I don't really think you lost in this case and then cheesed to win. Your two dragons are worth more than 5 units of savage biguns just on cost alone. If you put half of your funds into two units, and the other half of your funds into 18 units, the 2 expensive units are still "half" of your army strengthwise. people tend to forget this, spend all of their army on routing the weak, cheap fodder units that make up the bulk of your numbers, and then don't have enough left to beat the huge investment you put into your 2 or 3 hero units, and think they got cheesed when really they just lost too many expensive units fighting cheap ones
Glad that you post wins as well as losses. Not everyone does that. And Just because you almost lost doesn't mean it's still not informative and entertaining. Nice vid!
I think you've won that fair and square. The enemy went incredibly melee heavy on the greenskin big 'uns and lacked basically any range. Now I know ranged on the greenskin side isn't much to speak of, but without it, you leave yourself way too open to flying
Id say the main problem is, do we want it to be more like Total War or more like Warhammer. Because in Warhammer magic is supposed to be powerful, its a fantasy setting were there are units wich can be terribly overpowered. Lore accurate Kholek could smash and entire city with one swing of his hammer for example. And honestly, this is probably the one chance ca has to do something unique, less competitive and more flavorfull. So me personally, id prefer a heavier concentration on the Warhammer side rather than the total war side. And im not going to argue for or against multiplayer because i consider the campain to be "the game" and multiplayer to be more of an add on.
How the flying unit's balance out in other situations I couldn't say, but I feel like if you bring an entire force of beefy melee units to crush your opponents lines like this guy did, you have to expect the opponent to try and take advantage of your lack of missile units.
I don't really have a problem with the tactic. It's not something I really use, but it's part of bringing a balanced army. If you're not going to bring any ranged, then you're clearly at a disadvantage if your opponent brings air units. I've been stung by it a couple of times, and I've noted it was due to my army composition. The same goes for if you bring a majority infantry army with no ranged or cavalry, and complain about ranged Cav picking you off. If you didn't bring anything to counter the possibility, then it's your fault. Don't forget about the 'no ground units' mechanic though, that will eventually force all air units to route if you don't have anything on the ground. You can test how this works by simply bringing an 'air-only' army, and watch yourself lose almost immediately as your morale drops across the board. This guy took a risk vs reward scenario. His reward was that he totally smashed the majority of your ground forces. If he had focused on killing your Cav first, he would have won this quite happily, as you wouldn't have had any ground in which to prevent the penalty.
I versed my friend who did this with the high elves, and though I won the battle, in the end, it was only after me bitching at him for ruining the match for hiding in the sky.
Your commentary is really appreciated and it’s definitely one of the reasons I watch your videos cause your smart and you articulate your points well cheers good job. I like the variety of these that you never know exactly what’s in store.
Zerkovich i love the battles that make a point there a nice change and we can learn from it. Love the end of videos where you review the fight and we get your opinion best part if you ask me.
Do the videos that YOU find to be the most entertaining to make and your subscribers will find that to be the most entertaining to watch. Love your videos about different tactics and race coverage so I would personally like more of these :)
well its kinda comparable to chess for me when you play blitz and win on the board but you have only like 20 secs left to cheackmate with 2 bishops you are not gonna make it cause the enemy king wont go where you want him and he will play it down of course thats something nasty and you think he should resign but its part of the game and his right to do so so to get this to warhammer the flying unit shit happened to me often and i hated it i used it in my advantage 2 or 3 times as well its annoying as shit but part of the game so you kind have to accept it even tough you might think rightly that its bullshit also you learn from it you know that you have to prepare for flying units
The thing with low tier spearman units in any army is that while, yes, they have relatively high melee defense (even higher on shielded variants) they still have garbage armor. They don't get smacked in the face as often as low tier swordsman but they also don't deal as much damage and are often marked as "losing" a fight when you hover over them. Fights are a million dice rolls and the ones that connect with your spearmen will WRECK them because they have 30-40 armor and they aren't getting any leadership bonuses from causing casualties so it just mounts quickly and they rout. If you want a cheap wall to hold units so you can have expensive units hammer and anvil all over then sure, run Dreadspears or Ungor Herds or Men-at-arms but don't be surprised when they lose lots of models quickly against high attack units because their armor doesn't mitigate any of the hits that DO go through.
