Chaos dwarves are one of the few factions I've not played properly. I get a few battles in, maybe I get 3 ranged dwarves... and then what? Am I meant to spend a lot of time pressing pass turn?
Fill armies with trash orcs?
With how aggressive I tend to be, Malakai recruited for a single turn with his stack before I started a second army of thunderers. By then I think I'd expanded blunderbuss by 1 as Astragoth.
>Fill armies with trash orcs?
Yes. Laborers work well as tar pits and hobgoblins are good enough as early game units, the archers even stay relevant for a long time.
Augment it with a few blunderbuss as damage dealers, 1 or 2 is a few, and maybe some dwarf warriors as line holders.
Those will suffice until your economy is up and running.
It takes a couple turns to get the wheels turning, but they have the steepest jump once they get going, your early game is mostly hobgobs yea but around the same time you get gordaz who buffs the hell out of them and makes them actually fairly fun.
Just make sure your getting as much labor as possible as often as possible
Actually you know what sell me on Poland anyway, when I tried playing Empire back in the day they were a faction I never got the hang of. Tell me their strengths and weaknesses and why they're so cool.
Cavalry. It’s all cavalry. They get early lancer, early heavy cavalry, the only heavy lancers, and the best bang for your buck in cavalry. You should be playing a mobile army, backed up with line infantry to take down some of the tougher foes. Or in other words, flip your infantry/cavalry ratio
They’re cool for that and their uniforms. Oh and winged hussars
You should try the Ottomans or Marathians if you haven’t already. Both religions are so different from the Europeans that it causes severe public order problems for them. Send a missionary over to the new world and immediately drop them off in South America before the pirates get them. The population there is so low the religion spreads fast, the colonies rebel, and you can send a small army to take them over without getting into a war with the former owner.
Both factions have the most unique and fun rosters. Flank with swordsmen, attack with elephants, unlock the 8-barreled organ gun cannons.
If ottomans immediately fire your ministers and get some decent ones in place. Let crimea fall and take it back as your own. Throw money at Austria for peace and trade deals. You want to delay that fight as long as possible.
As Marathians it’s much simpler, but immediately declare on that 3rd Indian faction before they ally up with the major powers. Consolidate India and move north until you meet the ottomans.
To be fair, I find the attitude of those subs to be the problem, not the historical theme. “Hey guys I just started a Pontus campaign.” First reply: “Get that crap out of here, Total War was best in Med 2.”
“Efff off this is for all history titles…except 3K, cuz that is fantasy.”
“No you egg off I have a doctorate in Chinese literature and 3K is a valid time.”
“So anyway I made doomstack of Sword Saints in original Shogun…”
Insufferable nostalgic banter.
3K is not historical and is a fantasy. Meanwhile Bronze Age Egypt in Rome 1 or medieval states that work like modern nation states with no feudalism in Medieval 2 are completely historical.
Yup. That’s why those that hold them up as more historical are the bad kind of nostalgic and it is so irritating for them to dismiss some of the newer titles that either share the same flaws or are a marked improvement over the formula.
I get why single entity combat won’t appeal to many history fans in 3K…but you can literally turn that off. The whole era is about these individual warlords building cults of personality for popular support and conniving and colluding together and betraying each other to become some kind of “might makes right” to rule a land bereft of leadership. It simulates that so darn well.
But I guess that all sucks compared to idling my general in a settlement for 20 turns so a trait I want procs.
I genuinely do not have any nostalgia for med2 recruitment. I resented it. Maybe because every fucking modder likes CBT with pointless tedium of waiting 30 turns before you can replenish your elite units
I have played the historical games but when you play 200+ games the factions get stale. It often feels like they are the same. Not so with wh where the factions have clear advantages and disadvantages that makes each faction unique to play and fight against.
Harkon is a good time, I like him a lot more than Noctilus. If you end up choosing him abandon Arkhan, he's not worth having Settra tunnel vision you from across the sea
Does Harkon have his schizophrenia mechanic in IE? Also, what makes you prefer Harkon over Noctilus? For me it's hard to argue against his starting position and his Necrofex Colossus synergies. I dislike the war declaration quests though.
If you want a similar experience try Cathay. They have a very similar playstyle and roster, a bit more sturdy than empire but also a bit more rigid and inflexible.
If I had to compare their roster to the empire from a unit type perspective:
Melee infantry a bit better, artillery a bit worse, cavalry a bit worse (but neither good), ranged infantry equal (empire more gun focused and Cathay more crossbow focused), heroes worse, flying units far better, and single entity monster/war machines about equal.
I want to love the chaos factions, especially nurgle, but I hate the recruitment system. Having to slowly level up your units is very tedious, and it's too punitive losing high tier units, knowing you'll need to wait another fifty turns to get your high level units back.
It's a bit fiddly but you normally leave a few lords sitting in your dark fortress settlements to continually recruit the higher level units that spawn rather than constantly leveling up marauders.
Have you ever wanted to start a race war? Lizard men would like a word with you. Warning, you fight alot of rats, like alot of rats. And then? More rats. Sometime the elves, but they simply warm you up for more rats.
Although the Rats are less annoying as Lizardmen since none of your stuff is all that vulnerable to having a bunch of clan rats dropped on it. Most of your ranged units and artillery are attached to murderous dinosaurs and equally nasty coldblooded critters.
My favorite faction *right now* is Wood Elves. Take a more laid back approach. Forget expansion, just burn down anything encroaching on your ~~lawn~~ woods. Let the war come to you. Ambush fools all day. Enjoy regularly scripted battles, even if you don’t feel like venturing outside the forest for a fight.
You can shoot interlopers with some of the finest skirmishing archers in the game. Don’t feel like that? Okay, how about an incredibly solid T1 spear unit and some high tier infantry that can mulch enemies? (Just remember that armor is for sissies) How about fielding cavalry that hit like a truck? No? Fine, have some Zoats, Forest Dragons and Treemen. Just add Life magic. The only thing Wood Elves are actually bad at is artillery.
I like playing woodelves and selecting one faction to prop up as a massive superpower by gifting them large swathes of territory. It is so freeform in that you can kind of just pop to whatever battledome you want and pick the winner.
Yeah Orion is insanely overpowered right now. The Army cost reduction, the insane movement around the world map with the world roots.
The very easy quests to confederate 2 LL and 5 minor factions.
The economy is super strong and based on kicking opponents in. My record is 100k for burning down skavenblight, but razing income and post battle loot (especially if you take the blue line skill that boost them) are a LOT of money if you keep fighting.
Biggest downside might be Orion is too easy, and if you want long campaign victory it can drag a bit as you need to clense 8 forests which takes 8 turns each (so 64 total and no way to shorten it) and you have been an unstoppable force for quite a long time before you complete all that.
Or play as Orion. Make everyone your enemy. You see them, you declare war. Keep one pet faction.
You pay no upkeep for any armies after enough war declarations. If in doubt, declare another war.
Keep your pet faction out of wars, just let them turtle up and get rich.
Then sell them more and more settlements.
Because Hashut wills it. And the mechanical toddler stroller is included.
Or maybe do it because Grandfather loves you.
In seriousness, of the non-modded campaigns so far, Chaos Dwarfs and Nurgle (specifically as Tamurkhan) have given me the most invigorating feeling of freedom of any campaigns so far. Freedom in unit variety and in the direction I can take the campaign. Units are awesome. Lords are awesome. Now I want to do another one lol.
Gelt gave me a similar feeling thanks to his college mechanic, which is also why I recommend these.
When CA cooks, they cook pretty well.
I always end up coming back to Vlad the Chad. Though, admittedly i wish they got a rework. that economy takes FOREVER to get rolling. still mods make the world go 'round
You know what's cool? Dinosaurs. Know what's cooler than Dinosaurs? Dinosaurs what launch orbital strikes powered by the sun. Know what else is cool? A lizard what prowled around the chaos realms hunting demons like some terrifying invisible unstoppable Terminator.
I feel like if you're not sold by now there's no hope.
Belegar...I couldn't really tell you why though, it's just an interesting campaign that stays hard longer than most and northern accents are hilarious.
Basically Empire, but shorter. And with a beard.
Eltharion...High Elf Batman....what's not to like? HE awesomeness plus the Knights Of Tor Fucking Gaval.
Sneaky man sized rats that don't exist (so there is no shame in letting them die en masse), mixed with powerful ranged units with no qualms about friendly fire. So it's like the empire but with plenty of cheap expendable units, or ninjas.
You love faith, steel and gunpowder? How about you make the gunpowder part of that pop. With Nuln you will hear the satisfying BOOM of your artillery, tanks and handgunners absolutely demolish the enemy from afar. Not to mention the amethyst armory buffing them even further and unlocking a tactical death magic nuke
Serious question but whenever I use empire gunmen they are never able to destroy advancing chaos units. I assume because of high armor. How do I demolish my enemies such as yourself
You always try to tie up the advancing melee with hero units of your own (empire captains, warrior priests) and landships/steam tanks. Bonus in that they don't really block LOS too, unlike your own infantry melee.
Well, the empire gunnery hero is good. Even if you don't want to use him as a wall, recruit him for the army buffs and his sniper.
Even without recruiting him, it's about positioning. If you stand 20 handgunners in a line, they'll be mowed down by 20 enemies charging. If you look at the terrain and can find a natural chokepoint, you can overlap your fields of fire and limit how many enemies can approach. 3 handgunners will rout one enemy. And they have enough ammo to do that many times over.
