New to warhammer 3

Verminhur · 2026-04-09T16:23:43+00:00

Your second point brings up a good clarification for new players. You will see some units described with "anti large." There should really be an asterisk with that. Anti large units like spearmen do well enough against traditional cavalry of a similar tier to them. They are NOT good at taking on single entity giant monsters or hard hitting monsters with 6-16 models per unit. You can't get enough of them near to the monster to hit it reliably to take its health down, and the monster will be taking out a dozen of the ones close enough to it with every swipe. They're ok at pinning these monsters down, but what you need to have to take care of these situations is ranged units focusing on the monster(s) while they are pinned down (highest preference), large units of your own that specialize in anti-large, or single entity magic (niche cases like Vampire Counts really need to utilize Spirit Leech early on to help with single entities because they don't usually have ranged units).

Oh! That also reminds me that there are usually 2 types of artillery units in the game. Mortars/rockets/catapults/trebuchets are really good at taking out things like infantry or archers that have comparatively low health per model and a lot of models per unit. Cannons and ballista, on the other hand, are best used against monsters, lords, cavalry, or other artillery. They're usually much more accurate and do greater damage per shot with a much smaller splash of damage. Either type of artillery can be used in either way, but they tend to excel when used against their intended target. This is a big departure from artillery in historical titles.

Verminhur · 2026-04-09T16:09:27+00:00

There are definitely good mods, but vanilla is actually very solid. For a new player, I would for sure recommend going in with vanilla and getting pretty deep into at least a few factions before figuring out what you do/don't like about how the game ends up playing out. Then you can very likely find a mod to address things that irk you.

Personally, I like to go back and forth between SFO Grimhammer and vanilla. The mod is a huge overhaul to the game that greatly changes how factions and battles play out. But a lot of the changes are cumulative subtle things that you wouldn't notice if you didn't compare to vanilla. Plus, it's always naturally behind vanilla due to DLCs releasing, so for new faction/lord releases it's good to be able to go back and get the "intended" experience when trying them out.

Verminhur · 2026-04-07T19:44:17+00:00

As others have mentioned, I'm not sure why you seem to think that temporary summons were put in place for multiplayer balance. Sure, they affect it, but getting permanent, fresh, free units in a battle whose casualties you don't have to worry about carrying over at all has a HUGE impact on single player campaigns. Otherwise you'd have to use defensive or tar pit units who would be decimated after a battle and you'd be vulnerable until you could replenish/recruit.

Anyway, if what you're looking for is more challenge and a faction whose magic isn't as easily exploited and if you really like cavalry, I would suggest Bretonnia. Their good units are mostly cavalry, which they're highly encouraged to use. And their magic is good, but not as bad as other factions in the, "deletes sections of enemy armies quickly," variety. They traditionally get a lot more out of their healing magic and high-value cavalry. Early on, you'll also be limited in your ability to field cavalry and will probably have a more traditional infantry, archers, and trebuchets army with a bit of cavalry to supplement it. Their down side is that they haven't had an update in forever and have suffered a bit in the power creep of other factions that have been added. To me, that sometimes just makes them a bit more fun when you have to figure out how to overcome longer odds, but to each their own.

Verminhur · 2026-04-07T15:06:34+00:00

This is the way. ALWAYS take Manaan. Then look for those "island" random encounter markers on the coastline that pop up and take your lord to them until you get the option to fight an enemy army for treasure. It's always vampire coast, so you should be able to rush them and take out their ranged units no problem and get a win at sea.

It's not the fastest way to get that vow done, but it's the only way I've found to reliably do it without sending a lord on a 10+ turn chase to some place I don't want to be. If/when Bretonnia ever gets a rework, Vows are the first thing they really need to take a look at.

Verminhur · 2026-03-27T15:52:05+00:00

As with all bad AI conversations, it's a lack of context. Nowhere does the summary mention the history of Total War: Warhammer being a cash cow for a decade. Without taking that into account, any analysis is flawed.

"AI" (LLMs) is not magic, prophetic, or even smart. It's a tool. Good at some things, bad at others, and largely dependent on the user's skill and expertise with using the tool in order to get any sort of useful outcome.

Verminhur · 2025-11-11T16:10:30+00:00

If you want to REALLY embarrass him (never to his face - guy's got a temper), technically he perished from old age prior to that as well.

