There is more purpose to having deep lines, too. For example, if you have a unit that you don't expect to be able to win, or even survive, against what you're putting it against, for example a chaff blocker for your archers, you want to minimize surface area contact with the enemy. The less of the enemy touching your forces, the slower they'll get mulched, and the longer your archers can fire away. Plus, the slower rate of model losses means the morale impact will be lower, and the unit might not break as fast!
I was thinking this too, but it's situational because you want to avoid getting enveloped. Deep formation can allow a single opposing unit with a wide formation to you from the from the front and both flanks.
Narrow but super deep long lines pointing forward are also surprisingly useful for Dawi or the Empire to flank something like Volley guns or Hellstorm Missle Batteries (that tend to hit your units in the back if they stand in front of it). A formation with those looks like your artillery is wearing horseblinds. Especially with Dawi using Ironbreakers in those forward stick flanking formation you get a near guaranteed intercept on charging units that otherwise would try to flank further back and insane holding power as only few units are in combat while your backline shoots the enemy to shit.
Zerk the move full army with alt key is absolutely clutch. I’d seen legend do it a bunch and they I’d seen you do it, when you gave the tip in your Warhammer 2 video my mind was blown. Total game changer. Thank you. Btw I’m super happy you’re doing some of these basic things again, please continue to update these types of changes that happened between games. Please and thank you!
Omg that "zzz" idle indicator is gonna be so helpful especially for Skaven. It's so confusing to try and find which units stayed and fought while numerous others routed and came back.
You missed the "J"- button which turns the direction the unit is facing 180 degrees. Very good for getting cavalry out after charges so you easily can keep cycle charging. Saw that someone already mentioned it
it's also very useful with missile unit if some enemy want to charge at their back , it's very much more rapid. Also if a missile unit come back from retreat you can easily force them to point the battlefield and not the corner of the map
To add to this (if not changed from wh2): Double clicking on a unit card will pan your camera to that unit. Might be an easier option for some to find lords/idle units. Also a fantastic use of the withdraw button is if you have an entity (especially lord or monster) completely bogged down by enemies, instead of clicking repeatedly trying to get it out of the fight, order it to withdraw and it will keep pushing through the enemies in it's way. This frees you up to keep microing the rest of your army. As for groups, its very useful to organize your army. Group units like your front line, main missile line, flankers, cav, arty, lords if you have a lot, etc.
@@mannyfresh7065 As long as its possible for you retreat ie. not up against a wall or in force march etc you have the option to withdraw specific units from the field. Its usually located at the bottom right when a unit is selected though WH3 has moved some stuff around so it could be different.
@@cinder8926 so you can tell them to withdraw. Will they be routed? Also how far do they retreat, i.e. they’ll disappear off the map if I forget about it? Sorry one more question can I cancel the withdraw once they’ve gotten to a safe place? I’m sure I can mess around w it but figured Id ask while responding your comment
@@mannyfresh7065 The withdraw button is a full run off the map button. Its mainly useful to save damaged units you don't want getting wiped out. So yes if you forget they will run off the battle entirely. It can be cancelled by just pressing the withdraw button again so its no problem. How far they run is entirely dependent on the nearest white line as they will go straight to whichever edge is closest to get off the field.
A tip with ranged unit formation that I wish I had learned years ago: If they are in a box formation and get engaged in melee, as long as Fire at Will is on, if you right click the enemy they are engaged with A SINGLE TIME, every individual model in that unit that is not engaged with models from the opposing unit, will begin to fire their ranged weapon at the unit they are fighting, making them deal MUCH more damage to whatever they are fighting. Also, while it is true you can aim wind spells to whichever direction you want, you can also pseudo-aim vortex spells as well by doing the same thing of clicking and dragging the spell to cast it. There is no indicator, and it will still move randomly, but it will begin moving in the direction you drag it in first
Personally I do use locked groups for one key thing: my melee front line. More specifically, i keep all of my main line chafe infantry (usually the most numerous unit I have i.e. empire swordsman/orc boys/skeleton warriors/etc.). I then send them towards the enemy main line, let them clash, and take care of bad matchups and/or flanking & cycle charging as needed. anything more important, like Greatswords/Black Orcs/Swordmasters/ etc. gets micro'd as do most anti-large units. but that's just how i play i guess.
Note that you don't have to do the Alt+LMB+Ctrl. You can let go of Alt after you have selected the whole army. So Alt+LMB to select the army in formation, release Alt (hold LMB), and drag the army around. Then just hold Ctrl for a bit to rotate the formation, release Ctrl again to continue dragging the army.