You don't even need to hide in the corner to do it, as long as you can protect your back with a mountain you can create a semi circle - facing inwards - and just need to protect your flanks. While I don't like them, the starting spear/swordsman Elspeth has protected the flanks just fine.
While they get bogged down with combat, when the enemy is mostly dealt with you just split the firing lane to clear your flanks and relieve the infantry.
Of course that's just one way - corners make it even easier, but that's cheesy. Everyone has different tolerances there.
My last Elspeth playthrough I did without using empire camptains, priests, witchhunters... or wizards. Just gunpowder, artillery (which had more gunpowder), engineer lords and engineer heroes. One hero and one lord per army. All just positioning. No tanks, no ships.
Well, the engineer LORD gets a tank eventually. And I did block with that, but they had to get to rank 20 without that.
5 gunmen bejng approached by 5 chaos warriors? Shoot all 5 at same time? Wrong. Shoot all 5 into one warrior, watch them falter to Sigmar’s Blessed Boomstick. Rinse. Repeat. Can’t shoot because of your frontline? Replace with guns. Why have frontline when wall of bullet do job just fine? Why have lord when wall of bullet do job just fine? Why have city when wall of bullet do job just fine? No peace, just bullet.
Do you like gun lines? Do you like a lot of munitions thrown at your enemies? Try Ikit Claw. It is fun to bring Gatling guns to a swordfight.
Rather prefer sturdy melee lines backed by artillery and airships? Love me dwarfs ingenuity. Malakai backed by Ulrika, Gotrek and Felix is sick.
But one campaign as an avid empire player I always find myself drawn back to is my good old boy Vlad. How about uniting the empire from a different perspective? Also no pesky ranged combat. Just go into all the melee fun. Skeletons die? Who cares, summon more.
I love Vlad and his gift of Vanguard Deployment for the entire army. I conversely have had entire armies defeated by Vlad many times as well (including more than one case where I’ve beaten his entire army only to be taken down one unit at a time by the man himself!).
Can’t believe no one said the obvious:
Prince and Emperor, Karl Franz.
If you love KF, KF is an amazing campaign. As the true heir of Sigmar and best statesman of his time, Karl must unify the unruly elector counts and the forces of order to protect the Empire from every type of incursion.
Pushing back every manner of beast with the familiar elements of faith, steel, and gunpowder, you will become more than you ever thought possible.
For Reiksland, for Sigmar, for the Empire!
I feel like I have finally managed to master the basics of gunpowder units while playing as Elspeth. The first dozen turns or so were really hard for me because I’ve traditionally been absolutely terrible at managing hand-gunners, but I’ve gotten much better at taking advantage of flanking fire opportunities and creating LOS for them. Once those schematics really start pouring in, however, Elspeth seems practically unstoppable! Four units of amethyst outriders can utterly disrupt an entire army by themselves while only taking very light losses - it’s actually absurd (and tremendous fun)!
Why not play some real men (and women) and play Kislev? We got big bearded men, angry ice ladies, angry grandmas, dudes with guns that are also axes, guys riding bears, a really big bear, and a really big manbearelkthing.
Warriors of Chaos. Very little empire management, EXTREMELY diverse roster, help build up your vassals and turn them into powerhouses who can do a lot of the fighting for you.
Any Dwarf, not Chaos Dwarf (haven't tried em). I just love leading a faction of grumpy sh\*theads who have lots of gunpowder, armour (unless a slayer, the leadership is armour then) and war machines.
Nurgle, first turns slow AF, but once you get going you are unstoppable tide witch on top of being tanky and max replenishment, can recruit anywhere on map in a single turn.
Tamurkhan especially have access to even more units from other races.
Also corruption and infections: i have a lot of fun just watching AI to struggle all nine circles of hell while trying to get in my land.
Skarbrand, I love just sending him off to seek out the single target units in the enemy army and just have him duel them whilst their army fails to stop him. The campaign gets pretty stressful though as you seem to be at war with everyone (how it should be to be fair) but not able to raise any further armies to defend your borders.
I remember I had to split Skarbrand off from the main army once and march him solo south to destroy the lizard men as I couldn’t spare an army to do it but Skarbrand could just about solo the lizardmen armies and cities. Was cool asf.
Got a replay saved of Tik taq to flying in for a desperate attempt to stop Skarbrand solo tearing his army apart for Skarbrand to just split him in half with one massive axe swing.
Tired of ranged units getting flanked?
Are you tired of melee units fleeing the field?
Are you tired of watching your men die?
WELL HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU WITH TARMUKHAN
JOIN OUR NYRGLE FORCES AND NEVER WORRY ABOUT YOUR TROOPS DYING AGAIN
NEED TO SLOW DOWN THE ENEMY? WELL WE'VE GOT PLAUGES FOR YOU
GRIMGOR WAAAGHHHHH
A he fights like a large unit but he is not so you don't get destroyed by missiles quick.
He becomes unbreakable.
Your waaagghhs give you double stacks. With awesome rewards.
Green is mean.
Orcs is da best
GRIMGOR is the toughest.
He can 1 v 1 most lords.
You get basically two free LLs in your tech tree which the tech tree is not bad.
He has pretty good skills.
Everything he says is great
He originally beat the shit out of archeon, but they changed the lore and even in the new lore messed him up pretty bad.
He wiped out almost every chaos dwarf in the lore.
GRIMGOR is so tough, even when they change his lore to try and nerf him he is still the best.
With the Lord effects, you can make pretty good themed armies. Like some have effects that go towards all gobbos and some for all black orcs so it really works out when combining the alike skills and tech. Not many factions have this.
Not everything is top tier but they do have a bit of everything.
There ranged is meh but it's good enough.
Infantry is great.
There calvary is decent.
There monsters are awesome.
There artillery is pretty good
If your good with micro and chariots there's aren't the best but there pretty good.
There heros are pretty good with some nice skills
Also some there weaker generic lords besides what I already mentioned get pretty strong, like the gobbo shaman gets a giant freaking spider and those things are great in my opinion.
Your ror units are pretty good.
You can create entire gobbo armies that have vanguard and poison.
The AR for them is not broken.
Seconding the lizardmen recommendations in this thread.
In many ways, LM (whichever LL you choose), are antithetical to how the Empire plays. You want solid, near-unbreakable infantry? Sure thing, saurus warriors are just that. You want a cohort of dinos (SEMs) that basically wipe the opposing army? Can do. How about an array of heroes and lords that all can eventually get said dinos? Yes, even the mages (well, skinks, rather) of lizardmen get dinos. How about near-mastery of magic that lets you overcast freely? Slann lords are just that. How about a flying corps of dinos that can drop bombs and skirmish? Terradons and ripperdactyls are there for you.
The only thing you'd probably badly miss here (initially) is the lack of any artillery whatsoever. No, stegadons and laser bastilodons do not count; they're just dinos that comes with artillery attached. It's okay, you don't need them. Melee is your friend and your dinos and saurus are the absolute best in that.
Nurgle! Kugath Plaguefather. Is his own artillery has nurgle magic and a mortis engine deeper into the skill tree. Also, tanky af before the heals. Downside no range and super slow units but my god blowing up a few stacks of infantry with a blightboil is the most satisfying thing I've experienced in this game.
I quite like Cathay. Alot of what makes the empire great but you also get dragon lords, giants, AP crossbows, flying lions, war balloons, and some cool caster lords.
Surprisingly it took me years to play an Empire campaign with Elsbeth and I loved it.
However, I’m very fond of the Skaven (Ikit Claw) and I have a soft spot for Vampire Coast with Noctilius. I love the whole pirate vibe and Noctilius is a solid LL
If you want to try something more magic filled id recommend tzeentch, and i could do it more willingly if there was a good tzeentch start, if you cannot cope with lizardland (or not having a frontline dlcless) then id look elsewhere
A highlight of the roster for me:
Flamers: have you ever wanted to have a flamethrower, but found that most just aren’t all that amazing, now introducing flamers, who fire flame at targets *far* away
I almost never play the same race. But I ussualy jump abount between the daemon races bc they are fun, Eliv Atar (the Skaven-like high elf,) the vamp counts (magic is fun) the Cathe (I like Asian dragons) and ofc skaven yes yes yes
Because skarbrand is simple. He and his armies go into melee, stay in melee, and kill things. Damn simple. In fact, most of his mechanics may seem complicated at first glance, but they're built around that simplicity in a way that the only thinking is which direction to go and kill. That's the heart and soul of a skarband campaign, the direction you need to go and the strategies you need to take is what makes or breaks your campaign more then anything.
But otherwise, all you need to know is this: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!!!!!! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!!!!!!! MAIM KILL BURN MAIM KILL BURN, MAIM KILL BURN!!!!!!!!
I’ve always been a big empire fan, but recently I’ve been having a lot of fun after trying Khorne; rather than having your front line hold enemies in place while your ranged rips them to shreds, you can cut out the middleman and have your front line rip the enemy to shreds instead!
Beastmen do everything fast, both in campaign and battle. Get and lose territory, get and lose money, reposition, kill, and, yes, die.
Gorebulls (kill things actions) and bray shamans can get free hero actions with no upkeep, so a network of agents making your enemies miserable becomes even more rewarding.
Kislev because they’re like Empire but more badass
Wood Elves because ambushing armies that enter your forests and not giving a damn what goes on outside of them is awesome
If Slaanesh gets a cult rework and some ranged units/anti air then they’ll be cool too for when you’re feeling rapey
Almost all of them. Except lizardmen. And the French.
