- shalcar
- Oct 21, 2009
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At my signal, DEAL WITH IT.
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Taco Defender
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The Undead
LORDS OF UNDEATH
Mannfred von Carstein
Leader of the Vampire Counts of Sylvania, and the better of the two starting legendary lords. Technically a wizard, Manny has access to the Lore of Vampires and Lore of Death, but can also be built into a near-unkillable melee fighter without sacrificing his magical powers. He starts with the spells Invocation of Nehek, a heal-over-time spell that regenerates your units (including Manny himself), and Spirit Leech, a damage-over-time spell that deals heavy damage to a single target.
Important skills to note are The Hunger, which gives him significant life regeneration while in melee, Power Drain, which gives him an extra 15 points of power reserve in combat (though this requires heavy investment into Lore of Vampires, which you may not want to make), Children of the Night, which with two points invested gives you an extra vampire hero slot (though all lords have access to this skill, you might want to spend these points elsewhere on Manny), and Fate of Bjuna, a damage-over-time spell that deals heavy damage to multiple-model units.
Mount options are an armored nightmare, a flying nightmare,and a zombie dragon. Unfortuantely, each mount has the previous as a prerequisite, so you can't have Manny walk until level 25 then get a zombie dragon for a single point.
Heinrich Kemmler
The most powerful human necromancer alive, Kemmler sold his soul to the Chaos gods for a second chance after his enemies defeated and ruined him. He is a wizard lord with access to the Lore of Vampires, and starts with Invocation of Nehek. Kemmler is strictly inferior in combat to Mannfred, and indeed, to even a generic vampire lord.
His most notable skill is Master of the Dead, which passively provides regeneration to your units near him. It's not very strong, though. Not even close to Invocation, for example.
His punishment for sucking is having to walk everywhere he goes. No mount options, not even a dead horse.
Vampire Lord
A generic vampire lord with access to the Lore of Vampires and the same combat and campaign support skill trees that Manny gets. Starts with Invocation of Nehek.
Skills to note are The Hunger, Power Drain,and Children of the Night. You want that Children of the Night on every vampire lord; vampire heroes are awesome, as you'll see. Since you don't have access to Lore of Death, consider advancing Lore of Vampires far enough to get Power Drain and Curse of Years, an awesome area debuff that utterly shitifies the stats of any enemy in range.
Mount options are the same as Manny's.
Master Necromancer
A generic necromancer hero with access to Lore of Vampires. Starts with Invocation of Nehek. Can get Master of the Dead, like Kemmler. Also like Kemmler, not worth taking over a vampire lord.
Mount options are a nightmare and a flying nightmare. No dragons for these losers.
DEAD HEROES
Necromancer
A wizard hero and basically identical in combat power to the necromancer lord. Has access to Lore of Vampires. Starts with Invocation of Nehek. Can ride a nightmare.
On the overmap (which is the only place they should ever be), you can deploy them to reduce building costs in your provinces, and spec them to be better at same with Prime Mover, or in enemy provinces to gently caress with their winds of power. Another good skill is Advisor, which increases the income from whatever region he's in by up to 15%.
Vampire
Your best hero by far, and one you should be able to get quite a few of, thanks you your lords all getting Children of the Night. A durable melee fighter thanks to The Hunger, extra life regen on command skill Immortal Will, and her solid combat skill tree, and a powerful caster thanks to her access to Lore of Death. That's right, the vampire hero does not get Lore of Vampires like everybody the gently caress else, but rather the much better Lore of Death. This makes sense because
In combat, she can use her Spirit Leech to snipe lords and Fate of Bjuna to kill hordes before wading into melee to crack heads with the best of them. On the overmap she can deploy to speed growth in your provinces or retard it in enemy provinces, but why? She can also get some healing and corruption-spreading skills in the blue tree.
She can ride a nightmare and later, a flying nightmare.
Banshee
Your assassin hero. On the overmap, she's an assassin, with the aptly named Assassin skill. In combat, she's a surprisingly tanky assassin thanks to her ethereal trait preventing 75% of incoming damage. She's fast as hell, but can't ride a mount.
You can deploy her in your provinces to reduce enemy agent success chance, or in enemy provinces to gently caress with their income, but her best use is wandering around murdering enemy agents for levels. She can get the Inspector skill to increase income by up to 15% in her current region.
Wight King
Your fighter hero. In combat, he's a durable fighter, though not as durable as the vampire thanks to lack of health regen. On the overmap, he can deploy in your provinces to increase public order, or in enemy provinces to reduce it and spark rebellions. Or he can sit in your army and passively improve your units' veterancy with Drill Master, as well as making new units cheaper to recruit with Inspirational and recruiting them at higher levels with Exemplar.
He can ride a dead horse, and add a significant amount of armor to it with an extra point.
KNEE DEEP IN THE DEAD
Zombies
Role: Cheap Tar Pit
Requires: Barracks Level 1
Zombies are dirt-cheap expendable troops used to bog your enemies down while your better units kill them. You'll lose these in huge numbers and not give a fraction of a gently caress.