Perfect video for those who are struggling with Total War battle styles, this is very useful to recommend to new friends into the game and also a couple not-so-new to learn a couple new tricks To add some virtue into the square formation: It can be very useful for archers, since they turn to the sides and start firing again faster. If you have a heavy ranged based army, this is key. Specially if you are forced to do checkerboard formation
A good use for unlocked groups is selecting units of the same type. For example all archers to shoot at the same target (locked group will give the same issues already covered in video), or maybe even more specific; selecting all the front Line support infantry (when having an anti large front line and anti infantry behind it). Seeing this video gave me some alternatives; using ctrl+M for all missiles, and double clicking a unit to select all identical units. There's one more scenario I can think of. Let's say you have 4 identical cavalry units, 2 on the left flank and 2 on the right flank. Having an unlocked group gives you the option to have a hotkey for going to that specific flank and selecting the units, kind of like the pan to lord option.
lines = more entities facing enemy = more damage _both dealt and received_ , which means put them in a square if you need to make sure they hold a position in a non-offensive posture. they will just last longer, as far as attrition goes, allowing other damage-dealing units to attack the flanks of whatever is on it
Im new to the game and this has been a great help. Been a big fan of melee mode so its nice to know theres a short cut by just holding alt. I use it for the stegodon as i like to preserve its ammo for more important targets at range and its still a strong melee combatant
So I have a tendency to use most of the control groups to organize my armies in battles. I always put the bulk of my ranged units in groups 9 and 0. One time during an intense and desperate battle, I needed to quickly select my ranged units to focus down a target. I accidentally fat fingered horribly when I had my important micro heavy cavalry units selected. This fight was directly on the edge corner of a map and down to the wire before the enemy overran my ranged corner camp group. I realised my mistake instantly because I saw the unit cards disappear for my key and full health cav units. I went on to clutch a win but it was extremely costly. I proceeded to rematch that battle and only took about ~20% of the losses, the lost cav was that impactful. Before I rematched tho, I went and changed my hotkeys and simply removed any hotkey for the withdraw units command. I figure it shouldn't happen again unless I missclick incredibly poorly from now on. XD Tldr, don't use the default "u" hotkey for withdrawing units. Remove the keybind for it or change it to something far far away from commonly used keys!
High Elf noob here- used to get super Krumped in WH2, since I joined in so late. Found your guides on land battles, started to checkerboard and build balanced lists, did much better. Looking forward to a Dominion guide, see what changes from Land Battle tactics 🤙
What an extremely helpful guide, I doubt I'll be able to include all the options at the game soon or run it without pausing the battle, but just beeing able to move the whole army without creating the dreaded doomblob is just fantastic advise. Thx dude :)
I also use halt as a quick way to stop artillery from blowing up my own guys once the enemy get into melee without moving them. Sigmar knows how many good dwarfs ive accidentally sent to the afterlife because i forgot to stop the grudge throwers.
Just started Warhammer 2 and I just played it like I played medieval 2 for the first 170 turns, but alt lmb changes everything! Saw people do it, tried various combinations, couldn't do it and just left it out instead. Great guide good tips, in the heat of battle selecting can become really tedious too.
I sometimes have a couple huntsman in the far back line in a square so they can pivot faster from flank to front. And melee mode can be good for something like kossovite horse archers already behind the enemy to tie up some archers.
The melee mode or guard mode button needs to become a popup like the group button so they can let you have an UI element to tell your archers or poxflies to not yeet themselves into melee to instantly die after they run out of ammo. Also nice would be a toggle to deny units to fire their weapon during a melee charge. Units that can fire while moving will fire while moving even when you give them a melee attack order. Sucks when you are trying to generate some ammo with Khornes artillery bikes (they regen ammo in melee) only to have them blast off any shots you've saved up.
This has been fantastic so far, I'm brand new to this series as a whole. So far its been a blast, but its def. a crunchy game and difficult to defeat, I find myself still restarting the campaigns on normal quite often. But as expected for a noob to a series thats been going for so long.
i'm having issues in WH3 where my units forget about the units they were attacking so i came here for a brush up on movements/attacks (got several VH campaign victories so far). solid stuff, i def learned something after mini outrage over the F key comment. i'll be using alt+right click in the future except for khornes arty. btw ive seen about a dozen of your vids so far and i always have to watch them at 1.5x
I just got this game so this really helps. Crl-left click is my favorite it's really flexible. This really helps cause warhammer total war battles are scary at first. 😊
The locked groups are useful to get your whole front to engage in a charge instantly and evenly. If you select your infantry into a locked group and attack while the enemy is coming it will auto engage evenly across the front for all of them
Awesome video. You’re a godsend to newer players. Wide formations are sometimes prone to wind spells, I wonder if the AI is better at casting them this time around
Wide formations are fine, it’s grouping your units closely in the wide formation, spread them out. Stagger your line a bit. Serrated front lines are great for avoiding wind spells and still reinforcing your leading units. Wind spells are super easy to avoid until your units are actively engaged. Conversely, really easy to miss with as well, until targets are otherwise preoccupied
@@widdershins5383 Good point, and the default formation if you select multiple units and spread them with RMB is very close to each other (perfect for wind spells)
If you have a horde rush faction and there in a lock group at the start, you can use this to make them pick targets and any target that’s unfavorable you can just switch around, I use this constantly
thanks for this! I'm brand new to the series, big fan of fantasy RTS and the unit control is much different than games I'm used to(i.e. war 3, starcraft etc)
Thanks for this. i didnt know how to rotate my units, i had seen other players do it on twitch. Also i didnt know i could use ALT with spells or artillery. very helpful.