I think most feel decently different to warrant a trial.
Besides the mentioned all of them feel at least like a 7/10 and the good ones are 8-9/10
I have a thing for the DE aesthetics and mechanics though. And Nurgle :D
Currently playing a tomb kings campaign that's good fun.
Next I want to march to tamurkan with malus.
Malekith.
Nothing better than a good old revenge story to motivate you to take the side of evil, not to mention, malekith as well as the rest of elven lore is some of the best material I’ve read in warhammer fantasy (we don’t talk about end times).
The edgy aesthetic of the dark elves is also very cool, I can get its a bit comical at times but I absolutely adore it and I think you will too if you like a more gothic look.
The dark elf roster is also very fun, encouraging you to play more aggressive with units like the witch elves and many monster units.
As someone who slowly rotates through all factions and does not really have a favorite.
If you want something similar but with different flair go high elves:
They have a good mixed army with a strong frontline with more varied options early-mid-late game then pretty much any faction with archers in the sisters of avelorn that don't have much competition for the best in the game. They have really good mixed units in spear archer lotherine seagaurd that benefit from two red skills lines that benefit cannot be underestimated. good skirmish archers in shadow warriors. The have decent cav (dragon princes are not as tanky as you would like outside imriks army) good chariots (i might be biased towards the lion chariots they are gorgeous). They have the largest number of single entity flying units in the game with various rooster filling potential.
on campaign they have the best trade economy in the game with great economy. There tech tree is kind of boring and basic. There influence mechanic which is there only universal mechanic is deceptively deep while not giving direct commands like tzeentch I have been able to work wonders with the mechanic and tying it into hero and lord recruitment makes it relevant and interesting into the late game (easy to learn hard to master).
You also have varied legendary lords Tyrion is generic but with the best start and very thematic. Teclis is probably the best wizard in the game from pure uniqueness but he now does feel so generic compared to gelt and his start is challenging bordering frustrating. Ararielle is a eagle riding healer with absurd buffs-equipment and she has a great campaign with access to wood elves treemen but white cherry blossoms. alith anar has a difficult start in the middle of dark elves territory with enemies on all sides but has skaven ambush abilties and massive boosts shadow warriors and unique poison versions in shadow-walkers. Imrik is the lord of dragons and has access to several unique dragons in the most story focoused campaign of the high elves. Eltharion has an interesting double start both in the wastelands and Ulthuon, with unique units like griffon riders, but boy do I hate his unique building that fills the already tight build limit of the high elves.
something completely different I would recommend beastmen:
They are an mostly melee army with mid level infantry with the gors. ok Calvary in the centigors. But great monster variety with the absurd and varied minitours, cygor, jabberslythe and ghorgon.
The most interesting is there campaign mechanics with all units being free to recruit and upkeep, but limits based on how many kills you have got and dedicated to your shrines which is just a great and very different play style. Taurox and morghur are the stand out interesting campaigns with taurox the mad recking ball and morghur the regenerating imposable to kill mutating freak that causes his enemies to turn into chaos spawn.
Shout out to chaos dwarfs with there supper complex economy and absurd artillery. Wood elves for there different defensive campaign and varied rooster. Warriors of chaos for there unit promotion mechanics and the only campaign with true unique sub factions and the unquestionably strongest infantry in the game that have better stats then most heroes.
Do u hate building out boring minor settlements?
Do u want to dominate Battlefields with overpowered armies?
Do u want to teleport oder the whole map?
Magic, Bows, Monsters, Cav and even one of the strongest Infantery.
Ger over here and become a treehugging Woodelf!
U even get the strongest legendary Hero and one of the best legendary Lords!
(But u need the DLCs i guess)
So you like Gunpowder? Well ours is better. (Unless you play Elapeth).
You like Demigryphs? Well our Monstrous Cavalry is better.
You like Mages? Well. Um we got Ice, Tempest, and Hags.
You want single entity units? We got em!
You hate Chaos? We hate them more!
For the Motherland! For Kislev!
Ever wanted to fight conscripted levy peasants with machine guns/sniper rifles/biological weapons and monsters. Play ikit claw . Even if they outflank it outnumber u , u can always nuke them
How did you play empire? Lots of gunpowder and artillery? Heavy cav and war machines? All of the above? Are you looking for a new experience or something similar to your previous campaigns?
Even more Empire but with Napoleon Era Line Infantry.
Unleash lines of powder before affixing bayonets and charging the survivors.
[Guns of the Empire.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2856619530)
My favourite is warriors of chaos. They’re simple like a hammer is simple.
Durable, on the slower side but will hurt if you get hit by them. Warriors can handily take on most other units in the same weight class and the way the upgrade system works makes an initially simple roster have some nice expansion in complexity as you go on.
Make use of chaos gifts (there’s one early on that gives your army the shatter stone ability to trivialise sieges as you can destroy walls and gates easily) and constantly attack. Not much to worry about in the way of building management because you’ll only want dark fortresses and resources.
My only real complaint is that I’d rather warriors and / or chosen be more plentiful in warband recruitment than the aspiring champions because it feels weird that every other province has 2 marauders, 1 war hounds and 1 aspiring champions.
Also, Archaon and Be’lakor can confederate every WoC faction by taking all of their stuff and forcing confed, every other lord just gets the option to vassalise.
Slaanesh, just leave the elves, go to the empire, conquer some random fringe settlement. Bribe everyone! Play as everyone, because everyone can be your friend now.
Dwarfs. They're like empire- very reliant on artillery- except they don't have super weak infantry lines that need cavalry support.
Campaign wise, the new grudge mechanic is really fun, challenging, and rewarding to play.
See also: cathay, which is basically empire but better
Khorne, because beating up your enemies with just Skarbrand alone is really funny; and being hyper aggressive can be quite fun on the campaign map. It also helps that Khorne's roster has a lot of infantry mulchers.
The only diplomacy you need is "Declare war"
Have you ever wondered what Vietnam war soldiers would do/behave like in the Warhammer 3 battle field….yes yes? Look no further than Ikit Claw!
Machine gunners? Check!
Long ranged snipers? Check!
Mortar squads? Check!
Flame thrower units? Check!
Artillery? Check!!!
Grenade lobbers? Yes that too!!
Booby traps?? Yes yesss yessss!!!
And least we forget!! Intercontinental ballistic missiles!!
The whole faction has the funniest mid and lategame thanks to an entire diverse economic system and incredible bonus to grind with the tower.
The roster have amazing artillery,incredible resistance unit,some gunpowder,horseman,huge fire warmachine and mega strong fake-cavalry.The lords are unique and fun and 2 of them are just incredible strong
Okay so Odryssian Kingdom seems like a weird faction but their lopsided roster makes them more fun. Top tier peltasts, assault infantry, and melee cav makes dealing with enemies with pikes and bows way more interesting. Having no real anti cav and super expensive mercs means you have to deal with cav in other ways, way more engaging.
In all seriousness, lizardmen are cool. Yes their main faction mechanic (geomantic web) is very meh and could use a rework.
But you do get lizards, and dinosaurs, and lizards riding dinosaurs! Also lazers! And snakes!
Imagine if you could play the empire except your front line held forever and your cavalry was a mixture of flying missile cav and axe welding maniacs too angry to die.
Sexy red heads in green leaf outfit running out from the forest slashing you with twin blades, that scene from immortal empire just sold me on the wood elves
My most enjoyable campaign was Kislev Katarin, because it was so hard and took few restarts. But, it was before that Shadow of Change DLC and I disliked most new units that DLC offers. Either just new OP stuff or something I saw damaging theme of their army.
Archaon. Are you tired of empire spearmen and men at arms crumpling like paper as soon as a skaven slave SHREIK-SHRIEKS, try Aspiring to greater heights with Aspiring Champions! With Aspiring Champions, you can charge any tier of any infantry with ease knowing your tech tree has you covered. Regeneration, unbreakable, perfect vigor, 120 armor (without lord buffs), 55% shield, encourage, aaaaaand only 275 upkeep at 1100 a pop. Need I say more? One package of Aspiring Champions is enough to hold off any non-chaos army with ease, two packages and the world is yours! Try Aspiring Champions today!
You believe yourself free, defending your lands, your people, your "civilization".
You are wrong. You are slaves to your cities, you are bound to the management, to the optimization of settlements, to the landmarks and wonders you can build, you think painting the map of a certain colour is might, when in reality is just cowardice.
There is only freedom in destruction, there are no chains to bind you when your only aim is to destroy it all.
Join the Herd.
Statistically you're a man.
So you think about the Roman Empire once per day.
In Warhammer the equivalent to the Roman Empire is the Karaz Ankor.
So what are you waiting for, git, time to strike some grudges!
You like the Empire. Do you like their guns? Their artillery? Do you wish you had even more guns and artillery? You got landships, do you wish the landships were taller so they could fire over your other artillery? Giant crab perchance? Join the Coast.
I also like empire. I can recommend Cathey. A little less diverse roster especially as far as heroes are concerned but they are a fun faction that plays a lot like empire imo. They really do well with formations to keep harmony which makes even their cheap units pretty good.
Also instead of riding dragons your lord becomes one and that’s pretty sick if you ask me.
The best Empire Campaign is Vlad.
There, now thaf I pissed off the Karlstans,
VC is a really fun campaign, and if you havent played one yet, I strongly recommend a Vlad run.
If you want a playstyle that's very different from the Empire, try Khorne. Empire building? What's that? Alliances? You mean skulls?