Raise Dead will always present you with at least three units of zombies to recruit, which underscores their expendability.
Skeleton Warriors
Role: Tar Pit
Requires: Barracks Level 1
Skellies are your upgraded tarpit infantry. They have shields and thus can tank ranged fire better than zombies, and are faster as well. Still not as strong as other factions' basic infantry, skeletons are still primarily used to tie up enemy forces.
Raise Dead will always present you with at least one unit of skeleton warriors to recruit.
Skeleton Spearmen
Role: Anti-Large Tar Pit
Requires: Barracks Level 2
Skeletons with spears. These are more effective at dealing with enemy cavalry. Still just a tarpit.
Raise Dead will always present you with at least one unit of skeleton spearmen to recruit.
Crypt Ghouls
Role: Basic Damage Dealer, Debuffer
Requires: Cairn Level 1
Crypt ghouls are your most basic damage dealers, but their attacks do little against armored ememies, and you will soon want to replace them with much more effective killers. Their poison damage reduces the stats of enemies they hit.
Grave Guard
Role: Tough Tar Pit
Requires: Barracks Level 2, Armory Level 1
The tarriest of pits, Grave Guard are much better equipped to survive extended engagements while holding your enemies in place for your monsters to kill.
Grave Guard(Greatswords)
Role: Infantry Killer
Requires: Barracks Level 3, Armory Level 1
Grave Guard which have traded their standard issue sword and board for a great big fuckoff zweihander. Use these to flank and murder enemy infantry being held down by your tarpits.
Cairn Wraiths
Role: Elite Killer, Hero Killer
Requires: Cairn Level 3, Armory Level 1
Spooky ghosts designed specifically to murder your enemies' best units, Cairn Wraiths come with several specialized tools to help them in their mission. First, their scythes are armor-piercing and deal magical damage, bypassing all damage reduction other than ward saves. Second, they are ethereal, which gives them a 75% chance to ignore any non-magic damage attack. Finally, they have the terror special rule, which causes enemy units around them to temporarily rout at a higher leadership breakpoint than normal (in addition to the normal -10 leadership from fear).
I'LL BITE YER KNEECAPS OFF!
Black Knights
Role: Infantry Killer Cavalry
Requires: Barracks Level 3, Armory Level 1
Black Knights are your basic anti-infantry cavalry. They should be used to flank and kill enemy infantry units trapped by your tarpits.
Black Knights(Lances & Barding)
Role: Elite Killer, Shock Cavalry, Linebreaker
Requires: Barracks Level 3, Armory Level 1
Black Knights which trade their swords for armor-piercing heavy lances. They can be used both to break infantry lines and morale with the weight of their charges, and to countercharge and kill enemy cavalry or monsters. Once their initial charge is completed, order them free of the melee and swing around for another charge.
Hexwraiths
Role: Elite Killer, Hero Killer, Shock Cavalry
Requires: Cairn Level 3, Armory Level 2
Wraiths on spooky horses; in addition to their normal wraithly abilities, they function as shock cavalry, and also are one of only two units you get with vanguard deployment.
Black Coach
Role: Infantry Killer
Requires: Vampire Crypt Level 2, Armory Level 2
A heavy chariot used to kill infantry, which gets stronger as enemy troops die nearby. Unfortunately it requires heavy micro to use properly, as it will get pretty hosed up if you charge it in and leave it there. Has three activated abilities with shared cooldowns which each increase specific combat stats.
CREEPY CRITTERS
Fell Bats
Role: Fast Flying Harrier
Requires: Forest Level 1
A cloud of giant bats. In the early game, bats will be your answer to light cavalry attempting to flank your forces, missile cav, missile units on walls that you're assaulting, and missile units in general. They are also extremely fast and can chase down routing enemies to keep them from coming back.
Dire Wolves
Role: Fast Light Cavalry
Requires: Forest Level 1
A pack of giant undead wolves that function as your light cavalry. Very effective at killing poo poo if you charge them into the rear of engaged units. Also good at running down fleeing enemies. Can be vanguard deployed.
Crypt Horrors
Role: Linebreaker, Tank
Requires: Cairn Level 2
Regenerating zombie trolls. Once your enemy's troops are bogged down in your tarpits, charge these through your own line into key enemy units. Also an excellent unit for duelling enemy monsters, as their poison shitifies the enemy's stats.
Vargheists
Role: Flying Heavy Damage Dealer
Requires: Forest Level 2
Berserk degenerate vampires, vargheists will be your primary damage-dealer for most of the game. Proper usage is to wait until the enemy are tarpitted by your crap units and then land these on top of them from behind. Their size and mass will disrupt the enemy formation, and their high-damage attacks will murder them in job lots. Have bats and wolves standing by to serve as cleanup crew once the enemy start to rout, and find another target for your vargheists. Also exceptionally good at taking walls.