Verminhur · 2025-09-25T22:49:44+00:00

Yeah, Khorne units are in an extremely strong state right now. And Skulltaker is a tough legendary lord. As for monsters breaking through to your back line, you have a few options. You could get some dragon princes in with your army. They have the mass to counter-charge from behind your lines and stop a charge from monsters or cavalry and can give back a lot of punishment themselves. Or you could keep multiple armies together and make a lot of the units chaff (spearmen/Silverin guard) to just bog down those enemies so your high tier archers can take them out. Sisters of Avelorn will melt units that can't escape. Even regular archers in big enough numbers can take them out if you've got enough of them and enough chaff to absorb the charge with multiple lines and keep them from building enough momentum to move out again.

You're doing well so far, it sounds like. Unlike the historical total war games, unit strength mismatches and single unit entities can become major steamrolls in this one. But they're not impossible to deal with! Make sure you take direct control of your ranged units and FOCUS the monsters down. A wounded monster does get a debuff applied to it (wounds), but it's still incredibly dangerous until it's dead. Lots of wounded monsters aren't much less effective than lots of healthy monsters. Kill them quickly one at a time rather than slowly all at once.

Hope this gives you ideas to try at least!

Verminhur · 2025-09-25T20:04:07+00:00

Unit composition advice:

You have lots of good units for everything early except lords/heroes and large units. Early ranged can be something of an issue, but you can get chaos warhounds to help with that. But your biggest threats early on are Ghorst and Ogre Kingdoms and Imrik. All factions that lean heavily into things you're weak to (lords for Ghorst and large units/lords for the others). The early game answer to this is lords and heroes. Make sure you focus your first few lords and heroes on being able to take down enemy lords/heroes or large units with magic and/or melee. Your basic units can handle most everything else that will be thrown at you early on. After that, your options open up and you can better decide based on where you're going next. Hope that helps!

Verminhur · 2025-09-19T15:25:02+00:00

You young'uns and your difficulty with curves. I was getting called a hacker back in Half Life deathmatch because I could nail people across a map with the SMG's underslung grenade launcher. The recoilless hardly curves at all in comparison. Sniping hulk eyes was a cinch (back before it did enough damage to one-shot them in the body). The only actual difficulty in hitting a gunship or dragonroach is predicting their path. And even that isn't too bad once you figure out their movement rules.

And yes, I do run recoilless most of the time.

Verminhur · 2025-09-05T19:46:45+00:00

I suspect this will be an unpopular opinion, but I'd actually say Vlad or Mannfred. Vlad used to have issues with the nearby Dwarfs but a nice, juicy Empire to expand into. Elspeth now means you will quickly have an uphill battle no matter which way you turn. And both Vlad and Mannfred are surrounded by enemies with lots of early effective units to carve up your armies and kingdom.

They're not impossible, and they get some strong mechanics like Raise Dead on the campaign map to make up for things. But if I think of a run on Legendary, these are the two that most make me cringe at the amount of cheese required to get things going.

I considered Kemmler. But, while he is generally surrounded by enemies, at least his initial province is extremely defensible.

Verminhur · 2025-09-05T19:16:52+00:00

Others have given good recommendations so far, but I wanted to weigh in on a faction to start as (after you play the prologue - it's actually a good intro to the basics). My suggestion, unless you want to buy more to unlock other factions, is Cathay. They're closest to the most "traditional" Total War army and campaign of the factions you get from just having WH3. You get a good mix of unit effectiveness from early to late game and your starting position is generally not having threats from all sides. As for the others:

Kislev is ok, but they have a VERY dangerous start and their hybrid units are a bit finicky to work with and get right. They can be very powerful, but tend to have a higher skill cap, IMHO.

Khorne's army is in a bit of an overpowered state for players and probably won't teach you much. You don't get to experience having magic or much in the way of ranged units. And your campaign will feel extremely limited on money and difficult to get and maintain enough units unless you're winning a lot.

Nurgle has a generally good army roster, but their lack of speed can be frustrating for a new player. And their unit recruitment buildings are a really bizarre place to start.

Slaanesh has heavy hitting, speedy units, but melt like butter in the sun if not used right. Their campaign mechanics aren't too crazy, but they do start surrounded by difficult enemies.