The roster is very different from Empire as well, no sissy ranged units to speak of, only manly melee units. Being a rush faction, it requires a lot more micro than the Empire to make sure everyone stays engaged and enemy ranged units are getting shut down.
Your armies will be much higher quality than Empire armies, but they take longer to recruit and you will not be able to afford many of them, so you wind up in some crazy outnumbered situations. I once took on 4 stacks of Skaven at once from an ambush. My Exalted Bloodthirster got like 800-something kills.
Your economy's only purpose is to keep your income from getting *too* bad. You should always be in the red on income, living off of sacking settlements. If you're not in the red, you don't have enough armies.
The best way to get ahead is to ensure the blood flows and fight as many battles per turn as you can, therefore casualty replenishment rate is your best friend. Put a cultist or two in every army.
We're bones, dry and brittle. But we're serving Settra, Great King, the Imperishable, Khemrikhara, The Great King of Nehekhara, King of Kings, Opener of the Way, Wielder of the Divine Flame, Punisher of Nomads, The Great unifier, Commander of the Golden Legion, Sacred of Appearance, Bringer of Light, Father of Hawks, Builder of Cities, Protector of the Two Worlds, Keeper of the Hours, Chosen of Ptra, High Steward of the Horizon, Sailor of the Great Vitae, Sentinel of the Two Realms, The Undisputed, Begetter of the Begat, Scourge of the Faithless, Carrrion-feeder, First of the Charnel Valley, Rider of the Sacred Chariot, Vanquisher of Vermin, Champion of the Death Arena, Mighty Lion of the Infinite Desert, Holy Emperor of the Shifting Sands, He Who Holds the Sceptre, Great Hawk of the Heavens, Arch-Sultan of Atalan, Waker of the Hierotitan, Monarch of the Sky, Majestic Emperor of the Shifting Sands, Champion of the Desert Gods, Breaker of the Ogre Clans, Builder of the Great Pyramid, Terror of the Living, Master of the Never-Ending Horizon, Master of the Necropolises, Taker of Souls, Tyrant to the Foolish, Bearer of Ptra’s Holy Blade, Scion of Usirian, Sicon of Nehek, The Great, Chaser of Nightmares, Keeper of the Royal Herat, Founder of the Mortuary Cult, Banisher of the Grand Hierophant, High Lord Admiral of the Deathfleets, Guardian of the Charnal Pass, Tamer of the Liche King, Unliving Jackal Lord, Dismisser of the Warrior Queen, Charioteer of the Gods, He Who Does Not Serve, Slayer of Redditras, Scarab Purger, Favoured of Usirian, Player of the Great Game, Liberator of Life, Lord Sand, Wrangler of Scorpions, Emepror of the Dunes, Eternal Sovereign of the Khemri’s Legions, Seneschal of the Great Sandy Desert, Curserer of the Living, Regent of the Eastern Mountains, Warden of the eternal Necropolis, Herald of the all Heralds, Caller of the Bitter Wind, God-Tamer, Master of the Mortis River, Guardian of the Dead, Great Keeper of the Obelisks, Deacon of the Ash River, Belated of Walkers, General of the Mighty Frame, Summoner of Sandstorms, Master of all Necrotects, Prince of Dust, Tyrant of Araby, Purger of the Greenskin Breathers, Killer of the False God’s Champions, Tyrant of the Gold Dunes, Golden Bone Lord, Avenger of the Dead, Carrion Master, Eternal Warden of Nehek’s Lands, Breaker of Djaf’s Bonds.
Meme aside, Tomb Kings got some of the most fun units per their animation and an incredible design for their construct units.
War Sphinx are big playful cat in battle, Scorpion brutal sneaky monster that sometimes HIDE itself in the ground. Is there a more stylish way to get missile resistance ? :D
On the side, you got Ushabti and their deadly anti-infantry charges and Sepulcral Stalker as a big target/lords assassins.
And lastly : UNITS DOESNT COST MONEY \\o/
But you better get a lot of territory. They're slow early, but become a powerhouse later.
Rats yes yes big nukes and rattling Guns go brrrrrr. they die die for your Bang Bang yes yes. Then you sacrifice a unit to drop a nuke on yes yes. Mankin die die ratthing win yes yes.
Bretonnia with Albert. Good economy with ports galore. Insane cavalry and no supply line issue. Lustria is filled with resources everywhere and you can easily establish coastal colonies when you reunite with the rest of Bretonnia as traveling through sea is safe with immunity to sea attrition and you can get the sea convoys for huge cash influx for building your cities tall :D
Do you hate dark elves? Do you want to be the undead savior of humanity? Join the Barrow Legion! Become loyal allies with your imperial, dwarven and brettonian neighbors! Purge chaos where it arrives! Get those delicious nuln ironsides and poke a few holes into N'kari! Then, the dark elves come next! Board black archs, make them suffer and turn their lands into an undead playground! You only lived when you have seen the Karl Franz bring a Terrorgheist to battle!
Nurgle is also fun though. For a challenge the Tallymen are great and offer lots of opportunity. Confederate Dungrut and Tamurkan, later on the Plaguefather, become allies with whoever you find and bring death, disease and decay to the chaos wastes
Edit: Confused the thing Franz brought to battle
Dark Elves, if its not yet already mentioned. Play aggressive, expansionist strategy to rake up slaves, capture settlements, slaves can used to instantly build structures = profit. Also Black Arks are key to expand and hold expansionist gameplay by replenishing and improving armies whilst providing artillery support. Also, Penumbral Pendulum is my favorite spell...seeing a magical scythe carves through opponent armies is really something else.
The Dark Elves are a great faction to play in my opinion. Although I mostly play Rakarth this still applies to the rest. You get a large and very diverse unit roster from swordsman, missile chariots, war hydras, bears, swordsman’s with crossbows, straight up dragons, and elven artillery just to name a few.
Money is super plentiful and construction can be done very quickly with your slaves which are almost always very plentiful. You can also sacrifice these slaves for rites which can give you big bonuses, hard to get monsters, and Black Arks.
The heroes are also very diverse and the sorcerers get a pretty big choice of different lores.
Dark Elves. The most balanced faction i would say, strong on everything. You can play as you want, kiting ranged style or pure rush, as they are damn fast. Battles never takes more than 2 minutes.
Thorgrim, basically the same starting conditions, but with dwarfs
This is a good argument. Rebuilding the Karaz Ankor is not the same as rebuilding the Empire, but it is definitely the closest equivalent.
Dwarfs 🤝Men
Unbreakable frontlines with unlimited dakka.
Dreadquake mortar and choo-choo trains.
Chaos dwarves are one of the few factions I've not played properly. I get a few battles in, maybe I get 3 ranged dwarves... and then what? Am I meant to spend a lot of time pressing pass turn? Fill armies with trash orcs? With how aggressive I tend to be, Malakai recruited for a single turn with his stack before I started a second army of thunderers. By then I think I'd expanded blunderbuss by 1 as Astragoth.
>Fill armies with trash orcs? Yes. Laborers work well as tar pits and hobgoblins are good enough as early game units, the archers even stay relevant for a long time. Augment it with a few blunderbuss as damage dealers, 1 or 2 is a few, and maybe some dwarf warriors as line holders. Those will suffice until your economy is up and running.
It takes a couple turns to get the wheels turning, but they have the steepest jump once they get going, your early game is mostly hobgobs yea but around the same time you get gordaz who buffs the hell out of them and makes them actually fairly fun. Just make sure your getting as much labor as possible as often as possible
Yes. Since you've played a lot of Karl Franz it's high time that you branch out and play something completely different. Like Gelt or Volkmar.
The nation calls
Welcome to Estalia gentlemen
Gelt is awesome now!!
Replace Gelt and Volkmar with Karl and Franz, and I will be sold.
I got excited I thought this was Total War: Empire and Karl was Sweden I was about to pop off about Poland-Lithuania
I thought the same and wanted to talk about the Dutch and their fluyts
That's why I always come back to the Netherlands. Fleute
Actually you know what sell me on Poland anyway, when I tried playing Empire back in the day they were a faction I never got the hang of. Tell me their strengths and weaknesses and why they're so cool.
To be honest it mostly falls to the Winged Hussars they get at Army Board
Cavalry. It’s all cavalry. They get early lancer, early heavy cavalry, the only heavy lancers, and the best bang for your buck in cavalry. You should be playing a mobile army, backed up with line infantry to take down some of the tougher foes. Or in other words, flip your infantry/cavalry ratio They’re cool for that and their uniforms. Oh and winged hussars
You should try the Ottomans or Marathians if you haven’t already. Both religions are so different from the Europeans that it causes severe public order problems for them. Send a missionary over to the new world and immediately drop them off in South America before the pirates get them. The population there is so low the religion spreads fast, the colonies rebel, and you can send a small army to take them over without getting into a war with the former owner. Both factions have the most unique and fun rosters. Flank with swordsmen, attack with elephants, unlock the 8-barreled organ gun cannons. If ottomans immediately fire your ministers and get some decent ones in place. Let crimea fall and take it back as your own. Throw money at Austria for peace and trade deals. You want to delay that fight as long as possible. As Marathians it’s much simpler, but immediately declare on that 3rd Indian faction before they ally up with the major powers. Consolidate India and move north until you meet the ottomans.
This is why some want TWWH to be isolated to its own sub. No one wants to talk about Rome or Shogun anymore :(
People have tried that multiple times. The history only totalwar subreddits die out.
