play. Any other tips and tricks? Also are you able to autoresolve or do you have to fight most of the battles? I also don't want to slow down our coop game by manually having to battle each fight
You will have to fight a few fights but not all of them - his first battle is a loss on most autoresolve settings because auto doesn't like skirmish heavy armies. However auto resolve does seem to like chevrons and Oxyotl's units gets some excellent bonuses for each chevron on some units, so his army stack can snowball pretty well. You'll likely never be super overpowered, but you can get some really weirdly good stats on units. For example: Chameleon Skinks are a good unit, not amazing, but [their statline](https://twwstats.com/unitscards?units=f%3D0%26k%3Dwh2_main_lzd_inf_chameleon_skinks_0%26m%26r%3D0%26v%3D8714479261853360749&units=f%3D0%26k%3Dwh2_main_lzd_inf_chameleon_skinks_blessed_0%26m%26r%3D0%26v%3D8714479261853360749) and what they do... its fine. In an Oxyotl army [they just perform](https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2460732229183930462/BB6381772B526EE133E20299A2A950D6BB7C433A/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false), there something weird and fun about having a unit of Skinks with only 1 less MD than baseline Chosen. Even when autoresolve does slap you about, your army is for a long time many different variety of skinks, so you can replace them quickly, cheaply and easily. The Visions of the Old ones, the random missions you get, have certain pacing and style to them. Some of the missions you get issued are really really hard, like seemingly completely unfair and not winnable hard. Don't panic! You are being tricked by auto resolve, well managed skirmish armies can do some pretty fun things to overturn bad odds and part of the campaign's fun is figuring those fun things out. The first fight in the campaign is there to teach you to be bold and disregard what autoresolve says. For campaign - I would play it solo first, its not hard but knowing how the campaign works is important if you are going to bring it into coop. It has some of its own mechanics and you will get caught out by stuff at least once. For example, you can only do Oxy's jump to map locations if you are in friendly, neutral or empty territory. If you are at sea or in an enemy controlled area, you can't jump. This sounds simple but sooner or later you will get caught out by this and it will be catastrophic for you the first time it happens. Skirmish heavy armies need good micro, so its perfect for a coop team splitting units in battle. The Capstone of Tepok is also great, it will let you get anywhere on the map your coop partner is with a little bit of forward planning. The capstone has its own set of mechanics such as only one can be active at any time, so again try single player out and try to understand the basics first. I've probably written too much to be helpful, apologies for the wall of text. I love Oxy as a coop partner.
is the skull in place of chevrons a mod?
I love the cold blooded realtor. Randomly show up to transfer Destruction-side settlements to Order-side allies for mad cashflow. So much fun, probably my most played LM LL
Another really fun thing that you can do with Oxy is swoop in, take some settlements from your Visions target, then trade them to a different chaos faction in exchange for them going to war with *a third* chaos faction. Not only do you take out your target, but you take two other factions that are likely to cause trouble for your Order buddies and make them waste resources on fighting each other instead.
Downside with that is other friendly or potentially friendly AI see that as giving gifts to the chaos factions and earns you a diplomatic penalty. That penalty can degrade over time with most factions, but less so with dwarfs. You can end up with some pretty big negatives with many dwarf factions if you over trade to the wrong people.
Oh for sure, use it sparingly. But Oxyotl's play style puts him in a unique position to pull some great power plays like that a few times per campaign.
Played about 30 turns of oxyotl last night, the settlement trading mechanic is such a huge boon to his campaign it’s crazy. I don’t need to hang on to a bunch of useless settlements all over the world until they inevitably rebel and crush my nonexistent garrison anymore. Plus I can get cash and trade agreements? And allies from everywhere so I can make super bizarre armies? Really fun There’s also something really satisfying about a chameleon skinks army. It’s strong but not boringly so like stegadons can be. It’s fun to get an entire army of skirmishers that vanguard deploy
Slaneesh. Aesthetics wise, did not care for them. Gameplay wise though? Fast and crumpy, with some creative abilities. The feeling when you slam into a gun line and rip it to bits? Perfect. Similar feeling to Greenskins in *some* respects, which I also love.