In wh 1 and 2 you can hold alt+ hold drag right mouse to where you want your unit to face also lock formation its very useful in battle both malee and range and in wh3 its gone
Great video mate! Coming from medevil and rome total war, where the rock paper scissor was much simpler, it's great to have explained how the units in this game series act.
I find just using the unit cards is the only truly reliable way to select the units, especially in a steeped battle that said unit is losing, ironically.
Bump.... This is essential information for any Warhammer 3 player. Don't be like me and put off learning these tools because your a "Pause Key Prince". Many thanks to Zerkovich for all the things he does on his channel....
Jesus… learned so many things in this video after playing for so long. In order of importance 1. What overcast is… never used it before seeing this video… 2. Custom unit paths! 3. Manually choosing where artillery fires… missed this from napoleon.. 4. The moving in formation and rotating commands..
King! You are doing Khorne's work. May the Grandfather bless you and the Changer of Ways spare you. Super useful content for noobs and veterans alike. Thank you!
The only reason im not absolute dog shit at this game is because of videos like this and your faction videos. Thank you so much! You make the game so enjoyable
a. Using locked groups of infantry is pretty good with wide armies where you want to swarm their frontline and lock it down so that the rest of your army can flank. b. Does the Hold&Drag still work for Vortex spells (ie, aiming vortex spells like breath spells so that the first move goes in that direction before it starts to move around randomly)?
Super helpful Zerk! Thank you so much for doing this vid. ...Now all I need is a color-coded cheat sheet that I can laminate and set up near my keyboard with these hotkeys and commands. Know where I can find such a thing?
11:15 If the unit card lose more than 90% of of the entities, the card is lost at that point. No matter the result of the battle. So, if there are only 3 men left from 60, you cannot save the card. They need at least 6. FYI
Actually I find using unlocked groups of 2 warhounds very useful. or 2 cav units. Granted you could disrupt and cycle charge 2 different enemy units at the same time, if you lock group and do it however I find you take very little damage doing it. Its prob because of the double charge and damage absolutely deleteing enemy units while putting the damage taken to them between two units but I find it very effective none the less. The downside is, Now you got 2 units of cav in the same place for archers and spells.
I just started with Total War and have been working hard learning all the different army movement commands. I thought the shift drag rightMB was going to be a fantastic trick to get units to circle around to flank. But Im sad it’s very buggy. I thought I was doing something wrong until it was mentioned here.
@@frederickbaggett936 No, it’s universally a mess. I gave up on the game because I needed it to work too much. I hate APM focused RTS games. And this bug turned TW:Warhammer into one.
Zerkovich, do you know how to display unit formations as they are walking? I know in TW2 you would press the space bar to show your unit placement and formations as you move them but in TW3 it only show the UI toggle menu
i actually just fixed it. You need to take out the checkmark in the battle interface for "Spacebar options on toggle". Then it works if you hold the spacebar.
@@sondrin9682 so I checked under keyboard- battle, there’s no check mark for toggle. The only spacebar options goes to the UI setting. If I take out spacebar for that then when I click spacebar nothing happens
nothing new to learn here for me, BUT thank you anway on behalf of all the people who are improving thanks to these vids, so please never stop reminding us of the roots :=)
Maybe it was too basically, but I wanted to see how I can see the movement target of my army. Solution: Space. But nevertheless a great, helpful video.
How to see the ordered lines after the order? To more efficiently plan your movement? There is only the arrow in the middle left and space button doesn't work like in TW Warhammer 2
@@IronStaff7 that was right. Games vs Ai will give you nothing for games vs other players. Ai just teaches you to abuse their weakness. Vs humans you are teaching to outplay then with micro/macro unit setups or even mind games. You cant compare this 2 types of the game
@@IronStaff7 if you dont understand that melee units need to be in melee to fight, range units should stay at range and cav should not fight spears then yes, Ai games would help you
At around 5 minutes I could see you moved the cavalry and then you clicked some button to reveal where they were headed and positioned. What button is this? I usually struggle if I am pushing my frontline and im not entirely sure where they will go compared to my ranged units. Hope you understand what I mean:)
I find melee mode usefull to messing with enemy AI in campaign as Tzeentch in some situations, I can hide my army over a hill or in a bush and have a herald on a flying mount saving ammo for certain targets,I can fly around to get them to waste ammo if they have range and do melee hit and runs on them getting out before the melee folk come to help, using barrier to prevent them from taking any damage, use melee mode cuz want to save ammo to take our their lord or stuff after a bit, ussuly it's safer to use melee to bully ranged units first, as ranged attacks well flying make then an easier target, they have their lord in a harder position to safely attack well having exposed units else where, or I may intentionally avoid killing the lord because I want to do maximum damage to their army. On a related note I hate auto resolve as Tzeentch, it ussuly does damage to your units, that when played manually could be completely avoided, due to Tzeentch barriers it's very easy to win normal battles with next to no damage taken as you can switch units out of combat when their barriers get low, I found that auto resolve would always do some damage to some of my units even if it was a much weaker army well battling them manually my units would not even take damage, well in more ballenced situations auto resolve may have significantly higher casualties like 500 units lost asopposed to like 50-70 when played manually, well other times it will often say or your going to get massacred, but then it's easily won manually, I don't think it accounts for barriers or magic at all, witch with such can make alot of Tzeentch units look weak, when in reality you can have a few blue horror distracted them, send in fateweiver and stuff to break their specist ranged and cav units, then retreat everyone but your lord and a soul grinders or stuff a single soul grinders and slughter the rest 2v1500 with hit and run tactics, you can even have them rest from time to time to keep fresh vigor as they get winded, moral of the story is never auto resolve as Tzeentch and sometimes you don't want to waste ammo on peasants
Anyone knows if you can use "attack, then shift+move" so that a chariot will attack a unit but directly move after the charge and not stop to fight the unit?