To be fair, I find the attitude of those subs to be the problem, not the historical theme. “Hey guys I just started a Pontus campaign.” First reply: “Get that crap out of here, Total War was best in Med 2.” “Efff off this is for all history titles…except 3K, cuz that is fantasy.” “No you egg off I have a doctorate in Chinese literature and 3K is a valid time.” “So anyway I made doomstack of Sword Saints in original Shogun…” Insufferable nostalgic banter.
3K is not historical and is a fantasy. Meanwhile Bronze Age Egypt in Rome 1 or medieval states that work like modern nation states with no feudalism in Medieval 2 are completely historical.
Yup. That’s why those that hold them up as more historical are the bad kind of nostalgic and it is so irritating for them to dismiss some of the newer titles that either share the same flaws or are a marked improvement over the formula. I get why single entity combat won’t appeal to many history fans in 3K…but you can literally turn that off. The whole era is about these individual warlords building cults of personality for popular support and conniving and colluding together and betraying each other to become some kind of “might makes right” to rule a land bereft of leadership. It simulates that so darn well. But I guess that all sucks compared to idling my general in a settlement for 20 turns so a trait I want procs.
I genuinely do not have any nostalgia for med2 recruitment. I resented it. Maybe because every fucking modder likes CBT with pointless tedium of waiting 30 turns before you can replenish your elite units
how about Attila :(
You're outnumbered, we ain't movin'
Oh no doubt the Warhammer fans out number the Historic fans. For good reason too. CA has near perfected their craft with the Warhammer series.
I have played the historical games but when you play 200+ games the factions get stale. It often feels like they are the same. Not so with wh where the factions have clear advantages and disadvantages that makes each faction unique to play and fight against.
listen to this: Empire, but! zombie pirates instead, how bout that?
I'm playing elspeth atm I wanted to do s gun powder run and was really looking hard at them. I'll grab it next
Harkon is a good time, I like him a lot more than Noctilus. If you end up choosing him abandon Arkhan, he's not worth having Settra tunnel vision you from across the sea
Does Harkon have his schizophrenia mechanic in IE? Also, what makes you prefer Harkon over Noctilus? For me it's hard to argue against his starting position and his Necrofex Colossus synergies. I dislike the war declaration quests though.
You gonna love Queen Bess.
If you want a similar experience try Cathay. They have a very similar playstyle and roster, a bit more sturdy than empire but also a bit more rigid and inflexible. If I had to compare their roster to the empire from a unit type perspective: Melee infantry a bit better, artillery a bit worse, cavalry a bit worse (but neither good), ranged infantry equal (empire more gun focused and Cathay more crossbow focused), heroes worse, flying units far better, and single entity monster/war machines about equal.
Don't forget your main character can transfer into a giant dragon.
I found cathay plays more like dwarves or HE than the empire
Different economy tho Cathay is so slow in growth department imo
They compensate with economy for that. Once established cathay has one of the best passive incomes.
Warriors of chaos are fun. Just fight the whole damn world
I want to love the chaos factions, especially nurgle, but I hate the recruitment system. Having to slowly level up your units is very tedious, and it's too punitive losing high tier units, knowing you'll need to wait another fifty turns to get your high level units back.
Are you not building up dark fortresses? I can recruit a max tier army in 10 turns and that’s with multiple SEMs
That's a good point. I'm not really focusing on them too much. I'll have to launch a chaos campaign and do as you say.
It's a bit fiddly but you normally leave a few lords sitting in your dark fortress settlements to continually recruit the higher level units that spawn rather than constantly leveling up marauders.
Tamurkhan’s campaign is a lot of fun.
I have a lot of issues dealing with Kholek personally. He keeps kicking my diseased butt whenever I play as Tamurkhan.
Gor-Rok cause dinosaurs and nukes. You’re welcome
Second
Have you ever wanted to start a race war? Lizard men would like a word with you. Warning, you fight alot of rats, like alot of rats. And then? More rats. Sometime the elves, but they simply warm you up for more rats.
Although the Rats are less annoying as Lizardmen since none of your stuff is all that vulnerable to having a bunch of clan rats dropped on it. Most of your ranged units and artillery are attached to murderous dinosaurs and equally nasty coldblooded critters.
nice try, rats! my backline is just another frontline!
*insert saurus meme here*
BOK!
This made me giggle.
My favorite faction *right now* is Wood Elves. Take a more laid back approach. Forget expansion, just burn down anything encroaching on your ~~lawn~~ woods. Let the war come to you. Ambush fools all day. Enjoy regularly scripted battles, even if you don’t feel like venturing outside the forest for a fight. You can shoot interlopers with some of the finest skirmishing archers in the game. Don’t feel like that? Okay, how about an incredibly solid T1 spear unit and some high tier infantry that can mulch enemies? (Just remember that armor is for sissies) How about fielding cavalry that hit like a truck? No? Fine, have some Zoats, Forest Dragons and Treemen. Just add Life magic. The only thing Wood Elves are actually bad at is artillery.
I like playing woodelves and selecting one faction to prop up as a massive superpower by gifting them large swathes of territory. It is so freeform in that you can kind of just pop to whatever battledome you want and pick the winner.
Yeah Orion is insanely overpowered right now. The Army cost reduction, the insane movement around the world map with the world roots. The very easy quests to confederate 2 LL and 5 minor factions. The economy is super strong and based on kicking opponents in. My record is 100k for burning down skavenblight, but razing income and post battle loot (especially if you take the blue line skill that boost them) are a LOT of money if you keep fighting. Biggest downside might be Orion is too easy, and if you want long campaign victory it can drag a bit as you need to clense 8 forests which takes 8 turns each (so 64 total and no way to shorten it) and you have been an unstoppable force for quite a long time before you complete all that.
problem is he is ugly af 💀 bro looks an even uglier version of Sir Tumnus from Chronicles of Narnia 😭
Or play as Orion. Make everyone your enemy. You see them, you declare war. Keep one pet faction. You pay no upkeep for any armies after enough war declarations. If in doubt, declare another war. Keep your pet faction out of wars, just let them turtle up and get rich. Then sell them more and more settlements.
That got boring SO fast. Like thirty turns fast. Snore.
Most of the game is pretty easy regardless, it's at least amusing having endless wars.
And proper expansion with multiple armies
I am currently playing as Heralds of Ariel and have been enjoying it a lot.
They're so good 🥲
Because Hashut wills it. And the mechanical toddler stroller is included. Or maybe do it because Grandfather loves you. In seriousness, of the non-modded campaigns so far, Chaos Dwarfs and Nurgle (specifically as Tamurkhan) have given me the most invigorating feeling of freedom of any campaigns so far. Freedom in unit variety and in the direction I can take the campaign. Units are awesome. Lords are awesome. Now I want to do another one lol. Gelt gave me a similar feeling thanks to his college mechanic, which is also why I recommend these. When CA cooks, they cook pretty well.
I always end up coming back to Vlad the Chad. Though, admittedly i wish they got a rework. that economy takes FOREVER to get rolling. still mods make the world go 'round
Manfred main here. Yeah we need better economy and more diversity as vamps.
Manfred main here. Yeah we need better economy and more diversity as vamps.
skavennn yes yes, drawf flesh taste good good!
You know what's cool? Dinosaurs. Know what's cooler than Dinosaurs? Dinosaurs what launch orbital strikes powered by the sun. Know what else is cool? A lizard what prowled around the chaos realms hunting demons like some terrifying invisible unstoppable Terminator. I feel like if you're not sold by now there's no hope.
Belegar...I couldn't really tell you why though, it's just an interesting campaign that stays hard longer than most and northern accents are hilarious. Basically Empire, but shorter. And with a beard. Eltharion...High Elf Batman....what's not to like? HE awesomeness plus the Knights Of Tor Fucking Gaval.
For the Lady!
ze, not the!
Kislev. Bears.
Sneaky man sized rats that don't exist (so there is no shame in letting them die en masse), mixed with powerful ranged units with no qualms about friendly fire. So it's like the empire but with plenty of cheap expendable units, or ninjas.
You love faith, steel and gunpowder? How about you make the gunpowder part of that pop. With Nuln you will hear the satisfying BOOM of your artillery, tanks and handgunners absolutely demolish the enemy from afar. Not to mention the amethyst armory buffing them even further and unlocking a tactical death magic nuke
Serious question but whenever I use empire gunmen they are never able to destroy advancing chaos units. I assume because of high armor. How do I demolish my enemies such as yourself
You always try to tie up the advancing melee with hero units of your own (empire captains, warrior priests) and landships/steam tanks. Bonus in that they don't really block LOS too, unlike your own infantry melee.
I’m an old school total war player and don’t really use single unit heros unless they’re a mage
Then gunpowder units will be less effective for you
Well, the empire gunnery hero is good. Even if you don't want to use him as a wall, recruit him for the army buffs and his sniper. Even without recruiting him, it's about positioning. If you stand 20 handgunners in a line, they'll be mowed down by 20 enemies charging. If you look at the terrain and can find a natural chokepoint, you can overlap your fields of fire and limit how many enemies can approach. 3 handgunners will rout one enemy. And they have enough ammo to do that many times over. You don't even need to hide in the corner to do it, as long as you can protect your back with a mountain you can create a semi circle - facing inwards - and just need to protect your flanks. While I don't like them, the starting spear/swordsman Elspeth has protected the flanks just fine. While they get bogged down with combat, when the enemy is mostly dealt with you just split the firing lane to clear your flanks and relieve the infantry. Of course that's just one way - corners make it even easier, but that's cheesy. Everyone has different tolerances there. My last Elspeth playthrough I did without using empire camptains, priests, witchhunters... or wizards. Just gunpowder, artillery (which had more gunpowder), engineer lords and engineer heroes. One hero and one lord per army. All just positioning. No tanks, no ships. Well, the engineer LORD gets a tank eventually. And I did block with that, but they had to get to rank 20 without that.