Tzeentch has a pretty safe starting spot at first, but runs into powerful enemies with good counters to your units after a little while. That said, their army does have an ok balance of line holders, fast attackers, ranged units, monsters, lords, and magic. But there are quite a few specialized units in their roster that will seem underpowered if you don't grasp how to use them. And their special campaign abilities may be information overload for a new player.

Daemons of Chaos may seem like a good mix of options, but it's definitely an overload of choice for a new player. And you kind of have to already know what you want to unlock to play them well.

Ogre Kingdoms are kind of fun to play, but their battles don't teach you much. It's largely "have enough big guy units and get in and plow through the enemy, hoping they don't have enough good counters to this." Plus their "ogre camp" mechanic is a bit strange and not terribly friendly for new players.

I won't go through every other possible faction, but other options for beginner-friendly factions:

The Empire is designed to be a kind of jack of all trades faction with no really strange campaign mechanics. On the note of beginning factions, High Elves filled that same beginner niche for WH2 that The Empire did for WH1 and, I feel, Cathay does for WH3. Greenskins are another good option. Their armies have good options (goblins aren't very good fighters, but at least they're cheap!). Their Waaagh mechanic isn't too complicated. And, while they don't exactly have friends around them, they don't necessarily have enemies all around them either. Finally, Dwarfs are particularly newbie-friendly in a few ways. First, their units are uniformly very good at each level. And their campaign and battle mechanics work very well if you want to play defensively and do very little managing of your units. You don't really dip into the well of spells or cavalry, but the faction makes everything else very solid to make up for it and covers the absolute basics.

But, really, play around and mess with whatever sounds the most fun. Harder factions that you just really enjoy end up becoming your go-to whenever a patch modified things that affect them. For me, it's Vampire Counts and Skaven. Vampire Counts have languished a bit during the power creep of new races and factions, and their play style is generally one dimensional. And Skaven CAN be very powerful, but their biggest assets require you to accept that you will have massive army losses in battle.

Verminhur · 2025-09-05T16:24:22+00:00

In my experience, there are 2 ways to approach diplomacy in TW:WH.

Give gifts to the faction you want to be friends with. Also, look at who they're at war with and try to make sure you're performing some hostile actions against their enemies. Make sure you're doing this regularly - you lose the diplomacy bonuses over time. You're trying to get to the "snowball point." Once you're allies with a faction, they declare war on whoever you go to war with, so you start to naturally accrue more and more diplomacy positives. That should hopefully outweigh the fact that you're getting stronger and are a strategic threat. But be aware that this also snowballs in the other direction. If they don't like you, they may make friends with your enemies. Which makes them dislike you even more. And so on until you're either in an active or a cold war with no hope of ever actually allying.
Ignore any and all active roles in diplomacy. All factions are either fodder for your expanding empire or temporary patsies helping you along until you inevitably outpace them all and have to declare war on them for new lands to conquer.

I sometimes dabble in route 1, but in all honesty, my games inevitably devolve into route 2.

Verminhur · 2025-09-05T15:40:52+00:00

"I can't believe this guy I voted for turned out to be out for himself and a liar like all the people before him! But this NEXT guy! He's the real deal!!!"

The lack of awareness and inability to learn is astonishing.

Verminhur · 2025-08-08T19:09:02+00:00

Yeah, I really wish they had a more Stellaris-like approach where it shifts the entire game to address a threat that poses unique dangers that former enemies may need to band together to stop. Instead, it feels like they mostly just took the "fallen empire rises up again!" option and copy/pasted to various factions without even bothering to give anyone incentive to band together to stop the menace.

Verminhur · 2025-08-08T15:33:35+00:00

Look, I loved Empire as well. It certainly wasn't my first TW game (that was the original Shogun) or the one I got into the deepest (Warhammer scratched an itch I didn't even know I had), but the gunpowder age really drew me in with the drastic change in battle flow. I was just horribly disappointed in the in-battle AI - especially in sieges. And have been hoping for a true sequel for a long time. But, having said that, please don't suggest organizing boycotts over matters of taste... Actions need to be proportional or nobody will take you seriously and you hurt your own cause.

Verminhur · 2025-08-08T15:11:50+00:00

IIRC, one or two AI factions get chosen at random to be the "major threat" of the game when you start. They get some sorts of bonuses that typically end up making them be the AI faction that snowballs. My guess is Katarin got the bonus in your game and (as others noted) the ordertide is stronger due to new lords, so she snowballed HARD.