Varghulf
Role: Heavy Linebreaker, Elite Killer
Requires: Forest Level 2, Vampire Crypt Level 1
Another degenerate vampire, the varghulf is a super-heavy living siege engine. In battle, use it like you would a unit of crypt horrors, to disrupt enemy formations or kill their monsters. In sieges, they are living battering rams capable of smashing a gate down before your troops can even reach the walls. Hopefully a future patch will tag them as siege engines so you can attack walled settlements without having to build towers or rams.
Terrorgheist
Role: Heavy Flying Linebreaker, Elite Killer
Requires: Forest Level 3, Vampire Crypt Level 1
Giant zombie bat the size of a dragon. Functionally a flying varghulf, and used in much the same way. Has the added bonus of being anti-large and dealing extra damage to targets of horse size or larger.
The Dwarves
Melee Infantry
Pound for pound, Dwarves have some of the best infantry around. They might not kill very fast, but they have exceptional armour and leadership, to the point where even their baseline Warriors can stall elite infantry from the other factions for a disgusting amount of time. Inside the leadership aura of a lord, it's disturbingly common for their infantry to fight to the last dwarf without ever breaking.
Dwarf Warriors
Your baseline frontline infantry and staple for much of the early game. In a one-on-one extended brawl, they should usually win against any one of the other faction's baseline infantry (Orc Boys, Empire Swordsmen, Chaos Marauders, etc.). 6-10 units of these guys will usually be the core of your early armies. Their great armour and shields also allow them to just stand their ground against enemy missiles and take salvo after salvo of arrows on the chin to little effect. They have charge defense vs. large units, so make sure to have them stand still and braced when they're about to be hit by cavalry or monsters.
Dwarf Warrios also come with a variant carrying Great Weapons, but be aware that those only offer benefit against heavily armoured enemies. Against enemies in light armour, they will actually perform worse than regular Warriors. Great Weapon Warriors can be good against other Dwarfs early on, but against Orcs the regular variant will usually perform better.
Miners
Miners are essentially the militia-type infantry of the Dwarfs. In a straight melee they're inferior to the proper Dwarf Warriors, and indeed even to the baseline infantry of several other factions. However, they do have a few other tricks to make up for it: For one, they are your only early-game source of armour piercing damage, which is good to have if you find yourself up against Black Orcs or other Dwarfs (make sure to flank with them, if you can).
They also have a huge damage bonus against city gates. Even a single unit of Miners will usually be able to fully destroy a gate before a ram even manages to get there in the first place. Last but certainly not least, they eventually get a variant carrying thrown mining charges. Those are amazing for completely disrupting an enemy charge, or for flanking around and throwing them into the back of an ongoing melee. They also have Vanguard deployment, but that's often more of a gimmick. Still, it can be useful to reach enemy city gates faster, and sometimes even to take out enemy artillery.
Longbeards
These are basically Dwarf Warriors++. They work much the same, but are a small upgrade in pretty much every way. Their main advantage is that they ignore psychological effects like Fear and Terror, which makes them particularly good against Vampire Counts. They also slightly buff the leadership of nearby allied units as long as they're not already buffed by a lord or hero, which can be helpful to strengthen a remote flank. In the medium term it's probably a good idea to completely replace your Dwarf Warriors with Longbeards, but the upgrade is incremental enough that you don't really need to rush there. Longbeards also come in a Great Weapon variant, and exactly the same caveats apply there as with Great Weapon Dwarf Warriors.
Ironbreakers
Ironbreakers are the pretty much the be-all and end-all when it comes to holding the line. Combining incredible armour, defense, leadership, and perfect charge defence, they can take on pretty much anything and hold it for a long, long time. They even come with a small supply of blasting charges that you know and love from the Miners, which will even further destabilize an enemy charge. The explosives together with their expert charge defense means that they're actually better off standing their ground and letting attackers crush into them, rather than trying to counter-charge. Maintaining a full line of them is very expensive, but almost nothing short of heavy artillery or huge monsters will get through them.
Hammerers
Like the name suggests, Hammerers carry big-rear end hammers, and are the Dwarf's big melee damage dealer. Unlike the Great Weapon variants of Warriors and Longbeards, Hammerers actually do appreciably more base damage than any other dwarf infantry even against targets with less armour, though of course they're still best used against whatever's got the most armour. It's useful to have a unit or two of them in reserve to bash in the heads of enemy elite infantry like Chosen or Black Orcs once they're engaged with your main line. But be mindful they they lack shields, so they're relatively more vulnerable to enemy ranged fire.
Slayers
In theory, Slayers are an excellent choice for taking down enemy monsters and cavalry with their high offensive power and anti-large bonus. In practice, they're much too fragile (particularly in auto-resolve) and too much of an investment to recruit to really be worth it. Your artillery and missile units will usually do the same job pretty much just as well, while also having more all-around utility and being less of a hassle to deal with. If you do use them, hold them far back and only send them in against monsters once they've been intercepted by your regular infantry. One thing of note is that they're the only (non-flying) Dwarf unit that moves faster than regular infantry, so they're actually capable of running down and massacring fleeing enemy infantry.