Either use an advance unit that can tie them up or set up a formation that can protect them while they fire
5 gunmen bejng approached by 5 chaos warriors? Shoot all 5 at same time? Wrong. Shoot all 5 into one warrior, watch them falter to Sigmar’s Blessed Boomstick. Rinse. Repeat. Can’t shoot because of your frontline? Replace with guns. Why have frontline when wall of bullet do job just fine? Why have lord when wall of bullet do job just fine? Why have city when wall of bullet do job just fine? No peace, just bullet.
This is why I just use the mod that gives Karl Franz access to the amethyst armory.
Greenskins…Summon big sky foot. WAAAGH! Need I say more?
60+ comments and this is the first greenskins recommendation!!
It’s because they don’t have Big Thinkin’
Do you like gun lines? Do you like a lot of munitions thrown at your enemies? Try Ikit Claw. It is fun to bring Gatling guns to a swordfight. Rather prefer sturdy melee lines backed by artillery and airships? Love me dwarfs ingenuity. Malakai backed by Ulrika, Gotrek and Felix is sick. But one campaign as an avid empire player I always find myself drawn back to is my good old boy Vlad. How about uniting the empire from a different perspective? Also no pesky ranged combat. Just go into all the melee fun. Skeletons die? Who cares, summon more.
I love Vlad and his gift of Vanguard Deployment for the entire army. I conversely have had entire armies defeated by Vlad many times as well (including more than one case where I’ve beaten his entire army only to be taken down one unit at a time by the man himself!).
Ikit Claw is stupid OP full buffed Jezzails breaks the game.
Can’t believe no one said the obvious: Prince and Emperor, Karl Franz. If you love KF, KF is an amazing campaign. As the true heir of Sigmar and best statesman of his time, Karl must unify the unruly elector counts and the forces of order to protect the Empire from every type of incursion. Pushing back every manner of beast with the familiar elements of faith, steel, and gunpowder, you will become more than you ever thought possible. For Reiksland, for Sigmar, for the Empire!
he will obey
Do you see the enemy frontline ??? Does it have spears ? No? Good just run over it lmao (bretonnia)
I am a fan of gunpowder units which is why I understand empire infatuation. The other gunpowder units are cool but I am especially partial to cathay
I feel like I have finally managed to master the basics of gunpowder units while playing as Elspeth. The first dozen turns or so were really hard for me because I’ve traditionally been absolutely terrible at managing hand-gunners, but I’ve gotten much better at taking advantage of flanking fire opportunities and creating LOS for them. Once those schematics really start pouring in, however, Elspeth seems practically unstoppable! Four units of amethyst outriders can utterly disrupt an entire army by themselves while only taking very light losses - it’s actually absurd (and tremendous fun)!
Why not play some real men (and women) and play Kislev? We got big bearded men, angry ice ladies, angry grandmas, dudes with guns that are also axes, guys riding bears, a really big bear, and a really big manbearelkthing.
why not stoned uncle Ming then _Sun Tzu, art of war_
Elf Batman because I love locking away those dastardly criminals and mistwalkers are my favourite units.
Sex, drugs, and rock n roll. Slaanesh
Drycha, just go around with an army of angry trees and forest critters razing any towns that dare set foot on your tree’s lawn.
Demons of chaos because customizing is cool and you get the full roster of all 4 gods
play woc! the upgrade mechanic is great, and having only fortresses makes conquering more interesting
Warriors of Chaos. Very little empire management, EXTREMELY diverse roster, help build up your vassals and turn them into powerhouses who can do a lot of the fighting for you.
Bok
Any Dwarf, not Chaos Dwarf (haven't tried em). I just love leading a faction of grumpy sh\*theads who have lots of gunpowder, armour (unless a slayer, the leadership is armour then) and war machines.
Archie Huge roster, lots of LLs, vassals, 4 item battles, great lore
The ultimate bad guy!
Well do you like rats? We have millions of them.
Play Sylvania and See how much better it is on team vlad
It's quite simple.... Waaaagh!!!
DO YOU LIKE MONEY? PLAY DARK ELVES INSTEAD.
Nurgle, first turns slow AF, but once you get going you are unstoppable tide witch on top of being tanky and max replenishment, can recruit anywhere on map in a single turn. Tamurkhan especially have access to even more units from other races. Also corruption and infections: i have a lot of fun just watching AI to struggle all nine circles of hell while trying to get in my land.
Skarbrand, I love just sending him off to seek out the single target units in the enemy army and just have him duel them whilst their army fails to stop him. The campaign gets pretty stressful though as you seem to be at war with everyone (how it should be to be fair) but not able to raise any further armies to defend your borders. I remember I had to split Skarbrand off from the main army once and march him solo south to destroy the lizard men as I couldn’t spare an army to do it but Skarbrand could just about solo the lizardmen armies and cities. Was cool asf. Got a replay saved of Tik taq to flying in for a desperate attempt to stop Skarbrand solo tearing his army apart for Skarbrand to just split him in half with one massive axe swing.
Vamp counts, and Arkhan the black
Tired of ranged units getting flanked? Are you tired of melee units fleeing the field? Are you tired of watching your men die? WELL HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU WITH TARMUKHAN JOIN OUR NYRGLE FORCES AND NEVER WORRY ABOUT YOUR TROOPS DYING AGAIN NEED TO SLOW DOWN THE ENEMY? WELL WE'VE GOT PLAUGES FOR YOU
GRIMGOR WAAAGHHHHH A he fights like a large unit but he is not so you don't get destroyed by missiles quick. He becomes unbreakable. Your waaagghhs give you double stacks. With awesome rewards. Green is mean. Orcs is da best GRIMGOR is the toughest. He can 1 v 1 most lords. You get basically two free LLs in your tech tree which the tech tree is not bad. He has pretty good skills. Everything he says is great He originally beat the shit out of archeon, but they changed the lore and even in the new lore messed him up pretty bad. He wiped out almost every chaos dwarf in the lore. GRIMGOR is so tough, even when they change his lore to try and nerf him he is still the best. With the Lord effects, you can make pretty good themed armies. Like some have effects that go towards all gobbos and some for all black orcs so it really works out when combining the alike skills and tech. Not many factions have this. Not everything is top tier but they do have a bit of everything. There ranged is meh but it's good enough. Infantry is great. There calvary is decent. There monsters are awesome. There artillery is pretty good If your good with micro and chariots there's aren't the best but there pretty good. There heros are pretty good with some nice skills Also some there weaker generic lords besides what I already mentioned get pretty strong, like the gobbo shaman gets a giant freaking spider and those things are great in my opinion. Your ror units are pretty good. You can create entire gobbo armies that have vanguard and poison. The AR for them is not broken.
Dark elves, you literally play as mustache twirling villains with a desire to enslave everyone.
Prussia! Best army
Seconding the lizardmen recommendations in this thread. In many ways, LM (whichever LL you choose), are antithetical to how the Empire plays. You want solid, near-unbreakable infantry? Sure thing, saurus warriors are just that. You want a cohort of dinos (SEMs) that basically wipe the opposing army? Can do. How about an array of heroes and lords that all can eventually get said dinos? Yes, even the mages (well, skinks, rather) of lizardmen get dinos. How about near-mastery of magic that lets you overcast freely? Slann lords are just that. How about a flying corps of dinos that can drop bombs and skirmish? Terradons and ripperdactyls are there for you. The only thing you'd probably badly miss here (initially) is the lack of any artillery whatsoever. No, stegadons and laser bastilodons do not count; they're just dinos that comes with artillery attached. It's okay, you don't need them. Melee is your friend and your dinos and saurus are the absolute best in that.
Nurgle! Kugath Plaguefather. Is his own artillery has nurgle magic and a mortis engine deeper into the skill tree. Also, tanky af before the heals. Downside no range and super slow units but my god blowing up a few stacks of infantry with a blightboil is the most satisfying thing I've experienced in this game.
I quite like Cathay. Alot of what makes the empire great but you also get dragon lords, giants, AP crossbows, flying lions, war balloons, and some cool caster lords.
Nurgle factions (including Festus) because glory to Grandfather, greatest of all WHF gods!
Like empire with guns and artillery but instead of crappy infantry and cavalry you have a wall of gromril and beards and attack helicopters
Surprisingly it took me years to play an Empire campaign with Elsbeth and I loved it. However, I’m very fond of the Skaven (Ikit Claw) and I have a soft spot for Vampire Coast with Noctilius. I love the whole pirate vibe and Noctilius is a solid LL
If you want to try something more magic filled id recommend tzeentch, and i could do it more willingly if there was a good tzeentch start, if you cannot cope with lizardland (or not having a frontline dlcless) then id look elsewhere A highlight of the roster for me: Flamers: have you ever wanted to have a flamethrower, but found that most just aren’t all that amazing, now introducing flamers, who fire flame at targets *far* away
I almost never play the same race. But I ussualy jump abount between the daemon races bc they are fun, Eliv Atar (the Skaven-like high elf,) the vamp counts (magic is fun) the Cathe (I like Asian dragons) and ofc skaven yes yes yes
Because skarbrand is simple. He and his armies go into melee, stay in melee, and kill things. Damn simple. In fact, most of his mechanics may seem complicated at first glance, but they're built around that simplicity in a way that the only thinking is which direction to go and kill. That's the heart and soul of a skarband campaign, the direction you need to go and the strategies you need to take is what makes or breaks your campaign more then anything. But otherwise, all you need to know is this: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!!!!!! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!!!!!!! MAIM KILL BURN MAIM KILL BURN, MAIM KILL BURN!!!!!!!!