Short answer: kind of. The unit will attempt to do what you told it, but if it gets stuck in melee it will eventually give up on moving and just start to brawl.
Don't use attack orders with regular chariots. Just run them through the edges or backs of units. Any attack order will make them stick themselves into melee.
Very helpful video! In past TW games, after you gave a unit a move order by RMB + Drag you could then hold the space bar to see exactly where that unit was moving. Useful for lining up several units in a formation during battle. In WH3 however, holding space bar just gives me the UI options box. Did this change or am I just missing something?
![Lethal Company Music Video 🎵 "Follow The Orders" [VERSION A]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QeooZB4Z7RA/mqdefault.jpg)
There is more purpose to having deep lines, too. For example, if you have a unit that you don't expect to be able to win, or even survive, against what you're putting it against, for example a chaff blocker for your archers, you want to minimize surface area contact with the enemy. The less of the enemy touching your forces, the slower they'll get mulched, and the longer your archers can fire away. Plus, the slower rate of model losses means the morale impact will be lower, and the unit might not break as fast!
I was thinking this too, but it's situational because you want to avoid getting enveloped. Deep formation can allow a single opposing unit with a wide formation to you from the from the front and both flanks.
Narrow but super deep long lines pointing forward are also surprisingly useful for Dawi or the Empire to flank something like Volley guns or Hellstorm Missle Batteries (that tend to hit your units in the back if they stand in front of it). A formation with those looks like your artillery is wearing horseblinds.
Especially with Dawi using Ironbreakers in those forward stick flanking formation you get a near guaranteed intercept on charging units that otherwise would try to flank further back and insane holding power as only few units are in combat while your backline shoots the enemy to shit.
If your missile units must to kill Quick units is good to got a square too for the direction change speed too
@@GoodMorningHikers 6
However it leads to getting flanked more often and therefor more models in contact
I hope tww3 gives your channel the visibility it truly deserves.
Here here
There there
Fair fair
Ahoy hoy
Why so many skaven things in the comments?
Zerk the move full army with alt key is absolutely clutch. I’d seen legend do it a bunch and they I’d seen you do it, when you gave the tip in your Warhammer 2 video my mind was blown. Total game changer. Thank you.
Btw I’m super happy you’re doing some of these basic things again, please continue to update these types of changes that happened between games. Please and thank you!
@lanichilds2825 left click alt ctrl drag
Omg that "zzz" idle indicator is gonna be so helpful especially for Skaven. It's so confusing to try and find which units stayed and fought while numerous others routed and came back.
Yes! That is single best UI new thing I absolutely LOVE
keep doing these tutorials I am finally committed to figuring out how to play this series
You missed the "J"- button which turns the direction the unit is facing 180 degrees. Very good for getting cavalry out after charges so you easily can keep cycle charging.
Saw that someone already mentioned it
In his army movement guide for TWW2 he mentions it but says to mostly avoid it because it can do some random things
@@Whutever42 We know if they may have fixed those random things in this one? Anyone test it?
@@Whutever42 Works great for a single unit, but if you have multiple units selected it's a disaster
it's also very useful with missile unit if some enemy want to charge at their back , it's very much more rapid. Also if a missile unit come back from retreat you can easily force them to point the battlefield and not the corner of the map
This blew me mind. New Warhammer player here. So many things in this that I've been like "gee I wish I could do this" turns out I can!
To add to this (if not changed from wh2): Double clicking on a unit card will pan your camera to that unit. Might be an easier option for some to find lords/idle units. Also a fantastic use of the withdraw button is if you have an entity (especially lord or monster) completely bogged down by enemies, instead of clicking repeatedly trying to get it out of the fight, order it to withdraw and it will keep pushing through the enemies in it's way. This frees you up to keep microing the rest of your army.