Missile Infantry
For much of the game, your missile infantry will generally be doing most of the actual killing while your melee infantry holds the line. Since Dwarfs lack any kind of fast-mover until very late in the game, missiles are also your only real way of reliably dealing with enemy cavalry, particularly ranged cavalry.
Quarrelers
Quarrelers are pretty much the bread and butter of any Dwarf army, and stay relevant throughout the entire game. They have great accuracy, range, and power, and the combined firepower of several units of them can melt enemy light units in just a few salvos. They also have shields to protect from incoming missiles, which means that they'll win a ranged fire exchange against almost every other ranged unit. They're even somewhat decent in melee, at least to the point that they'll usually be able to hold off enemies until your own melee infantry can relieve them.
Quarrelers can also come as a Great Weapon variant (note that this only replaces their melee weapon), which is less of a gimmick than it sounds like. Since they retain their regular crossbows in addition to the Great Weapons, they'll still be just as deadly against light targets. Meanwhile, the armour-piercing capabilities of the Great Weapons can be a nice backup in case you unexpectedly do find yourself up against heavily armoured enemies with nothing else ready to deal with them.
Thunderers
These are mostly similar to the Quarrelers, but they carry guns instead of crossbows. Their main advantage is that they're armour-piercing, but at the cost of shorter range and a flatter trajectory. This means they can't as easily fire over the heads of other friendly units. They're best used either for shooting through a checkerboard gap in your line, or to flank around and shoot into the back of the melee. They'll never fully replace Quarrelers, but having a few of these along is always helpful, even if just to deal with an Orc Lord.
Irondrakes
While the Irondrake's flamethrowers are metal as all hell, they're unfortunately mostly of a gimmick right now. Theoretically they can do huge damage against lightly armoured targets, but in practice Quarrelers can do pretty much the same thing at greater range and with less difficulty.
They also come in a variant carrying Trollhammer Torpedoes, which are essentially small-scale rocket launchers intended to murder monsters of all stripes. Their main problem is that they compete with cannons, which can do the same thing at much greater ranges. Still, their damage is very front-loaded, so they can quickly break an incoming unit of monsters or cavalry before they can even make contact. I like to keep a unit or two around as a fire brigade of sorts against monsters or cav coming in from an angle that cannons can't reach, and because rocket launchers own.
Artillery and War Machines
Dwarfs have some pretty decent artillery available to them, and they really need it. After all, with how slow they are, they have no other way to actually force the enemy to come to them.
Grudge Thrower
It's a straightforward catapult. It makes big holes into tight infantry formations, but it's too inaccurate to really hit individual characters or monsters reliably. It has a high arc to its trajectory, meaning you can shoot over your line to hit enemies even when they're pretty close by. I've found having between three and four early on quite handy to murder priority targets like Black Orcs or Big'Uns. Later on you can exchange a few of those for cannons for a more even ratio.
Cannon
The Cannon is to the Grudge Thrower what the Thunderers are to the Quarrelers. It's quite a bit more accurate and brings in even more damage, which makes it well-suited to shooting monsters and monstrous infantry before they can even reach your line. The fast projectile also means that they can hit moving cavalry decently well. The downside is that they have a flat trajectory, so you either need a hill to place them on, or make a gap in your line for them to fire through. I usually bring two of these in every army I have.
Flame Cannon
If your Grudge Thrower is the equivalent the Quarrelers and Cannons to Thunderers, then the Flame Cannon is the equivalent to basic Irondrakes. So unfortunately that means it's both pretty metal and pretty redundant. The range is too short, the firepower not too huge, and killing lightly armoured enemies at medium range is a niche that's already perfectly filled by your Quarrelers. Skip these.
Organ Gun
The Organ Gun is essentially a cannon that exchanges raw firepower for a better rate of fire. Its theoretical niche is killing small elite units of infantry and cavalry like Mounted Chosen or Black Orcs, but personally I've never really found that trade-off to be worth it. Regular Cannons will still kill those units decently well while being more versatile. They're still pretty fun to use, though.
Gyrocopter
You'll only unlock Gyrocopters very late in the campaign, so they rarely see very much use. Gyrocopters have a so-so main gun in front and two bombs to drop directly below them, which have a similar effect to mining charges. They can also charge into melee and cause some pretty decent carnage there. They're fun and it's nice to have something quick for a change, but all things considered most other late-game units will be all-around more useful.
The second version of the Gyrocopter is much the same, except it mounts a much more powerful and accurate Brimstone Gun. The gun is both anti-large and armour-piercing, which means this variant is actually quite useful. They're essentially light artillery with great mobility, so they can kill enemy artillery and ranged units or just fire into the back of the general melee. This can make them a legitimate replacement for your regular artillery, if you've the money and tech to make the switch.