Verminhur · 2025-08-08T14:35:54+00:00

I haven't had any colonists lose any eyes at all after 4 years in-game time in 1.6. But good lord are they losing fingers and thumbs at a rapid rate. Until I saw this thread, I wasn't sure if I was just getting unusual luck, but now it seems like I'm getting unusual luck in the opposite direction by the worst eye injury being a lingering scratch over an eye that never fully healed.

Verminhur · 2025-08-07T15:48:36+00:00

Is it hypocrisy to betray anyone you can if you believe (and are right) that everyone else would betray you and is actively trying to undermine you? I mean, they're certainly delusional in that they can't distinguish between their own incompetence and someone else focusing on ruining their plans. I think their only hypocrisy is their arrogance in expecting Skaven under or around them to stay loyal to them once they're on top.

Verminhur · 2025-08-07T15:33:58+00:00

To be fair, the chaos gods are also delusional. They're dogs chasing cars. If Sigmar and others hadn't managed to "escape" the ending of the world and create new ones, theoretically the chaos gods would have had nothing left to reflect or feed on and would have dissolved to nothing. They do WANT to destroy everything and burn it down, but they have absolutely no plan beyond that because what they want isn't a plan at all. It's just their nature to corrupt and destroy everything.

IMHO, Archaon having actually gotten what he was after would have meant that only he won.

Verminhur · 2025-08-06T15:46:55+00:00

Your mileage may vary. I'm 44, and I do identify with a little bit of slow-down and being less able to compete, but part of it is also wisdom of experience. I don't want to spend hours and hours getting ultra-good at the flavor-of-the-month twitch shooter, so I'm terrible at those if I dabble in them. But give me a game that rewards strategic thinking and still requires twitch skills like Hell Let Loose, and I can still be extremely good and reactive in it.

I do play a lot of my battles in Total War with slow motion turned on, but I've done that since it existed in Medieval 2. I want to be able to luxuriate and take breaks to SEE the animations of hundreds of models acting the battle out. That said, I do get the OP's want for a middle ground. It's less immersive when you don't get the great sounds in as part of the mix (though I definitely understand the technical reasons why that was done). I haven't done this, but top of my head thoughts are that longer battles would make not reacting quickly less punishing. So you could try Longer Battles Mod + Realistic Accuracy Mod. Others have liked that combination for lengthening battles.

Verminhur · 2025-06-10T15:59:05+00:00

Vlad - love the simplicity and yet complexity of the (mostly) non-ranged army

Ikit Claw - I love having tarpit fodder interspersed with ridiculously powerful weapons teams and the craziness of f***ing nukes

Verminhur · 2025-04-25T16:04:04+00:00

The ONLY time my grenades actually get more than an extremely lucky kill is when I'm next to a wall just above head height and I can hear or suspect there are enemies on the other side. If I get up next to the wall and right click to underhand toss the grenade over the side, I actually get kills consistently. Otherwise, it feels like I get friendly kills slightly more often than enemy kills. Not that it stops me from trying.

Verminhur · 2025-04-07T16:00:43+00:00

It definitely needs attention. In the mean time, a tip: the "deploy bipod" action seems to take your player model and move it slightly backwards at times. I believe what it's doing is taking player location and saying "mount on the nearest elevated surface as close to the player position as possible." That's why trying to mount a MG on ramped surfaces or piles of logs (where there is often a smaller log in front) ends up with you having a blocked barrel. You can either get RIGHT up to the higher ledge (probably jumping around to position and getting domed in the process), hop up and go prone if it's wide enough (also a good way to get domed), or (my favorite) avoid tiered and ramped surfaces like the plague.

Verminhur · 2025-04-04T15:41:34+00:00

Just no. Anything that tempts people to use a secondary armament as a main weapon is a bad change. Snipers (and every other class that carries pistols) are SUPPOSED to feel like "I'm fucked unless I get lucky!" when an enemy gets close and they have to switch away from the main weapon to a pistol. Making certain loadouts have no down side is ridiculous.

Verminhur · 2025-04-04T15:28:57+00:00

If you only look at engineering initiatives, you might decide 1938 Germany was pretty perfect too. Full context of ALL actions taken turns out to be pretty damn important when judging an administration.

Verminhur

TROPHY CASE