As for groups, its very useful to organize your army. Group units like your front line, main missile line, flankers, cav, arty, lords if you have a lot, etc.
whattttttt, dude I have who knows how many hours and never knew of the withdraw button. Is that at the bottom like where guard is?
@@mannyfresh7065 As long as its possible for you retreat ie. not up against a wall or in force march etc you have the option to withdraw specific units from the field. Its usually located at the bottom right when a unit is selected though WH3 has moved some stuff around so it could be different.
@@cinder8926 so you can tell them to withdraw. Will they be routed? Also how far do they retreat, i.e. they’ll disappear off the map if I forget about it? Sorry one more question can I cancel the withdraw once they’ve gotten to a safe place? I’m sure I can mess around w it but figured Id ask while responding your comment
@@mannyfresh7065 The withdraw button is a full run off the map button. Its mainly useful to save damaged units you don't want getting wiped out. So yes if you forget they will run off the battle entirely. It can be cancelled by just pressing the withdraw button again so its no problem. How far they run is entirely dependent on the nearest white line as they will go straight to whichever edge is closest to get off the field.
@@cinder8926 wow thanks so much for your detailed reply!
Omg the alt move in formation was the one thing I came for. I always just do missile front and then reform right before conflict
Omg its as simple at alt+left click and drag. I have been wanting to know how to do this for years! Thank you so much
A tip with ranged unit formation that I wish I had learned years ago: If they are in a box formation and get engaged in melee, as long as Fire at Will is on, if you right click the enemy they are engaged with A SINGLE TIME, every individual model in that unit that is not engaged with models from the opposing unit, will begin to fire their ranged weapon at the unit they are fighting, making them deal MUCH more damage to whatever they are fighting.
Also, while it is true you can aim wind spells to whichever direction you want, you can also pseudo-aim vortex spells as well by doing the same thing of clicking and dragging the spell to cast it. There is no indicator, and it will still move randomly, but it will begin moving in the direction you drag it in first
Soooo many hours spend in the game and still cool things to learn, thanks for the tips!
This is great intel
I had absolutely no idea you could pick the initial direction of a vortex spell, that's mint. Gotta test it out soon.
@@warhound45 Actually that got nerfed in WH3. This was a Wh2 ability.
@@SGProductions87 RIP flingable vortex spells and 200+ WoM pool. CA did spellcasters dirty in WH3.
thank you Zerc. I have several friends new to total war and I send them to videos like these to help them out and they’re great resources
Personally I do use locked groups for one key thing: my melee front line. More specifically, i keep all of my main line chafe infantry (usually the most numerous unit I have i.e. empire swordsman/orc boys/skeleton warriors/etc.). I then send them towards the enemy main line, let them clash, and take care of bad matchups and/or flanking & cycle charging as needed. anything more important, like Greatswords/Black Orcs/Swordmasters/ etc. gets micro'd as do most anti-large units. but that's just how i play i guess.
Literally same. I was a little disappointed that he dismissed locked groups to being useless. Though granted it's still a pretty niche utility.
Huh. The "Alt move the frontline before attacking so they're tidy" is something I never thought of in over 300 hours of WH2 play. Great tip!
Note that you don't have to do the Alt+LMB+Ctrl. You can let go of Alt after you have selected the whole army. So Alt+LMB to select the army in formation, release Alt (hold LMB), and drag the army around. Then just hold Ctrl for a bit to rotate the formation, release Ctrl again to continue dragging the army.
Why didn't I ever think of this??
That helps a lot with finger gymnastics, good info.
Thx
Perfect video for those who are struggling with Total War battle styles, this is very useful to recommend to new friends into the game and also a couple not-so-new to learn a couple new tricks
To add some virtue into the square formation: It can be very useful for archers, since they turn to the sides and start firing again faster. If you have a heavy ranged based army, this is key. Specially if you are forced to do checkerboard formation
Also a useful recap for experienced players. Zerc has done absolute wonders for the new player community with these guides.
A good use for unlocked groups is selecting units of the same type. For example all archers to shoot at the same target (locked group will give the same issues already covered in video), or maybe even more specific; selecting all the front Line support infantry (when having an anti large front line and anti infantry behind it). Seeing this video gave me some alternatives; using ctrl+M for all missiles, and double clicking a unit to select all identical units. There's one more scenario I can think of. Let's say you have 4 identical cavalry units, 2 on the left flank and 2 on the right flank. Having an unlocked group gives you the option to have a hotkey for going to that specific flank and selecting the units, kind of like the pan to lord option.
lines = more entities facing enemy = more damage _both dealt and received_ , which means put them in a square if you need to make sure they hold a position in a non-offensive posture. they will just last longer, as far as attrition goes, allowing other damage-dealing units to attack the flanks of whatever is on it
Thanks for making a new version. I was going to go watch your old video again for this info.
This is a must-see for every (beginning) Total War (Warhammer) player!