Magic went from support only to nuclear warheads(which makes sense in terms of lore) which I am sort of fine with, IF it were only on lords that are "caster only", so you sacrifice a lot of melee power for them; but then they have lords like Malaketh that can do everything and it became silly, so many DE games just revolve around malaketh surviving. Same with Krog-Gar in lizards, people have revivication crystal builds that are focused on keeping the guy healthy and rampaging though the entire enemy army. But with that said, its part of the charm of the Warhammer universe, as someone who used to play a lot of the table top games, this feels a lot like that; I think adapting tactics trying to beat that sort of thing is actually pretty fun, just that Total War Warhammer 2 has made some lords a bit too overpowered and thus overplayed, if you play the Dark Elves online there is a 90%chance he's running malaketh, same with Krog-Gar in Lizard; I think if they just rebalance these two the game is fine. I don't think CA should change that much about their Warhammer titles since the entire point of the Fantasy setting is to do crazy stuff with supernatural units.
Zerk Thank you for the video. In my opinion. You had to take his lord in the air, first thing. He had nothing to counter you in the air, two breath weapons on his lord. Then melee attack by your lord and black dragon till he routs, chase him off of the map with your dragon while the lord comebacks to support your front line with terror. Just my 2c
Interesting you make the points you do about historical titles. I recently picked up Rome 2 and have been enjoying the heck out of it! TW:Warhammer was my first TW title, and I have found that some of the lessons learned with Warhammer -- not least those coming from you! -- have helped me in getting to grips with Rome. To be honest, though, whilst I am finding some of the campaign mechanics daunting (squalor is a cruel, cruel mistress), I would probably say that, overall, I am enjoying Rome 2 a little more than I did Warhammer. I think in large part that's due to what you're pointing out here: the sense of a level playing field in which the match-ups and maneuvers during battle are absolutely imperative for meaningful victory. I know, of course, that these things come into play in Warhammer; but in Rome 2, because all the factions are more or less fielding the same units with minor variations, victory seems to respond more to the actual selection and movement of those units, rather than, say, the judicious use of a fantasy hero or lord ability that amounts to dropping a hydrogen bomb on the opponent. I mean, it looks cool, and I guess it feels good, too. But is the victory it results in really as 'earned' or as satisfying as it would have been if the player had been forced instead to pull off something brilliant with the more mundane units?
Yeah, all very true about Rome. There's more to worry about in the Campaign itself for sure. Lots of management, which is what's missing from Warhammer. And yeah, battles are more of a test and come down to proper application of units rather than relying on some inbalanced mechanic. I think the problem is Warhammer allows people to play mindlessly and unintelligently and still potentially win. People like that, so never bother to learn the game properly, and can just find those exploits for victory.
Love the vids. Especially the live facecam ones. Puts the face to the name with funny gestures adding to the depth of your channel. Keep it up. Random fact i have horrible grammar.
I believe you made some fair points here. Though honestly I personally only got into Total War because of the Warhammer adaptation because of my preference to fantasy, not to say I wouldn't enjoy trying the historical titles. On the subject of overpowered units, I do agree it can feel rather "ugh...really?...just...ugh..." when dealing with those situations as you described with Malekith. I can completely understand and rather support the idea of it being rather nonsense that while an entire army can be decimated, one or two "supreme" units can simply still win the day without support. However at the same time, considering the situation/unit in question, I do think it makes fantasy/battle sense that a giant dragon can seriously decimate infantry (Plus dragons rather play to the Greenskin weaknesses of low leadership and rather limited capability to deal with large monstrous units. That's right! I remember/am referencing your Greenskin guide! Hope Grimgor hasn't demolished your house any more since then.), and at the same time there're numerous answers to flying units as you said. Again I strongly believe you have very notable points here Zerk, but I also believe battle should feel, when it happens, for troops/generals to feel, "Darn it all! DRAGON!!!" Plus I find dragons to be one the flavor units/main strengths playing as an elven faction. I think there's certainly call for perhaps not straight up nerfing such units, though maybe nerf Malekith by limiting his dragon to a single breath as he already has magic or even lords in general riding dragons so as to save dragon breath flavor for straight up just dragon units (maybe even only 2 breaths at that point, and me being mostly a fan of playing High Elves), but give other factions better/more subtler answers for situations as you've shown here. I think it'd be cool personally if infantry could start just throwing their weapons/rocks off the ground at flying units (much weaker than actual missiles of course, but something is better than nothing right?) or maybe infantry across the board has frontal brace against flying charges. Just ideas, but that's how everything develops right? Definitely enjoyable to see you daring to put your opinion out as you've done here, and while yes there'll always be those whom harp on others for saying anything negative/criticizing, please know there're those among the audience who probably identify with some of your viewpoints/opinions. Plus what's life without conflict and struggle right? We are playing a war game here after all! xD Anyways, glad to see more MP battles from ya, and see ya in tha futcha!