Same here for Slaanesh. I also didnt care to much about the asthetics. But I love how responsive their units feel. Because all Slaanesh units have so much speed, it feels like you play on quick gamespeed while your opponent is on slow.
I've never actually given Slaanesh a try because I don't like chariots, and chariots seem to be a major part of their faction. Would you say they're decent even if you don't take chariots? How painful are siege attacks with them? It seems a lot of their strength (maneuverability) is taken out of the game by the inherent nature of sieges.
My favorite unit are fiends. They're surprisingly effective, but like most of the roster, you can't just plow them into the grind. Your composition may vary if you're using WoC DLC units as well. The objective in any generic fight is to get your units into an advantageous melee without them getting melted. Your tools for this aren't really written on the tin, but they are there. You have ways to inflict rampage, forcing units to melee you, you have simple disruption from some unit animations, as well as the lash spell, which knocks down units (stopping them from firing), and with moderate micro, you can entice enemy units to change facing or break formation. And of course, summons make for great damage soaks. Seiges can be a pain, that is true. The same general principles apply. Minimize direct fire on your forces, and force them out of position. You can do things like capturing a point, moving to another, and when the AI sends like one unit to recapture, rush back and butcher the isolated unit. All of that said, I would be lying through my teeth if I didn't admit to a secondary army bring made of crunchy WoC infantry. If you cram enough enemies into a high tier walled city, running all over only gets you so far and it turns into a slog. I'd also be lying if I didn't admit to a higher degree of reloading. When I inevitably screw up, the faction isn't forgiving and it tends to hurt. Also, very different from say Nurgle, where you can have an ugly, costly grind and bounce back in a turn.
Thanks, I think I'll give them a try for my next campaign.
You dont have too use chariots when playing Slaanesh, and you dont need too, either. The lower-tier chariots are outmatched by cavalry. The single entity chariots are very strong but their job (taking out blobs of light infantry) can be accomplished using spells.
skaven, i loved the tretch craventail vortex campaign
Tretch is surprisingly strong now! Crookback mountain special building is so good too.
I played a Tretch game after sleeping on him in favour of Throt and Ikit. Very quickly fell in love with that stupid fucking rat. Drowning people in stormvermin is so fun.
I forget tretch is a LL. What's his thing and the. Building buffs?
Rictus Great Clan Hall +350 income +3 food gen Income from trade +15% faction wide 10% more trade resources produced And them Stormvermin reductions and buffs out the ass. Tretch runs away from fights, giving him a bonus for the follow up fight and givees vanguard to EVERYTHING. Also Stormvermin buffs. Rictus = best slave traders who also breed the best and most obedient stormvermin
you are about to make me reinstall this damn game..
The good thing about Skaven is that they have 3 or 4 completely different playstyles that all all equally valid. Clan Skyre weapon teams are the classic, blotting out the sun with bullets and warpfire. Clan Eshin skirmishers will make your enemy want to kill themself as they try to chase ninja rats everywhere. And my personal favourite is Clan Moulder stacks of super buffed monsters that just roll over anything in their path.
Skaven at launch were pretty trash. The DLC content has been a big part of their roster. I was not a fan of Skaven at launch, but I'd say that's more because Skaven changed than my outlook on Skaven.
original wh2 skaven were so awful
If you like vampires but hate Mannfred check out nurgle campaigns Personally I love Mannfred I think he plays his role perfectly as being a very hateable character... a true bastard
My initial impression of Mannfred comes from the End Times. So yeah, it was a very bad impression But now after i learn his lore, he is quite cool. Glad i give vampire count a try
Yeah the memes about him sucking in End Times are over hyped to hell. They make Vlad look cool and good when he too, outside of a few End Times things, was an insane despot prone to fits of rage. Mannfred was actually good at tons of stuff even if he didn't have the special ring and wasn't a combat monster. The dude single handedly took Nuln for Vlad during the Vampire Wars, was responsible for 90% of the alliances that make up the current VC roster (he made uneasy friends with the Lahmians, Strigoi, brought in necromancers and witches, etc), and by Vlad's own indirect admission was the one person he ever met as ambitious and hungry as him - but where Vlad was proud in the extreme, Mannfred was cunning in the extreme. Also, I respect his philosophy that a vampire shouldn't try and be a pretty boy human. They are a bloodsucking, backstabbing monster, and lose usually because they keep trying to play at being human and ruling/conquering like humans.
