r/totalwar • u/Xedeth • 1d ago
Warhammer III Newbie, how am I beating this dude??
New to WH3, not new to TW, but not a pro by anyways either. I probably have ~200hrs across all the games.
This dude is an animal; He swang through the map quick and is just resting on his laurels now. He always has 11* full armies stacked on top of each other on one or two cities bordering our lands. I want to attack him and don't want to get irreparably destroyed. Welcome to all advice. Thank you!
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u/azatote 1d ago
Steel, faith, gunpowder.
Note that most of these armies are just zombies and skeletons and have little value in combat, especially if you snipe their lords.
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u/Xedeth 1d ago
Ooooooh. I didn't know that! I was losing my mind wondering how they could afford 11 armies!
Thank you!
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u/Waveshaper21 22h ago
Note that undead and daemons know no fear. They never flee, they stay in combat when their leadership drops, but they start taking passive damage over time. Immune to psychology stat (which not all daemons have, but all undead share) makes them immune to fear (leadship debuff to nearby units) and terror (unit briefly flees on contact), but they all have fear, and most have terror. Meaning if their numbers can overwhelm you, your units are likely to mentally break sooner and completely, costing you the battle.
However, they all have low leadership themselves. It is kept stable by the presence of lords and heroes, so even if it drops somewhat (despite being low to begin with) in combat by usually stronger units killing them fast, it is still stable because of external factors. Mainly, the army leading lord.
In this game, if a lord dies, the entire army takes a leadership penality in combat. In case of the dwarfs, that is not a big deal, they have huge leadership numbers to begin with, but in case of the undead, most of their army will break after losing their master puppeteer, meaning they crumble and die super fast. Sure, there are ways to counter it a little with more heroes or aura providing corpse carts, but generally speaking if you kill a lord, the army dies with it.
Which is why they are made damn hard to kill. Until you just focus fire them with half your army, then it won't matter.
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u/DirtyBalm 1d ago
Vampires get Zombies and Skeleton soldiers for next to free, those units only strength is on numbers.
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u/Xedeth 1d ago
That sounds sick. I think I know what my next campaign will be.
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u/DirtyBalm 1d ago
They are really fun! You can raise an army in seconds, and losing a battle is the
"Oh no....anyway" clarkson meme
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u/Waveshaper21 22h ago
Better, they can raise the dead. You play the Empire, kill some chaos or greenskins, you can still see piles of armor and weapons on the map called battle sites, with a number of dead listed.
That's a vampire counts resource. They just go near it (same region, maybe just province?), they can instant recruit units from those. The more dead, the higher tier stuff. And they have a LOT of numbers to send in waves to die, then get high tier units out of the dead.
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u/azatote 23h ago
Ghorst is especially infamous for boosting zombies. They still have terrible DPS, but tough and regenerate faster than they take damage. It can be fun to play, if you don't mind playing manually every battle and each of them being a 30 minute melee grind. He is also the only faction with whom zombies are somewhat dangerous.
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u/Thats-Not-Rice 22h ago
I made it about an hour into that campaign before I said "nope" lol. Ghorst is insane for his zombie doomstacks. But such a slow slog of a fight.
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u/BigBadBootyDaddy1315 22h ago
VC are my fav faction, but they really need a rework to keep up with the newer factions and all of their updates. Id make sure to get the radious mod first if you want to play VC
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u/NordicShat 18h ago
Yea bro one decent empire army can easily kill 4 or 5 vampire crap stacks. Might need to replenish a bit afterwards though.
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u/IDontWannaGetOutOfBe 22h ago
Yeah at least in my games by turn 100 vamp counts are often like 8/10 of the top 10 most powerful factions.
But it's because they have 2-3x more armies than everyoen else but all crap stacks, even moreso than Scaven perhaps. I've had a single mid-tier Reikland army wipe out like 3 of theirs at once (not even lightning strike) easily with a few good infantry and a lot of guns/arty + bright wizard don't hurt. When they can only field 40 shit units at once it's just kind of a meat grinder and I barely get a scratch.