Im new to the game and this has been a great help. Been a big fan of melee mode so its nice to know theres a short cut by just holding alt. I use it for the stegodon as i like to preserve its ammo for more important targets at range and its still a strong melee combatant
So I have a tendency to use most of the control groups to organize my armies in battles. I always put the bulk of my ranged units in groups 9 and 0. One time during an intense and desperate battle, I needed to quickly select my ranged units to focus down a target. I accidentally fat fingered horribly when I had my important micro heavy cavalry units selected. This fight was directly on the edge corner of a map and down to the wire before the enemy overran my ranged corner camp group. I realised my mistake instantly because I saw the unit cards disappear for my key and full health cav units. I went on to clutch a win but it was extremely costly. I proceeded to rematch that battle and only took about ~20% of the losses, the lost cav was that impactful. Before I rematched tho, I went and changed my hotkeys and simply removed any hotkey for the withdraw units command. I figure it shouldn't happen again unless I missclick incredibly poorly from now on. XD
Tldr, don't use the default "u" hotkey for withdrawing units. Remove the keybind for it or change it to something far far away from commonly used keys!
This guide was really helpful. I was having so much trouble with movement and getting the formations I want.
High Elf noob here- used to get super Krumped in WH2, since I joined in so late. Found your guides on land battles, started to checkerboard and build balanced lists, did much better.
Looking forward to a Dominion guide, see what changes from Land Battle tactics 🤙
What an extremely helpful guide, I doubt I'll be able to include all the options at the game soon or run it without pausing the battle, but just beeing able to move the whole army without creating the dreaded doomblob is just fantastic advise. Thx dude :)
Omg this video is literally beyond helpful. I was so curious how to do some of these things. Thank you a lot
as a noob who lost the campaign on normal, this tips would have spared me alot of stress! thanks alot!
Dw bro I've got maybe 200-300 hours in total war games collectively and I still lose campaigns on normal 😭
I also use halt as a quick way to stop artillery from blowing up my own guys once the enemy get into melee without moving them. Sigmar knows how many good dwarfs ive accidentally sent to the afterlife because i forgot to stop the grudge throwers.
That's going in the book!
@@drafezard7315 more like I'm going to have to become a slayer :(
and then there's me gleefully laughing as i watch my plageclaw catapults wipe out half of my clanrats
Just started Warhammer 2 and I just played it like I played medieval 2 for the first 170 turns, but alt lmb changes everything! Saw people do it, tried various combinations, couldn't do it and just left it out instead. Great guide good tips, in the heat of battle selecting can become really tedious too.
I sometimes have a couple huntsman in the far back line in a square so they can pivot faster from flank to front. And melee mode can be good for something like kossovite horse archers already behind the enemy to tie up some archers.
The melee mode or guard mode button needs to become a popup like the group button so they can let you have an UI element to tell your archers or poxflies to not yeet themselves into melee to instantly die after they run out of ammo. Also nice would be a toggle to deny units to fire their weapon during a melee charge. Units that can fire while moving will fire while moving even when you give them a melee attack order. Sucks when you are trying to generate some ammo with Khornes artillery bikes (they regen ammo in melee) only to have them blast off any shots you've saved up.
Fantastic combat strategy guide! I learnt so much watching this. Thank you very much.
This has been fantastic so far, I'm brand new to this series as a whole. So far its been a blast, but its def. a crunchy game and difficult to defeat, I find myself still restarting the campaigns on normal quite often. But as expected for a noob to a series thats been going for so long.
i'm having issues in WH3 where my units forget about the units they were attacking so i came here for a brush up on movements/attacks (got several VH campaign victories so far). solid stuff, i def learned something after mini outrage over the F key comment. i'll be using alt+right click in the future except for khornes arty. btw ive seen about a dozen of your vids so far and i always have to watch them at 1.5x
I have played warhammer for years and years now. I did not know half of this. Thanks!
Great guide! Your videos convinced me to get the game even though I've never played a TW game before. Cheers!
Thanks for this refresher, always staring at Alt, Ctrl and Shift for a while after not playing the game for a certain period of time...
I just got this game so this really helps. Crl-left click is my favorite it's really flexible. This really helps cause warhammer total war battles are scary at first. 😊
The locked groups are useful to get your whole front to engage in a charge instantly and evenly. If you select your infantry into a locked group and attack while the enemy is coming it will auto engage evenly across the front for all of them
Definitely need groups for specific units or groups, that is a must.
Very useful. I have thousands of hours in Total War games and I learned some things from this.
Awesome video. You’re a godsend to newer players. Wide formations are sometimes prone to wind spells, I wonder if the AI is better at casting them this time around
Wide formations are fine, it’s grouping your units closely in the wide formation, spread them out. Stagger your line a bit. Serrated front lines are great for avoiding wind spells and still reinforcing your leading units. Wind spells are super easy to avoid until your units are actively engaged. Conversely, really easy to miss with as well, until targets are otherwise preoccupied
I hope the AI is better at casting honestly. In warhammer 2 they never used their spells and it made for somewhat bland battles
@@widdershins5383 Good point, and the default formation if you select multiple units and spread them with RMB is very close to each other (perfect for wind spells)
This is great, didn't know a bunch of these! Will defo level up my playthrough ❤
Great, clear, welcoming style. We love you Zerk!