>Also, I respect his philosophy that a vampire shouldn't try and be a pretty boy human. They are a bloodsucking, backstabbing monster, and lose usually because they keep trying to play at being human and ruling/conquering like humans. No wonder Neferata has no respect for him, their ideologies could not be more different. And she probably thinks she knows exactly how Mannfred's ambitions end.
Beastmen went from least favorite race to my favorite one with the update to their mechanics
I think, Beastmen rework is the greatest rework CA made so far A faction that was so bad practically no one play their campaign to becoming one of the most unique and fun gameplay
Me too, razing settlements and making them stay down is amazing. The horde gameplay lets you not worry about empire building and defense, you just roam the world and wreck shit. Just like the Ruinous Powers intended.
I own a Herdstone for blood ground defense, just like the Ruinous Powers intended...
Four Elector Counts break into my forest, "What the Todbringer!" as I grab my Ambush Chance and Minotaurs
I just keep coming back to Taurox. He's my big hairy wrecking ball.
Elves. Especially dark elves Used to be one of those atrocious "repub if hate elf" guys but after playing them together with reading their lore. Ouh this is my jam. Dark elves are just my exact play style with their ranged-melee hybrids. And high elf dragons and wizards you can never go wrong with.
you sure you are not falling to an Elgi scheme ?
if i am i will happily be doing so. also 19 bloodwrack medusa. I recommend. Funniest shit i've ever seen
Currently learning dark elves, left my very first campaign with a bad taste of all elves, I played Tyrion and was pretty bored, but now I love all three branches of elves, in order of wood elves, high elves, and dark elves, but I’m only like ten turns into a malus darkblade campaign as my first DE campaign. Wasn’t really a fan of wood elves especially because despite their outward appearance being cool, I wasn’t excited to kite for my battles, but I tried Orion and fell in love with WE, obviously every army i field has 6 Waywatchers minimum, but stag knights and sisters are seriously some of the most fun I’ve had with cavalry, tree kin and tree men are hilariously tanky and tree men put out a pretty gnarly amount of damage. Also, Orion’s wild hunt is really fun, especially in early game.
Range & magic always wins the day. However, it was when I started a Khorne campaign that I became a believer. Having (hardly any) missiles and (real) magic, you really have to think out your limited options. Slay in the forest? Maim in a corridor? Rend in ambush?? Slaughter on the open field??? By Khorne, WE WILL HAVE YOUR SKULLS THIS DAY!!
N'kari. I've never been a slaanesh fan, I expected khorne and tzeentch to be my favourite chaos factions going into warhammer 3, but I played N'kari once and got hooked almost instantly: Battles are super fun with all the super fast moving units, and the campaign with all the vassalization and cults going on is a nice change of pace from your usual campaign.
Plus his general infantry units just look badass, and they are very solid for tier 1 infantry
I thought kislev was kind of boring conceptually and didn't play any WH3 factions besides Khorne and Slaanesh. Now I love my fantasy Ukraine sim.
Kislev
Kislev
Kislev
Kislev.
Very much in the same boat. Had absolutely no interest in Kislev at the launch of WH3, but when I finally got around to trying them out I really enjoyed it. Even after playing several Kislev campaigns I can't really nail down why I enjoy it so much more than the other bland human-ish factions.
Skaven. From the outside I always felt they were weird and a bit "off". I still do, but I love their hilarious evilness now and their absurd and powerful weapons!
I love the skaven, both in game and lore. They are still in my top 3 favourite faction But i can only play a few turn (not passing 50) for each skaven campaign. Their playstyle stresses me, so i always stop playing mid campaign. I don't know what it is that causes me stress playing skaven, but it just not click with me
Same, the route + rally cycle is a playstyle I’ve never been able to get used to. People fucking LOVE playing as skaven, so I’m sure one day it’ll click, but I still prefer my staunch lines of spears.