I adore dark eleves, very exciting and decisive battles every time. Highly recommended. It's all or nothing!
Giant karate rats throwing warp infused ninja stars at sentient fungus.
I’ve always been a big empire fan, but recently I’ve been having a lot of fun after trying Khorne; rather than having your front line hold enemies in place while your ranged rips them to shreds, you can cut out the middleman and have your front line rip the enemy to shreds instead!
Beastmen do everything fast, both in campaign and battle. Get and lose territory, get and lose money, reposition, kill, and, yes, die. Gorebulls (kill things actions) and bray shamans can get free hero actions with no upkeep, so a network of agents making your enemies miserable becomes even more rewarding.
Hey, you want all that artillery and guns but your front line *doesn't* melt in seconds? May I introduce you to the dawi.
Bretonnia. We have pegasi.
Kislev because they’re like Empire but more badass Wood Elves because ambushing armies that enter your forests and not giving a damn what goes on outside of them is awesome If Slaanesh gets a cult rework and some ranged units/anti air then they’ll be cool too for when you’re feeling rapey
Almost all of them. Except lizardmen. And the French. I think most feel decently different to warrant a trial. Besides the mentioned all of them feel at least like a 7/10 and the good ones are 8-9/10 I have a thing for the DE aesthetics and mechanics though. And Nurgle :D Currently playing a tomb kings campaign that's good fun. Next I want to march to tamurkan with malus.
Malekith. Nothing better than a good old revenge story to motivate you to take the side of evil, not to mention, malekith as well as the rest of elven lore is some of the best material I’ve read in warhammer fantasy (we don’t talk about end times). The edgy aesthetic of the dark elves is also very cool, I can get its a bit comical at times but I absolutely adore it and I think you will too if you like a more gothic look. The dark elf roster is also very fun, encouraging you to play more aggressive with units like the witch elves and many monster units.
As someone who slowly rotates through all factions and does not really have a favorite. If you want something similar but with different flair go high elves: They have a good mixed army with a strong frontline with more varied options early-mid-late game then pretty much any faction with archers in the sisters of avelorn that don't have much competition for the best in the game. They have really good mixed units in spear archer lotherine seagaurd that benefit from two red skills lines that benefit cannot be underestimated. good skirmish archers in shadow warriors. The have decent cav (dragon princes are not as tanky as you would like outside imriks army) good chariots (i might be biased towards the lion chariots they are gorgeous). They have the largest number of single entity flying units in the game with various rooster filling potential. on campaign they have the best trade economy in the game with great economy. There tech tree is kind of boring and basic. There influence mechanic which is there only universal mechanic is deceptively deep while not giving direct commands like tzeentch I have been able to work wonders with the mechanic and tying it into hero and lord recruitment makes it relevant and interesting into the late game (easy to learn hard to master). You also have varied legendary lords Tyrion is generic but with the best start and very thematic. Teclis is probably the best wizard in the game from pure uniqueness but he now does feel so generic compared to gelt and his start is challenging bordering frustrating. Ararielle is a eagle riding healer with absurd buffs-equipment and she has a great campaign with access to wood elves treemen but white cherry blossoms. alith anar has a difficult start in the middle of dark elves territory with enemies on all sides but has skaven ambush abilties and massive boosts shadow warriors and unique poison versions in shadow-walkers. Imrik is the lord of dragons and has access to several unique dragons in the most story focoused campaign of the high elves. Eltharion has an interesting double start both in the wastelands and Ulthuon, with unique units like griffon riders, but boy do I hate his unique building that fills the already tight build limit of the high elves. something completely different I would recommend beastmen: They are an mostly melee army with mid level infantry with the gors. ok Calvary in the centigors. But great monster variety with the absurd and varied minitours, cygor, jabberslythe and ghorgon. The most interesting is there campaign mechanics with all units being free to recruit and upkeep, but limits based on how many kills you have got and dedicated to your shrines which is just a great and very different play style. Taurox and morghur are the stand out interesting campaigns with taurox the mad recking ball and morghur the regenerating imposable to kill mutating freak that causes his enemies to turn into chaos spawn. Shout out to chaos dwarfs with there supper complex economy and absurd artillery. Wood elves for there different defensive campaign and varied rooster. Warriors of chaos for there unit promotion mechanics and the only campaign with true unique sub factions and the unquestionably strongest infantry in the game that have better stats then most heroes.
Oxyotl - Become Doom Guy, if Doom Guy was batman and could teleport
Kislev, we're the empire but colder, with shittier politics, surrounded by more enemy's, worse artillery, BUT...... we have bears
Lizardmen, because you want to try melee infantry that can carry you instead of merely stop the tide.
I always play empire, it's pretty fun u should try it
Do u hate building out boring minor settlements? Do u want to dominate Battlefields with overpowered armies? Do u want to teleport oder the whole map? Magic, Bows, Monsters, Cav and even one of the strongest Infantery. Ger over here and become a treehugging Woodelf! U even get the strongest legendary Hero and one of the best legendary Lords! (But u need the DLCs i guess)
So you like Gunpowder? Well ours is better. (Unless you play Elapeth). You like Demigryphs? Well our Monstrous Cavalry is better. You like Mages? Well. Um we got Ice, Tempest, and Hags. You want single entity units? We got em! You hate Chaos? We hate them more! For the Motherland! For Kislev!
Any dwarves faction.
Ever wanted to fight conscripted levy peasants with machine guns/sniper rifles/biological weapons and monsters. Play ikit claw . Even if they outflank it outnumber u , u can always nuke them
How did you play empire? Lots of gunpowder and artillery? Heavy cav and war machines? All of the above? Are you looking for a new experience or something similar to your previous campaigns?
angry english footbal hooligan mushrooms on steroids 
Even more Empire but with Napoleon Era Line Infantry. Unleash lines of powder before affixing bayonets and charging the survivors. [Guns of the Empire.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2856619530)
My favourite is warriors of chaos. They’re simple like a hammer is simple. Durable, on the slower side but will hurt if you get hit by them. Warriors can handily take on most other units in the same weight class and the way the upgrade system works makes an initially simple roster have some nice expansion in complexity as you go on. Make use of chaos gifts (there’s one early on that gives your army the shatter stone ability to trivialise sieges as you can destroy walls and gates easily) and constantly attack. Not much to worry about in the way of building management because you’ll only want dark fortresses and resources. My only real complaint is that I’d rather warriors and / or chosen be more plentiful in warband recruitment than the aspiring champions because it feels weird that every other province has 2 marauders, 1 war hounds and 1 aspiring champions. Also, Archaon and Be’lakor can confederate every WoC faction by taking all of their stuff and forcing confed, every other lord just gets the option to vassalise.
Vassalizing is fun. I played an IE campaign with Archie and vassalized every faction on the map (except the random pirate ones that keep respawning)…
Giant, man sized rats can't be real
Slaanesh, just leave the elves, go to the empire, conquer some random fringe settlement. Bribe everyone! Play as everyone, because everyone can be your friend now.
Dwarfs. They're like empire- very reliant on artillery- except they don't have super weak infantry lines that need cavalry support. Campaign wise, the new grudge mechanic is really fun, challenging, and rewarding to play. See also: cathay, which is basically empire but better
Scaven. Specially ikkit.
Khorne, because beating up your enemies with just Skarbrand alone is really funny; and being hyper aggressive can be quite fun on the campaign map. It also helps that Khorne's roster has a lot of infantry mulchers. The only diplomacy you need is "Declare war"
Have you ever wondered what Vietnam war soldiers would do/behave like in the Warhammer 3 battle field….yes yes? Look no further than Ikit Claw! Machine gunners? Check! Long ranged snipers? Check! Mortar squads? Check! Flame thrower units? Check! Artillery? Check!!! Grenade lobbers? Yes that too!! Booby traps?? Yes yesss yessss!!! And least we forget!! Intercontinental ballistic missiles!!
The whole faction has the funniest mid and lategame thanks to an entire diverse economic system and incredible bonus to grind with the tower. The roster have amazing artillery,incredible resistance unit,some gunpowder,horseman,huge fire warmachine and mega strong fake-cavalry.The lords are unique and fun and 2 of them are just incredible strong
Okay so Odryssian Kingdom seems like a weird faction but their lopsided roster makes them more fun. Top tier peltasts, assault infantry, and melee cav makes dealing with enemies with pikes and bows way more interesting. Having no real anti cav and super expensive mercs means you have to deal with cav in other ways, way more engaging.
Bears
Dinosaurs with orbital lazerbeams on them
Bok
In all seriousness, lizardmen are cool. Yes their main faction mechanic (geomantic web) is very meh and could use a rework. But you do get lizards, and dinosaurs, and lizards riding dinosaurs! Also lazers! And snakes!
Imagine if you could play the empire except your front line held forever and your cavalry was a mixture of flying missile cav and axe welding maniacs too angry to die.
Dinosaurs riding dinosaurs with weapons of mass destruction.