If you have a horde rush faction and there in a lock group at the start, you can use this to make them pick targets and any target that’s unfavorable you can just switch around, I use this constantly
thanks for this! I'm brand new to the series, big fan of fantasy RTS and the unit control is much different than games I'm used to(i.e. war 3, starcraft etc)
Thank you for doing this I was gonna go back to find your older version but I know they updated everything so this is better TY!!!
Thanks for this. i didnt know how to rotate my units, i had seen other players do it on twitch. Also i didnt know i could use ALT with spells or artillery. very helpful.
In wh 1 and 2 you can hold alt+ hold drag right mouse to where you want your unit to face also lock formation its very useful in battle both malee and range and in wh3 its gone
God bless this tutorial, been a long time subscriber but you’ve made it perfectly yet again.
100+ hours
Kislev complete
skarbrand complete
demons of chaos nearly complete
and ive just learned how to Keep Formations when moving XD
11:45 THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS
Great video mate! Coming from medevil and rome total war, where the rock paper scissor was much simpler, it's great to have explained how the units in this game series act.
I find just using the unit cards is the only truly reliable way to select the units, especially in a steeped battle that said unit is losing, ironically.
This has to be the most useful TWW video I have ever seen! Subscribed.
You can group units by pressing ctr and "any number". this puts them into a special group directly.
Woke up at 5:50am. WH3 installed 6:13am. The guide was put in practice 6:15am :)
thanks, good advice.
Wow, the last time I watched this type of Video was before i got into this game, nice to come back after oder 500 hrs
Very well done guide. Extremely helpful 👍
Bump.... This is essential information for any Warhammer 3 player. Don't be like me and put off learning these tools because your a "Pause Key Prince".
Many thanks to Zerkovich for all the things he does on his channel....
Jesus… learned so many things in this video after playing for so long.
In order of importance
1. What overcast is… never used it before seeing this video…
2. Custom unit paths!
3. Manually choosing where artillery fires… missed this from napoleon..
4. The moving in formation and rotating commands..
Wow! Instant save, like and subscribe! A masterful job that I will have to watch a few more times!
Thanks for the good explanation.
Bro...Thank you so much that guide is definetly awesome
Thank you! This guide is an enormous help!
This is incredibly useful. Thank you!
King! You are doing Khorne's work. May the Grandfather bless you and the Changer of Ways spare you. Super useful content for noobs and veterans alike. Thank you!
I like how you completely left out Slanessh
good to see u made this guide again just in time for TW:WH3 👍
The only reason im not absolute dog shit at this game is because of videos like this and your faction videos. Thank you so much! You make the game so enjoyable
a. Using locked groups of infantry is pretty good with wide armies where you want to swarm their frontline and lock it down so that the rest of your army can flank.
b. Does the Hold&Drag still work for Vortex spells (ie, aiming vortex spells like breath spells so that the first move goes in that direction before it starts to move around randomly)?
it does not. For vortex spells that move, you are at the mercy of the winds as to where they go.
Super helpful Zerk! Thank you so much for doing this vid. ...Now all I need is a color-coded cheat sheet that I can laminate and set up near my keyboard with these hotkeys and commands. Know where I can find such a thing?
11:15 If the unit card lose more than 90% of of the entities, the card is lost at that point. No matter the result of the battle.
So, if there are only 3 men left from 60, you cannot save the card. They need at least 6. FYI
IIRC, it depends on the outcome of the battle. Winning the battle allows a unit to survive with less models than if you lost the battle.
Actually I find using unlocked groups of 2 warhounds very useful. or 2 cav units. Granted you could disrupt and cycle charge 2 different enemy units at the same time, if you lock group and do it however I find you take very little damage doing it. Its prob because of the double charge and damage absolutely deleteing enemy units while putting the damage taken to them between two units but I find it very effective none the less. The downside is, Now you got 2 units of cav in the same place for archers and spells.
Great reminders Zerk! What about inserting into artillery?
Not much use.
I just started with Total War and have been working hard learning all the different army movement commands. I thought the shift drag rightMB was going to be a fantastic trick to get units to circle around to flank. But Im sad it’s very buggy. I thought I was doing something wrong until it was mentioned here.
Isn’t it only buggy when using it on a unit in locked group?
@@frederickbaggett936 No, it’s universally a mess. I gave up on the game because I needed it to work too much. I hate APM focused RTS games. And this bug turned TW:Warhammer into one.
@@Creshex8 the game literally has active pause and you cry about apm?
Zerkovich, do you know how to display unit formations as they are walking? I know in TW2 you would press the space bar to show your unit placement and formations as you move them but in TW3 it only show the UI toggle menu
Same Problem here
i actually just fixed it. You need to take out the checkmark in the battle interface for "Spacebar options on toggle". Then it works if you hold the spacebar.