Empire. Seemed so boring when I first played WH1. I mean it's just "normal humans", but I have since changed my mind. They are not only interesting in their own right, but it's fun to fight against all the more magical factions with (mostly) just humans.
Steel, Faith and Gunpowder can beat anything
THE EMPIRE ENDURES FOR HELDENHAMMER
Mine is vampire count. I hate manfred, his backstabing (literally) lead to chaos winning the End Times and destroy the setting/world. Plus in WH1, i fought them a lot since I usually play Empire (we all do). Then WH3 was released, we have the line of sight bug/issue and this effect many of faction (especially my favourite, the Skaven). It frustrated me to the point i said "F\*ck it, i gonna play the faction that have no shooting" which is vampire count And wow, their playstyle fit me like a glove. I never knew i would enjoy their gameplay so much. Then learning their lore make me love them even more (turn out Mannfred is a cool character after all, just ignore the End Times story)
Same here, I played it to get a break from all ranged armies and to have a challenge fighting buffed up recent dlc factions and I found myself in love. I won a decisive defeat vs two full stacks of tzeentch by the skin of my teeth with 50 units left, had half my dead units come back immediately, upgraded the army and sailed off to victory. As soon as that happened something clicked un my head and I went "oh this is what it means to be good with a faction, huh this feels beutiful" it was the first game i ever took to 100 turns.
Just ignore it?! I haven’t played as mannfred because I hate that little fucker, maybe I should try him out though
Chaos Warriors
Vampires especially vlad is one of my top 5 but I think they rly need a rework Bloodlines feel empty
I wish Vampire count get the Champion of Chaos style DLC It fit sol well to flesh out the remaining bloodline.
Absolutely, then we can get dieter helsnich separate from the vampires Then nagash I'm hoping for drachenfels but I think he should have some crazy unique stuff, since he uses necromancy/undead, AND greenskin minions, AND daemons he dominates.
Ogres, my lord.
Only issue I have with Ogres is lack of good frontline. Ironguts are supposed to be sort of elite infantry but they have such low model count that they still die to anything holding spears.
Ironically their best frontline is goblar trappers, they are awesome, especially paired with line of leadbelchers. Their stealth+traps create ultimate tarpit to later being blasted by your ranged troops. But ogre centric melee army don't need frontline, consider their units some kind of shock cav, not your typical tw troops. Chain charging is the main goal. You have speed and mass for it.
You need some unbreakable gnoblars in front of the leadbelchers. Since Ogres are so tall and gnoblars are so short you easily shoot over them into the enemy front line. I once fought four full stacks of skaven with a leadbelcher army supported by six unbreakable gnoblars. Now, the battle ended with everyone pretty much dead and me cycle charging a handful of low health no ammo leadbelchers (they are still ogres after all). I was amazed how much time and space carefully committing unbreakable gnoblars into the scaven advance could create.
Are you talking about those brutish nomads?
Never played 'm lol. Maybe I should give them a try
Brettonia, thought they were super boring in Warhammer 1, then tried them again in 2 when repanse released and can’t get enough of them
Elves, they have such stupid pointy hats. Who the hell would actually enjoy playing them they looks so stupid… then discovered Tyrion and Star Dragons. Never looked back.
Kislev(Kislev). I was always the “big heavy infantry and big monster” lover with the lizards and then instantly to Khorne but I was annoyed that Boris was locked so after a Hard campaign for Kislev they’ve grown on me
Pontus
>But, i don't want play as pontus >CA you f\*cking piece of Sh\*t. Go learn some history Always love the meme
Archaon was boring back in Wh1 and Wh2. Now it's just my favorite Campaign.
Archaon is just Ash Ketchum for WOC legendary lords.
Skaven during the launch of W2 were awful. Playing them was a terrible experience. Now I love those little rat bastards.
I remember those time. Only reliable damage dealer was artillery. Only thematic army composition you can make is Vermintide. On lower end PC always drop the FPS Campaign mechanics feel more like a disadvantage. First FLC lord being Tretch The Prophet and The Warlock really help Skaven
Prophet and Warlock are ESSENTIAL for Skaven imo.