Gyrobomber
These are basically Gyrocopters, but with a weaker main gun in exchange for more bombs. Since the main gun is what makes Brimstone Gyrocopters good in the first place, and the bombs are fiddly as hell to use, so that's really not a good trade. You can get pretty much the same amount of explosions with a unit of Ironbreakers and their charges anyway. Skip these.
The Orcs
Infantry
Goblins
Simultaneously a lot better than you'd expect and also never worth building. They're quite cost effective chaff, especially for arrow catching with the 50% block shields but outside of MP and like automatic garrison choices there's not much reason to ever build them unless you're trying to cheese autoresolve with numbers or something.
Orc Boyz
It is kinda shocking how much of the map you can streamroll early game with just a stack of Boyz and their mostly mediocre stats, but I believe it comes down to them doing T2 damage as a T1 unit, Boyz are a threat to pretty much anything in numbers so just get your Waugh on, break early game armies with massed boyz charges and you've pretty much won the campaign already.
Night Goblins
I think the problem with Night Goblins is their tier placement, as an alternative to Boyz I would totally try Night Goblins, but matched up against Big'uns, really? That's the choice you want me to make? Also their bent towards ambush tactics is a little at odds with their hyper fragile morale making it really risky to deploy them outside your commander aura.
They are cool as hell though, especially with fanatics. I look forward to the inevitable Skarsnik DLC making an all goblin army viable.
Orc Big'uns
At a certain point you will upgrade your Boyz to Big'uns, and so will your garrisons. Just keep in mind it takes 2 turns to build them so a little advance planning is in order.
Big'Uns have a small anti-large bonus, unlike the entire rest of the Greenskin roster, but they're also somewhat weak defensively and don't have charge protection so don't start thinking of them as spears. They're pretty much just T2 Boyz, still kinda squishy but capable of wrecking everything with their big boy damage as long as you've brought enough of them. You'll be using them as a staple of your army as soon as they're unlocked.
Black Orcs
Black Orcs are everything you don't get from other Greenskin units. High Armor! High LD! Armor Piercing! Also hella expensive and take 3 loving turns to build. Like in practice Black Orcs are almost flatly superior to Big'uns but so much of a hassle logistically and upkeep-wise that it's not really advisable to replace them with Black Orcs wholesale. A small core of 4-5 Black Orcs in an army is all you will ever need, at most.
Big'uns do just as much damage or more to targets that aren't heavily armored anyway, and you're playing a shock based army so going too heavy on Black Orcs can be slightly detrimental.
Archers
Goblin Archers
Picking Archers with Greenskins is a matter of trying to find the least bad option. That's not to say you want to ignore archers entirely, they're useless against Dwarves (Except for Gyrocoptor missions) but perform well vs other Orc tribes and will save your rear end vs Savage Orcs so it never hurts to have a couple backing up your army.
All that said, Goblin Archers are definitely the weakest link. Slightly better accuracy does not compensate for their garbage range and missile damage.
Orc Arrer Boyz
I haven't tested this extensively, TBH, but my gut feeling is that Arrer Boyz are ever so slightly less poo poo than Goblin Archers, so that's my suggestion. The fact that they can fight off poo poo like light cav a little better is also a point in their favor.
Night Goblin Archers
I'm a hypocrite, because you're back to goblin bows with this, but I like Night Goblin Archers the best. Poison Arrows are just really really good, letting them fall into a supporting role in your army and the fanatics bowling through cav is always a plus. Never too many fanatics.
Cavalry
Mentally I separate Greenskin cav into three groups, so that's how I'll talk about them.
Goblin Wolf Cav
Available in melee, ranged, and chariot form. Basically terrible light cav all around but cheap and easy to get. Better 2 Wolf Cav than no Cav at all, but only just. In this game there's light Cav, and then there's Wolf Riders, who need to contemplate utilizing multiple units and cycle charging to take out an artillery crew.
The Wolf Chariot is actually probably the least bad option, combining a not terrible ranged attack with a not completely terrible charge, but by the time it's an option you are waaaay done with wolf cav.
Spider Cav
No Chariots, but it does lead to the giant spider of doom, so...
Spider Cav is my preference. They're faster than Boar Cav, stronger than Wolf Cav, and bring Strider, Poison, and Vanguard deployment to the table as bonuses. You can get through most of the game using Wolf Riders to strategically tie up units or mop up ranged, and Spider Rider Archers are one of the best ranged cav options in the game, IMO.
Boar Cav
I both like and hate Boar Cav. For one thing, unlike the Spider building that unlocks all of your non-boar cav and your best late game monster, the Boar chain wants me to dedicate a capitol slot to producing a single mid-tier Cav unit. They also take twice as long to build as Spider Riders that I'd rather have anyway.
More importantly though, the annoying thing about Boars is that they're both slow as poo poo and awful in melee, so any other faction besides dwarves is going to be able to easily counter your cav with cav 90% of the time. The decent charge impact and armor piercing is nice but I so rarely get to use it. I think against Dwarves is the one time they really earn their upkeep.