Yeeee. I think ultimately, it's just been made all too easy to take advantage of exploits in Warhammer than ever before. And most people use that. And CA do little to counter it, it seems.
You can use corsairs (BAC) instead spears. BAC win vs regular biguns and cost only 600 (vs 800). With fire spells (best DE magik lore) you can annihilate even savages. But not with this spell you used - use upgraded fire sword vs savages - it doubles your damage (more regular damage, fire damage + debuff - fire res; magick damage to counter res.; instead 75% damage you will deal 140-145% damage). Fire ball is BEST damage spell in game - one upgraded spell (only 9 mana; long range; track moving enemy squad) casted from flank (!!!) can deal over 3000 damage and kill over 1/3 of enemy squad (30-40 kills). For example one spell can destroy half squad of swordamsters of hoeth from 300 range and almost entire squad of seaguards! Casted properly fire ball deals same and even more damage then fate of bjuna but cost twice less. Fire cloak is awesome spell on lord or elite units and to restart fire debuff. Other spells are useless vs good human player.
Interesting video because of all the subjects that came up, i agree with most opinions you expressed and keep in mind i'm a long time warhammer fan and have only been into total war for a couple of years. I think the best way to play any total war warhammer game would be with friends where you can set rules sometimes that ban certain unit types, problem is it costs alot at this point to buy the games and dlc's that you can't really excpect your friends to pay for that.
I love magic -- it requires some serious micro and can backfire -- but agree that flying units can be really very annoying. I wish they'd done something where flying units can only fly when moving and when not "exhausted". As soon as they lose vigor they would have to land. That way, fliers could do their job of flanking and having great mobility, but only for a limited time.
You play games with magic and terrifying beasts. If they are too weak, people start complaining that it hurts the immersion and that it's just a reskin of prior games. Make them too powerful and people complain that it is exploitive and takes away from strategy. It's tough to balance.
to answer your question. I watch your vids to learn about total war so the commentary on why and how you move your units planned tactics and how the opponent reacts are very usefull to me. Not bothered about good in game animations etc. Your comments re unbalance and gameplay are interesting as they are from someone who speaks from experience and not from some fanboy. GOing to try Rome 2 . cheers
The reason Bhead did nothing is most likely because savage orcs are spread out when marching. Waiting till they were in combat and in a tighter formation would've been ideal. Then again the dreadspear pick means this is impossible. As for the breath attack all you need to do is aim from the side of the unit, not the front. And greenskins are much more complicated than smash the front tbh, but it is indeed a good way of doing it.
Hey Zerk i know you talk to the CA devs a lot. I was wondering, do you think you can talk to them about how the greenskins might need a bit of a buff in both campaign and multiplayer? The Big Uns dont have any dedicated armor peircing and only have 12 anti large plus they now cost 800 each. Other than Boar Boy Big Uns the orcs dont have any anti large and its a problem to fight lizardmen for example when Big Uns get wrecked by saurus warriors and can barely drive away dinos. Also in campaign the dwarfs always seem to wipe put skaven and orcs mostly becuase the early orc and rat units cant punch through dwarf armor. Thanks for reading if you did
I actually don't talk to Devs at all. Only the community team, and they have no power to change the game. Even so, there's really no strength to change anything in me on my own either. The only way to get them to listen about changes, is for you and me and the 28 people that liked your comment, to go and moan about these things on forums, twitter, RUclips, whatever. The mass of disgruntled fans can do more than I ever could alone. They do listen to public feedback to some degree so if it really bothers you. Try to make some noise about it and rally people to your cause, and maybe it'll get read by a Dev who will take note. And will I do agree to some extent. I think it's just meant to be a Greenskins weakness.