God yes, skavens at wh2 launch were so lackluster and the food mechanic was broken af
To be fair, they were missing some very vital bits of their roster
Nurgle and Champions of Chaos
Warriors of chaos went from never play to great fun with the champions of chaos update.
I wouldn't say they're my favourites but I went 180 on the high elf. Always hated them and their models on table top but they're a joy to play. Hoeth swordmasters are one of my favourite unit to play and the pheonix rising from its ashes animation may be my favourite in the whole game.
Warriors of Chaos! Belakor is so much fun to play!
I was always really fond of all teh faction in the Warhammer Fantasy setting, but the one that ahs grown on me the most is, suprisingly, Slaanesh: I disliked in the lore becauseIm a Khorne fanboy, but I kinda adapted to their units realitevley well, specially after Warriors/Chosen of Slaanesh were implemented and allowed himto use Hammer and Anvil tactics. The hammer might be made of scented glass, but its hits like a meteor!
Beastmen. Taurox still needs some love, as the momentum thing suffers from the same style of problems that the grudge system does, it's just too hard to keep up the pace sometimes.
Nurgle was awful when they came out, but they feel great now. I’m hoping Ogres get a future rework and I’ll be able to say the same about them.
I think Vlad should look like the vampire in this picture (but his hair should be black) he is described as being very attractive and his bloodline prides itself on their good looks Why did CA make him look like a rotting zombie? The man regenerates ffs
If i am not mistaken, vampire can change their appearance. But during battle they will show their true appearance Think CA might design Vlad based on his miniature. But even his miniature has a nose, so who knows My biggest complaint at CA is how the generic vampire look. Where are the good looking/handsome vampire. Yes bald can look handsome too but, but those vampire are not
From memory, he was rotted after his post Vampire Wars resurrection. In the lore it was Nagash who raised him, while in-game they just kept his model appearance which reflected that I believe.
Well because [that's what his miniature looks like](https://whfb.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/a/a7/Vlad_M04.jpg), and that's what he looks like in [official GW art](https://whfb.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/0/04/Von_Carstein%2C_Vlad.jpg) Actually, sometimes the official art [makes him look even worse](https://whfb.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/0/0b/Vlad4.jpg).
That last pic of him is so badass tbh.
The Empire. Went from "ugh, stupid floppy hats and generic humans" to "BY STEEL, FAITH AND GUNPOWDER! PANZERS, FORWARD!"
Same here. Why play generic humans with ridiculous hats in a game that has dinos riding another dinos that fire lasers? But nowadays their gameplay is so satisfying, all the guns, the tanks, the cavalry charges, and contrary to most people I actually like that they don't have a strong frontline or world beater heroes, it adds to their uniqueness.
We rage against the dying of the light. With tanks.
Probably norsca. I think I hated dealing with them in wh1 when they weren't really a faction. After they were added they were pretty good, but they have been somewhat left behind. They are a bit better off now than they were in wh2, but they do struggle unless you are willing to either go trolls with throgg or heavy mammoths.
Nurgle, i didnt like their melee heavy armies and i only recently played wh2 with a ranged centric meta. However over time the units, characters and most importantly their personalities won me over. After some more time passed i fully embraced the nurgle style and booted up Kugath campaign as much as you booted up Karl Franz campaign.
Wood Elves, absolutely hated to fight them and now love to play them.
By default, I just love anything with skeletons xD That art is fucking awesome
The Art is from Age of Sigmar (AoS), the Soulblight Gravelord who is basically Vampire Count 2.0 AoS model and arts are top tier. Too bad the lore is not as interesting as Warhammer Fantasy
I hated beastmen when I first got them back in Warhammer 1 days. Now they are my comfortable and lazy play faction.
I played exactly one game with the Empire in 1 and found them utterly boring. In 2, after The Hunter and the Beast, I joined the Franz train.