Monsters
Man, all the Greenskin Monsters are great. Yes even Trolls, which you can totally get way early on by just building a 5gp building in a level 3 town. Just use your Trolls as bodyguards for your General and they'll almost never route. They make great shock troops vs infantry and even bang up heroes pretty well. Used in small groups with some infantry supporting and their regen they'll fight the entire battle and almost never take any noticeable damage.
Giants are also really good outside the fact that autoresolve hates them and longs for their death. Yeah game, my 2 Giants with several thousand HPs who smash their way through huge multistack battles while barely getting scratched both died in a minor garrison skirmish. This is a very believable result.
Giant Spiders of doom are easily the strongest monster, obviously, though I notice them taking a lot more damage than Giants do. I think it's just that their threat level is so high the AI targets them more.
The key to using monster units in general is to use them as support troops rather than being your whole army. A Giant will smash straight through an infantry line, causing massive disruption and terror along with some solid aoe damage, but that doesn't mean you want to send one in alone and let him get surrounded by 4 units of Greatswords. Every monster hitting the enemy line should be followed by at least a unit or two of infantry or cavalry cleaning up.
Baby your monsters just a tiny bit and they're basically unkillable. Until you autoresolve.
Artillery
Rock Lobba's are average, Doom Divers are one of the best artillery in the game on account of their long range and extreme accuracy. I tend not to bother with Rock Lobba's unless I'm looking to roll over walls quickly, but Doom Divers are good and I should use them more, outside that one regiment with Grimgor that I kept alive the entire campaign.
Bleh, Greenskins have too many units, I'm done. I'll just say Shaman magic (both kinds) is a little underwhelming right now.
Chaos (DLC Only)
1. Recruit a second stack on your 1-2 turn. Seriously. That generic lord was level 30 by turn 100 in my game due to how much fighting he did.
2. Awaken every tribe you can, then attack and subjugate them right afterward.
3. Raze the Varg and Skaelings to the loving ground. I tried to subjugate them and they betrayed me first chance someone new declared war on me, then started attacking my loyal vassals.
4. Death and metal wizards are the best options. Send one off to permanently deploy in Bearsonling's Camp (good use for any other lore if the game gives you them). You'll thank me later.
5. Sack, encamp, then raze every city. The weakened garrison next turn will not be able to do much damage after the first sack, and you'll end up with fat stacks of favor. I had >100k after buying every research before turn 30. Only takes slightly longer than just razing the first turn.
6. When you first get a new lord started, pick a lovely nearby town to have them sack every turn to get levels quickly with just some marauders and warhounds. Using the sack->encamp method will let you build up their structures at the same time.
7. Someone else mentioned you can buddy up with the orcs pretty easily at the start of the game. I forgot about trying that, but may be worth considering.
8. As mentioned before, lighting strike is pretty broken. Its super helpful for chaos since it lets you separate stacks out and thus don't need to worry about bringing in several stacks together (and suffer infighting because of it)
9. I would say the starting choice is between the everbland (discounted upkeep is pretty tempting) and doom mountain incarnate. Sigvald and Archaon are both easy to recruit, so don't worry about getting them; I started with Kholek so I don't know how hard it is to get him. When I took Aldorf, Kholek solo'ed the steam tank like it was nothing, and throughout the whole game he was at the front breaking every enemy line.
Heroes and what they do!
The Wizard
Empire Wizards, Chaos Sorcerers, Necromancers, Shamans, all go here. By default Wizards have the ability to reduce construction costs for the province they are in when deployed by about 10%, with an extra 10% for the first point in their bottom skill chain. This is actually fairly useful if more than a bit micro-heavy, it's an easy way to upgrade your capitol province for cheap if nothing else.
Otherwise Wizard agents can buff their effectiveness at assaulting armies, damaging buildings, and give themselves a small buff to assassinate. Deeper in the chain they can learn an embed army ability to increase magic item droop chance, (Yay?) deploy to reduce winds of magic slightly, or boost the effectiveness of block army.
To sum up they are super annoying in the hands of the AI because they can do all the poo poo that will drive you crazy but because they aren't especially good at any one thing are rarely worth skilling up as agents for the player. (Plus, you know, giving up actual magic on the magic guy to be a mediocre agent.) gently caress Wizards!
The mini-me Lord
Thanes, Exalted Heroes, Captains, Wight Kings, all go here. Orcs are the only race who doesn't get one, but no big loss...
The default ability for all these basic fighter dudes is to increase public order when deployed. It's not great. They're further hampered by the first half of their skill chain basically being straight garbage. + assault, + 3 turns siege holdout time, - 3 enemy public order (when deployed) and -15% recruitment costs are you loving kidding me?
Bleh. After you've straight wasted 5 skill points they become almost sorta decent, getting a small buff to assassinate chance, the ability to boost recruitment XP when deployed, and most importantly the ability to train up armies when embedded.