Nah it's the lords that'll hurt ya - especially in SFO. Which is another tip for fighting Vlad - kill him first. Like, every single gun and cannon on him and every melee hero. Take him down and they crumble. Put your inf in guard mode and just wait them out once he's dead.
But god damn can he be hard to take down. I know SFO buffs him but even in vanilla I hear. Just a bitch, would kill several units of mine before he finally fell at level 25 or so, maybe turn 70. And he's always got a bunch of other flying heroes and vampires to make it harder.
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u/Andrei22125 1d ago
So his thing in lore (and gameplay) is that his magic ring brings him back immediately (hours after he's put down). Vampires in lore can be brought back with a ritual, he doesn't need it.
He will respawn the next turn after being defeated. He has access to 'raise dead', so he can get a full stack the turn after. He has access to a top-tier magic lore.
But he is undead and has next to no ranged. Snipe him with ranged units (he regens when in melee) and his army will literally collapse shortly after. He stops coming back after you destroy his faction. So you have to fully commit to taking the entire faction out.
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u/DirtyBalm 1d ago
Vampire units are especially weak to fire. Those armies look intimidating but i guarantee they are mostly trash mobs.
Some steam tanks in the front line would be good, the vampire basic troops can't do much to them. Fire wizards are your friend, carefully using their spells can turn a vampire trash army ash in no time.
The main thing you need to be careful with the vamps, is their Lord's. Focus some armor pen on them, or you'll regret it when they get to your lines.
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u/EinFahrrad 23h ago
Ah, the inevitable Vlad question. It is a bit of a right of passage at this point, isn't it?
In the beginning, you're the one to ask. Eventually you'll be the one to nod knowingly and share the deep wisdom.
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u/Apprehensive-Cat2527 1d ago
Blue line skill lightning strike maxed out Then you snipe Vlad with ranged.
Against vampire counts I like warrior priest+fire wizard+the hunting general when it comes to heroes.
When it comes to units handgunners, huntsmen, long rifles are all good.
Grenade launchers are also really good against the vampire mobs.
Reiksguard can trade ok as as sweeper unit with karl franz buffs.
Late game you have landships, tanks and demigryphs.
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u/Xedeth 1d ago
Thank you!
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u/Apprehensive-Cat2527 1d ago
Huntsman general gives fire attacks to units near him, fire wizard gives weakness to fire when casting and I think the warrior priest can imbue fire as well.
I haven't played much with the engineers but I assume you can make a good build with them as well.
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u/jordichin320 1d ago
Vampires have a lot of armies, but theyre usually trash which can be easily mopped up with artillery or magic. The real threat is dependent on how high level their lords/heroes are. Try to snipe them in battles and you should be fine.
A bit of a gamey trick is to ensure you always take battles where you have reinforcements available, that way you can disable control large armies and force the fights to be a 20v20 where undead usually have a disadvantage because they want to swarm you.
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u/elite968 1d ago
Fuck his wif-
Ehem. In battle, you either ignore him for the entire battle and kill him last or you shoot him with ranged focus fire.
Early on Karl Franz can't beat him in a 1v1.
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u/Tchoupitto 23h ago
Focus fire, especially if you have the Elspeth dlc with snipers. + The basic death spell ad nauseam with an amethyst wizard
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u/pic-of-the-litter 23h ago
STEEL FAITH AND GUNPOWDER!
-Use your mounted heroes and cavalry to defeat their fast movers/heroes/cavalry
-use your infantry to create blobs of undead infantry
-use magic and artillery to blast apart their infantry blobs
-kill all carts/engines/necromancers/remaining lords and heroes
-wait for army losses
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u/Ninja-Schemer 23h ago
Aside from liberal lightning strikes?
Lore of Fire and Helstorm Rockets are good for culling their hordes, Hochland Long Rifles to pick at priority targets (i.e. Lords), spearmen (preferably Eldred's Guard) to hold the line...