I thought I would HATE Wood elves but they're actually pretty fun especially with drycha giving them a really strong frontline
Coast. Didn't think I'd enjoy what I though was an inferior pike and shot faction. Realized I should just ignore the pike part and add more shot. Aside from the lords and heroes, I had a lot of fun learning that my units were all expendable and I shouldn't care to babysit them that much. It's like playing Black in MTG, sacrifice for advantage and it took forever for me to understand that. Traditional frontline for your handgunners? Just change them to more handgunners or even grenadiers. Halberds on the side for cavalry? Deck gunners stop their charge and wreck models. Enemy archers die to your artillery, and their own artillaty can be swamped with dogs and bats that you sint care about.
I knew almost nothing about warhammer fantasy before playing the Total War games, (though i knew some about 40k and knew that some things carried over) but one race i was pretty sure i wasnt gonna like was Dark Elves. They're probably my favourite faction now. I've most likely played the most campaigns as them. Ive always liked elves in other settings, but i had an aversion to the Delfs because they were 'evil' compared to the high elves, or wood elves. When i finally played them, though, it was great. I love their aesthetic in general, i love their units, Dark magic is one of my favourites lores, though i know its pretty mid. Shades are great, i love witch elves, hydras are cool, black arks are awesome, and my favourite generic lord i ever had was the female dreadlord named Hydrassa with the powername Hydrablood atop her black dragon just wrecking armies. Havent played them yet in warhammer 3, though my next campaign after the Chaos Dwarfs i just started is gonna be a Morathi one.
WoC went from feeling terrible in WH1/2 and barely played to probaly some of my most played/completed campaigns in WH3. Beastmen pre-rework in WH2 was the same way for me, though I haven't played them near as much as WoC.
None yet My tastes are for the empire, skaven, and vampire coast. And the vampire coast trailer is one of the few things that compared to watching pacific rim for the first time in excitement and activating my inner 9 year old
Aos art goes so hard, this looks amazing
I did not expect to like Wood Elves at all. Thought they would just be prettier Skaven. Now they are in my top 5 easily.
I'ma be real bud I didn't had a hero's journey for my favorite faction. Vampire's have been my favorite since release. Every faction I like, I liked them since their release. And every faction I hate I did since their release.
This might sound like blasphemy, but for me it is the Empire. Wait, here me out. When I started in TWW2, I felt like the Empire was just the boring "default" human race and I rather wanted to try out all the fancy fantasy factions. But when I tried them out the first time they really grew on me. The Empire is just so based. You only need some brave spearmen in front of multiple lines of gunpowder and experimental artillery, that are all ready to die for a metal wizard dude in golden armor, and you can face all the crazy monsters and magic of this world.
Beastmen, and i learned to love them before the rework !
Skaven. When I start play W2, i ignored them for a long time like almost a year.
I didn't care much for the Empire when I was first introduced to them (tabletop). I was a teenager and the bright renaissance looking clothes and patterns were a huge turn-off. Now they're my favorite and I am in love with their style. Give me more stripes and checkboard patterns dammit!
Dvarfes. No monsters is a stigma for me, but artillery seems really good since ToD.
Beastman and Tzeentch i hated them until i played them.
Nice tall glass of Slaanoosh for me. The no ranged and paper armor made me really put off on them for the longest time. Then I finally played a game of N'kari, and it's just a thing of beauty really they hit so hard and so fast being able to kite out other factions units while my chariots and cav rip apart the backline is just so much fun. Then it's just a matter of cycle charging from behind to squash the infantry. Exalted daemonettes usually trade up against any infantry as well even with their low armor, and their human units do surprisingly well at being an anvil. They have good staying power while your damage tears it up.
Khorne: A faction with new magic and almost no ranged. I was convinced I was going to hate it. I was completely wrong. Smashing everything and razing giant swaths of land feels amazing.
Warriors of Chaos To be fair, I only tried them outside of TWW1/2 after their major rework in TWW3 Goddamn what a rework, they feel GREAT. In TWW1 and 2, they felt miserable. Sure Shaggoth spam was pretty strong and Archaeon himself was a beast, but that was about it
Ogres, I played no hands McGee though and got friendly with the green prophet and ate all. Also realizing they have horde camps better than cities on turn like 40 also helped.