These guys pretty much suck as agents, you can get some use out of them after level 8 or so but getting to that point is a drag and even then I consider them pretty meh overall. Training is good but for what it takes to get there bleh. For me they are forever quest fodder. I would say the one good thing about leveling them is that they're all so tanky by default that ignoring combat skills to go straight to training is no real loss.
The Assassin
Witch Hunters, Goblin Big Boss, Banshee, go here. Dwarves and Chaos get shafted.
Assassins are basically the best agents in the game for a very simple reason. They are by far the strongest agents at pulling off assassinations, and also bodyguard your stacks against enemy agents. The two best skills in one package, leveling these guys up should always be your first priority.
Your default ability is to deploy and reduce the success of enemy agents in that region. It's less useful than it sounds because they should always be embedded or shanking agents, but that's fine because this is the only agent type that can start pumping assassinate chance from level 3. They also get the ability to damage walls, block armies, and of course act as embedded bodyguards for your armies to protect against enemy agents.
Literally have all the best agent skills in the game with no downsides and usually have a pretty meh combat tree so you aren't missing anything. Always go full assassin.
The Priest
Empire Warrior Priests, and oddly, Vampire Heroes go here.
Priests are cool because they heal your dudes, and the two we get are also combat monsters with lots of powerful unique skills, so the only drawback is that distributing skill points can be really hard.
By default Priests can deploy and boost growth in a province. Eh. Luckily by level 3 you can go straight to replenishment for an extra 15% healing in your embedded army, which is actually huge. Once they get over the halfway hump then can learn Heal Troops to double down on replenishment with an extra +10% and also reduce attrition damage by 15%.
This is the rarest agent type, and leveling them up as agents is a bit of a sacrifice but if you have them abuse the hell out of them. My important Empire Armies always get a Warrior Priest and Witch Hunter as soon as I can afford it.
Anyway, Dwarves are special snowflakes, so
Engineers
Level them up for combat, seriously. Engineers have a unique campaign skill tree but it's not great. They get the Wizard's reduce construction cost deployment skill, and can eventually buff map movement as an army embed skill. Everything else they have isn't worth mentioning, even though they get a bit of unique poo poo like +trade goods and - enemy ammo, you're not going to get much use out of any of it.
Runesmith
Runesmiths are basically a mix between Wizard and Spy. They get the default deploy ability of assassins, (- agent success chance) and can learn the guard army ability later on. Otherwise they're basically wizards, though with the ability to double down on reducing corruption and enemy winds of magic.
They are actually the best dwarf agents by a mile, but they're also one of the best combat heroes in the game, so deciding how to skill them up is difficult, to say the least.
Heroes on the Battlefield
More fun then talking about the campaign stuff, if only because it's a bit more varied. Breaking these down by race.
Dwarf Thane
Oh Thane, why you so bad? Now, by default the Thane is about the tankiest hero in the game, with crazy high armor, LD, HP, and magic resistance, however, unlike similar melee heroes they have no unique combat skills and no mounts, so really it's just one slow-rear end dwarf model who never dies but doesn't do anything interesting or improve much with levels. More than anything, they're just the most boring hero in the game.
Dwarf Engineer
Anyone who has played Dwarves know that Engineers are super great, but seriously, they are. Being Dwarves they get that ridiculous 120 armor despite being a ranged sniper. The Engineer's combat tree is split about 50/50 between buffing his own ranged damage and buffing allied ranged units/artillery, definitely lean towards buffing allies. Their one active ability is an aoe buff that massively increases firing speed for nearby units, stick your Engineer in the artillery line and keep mashing that button forever.
Runesmith
Runesmiths are all about maxing the combat tree and spamming their three active runes. One of them gives +15 armor in an aoe, and their ultimate rune provides +44% protection from all damage for about 10 seconds. Dwarves are already incredibly tough, but with a Runesmith providing support they can feel literally unbreakable. Neither of these use winds of magic, so the only limitation is cooldown, and you have a skill that reduces cooldown, so..
They also passively increase allied AP damage like a metal wizard, and have a damage rune that drops a short range aoe spell that...does something presumably. The particle effects for it look like poo poo and I can never tell if it's actually doing damage but it's free and you might as well drop it on something, I guess.
Goblin Big Boss
The Goblin Big Boss is an interesting Combat hero, and by interesting I mean kind of really bad. This is a melee hero with Wizard level HP. Armor, and LD. They have decent melee stats and the duelist skill but even so being a terribly squishy melee only guy is not a great place to be. They also get a 50% missile block shield like normal goblins.
This guy's one saving grace in combat is being able to ride a spider for decent mobility, some extra armor and poison attacks. Also they have vanguard deployment, which is neat I guess. You're not going to be leveling these guys for combat anyway, just don't be surprised when you do take them into battle and they get splattered.
Orc/Goblin Shaman
Are spellcasters, I'm not going to talk about every school of magic because this is already long enough.
Night Goblins are super weak but keep the general Night Gobbo traits of being sneaky, poisonous and having vanguard deployment. They can also eat shrooms to make their spell cooldowns vanish for 33 seconds or so.