yo man, u said u wanted people to comment, so I'm commenting, firstly I don't find u annoying at all, in fact I find your clear and detailed way of explaining things incredibly useful, secondly, i don't realy mind but I reckon the community will be 50/50 split on the content they would like, I reckon u could make two separate playlists 1 for tips and tricks, detailed guides and such 2 for epic battle scenarios, obviously your content is your own u can do what u like with it just trying to help, love the channel, keep it up and thanks for the content dude
Zerkovich: "My plan here is to move my dreadspears as a front line and then move around with these repeated crossbows and the shades into a very nice missile flanking tactic, and I've got my dragons here to support and also to harass that frontline and do some terror, and breath attacks all across the front" The opponent: "I'm gonna select my army and right click :3" Opponent wins Man I love bloody frontlines (and dreams) being crushed.
I have to admit that this is quite disapointing. I agree with you, that magic and flying monsters should play support role in the battles, as well as heroes.. I remember times, when we used to play Warhammer Fantasy Battles on the table, as a miniature game. It was a lot of fun [well, you had to paint all those figures before, which was a pain :)]. And then, many years ago we had the same problem.. If you played by the rules from Rulebook, heroes and magic was far to powerful, and instead battles of armies it was battles of heroes riding monsters, with addition of some core units. In this battle here I expected your infantry would last much much longer. I was surprised that they routed all so quickly. Nice video, I like your style of battle reports :)
I like the fantasy setting but I absolutely loved the siege battles in Rome 2 and when I saw those in the first warhammer I honestly thought it was an aprils joke.
Malecith's cost accounts also for his magic. Waste of money bringing a second. His vortex is ok vs unarmoured, but soulstealer + malecith=pain train. It regenerates SO MUCH
if i was the orcs i would have kept the boar boys in reserve after taking out your shades for that exact situation. he also kept his troops blobbed, which is a bad idea against dragons and especialy casters. and then once your ammo ran out ud have to engage in glorious melee combat.
The only online tactic I frown upon is spam armies. For anyone unaware that's like if someone only brought dragons. Magic and flying are fine just don't spam.
I think the Warhammer games have allowed the developers to grow in terms of Total War mechanics and design, and I am very interested in seeing how they apply these skills and technologies to the new historical title.
Grow?! The game has shrunk in as many ways as it's grown I think. There are some cool new features but Total War Warhammer has succumb to the 'dumbing down for success' formula that plagues many franchises. If they do this with Historical titles... The series is in trouble. But yeah, there is some exciting things that will hopefully carry over to new games. But some things need to be reversed.
Zerkovich what I had in mind would be something like Rome 2 or Attila but on a truly global scale. Not sure if that's possible but Mortal Empires makes me optimistic. Like Ancient China vs India vs Persia vs Europe etc. I would definitely like them to return to the more immersive 360 siege battles, but I think simplifying the building chains in campaign for Warhammer has made the game a lot more playable. Also the heroes and magic may be much, but the variety of unit types and strategies for the various races in Warhammer makes the battles a lot more interesting in my opinion. I don't want all infantry and cavalry of all the factions to just be reskins with slightly varying stats.
In the context of the Warhammer game, I think it is more or less fine as is, and we need to adapt to it. It follows the lore and tabletop game reasonably well. If anything most of the spells are underpowered - look at your fire spell in this game as an example - but a notable few are potentially overpowered, so you do see an imbalance there of sorts. In this particular game 2 units of missiles would have wrecked you. I feel we need to adapt to army rosters that can take care of flying monsters and magic and not concentrate wholly on the usual strategies to win matches, which adds another aspect to it which I enjoy. If you want games without magic, as you rightly point out there are many historical total wars out there for that, and I'm looking forward to the next one of those also. This was an interesting topic to discuss and raise, and I understand your points I just don't necessarily agree with them. Keep up the great work, fave TW channel by a mile.