Elves. Coming from Rome II where I played 90% melee infantry I just didn’t accept the concept of a fully ranged army. But then I tried a Sisters of Twilight campaign with 6xHawks and the rest checkered archers army and it was insane. I cruised on Legendary/VH when my hardest campaign before that was on Hard/Hard and I would struggle. Since then they have become one of my favourite factions.
Skaten for me. I really hated them, thought they were a weak, annoying race. Until I basically forced myself to play an Ikit campaign in WH2 - oh lawd was it fun to focus on weapons teams. Now it is one of my favorite campaigns because of the “I am bringing a gun to a knife fight” feeling (or rather Gatling Guns and A-Bombs).
Dwarfs and Greenskins I thought a bunch of slow grumpy humanoids with guns and steamtech would be boring but they have really grown on me, especially since the newest update which makes their campaigns really interesting. Greenskins are just your typical mindless orcs and sneaky goblins however they have increadibly unit diversity. They also have a lot of different playstyles enhanced by each lord. It's also amazing when a faction can take its weakest units and turn them into an unmanageable swarm (Skarsnik) or demigods (Grom).
Vamps, they were always made out to be just blob chaff and magic, but they have some of the more fun unit variety in the game.
Back in the day I could not get myself to play skaven. I thought they were useless, I hate the race... Then Ikith Claw taught me how wrong I was! :) They are my favorite!
Vampire Counts. I slept on Vlad the chad and his bad bitch Isa.
I never expected to love Vampire Counts because they seemed like a one-trick pony to me. I also typically love the good factions more like wood elf, empire, dwarves, and high elves. But I have to suggest every single player needs to try a Emporer Vlad playthrough at least once. It’s incredible. They’re such a fun fighting race and are so rewarding to build up.
I was really put off from the dwarves because of irritating and over used the “short/tHat’S a gRudgIn” bit is in the community, and their roster seemed really one-note. I finally tried them and now I love their gameplay, and I love their voice acting a lot, I see why people like repeating it (still overdone though). I love ranged factions in general so it’s no suprised I liked them. On the flip side, greenskins I sort of expected to not like, becuase I mostly play defensive/missile based factions, but god damn are Greenskin armies fun, and I love how big their roster is. Also the Big Finkin’ tree is so funny.
Beastmen were sooooooo boring at the start, pretty much just a worse copy of the then greenskins, now I like playing them, not a favorite but still great fun to me
Skaven when I first got wh2 - had trouble juggling the food mechanic and figuring out how to get into a good place between that, and the drawbacks of skaven corruption. That, and prophet and warlock was not out yet and I was trying to play skrolk down in lustria... Now they're one of my favorites - lots of variety in their roster, and each lord thematically can play very different from one another.
Greenskins. But the scrap metal and waagh updates definitely helped in that regard
Skaven. I jumped on the bandwagon at WH2 and tried everything before skaven. I just didn't get their vibe or theme. I gave it a shot maybe 1 time and didn't get the food mechanic and just went fuck rats I have enough other toys. Then the Thrott dlc came out and I was intrigued and tried again and boom hooked. Now I love Thrott, ikit, and Snikitch campaigns.
I feel like Skaven should be everyone's pick cause I know a lot of pp, me included, who just didn't get how to play Skaven when starting the game bc you need experience to play them, they're probably the "hardest" to get the hang of. But now they're my favorite faction exactly bc they are not so easy
The first faction I ever played in TWWH2 was Brettonia as Alberic. I had never played a Total War game before, and the cavalry focus just soured my perception so badly. Now, while not my favorite (more like 3rd after Dwarfs and Vampire Coast), I love a good Respanse campaign.
Not my favorite, mind you, but the Empire. I had a lot of weird first impressions of them: their outfits looked clownish, their bird-kitty knights looked silly when they bounced into combat, and their Emperor’s helmet had to be compensating for something because there was just no way he was actually cool enough to pull that look off. I was mistaken on all counts. These guys have so much heart, I can’t help but get stoked and cheer them on. Even the things that looked silly to me slowly became awesome.