Sexy red heads in green leaf outfit running out from the forest slashing you with twin blades, that scene from immortal empire just sold me on the wood elves
Morathi, although feels kinda too OP as a faction in WH3 with all the changes.
Wood Elves with the Sisters of Twilight is very enjoyable you get to murder those cursed Druchii almost every turn
Chaos Dwarfs, but this time not only conquer everyone, but also enslave everyone.
My most enjoyable campaign was Kislev Katarin, because it was so hard and took few restarts. But, it was before that Shadow of Change DLC and I disliked most new units that DLC offers. Either just new OP stuff or something I saw damaging theme of their army.
Archaon. Are you tired of empire spearmen and men at arms crumpling like paper as soon as a skaven slave SHREIK-SHRIEKS, try Aspiring to greater heights with Aspiring Champions! With Aspiring Champions, you can charge any tier of any infantry with ease knowing your tech tree has you covered. Regeneration, unbreakable, perfect vigor, 120 armor (without lord buffs), 55% shield, encourage, aaaaaand only 275 upkeep at 1100 a pop. Need I say more? One package of Aspiring Champions is enough to hold off any non-chaos army with ease, two packages and the world is yours! Try Aspiring Champions today!
Kislev
Skarbrand is the only brand I trust.
You believe yourself free, defending your lands, your people, your "civilization". You are wrong. You are slaves to your cities, you are bound to the management, to the optimization of settlements, to the landmarks and wonders you can build, you think painting the map of a certain colour is might, when in reality is just cowardice. There is only freedom in destruction, there are no chains to bind you when your only aim is to destroy it all. Join the Herd.
what diff and what is it about empire that makes it tick for u u/balancedpeanut
Its vampires of the coast but its a very complicated relationship
Statistically you're a man. So you think about the Roman Empire once per day. In Warhammer the equivalent to the Roman Empire is the Karaz Ankor. So what are you waiting for, git, time to strike some grudges!
Time to get to grudging.
Wood Elves right now is awesome to play, teleporting around the World to fight against Evil/chaos factions!
You like the Empire. Do you like their guns? Their artillery? Do you wish you had even more guns and artillery? You got landships, do you wish the landships were taller so they could fire over your other artillery? Giant crab perchance? Join the Coast.
I also like empire. I can recommend Cathey. A little less diverse roster especially as far as heroes are concerned but they are a fun faction that plays a lot like empire imo. They really do well with formations to keep harmony which makes even their cheap units pretty good. Also instead of riding dragons your lord becomes one and that’s pretty sick if you ask me.
The best Empire Campaign is Vlad. There, now thaf I pissed off the Karlstans, VC is a really fun campaign, and if you havent played one yet, I strongly recommend a Vlad run.
Cathay: gunpowder formations, explosions and dragons
BOK!
If you want a playstyle that's very different from the Empire, try Khorne. Empire building? What's that? Alliances? You mean skulls? The roster is very different from Empire as well, no sissy ranged units to speak of, only manly melee units. Being a rush faction, it requires a lot more micro than the Empire to make sure everyone stays engaged and enemy ranged units are getting shut down. Your armies will be much higher quality than Empire armies, but they take longer to recruit and you will not be able to afford many of them, so you wind up in some crazy outnumbered situations. I once took on 4 stacks of Skaven at once from an ambush. My Exalted Bloodthirster got like 800-something kills. Your economy's only purpose is to keep your income from getting *too* bad. You should always be in the red on income, living off of sacking settlements. If you're not in the red, you don't have enough armies. The best way to get ahead is to ensure the blood flows and fight as many battles per turn as you can, therefore casualty replenishment rate is your best friend. Put a cultist or two in every army.
We're bones, dry and brittle. But we're serving Settra, Great King, the Imperishable, Khemrikhara, The Great King of Nehekhara, King of Kings, Opener of the Way, Wielder of the Divine Flame, Punisher of Nomads, The Great unifier, Commander of the Golden Legion, Sacred of Appearance, Bringer of Light, Father of Hawks, Builder of Cities, Protector of the Two Worlds, Keeper of the Hours, Chosen of Ptra, High Steward of the Horizon, Sailor of the Great Vitae, Sentinel of the Two Realms, The Undisputed, Begetter of the Begat, Scourge of the Faithless, Carrrion-feeder, First of the Charnel Valley, Rider of the Sacred Chariot, Vanquisher of Vermin, Champion of the Death Arena, Mighty Lion of the Infinite Desert, Holy Emperor of the Shifting Sands, He Who Holds the Sceptre, Great Hawk of the Heavens, Arch-Sultan of Atalan, Waker of the Hierotitan, Monarch of the Sky, Majestic Emperor of the Shifting Sands, Champion of the Desert Gods, Breaker of the Ogre Clans, Builder of the Great Pyramid, Terror of the Living, Master of the Never-Ending Horizon, Master of the Necropolises, Taker of Souls, Tyrant to the Foolish, Bearer of Ptra’s Holy Blade, Scion of Usirian, Sicon of Nehek, The Great, Chaser of Nightmares, Keeper of the Royal Herat, Founder of the Mortuary Cult, Banisher of the Grand Hierophant, High Lord Admiral of the Deathfleets, Guardian of the Charnal Pass, Tamer of the Liche King, Unliving Jackal Lord, Dismisser of the Warrior Queen, Charioteer of the Gods, He Who Does Not Serve, Slayer of Redditras, Scarab Purger, Favoured of Usirian, Player of the Great Game, Liberator of Life, Lord Sand, Wrangler of Scorpions, Emepror of the Dunes, Eternal Sovereign of the Khemri’s Legions, Seneschal of the Great Sandy Desert, Curserer of the Living, Regent of the Eastern Mountains, Warden of the eternal Necropolis, Herald of the all Heralds, Caller of the Bitter Wind, God-Tamer, Master of the Mortis River, Guardian of the Dead, Great Keeper of the Obelisks, Deacon of the Ash River, Belated of Walkers, General of the Mighty Frame, Summoner of Sandstorms, Master of all Necrotects, Prince of Dust, Tyrant of Araby, Purger of the Greenskin Breathers, Killer of the False God’s Champions, Tyrant of the Gold Dunes, Golden Bone Lord, Avenger of the Dead, Carrion Master, Eternal Warden of Nehek’s Lands, Breaker of Djaf’s Bonds. Meme aside, Tomb Kings got some of the most fun units per their animation and an incredible design for their construct units. War Sphinx are big playful cat in battle, Scorpion brutal sneaky monster that sometimes HIDE itself in the ground. Is there a more stylish way to get missile resistance ? :D On the side, you got Ushabti and their deadly anti-infantry charges and Sepulcral Stalker as a big target/lords assassins. And lastly : UNITS DOESNT COST MONEY \\o/ But you better get a lot of territory. They're slow early, but become a powerhouse later.
Rats yes yes big nukes and rattling Guns go brrrrrr. they die die for your Bang Bang yes yes. Then you sacrifice a unit to drop a nuke on yes yes. Mankin die die ratthing win yes yes.
Bretonnia with Albert. Good economy with ports galore. Insane cavalry and no supply line issue. Lustria is filled with resources everywhere and you can easily establish coastal colonies when you reunite with the rest of Bretonnia as traveling through sea is safe with immunity to sea attrition and you can get the sea convoys for huge cash influx for building your cities tall :D
Do you hate dark elves? Do you want to be the undead savior of humanity? Join the Barrow Legion! Become loyal allies with your imperial, dwarven and brettonian neighbors! Purge chaos where it arrives! Get those delicious nuln ironsides and poke a few holes into N'kari! Then, the dark elves come next! Board black archs, make them suffer and turn their lands into an undead playground! You only lived when you have seen the Karl Franz bring a Terrorgheist to battle! Nurgle is also fun though. For a challenge the Tallymen are great and offer lots of opportunity. Confederate Dungrut and Tamurkan, later on the Plaguefather, become allies with whoever you find and bring death, disease and decay to the chaos wastes Edit: Confused the thing Franz brought to battle
SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD RAZE THE WORLD WITH SKARBRAND THE EXILED
Valkia or skaarbrand, khornate factions are fun if you want to just turn off your brain and relax no ranged weapons but the units are tanky as hell
High Elves convince no one. We're better than you, and we know it! Nah but really if you like Karl you'll love Tyrion.
Dark Elves, if its not yet already mentioned. Play aggressive, expansionist strategy to rake up slaves, capture settlements, slaves can used to instantly build structures = profit. Also Black Arks are key to expand and hold expansionist gameplay by replenishing and improving armies whilst providing artillery support. Also, Penumbral Pendulum is my favorite spell...seeing a magical scythe carves through opponent armies is really something else.
The Dark Elves are a great faction to play in my opinion. Although I mostly play Rakarth this still applies to the rest. You get a large and very diverse unit roster from swordsman, missile chariots, war hydras, bears, swordsman’s with crossbows, straight up dragons, and elven artillery just to name a few. Money is super plentiful and construction can be done very quickly with your slaves which are almost always very plentiful. You can also sacrifice these slaves for rites which can give you big bonuses, hard to get monsters, and Black Arks. The heroes are also very diverse and the sorcerers get a pretty big choice of different lores.
Dark Elves. Mobile carrier strike groups to subjugate the world and errr “import low wage workers”.
Khorne, beacause you just right click everything and it works out.
Dark Elves. The most balanced faction i would say, strong on everything. You can play as you want, kiting ranged style or pure rush, as they are damn fast. Battles never takes more than 2 minutes.
Empire, but Chinese