Air and magic superiority are always part of the Tactics. Everything has a counter in each army, depending on the strategy. If they don't think about air superiority, they deserve to lose.
I play the first TWW with ArtMoney because i never before played ANY Total War game and f***ed up royaly before getting behind how the economy works in the game. Now i play a coop campaigne with a friend and seriously hope i don´t mess up too hard. He knows how to TW, but me, well. I learn. But it takes time.
kinda wish there was a way to play with just “low fantasy” units. like, no steam tanks and dragons, but you still get great army veriety of different races.
Hey Zerk, Im always hoping to run into you on quick match. If you ever see "Atticus" holla at your boy lol. You would kick my butt three ways to Sunday but it would be cool to play a game with you. You taught me how to play the game after all
I find kroq-gar to be MUCH more annoying than malekith. I was playing a campaign battle once with skaven, and a lvl 10 KG beat my lvl 30 queek, who had about 800 attack and all of his abilities without taking any damage. Mind you this is on legendary, but I feel like KG has bugged animations or something that make him much harder to deal with in any battle than any other lord. As far as magic being buffs, that's just the general abilities from the historical titles. I don't mind spells being like nukes but the top tier ones should not only cost lots of winds but also drain reserves instantly if they stay at their current strength
Yeah Kroqqy is a bit of a bastud too. Yeah, some need higher cost. Like Bladewind. I don't like having one of my top units wasted by someone clicking their mouse twice. Especially if my gameplan heavily involves them.
I m a big fan of your content and i have a question for you: when the next historical total war will come out will you abandon warhammer? I like warhammer but attila is much better.Keep it up
I will not. I will see Warhammer to the end. At least to the point of doing all Faction Guides. But I imagine Warhammer will live on pretty well because it's so different than Historical.
For the battles: upload both hilarious stuff like this, and great tactical victories. Why choose when you can upload both? Whatever happens, happens. As for the dragons, I'd make the breath attack only work on missile units due to whatever made up reason. That being said, I think its fair dragon tears through units when its down there as long as it takes some damage while doing so.
Ey! Didnt you say something in the last video like "yeah I got reckognized quite often, but its good because they know how I am playing and I am forced to try out different units and tactics!"? ;P edit: because you wanted to hear suggestions for dark elve army builds: heirofcartage had a nice one built around several units of shades which worked quite well against the high elves(there is also a video if you wanna take a look). his opponent had a lot of phoenix guards and they got totally ripped (or better shot) into pieces. edit part 2: I know what you mean by "overpowered magic". I didnt play the old total war stuff but I played warhammer tabletop. and in the 8. edition the magic became suddenly extremely powerfull and casting just one spell could seriously destroy almost the whole army of the opponent if the person is exploiting it. and even if he/she doesnt it can influence the battle drastically. My solution would be just a little checkbox infront of the online battle to forbid all magic. About the flying units... well, I am not a big online player so I cant judge the situation. But isnt there kinda a penalty if you hide in the air too long without any ground units? In your situation of the video: first of all if you hate it so much you could have also given up ;). But in any case I wouldnt say you were hiding sooooo much. I mean at the end you just waited to use all your breath attacks before going back to the ground. And at the end you paid for this ability. The same for the terror: thats the problem with all big monsters. If you cant kill it during the battle you will have a problem at the end, especially with low moral units. I mean you showed this by yourself in another video ;). Also I think he could be more carefull with his general and yeah he could bring some anti-large artillery. that was the risk of the army build.
I did. But there's only so much one can do! Plus I can still try some weird builds anyway! :D I've got another fella lined up for another build as I didn't get much response on that front haha. But thanks for the mention. Thanks for the input Chief!
Zerkovich, considering the comment you make at the end of this video (regarding magic and cheesy tactics), have you considered trying Total War Arena now in closed beta? I really appreciate your approach to Total War and therefore would love to hear of your impressions of that game. Not a big fan of supporting Wargaming.net, but Creative Assembly seems well worth it.