Orc Shamans are a bit buffer than your typical weedy wizard and can ride a boar into battle, giving them actually a quite powerful AP charge attack and increased armor.
Empire Captain
Despite being as vanilla melee hero as they come, has two advantages. Can ride a Pegasus obviously, and also gets the "Hold the Line" active ability normally only available to Empire Lords. It's an aoe buff unique to Empire that boosts charge defense so fairly useful.
Warrior Priests
Now, the thing with Warrior Priests is that they start with high LD but low armor and melee defense. They loving love to get themselves killed in auto-resolve, which thankfully is made slightly less painful by their healing skills. As level one heroes, they are trash. As high level heroes with their combat tree topped off they are utterly amazing because all of their active skills are insane.
A fully leveled Warrior Priest can massively buff their own attack rating and physical resistance, drop a 22% physical protection buff that works on them and surrounding allies, call down heavy aoe damage in a radius around them, and greatly bolster leadership of nearby units. In between unlocking all their amazing active skills or super good campaign healing, focus on buffing armor, melee defense, and HP, in that order.
Mounts are an interesting question for WP. The barded warhorse is a huge boost to one of their weakest stats, and the increased movement is good for getting where you need them to be, but OTOH 90% of being an effective Warrior Priests is slogging it out on the frontline with other infantry so I'm not sure it's worth the trade off. Maybe against factions like Vampires with no good anti-large units.
Warrior Priests are kinda weird and hard to level early on because they have the most pronounced power curve of any hero in the game. A high level priest is totally worth it though.
Witch Hunters Like all Assassin type heroes, you're not going to focus much on boosting their combat skills and that's fine. With Witch Hunters all you need is Accuse to melt enemy heroes and you are good to go. Accuse has a fairly long cooldown but the damage it does to single models is massive so abuse the hell out of it.
Otherwise the Witch Hunter is a decent shooting hero, faster than the Engineer but shorter ranged and squishier. If you do level up combat focus on buffing his ranged damage and pick up Slippery for the increased mobility. Witch Hunters are good hero/monster snipers but really bad at fighting normal units, even a pack of hounds is troublesome for him to take on solo so keep him safe.
Empire Wizards
Are Wizards. They can pick up Pegasus at high levels which is always useful for a spellcaster.
Necromancer
Well, Wizards are mediocre agents and Necromancers don't bring any combat spells not available to literally every VC Lord option, so use your freebie Necromancer to reduce construction costs in Sylvania and otherwise get used to sending their useless arses down to the badlands to unlock quest battles. The only thing less useful than a Necromancer Hero is the entirely useless Necromancer Lord. Even their mount option is just an evil horse, because they are the saddest thing.
Wight King
Wight Kings are in a weird place. They are actually stone cold killers on the battlefield with crazy stats, lots of mount options, some unique active buffs, and a 50% missile block shield. OTOH, I'm not sure they're actually stronger fighters than either type of Vampire and they have the Thane's campaign skill tree, so fitting them in can be hard.
Probably the one really good use for a Wight King is guarding Kemmler and his noodly little girl arms, so just name your first Wight King Krell and roll with it.
Banshee
Well, they're an assassin type so obviously battlefield performance is an afterthought. Also they're ethereal, which is a definite +/- situation. All ethereal units do magic damage, btw, which among other things means they do full damage to other ghost types. They inflict terror and have very high AP damage but actually just have a generic spy-type (Slippery, basically) combat tree with nothing particularly interesting about it, so Ghost Hero pretty much sums up everything they bring to the battlefield.
Vampire
Vampires are regenerating Death Lore wizards with solid melee stats and the Warrior Priest's campaign chain combined with the Vampire Lord combat chain. The only thing making them not utterly insane is that you can't skill everything and they only get Hellsteeds instead of Zombie Dragons.
Exalted Hero
Pretty boring (But effective, mind) standard melee hero. The most interesting thing they have going for them is being able to ride a Manticore and having a rare 50% block chance shield.
Chaos Sorcerer
I just want to point out that Sorcerers get 100 armor and decent melee stats because Chaos, on top of having access to some of the strongest magic lores. Only real downside is not getting a flying mount.
And that's my too long effort post about agents.
Since so many people have asked -- and I was wondering myself -- here is the list of how much XP is gained through different actions (got this straight from the game files):
Agents
-Deployed-
100 XP each turn
-Action against another character-
Critical Fail: 200
Fail: 400
Success: 1000
Critical Success: 1600
-Action against an army-
Critical Fail: 200
Fail: 400
Success: 1200
-Action against an city/settlement-
Critical Fail: 200
Fail: 400
Success: 1200
Generals
-Passive XP (Sitting in Garrison or Raiding Stance)-
100 XP each turn
-Battles-
Crushing Defeat: 200
Defeat: 400
Valiant Defeat: 600
Pyrrhic Victory: 600
Victory: 1000
Heroic Victory: 1400
-Settlements-
Capturing/Razing/Sacking: 200
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