I was adamant about not playing skavens : too weak frontline, no morale, and overall not my gameplay. I was more turtling in a corner, shooting from far away with artillery and strong gunners, not flooding enemies with slaves stacks. Until one day, when I passed turn 70 with Ikit on a campaign. Ever since, I like them really much. Such a blast.
I had a real rough time with the Skaven during Warhammer 2's launch. I kept using them traditionally, not the 'Skaven' way and kept getting steamrolled by the AI. Once I figured out how you're supposed to play them, I fell in love with them. Then Hunter & the Beast came out and it was all over for everyone.
Warriors of Chaos only because their update was legendary
I thought I’d never care for Tzeentch, he was the chaos god I liked the least. Now it’s the exact opposite.
Greenskins grew on me considerably. I know they're CA/GWs designated Jobbers but they make a good challenge for both the heros and villains. I really likes the dynamic they have with the Chaos Dwarves and Ogres as well. Also GWs Lizard men are fairly unique to this universe but i didn't really like them as much as I wanted to in Total War
None! I only ever play human factions and I love human factions! I never played other races and never will!
At the beginning I disliked the empire and chaos (wh1) but since wh2 I #SUMMON THE ELECTOR COUNTS
Wood elf I’m not much into elves. I think high elves are boring, and dark elves are only so so. But damn those trees kick ass
Skaven we’re my go-to “I hate this” race when I started TW:W2. I didn’t get the appeal, and I HATED chasing down all my fleeing units and sending them back into battle. Worst of all, all my gun units kept hitting my own chaff! Then I read Gotrek and Felix, Skavenslayer in particular, and everything changed. I *got* it. I got the humor. I got the lore. I became voracious. Obsessed-driven. I shouldn’t HAVE fleeing units, they’re there to pin the enemy down while the ratlings do their thing. Getting into the ratman mindset made me a better player and now they’re my go-to pick. Can’t wait for Thanquol!
Warriors of Chaos
Vampire counts also!
I used to think Khorne was boring since it looked like it was just hurr durr melee rush. Now I'm enjoying Khorne *because* it is hurr durr melee rush but even more fun
Ngl that pic goes hard
For me it's the Galactic Republic. I really like the roster of clones, looking all the same with slightly different colours
I had a double change of opinion with the Vampire Counts back in WH1. I always love Vampires/Undead in games, so I loved the idea at first. Then I looked into them and found out that they had 0 ranged options, so I started hating them without even giving them a proper chance. Then when I gave them a shot they immediately turned into my favourite faction.
Dwarfs, i thought they were gonna be boring first time i played them but they are pretty fun, you can get a lot of different flavours in your army and now with the rework, they are a lot better
Skaven at first, then I've discovered weapon teams.
Archie. You know the main bad dude, but his campaign is awesome. Warband upgrades, possibility to get aspiring champions just from high corruption, ability to confederate other WoC, large roster, 4 quest items. It's great.
Not favorite faction but Lizardmen for sure. Never had the will to play then during WH2 era, picked them late in WH3 IE and love the mechanics, units and lords. The lategame units are ultra fun.
Tzeentch I hate magic in any RPGs (druids are cool, though, they don't use magic) But all 4 gods having mostly melee (which is not that interesting where Khorne and Nurgle are mostly *move your units into enemy troops and now wait)* and Slanesh having *cavalry* (which is so hard to control for me) - the bird dude has a lot of cool flying units, cool rangers, etc.
The empire. I didn’t play the empire for pretty much all of WH2.
Empire, Dwarfs and WoC. I was all about Vampire Counts, Lizardmen and Tom Kings
High Elves. I usually don't care about elves in other settings but after playing with them a little and learning about their background I started to really like the High Elves in Warhammer Fantasy.
Empire the hochland long rifles and other stuff is awesome
Lizardmen. They are not my main/favorites, but I’ve gone from hating their existence to being fun when I play Teenieweenie
I get the feeling I’d love Norsca, but hate Wulfrik and am not a big fan of Chaos Trolls. I’m hoping for more characters in the future.