I am at tier 5 greek archers and roman arty. Playing just one unit type for all three units gives the game a focus which other total war battles with 20 units lack. Hope it promotes teamwork. Thanks for the reply and enjoy your helpful approach to the subject. Looking forward to your thoughts on TW Arena.
There's nothing wrong with your opinion man don't act like people on here don't want to hear it. That being said I personally love riding MALIKITH yes and blasting people with spells and breath and dropping my Dragon on them. I really love this game. Never played any other total wars tho but I want to. I do feel like a new counter other fractions though as in I don't feel like each faction and Jen fight against every other effectively. It is definitely possible but it is something I noticed versus total war Warhammer one. That being said again I really love dragons and if you're any of the elves people should expect a dragon from you especially since they are so much better now. Also I'm not gonna lie I fucking well I was putting leaders on dragons or just having dragons slam into people
I am personally not the biggest fan of hiding in the sky stuff since that basically changes the victory condition from defeat the enemy army to remove all their units that can deal with units in the sky. So kill all their archers and flying units and you win the match which is kind of dull imo.
I get why Zerkovich would feel that way about flying units and magic since he seems to be a big fan of ancient real world strategy and tactics but I don't agree. If someone is able to hide in the air then to me that means you failed to bring the right units. Not to mention the high cost of those units he had in the air was a big contributing factor to the ground war being lost so totally since the air units were so expensive so to me its just like any other give and take between picking your other units.
I️ apologize if I’m not the first one to say this (after a quick scan of the comments) but although savage orcs don’t have any armor they have painted bodies which gives them a higher passive resistance to magic. That’s probably why your fire spell didn’t do a lot to them
Well, I just think you won because you had an advantage over him, that's is absolute fair, if he was a bit more prepared to fight dark elves, he would have brought with his army some orc archers and that was his flaw and his defeat... there's no rule saying that a fiar battle should be fought with feet on the ground.
haha that's part of the fun too :D btw, looking at this match, it does seem that "unit matching on the battlefield" has more weight than pure strategy... do you think so?
charging those spears was not a good idea at all, they usually have much higher melee defence and that charge bonus is not really worth it, no wonder he's got wrecked there soon
I don't really think that dragons or malakith are op, especially if you play skaven. Anytime I play high elves or dark elves I bring a couple lightning cannons and the plague book on my lord. And a couple globadiers. That deals with any flying monsters in a hurry.
maybe an adjustment to the magic would be good, but if you do not include ranged units its totaly your fault, more so if your strategy is to charge and cross your fingers
ramble all you want you are not a machine to pump out videos and much of the enjoyment is getting these different points of view. i personally like the magic and sky tactics though i will say they need mechanisms for some races to at least stand a chance against others or a way to prevent race abuse. he fought dark elves and should have expected dragons end of story, air power is an important part of war. my issue now is how would the orcs even counter the dragons with such poor archers? i know not all races match up equally, they shouldn't its part of the draw of warhammer, and i really don't think you made a deliberate choice to get a race advantage considering the disgust you have expressed for such things in the past but some extra options for some races would be good
To start with, I'll be upfront that I: 1. haven't actually played the game (can't run it), 2. haven't played previous total wars (I bought Rome 1 and Medieval 2 to give them a try a while ago but my PC committed suicide before I could actually play them and I haven't been able to get a new PC since), and 3. have played other strategy games (albeit, mostly base-building ones like the first Dawn of War and the Red Alert franchise) So by all means take what I say/ask as the musing of a pleb ;). Anyway, I'm curious about how you use magic/your general attitude towards it now, Zerkovich because I seem to recall from several lets plays (Wood Elves and Chaos come to mind specifically, but I'm sure that there's others) that you either don't use or rarely use magic. That being said, if your anti-magic stance (either not using it, or not using it much) is still around then perhaps that is part of the issue? Yes, it's changed since 1 so that magic is more impactful as that's something a lot of