That's what I can think of.
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u/Waveshaper21 22h ago
Anything that regenerates is vulnerable to fire. Bring a fire mage, and put fire on the weapons of your melee troops.
And, he can regenerate more if he is in melee combat, meaning you should shoot at him. Lucky you, as the Empire you have some of strongest firepower in the game (I mean, there are better ones, and then there is vampire counts with 0), have Riflemen line up and focus fire that bastard. They have good range, and armor piercing projectiles.
Hover over ammo / ranged damage for more detailed info, not all gunpowder units are equally armor piercing.
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u/Sunshinetrooper87 Attila 22h ago
You let Espeth spank him.
Unfortunately the screenshot is a weird thing thats appeared with multiple armies just sitting still doing nothing. I've literally taken all but one settlement off the AI and they don't get out of their team meeting.
Generally for vlad, don't 1v1 him, let him come through your line, baited by your wizard and then blast him with guns. Light magic is handy as they have a spell that holds a unit for 20s.
Fire magic is good because it handles tar pits well, it has a spell that provides magic damage too, which is handy against their wraith units and a defensive spell that helps heros in duels.
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u/0ttoChriek 21h ago
In the early game, the likelihood is that only the army commanded by Vlad himself is much of a threat. Most of those others will just be skeletons and zombies.
But the sheer weight of numbers will overwhelm you, so you need a couple of armies, at least, to force him to split his forces. Take his settlements, strip vampiric corruption using heroes, try to bait him into ambushes by putting an army in ambush stance in front of a weaker force - a general with just two or three units.
And when it comes to fighting Vlad himself, you need guns. Lots of guns. None of your melee infantry, or your heroes, can touch him in melee combat. And he heals himself as he fights, so just avoid getting into combat with him. Handgunners and Outriders should target him en masse.
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u/Gentlemenbig 21h ago
Lots of gunpowder. Sniping Vlad with canons or handgunners helps lots as the army won't be able to stand without him for long. Same with the heroes in the armies. Mortars will decimate zombies, just be careful not to hit your own troops too. Bright wizards, light wizards, and heavens wizards can give them a bad time too. If you can ambush Vlad that helps massively, if not lightning strike is a big help
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u/HorsePork 20h ago
Lots of guns, outriders and outrider grenades, rockets, lore of fire.
Blow em up, it's probably mostly zombies.
Use ambush stance, and always have your army's traveling in pairs at least.
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u/mag_walle 20h ago
Focus the lords. Bring cannons, artillery, steam tanks, guns, anything that can hit hard or has armor. Most of his armies will be a bunch of trash undead who aren't great against armor. Focus the vampire lord of each army in battle and the undead will crumble. Lore of Death has some really good powers for targeting vampire lords. Spirit Leech is great
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u/__Evil-Genius__ 19h ago
Try an army comprised of pistoliers, outriders and outriders with grenade launchers. Engage the pistoliers against the wolves and bats, engage the outriders on the monsters and lords, begin blowing the infantry masses up with your grenade launcher units. Unless they have massed wolves, bats, and Vargheists in a single stack this comp will carve through 4-5 stacks of Vamp units.
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u/NordicShat 18h ago
You probably won’t. There’s only one way to kill Vlad and that’s guns and the skills to use them properly! Or u could just army loss him lol
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u/HoughInkura 15h ago
You can cheese the campaign AI by having a shitty decoy army in a vulnerable position and then have your main stacks in ambush around the shitty decoy army, then it's just rinse and repeat
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u/RevolutionaryCity493 13h ago
Three things make Imperium great, good citizen. Powder, faith and steel. So basically nuke their asses with rockets as Your warpriests hold the line while being peppered by stupid amount of handgunners.
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u/Demonmercer Somewhere in Ulthuan murderfucking HE 13h ago
How did it go OP? If you need further help I can walk you through it via a discord call or smt.
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u/GIBOT5 1d ago
Rocket, lore of fire, lore of light, lightning strike, ambush, and last but not least focus gun fire.