@@sondrin9682 where is this under? The Battle tab? Campaign tab?
@@sondrin9682 so I checked under keyboard- battle, there’s no check mark for toggle. The only spacebar options goes to the UI setting. If I take out spacebar for that then when I click spacebar nothing happens
You forgot the artillery first person view on the left bottom corner! Much more fun sniping stuff down ;) especially with cathayan balloons
J = about turn. Handy if a skaven unit pops behind you or an unexpected charge from the enemy
Blood for the blood god tutorials for the new players!
Very helpful 💚
nothing new to learn here for me,
BUT thank you anway on behalf of all the people who are improving thanks to these vids,
so please never stop reminding us of the roots :=)
My tip, especially with khorn / slaanesh is turn off auto guard in settings. Can't tell you how frustrating that was till I found it.
I'm new to this game and I am trash. This has taught some things that will be helpful.
Excellent inclusion of the Clan Phallus maneuver.
This was great, thank you.
I am Kislev man in real life =) (russian from deep siberia) and despite i don't speak english i have understood it all form video. Thanks Man!
Yup this help video has help me a lot
Maybe it was too basically, but I wanted to see how I can see the movement target of my army. Solution: Space.
But nevertheless a great, helpful video.
The one abuot attaking not everyone the same target is so important 😊
How to see the ordered lines after the order? To more efficiently plan your movement? There is only the arrow in the middle left and space button doesn't work like in TW Warhammer 2
Thank you for this video. I already feel more confident in battles and might even try multiplayer when I get good enough. CHEERS!
You won't get better by playing campaign
@@uncensoredangel Wrong
@@IronStaff7 that was right. Games vs Ai will give you nothing for games vs other players. Ai just teaches you to abuse their weakness. Vs humans you are teaching to outplay then with micro/macro unit setups or even mind games. You cant compare this 2 types of the game
@@superstar5042 it teaches mechanics of each unit so wrong again
@@IronStaff7 if you dont understand that melee units need to be in melee to fight, range units should stay at range and cav should not fight spears then yes, Ai games would help you
At around 5 minutes I could see you moved the cavalry and then you clicked some button to reveal where they were headed and positioned. What button is this? I usually struggle if I am pushing my frontline and im not entirely sure where they will go compared to my ranged units. Hope you understand what I mean:)
ngl I learned all computer shorcuts from Total War
Really useful video, thank you for this.
Theyve made moving units in formation at the same speed easier finally I have been after this one feature for years
I find melee mode usefull to messing with enemy AI in campaign as Tzeentch in some situations, I can hide my army over a hill or in a bush and have a herald on a flying mount saving ammo for certain targets,I can fly around to get them to waste ammo if they have range and do melee hit and runs on them getting out before the melee folk come to help, using barrier to prevent them from taking any damage, use melee mode cuz want to save ammo to take our their lord or stuff after a bit, ussuly it's safer to use melee to bully ranged units first, as ranged attacks well flying make then an easier target, they have their lord in a harder position to safely attack well having exposed units else where, or I may intentionally avoid killing the lord because I want to do maximum damage to their army.
On a related note I hate auto resolve as Tzeentch, it ussuly does damage to your units, that when played manually could be completely avoided, due to Tzeentch barriers it's very easy to win normal battles with next to no damage taken as you can switch units out of combat when their barriers get low, I found that auto resolve would always do some damage to some of my units even if it was a much weaker army well battling them manually my units would not even take damage, well in more ballenced situations auto resolve may have significantly higher casualties like 500 units lost asopposed to like 50-70 when played manually, well other times it will often say or your going to get massacred, but then it's easily won manually, I don't think it accounts for barriers or magic at all, witch with such can make alot of Tzeentch units look weak, when in reality you can have a few blue horror distracted them, send in fateweiver and stuff to break their specist ranged and cav units, then retreat everyone but your lord and a soul grinders or stuff a single soul grinders and slughter the rest 2v1500 with hit and run tactics, you can even have them rest from time to time to keep fresh vigor as they get winded, moral of the story is never auto resolve as Tzeentch and sometimes you don't want to waste ammo on peasants
Excellent as always
Anyone knows if you can use "attack, then shift+move" so that a chariot will attack a unit but directly move after the charge and not stop to fight the unit?
Short answer: kind of. The unit will attempt to do what you told it, but if it gets stuck in melee it will eventually give up on moving and just start to brawl.
Don't use attack orders with regular chariots. Just run them through the edges or backs of units. Any attack order will make them stick themselves into melee.
Putting this here in case someone knows the answer. That would be huge but idk if ai is smart enough to attack for a few seconds and then leave
ALT + LMB (+CTRL) GAME CHANGER!
Very helpful video! In past TW games, after you gave a unit a move order by RMB + Drag you could then hold the space bar to see exactly where that unit was moving. Useful for lining up several units in a formation during battle. In WH3 however, holding space bar just gives me the UI options box. Did this change or am I just missing something?