people complained about (it also more accurately represents the Tabletop game its based on, but that's not strictly relevant) but even in 1 you had to take magic (and flying units, which IIRC aren't in any previous TW games either) into account when fighting in campaign and multiplayer. Couldn't it be argued that not using them is like, for example, not using cavalry, spears or archers, even when those units might be exactly what you need? I'm not arguing on the liking or not aspect here, more a practical point of view as I have worried in the past that you make life more difficult for yourself by not using magic, as the game is designed for balance with the use of magic in mind. To take an example from another RUclipsr I watch content for: LegendofTotalWar has come around to heroes in his latest campaign. In particular the use of magic, as he's ended up turning around difficult fights with well placed spells (specifically, using Burning Head to decimate opposing lines of infantry) which work well with his typically defensive play style, at least in campaign. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you SHOULD use magic, especially if its not to your taste/play style and if you don't want to then I'm certainly not going to belittle you for doing so, as the whole point is to play the game how you want. I'm just arguing that if you don't tend to use it then you'll end up suffering as a result as the game is designed with magic being an integral part to the game (especially so in 2 as opposed to 1). As for liking magic, I personally like that aspect of the game (which probably won't surprise you due to the above comments), but then I'm a big fantasy buff, used to play the table top game (both fantasy and 40k) and generally like that sort of thing. I can fully understand not personally liking the mechanic itself though, especially for those who prefer/are more used to the more historical games, but it is a massive part of the source material and for many (including me) a big appeal of it. I do completely agree with you on the cheesiness of some flying tactics (I saw one lets play where 4 HE dragons, two of them Stars, completely ran roughshod over an entire army for example). While there is a sort of balance in that they rapidly lose morale if there's no ground forces, it still allows you to hide a single ground unit somewhere to avoid that. I'd personally like to see a more gradual approach. I.e. an increasing morale penalty while in the air that depends on army losses, but I'm not sure if that could/would actually work to be honest. Fliers also don't actually work like that in the tabletop either, as they specifically just fly to move around, but always 'land' on the ground between turns and so can be attacked by ground units quite easily (pinning them down was still hard mind). I don't, however, agree on the cheesiness of Malekith specifically, though he is certainly a powerful/flexible Lord choice, especially on his dragon (hence why most seem to use him). Just as often as he's been able to win a fight, I've also seen him taken down or negated for one reason or another (usually either aerial superiority or archers), sometimes quite early, and he costs a lot to field. He, and any big flying lord for that matter, are undoubtedly potential game-winners in the late game though, especially if their counters are taken out and you can dive bomb them with impunity. Anyway, sorry for the wall of text and please don't take the first part of this to be an attack on you or the like, as I do enjoy your content (you're actually the first Total War RUclipsr I subscribed to in fact), it's just something I've been curious about for a while now.
No, you're right, I absolutely make life harder for myself by not always using magic. I'm well aware of it and have probably said it in a video once or twice. And yeah, it's a bigger player in Warhammer 2 so I have been trying to use it more. My disdain for magic is actually rooted in Dark Souls. I don't know if you've played it but, on the PvP side of things in Dark Souls. People can put their stats a certain way and be able to one-shot kill another player with a magic spell. Which home in on you. So if you're pre occupied or misstime a dodge. You're dead... And it took that person ZERO skill to get that kill. He just pushed one button on his controller to cast the spell, and won. And as Dark Souls PvP is very much about melee skill and timing. Magic could be an utter bane. So yeah... Basically the same deal in other games is why I hate it haha. I love a good old skillful melee war! So when I bring a nice expensive strong melee unit in Warhammer. Then Malekith flys over and drops Bladewind on them and oh!.... They're all dead. Cool. Nothing I could do about it. No skill required again eh... Even if I have Archers to shoot at him, it only takes him a second to reel off a complex powerful spell so, he can hit and run it all he wants. So yes. I make things harder, but... I'm not afraid of the challenge! Although I will probably moan about it haha.
I've never played Dark Souls but that sounds...well...really crappy. Definitely not the sort of thing that I'd enjoy either, especially if its a one shot kill like you say on what is (I presume) a single entity game (i.e. you only control one entity, it dies and you lose). I would argue that Warhammer is quite different than that though. Yes, there are some magic spells, particularly when they were more broken (I'm looking at you early game spirit leech!), that made the game worse/more unfun to play. The majority of the time though, when, where and how to deploy your magic is just as much a tactical decision as it is where you target your archers or when to flank, albeit a different sort of tactical decision. Sure, a vortex might wreck the enemy, but if you mistime it then they'll just get out of the way, or if you drop it in a melee you could end up wiping out your own units if it wanders in the wrong direction. Also, using that vortex, especially on overcast, could mean you can't use a different spell when you really needed it later on due to the cost of it as the more magic you use the slower it is to come back without using abilities (and if we're talking about dark elves, they tend to hurt your own units). I can certainly understand the frustration when an elite unit gets targetted by magic but then...how is that different than targetting them with artillery or archers on the approach? Yes, magic is quicker to actually damage them in most cases (dark elf crossbows of almost any sort, for example, can absolutely murder armoured units/entities pretty much as quickly as any spell can in the right circumstances), but it also won't last you as long (as in, magic comes and goes, and you might only use it a handful of times in a game but your units are there all the time). Granted, part of the problem with this is something else that I've seen often mentioned as a critique of Warhammer, and that's the rock, papers, scissors element to gameplay. I can't really argue against that as, again, it comes direct from the TT and, really, it's something that any strategy game with widely different armies are going to have to deal with. Take Malekith for example, if you're a high elf player taking on dark elves then, in the current meta, facing Malekith is a fairly safe bet, and it just so happens that you have a lot of tools to take him out (Tempest to hold him down/damage him, long range archers to whittle him down and a boatload of flyers you can use to bully him/kill him, to name a few). Most of them also aren't one trick ponies, so its not like your dragons or phoenixes will be useless if your opponent picks Malekith on foot or someone else. In this case, the problem is that other factions (Greenskins for example) are a lot more susceptible to being bullied from the air, especially by a caster. Honestly, there's part of that that bothers me, even if it comes from the TT, mostly because of how overly lop-sided some of the fights feel or how situational some of the counters are to try and 'balance' the rosters (anti flying vortexes are a minor example of this). Anyway, sorry again for the wall of text, I guess I'm just trying to convert you to the magic fan club a little (however unlikely that may be). I also really appreciate the answer and the insight.
That poor conga line of orcs... :( I mainly play orcs and have had a lot of trouble dealing with black dragons. The breath attacks can be insanely powerful if they get a lucky hit and they're super tanky with a whole plethora of other good points. I don't think you should feel guilty about your win though, as orcs he should expect dragons and prepare accordingly, so there should definitely be arrers on the field and you shouldn't be letting your wyvern get caught like that under any circumstances since you outrun dragons by a good amount. I'm surprised you recommend Rome II as a starting point though? I haven't played it yet but from what I've seen it seems like a poor game. I'd recommend this over rome II but if somebody was intolerant of fantasy I'd say Shogun II even though I think the best game in the series (assuming I don't say warhammer) is the original RTW.
Hahah Conga line. Yeah, that's true. Yaaa Rome 2 is one of the more polished TWs now I think. It has more factions diversity than Shogun and the AI actually fights in formation to some degree D: There's more management in the Campaign and it's better optimised than Atilla. I think Rome 1/Medieval 2 are a bit too dated for someones first Historical outing. Which would you recommend?
The thing is this isn't a historical game, there should be magic and mythical creatures that fly. Its really hard to balance it, I know you like the historical games tactics without the magic and flying, but this is a Warhammer game - it has to get across the Warhammer aspect as well as it can. I've not played the historical titles since I was a kid but I am looking forward to the Rome 2 expansion to try it out, but Warhammer Total War has become one of my favourite games ever.
What's with this glit on shadows ? It really mess me up. It've never been in previous total war games. Models, effect, textures,, enviroment ... everything looks freakin awesome but shadows are all wrong. Is it happens on every computer or it varies from card to card. Is anyone who does not have this issue ? If so, what's your grahpic card please ?
It happened in Warhammer 1 as well. If you look down on a unit, the shadows will look awesome. But if you look straight at them, they're all blurry. It's weird and annoys me too. I've had 3 GPUs in the past few years and it did it on all of them. I wish they'd fix it too.
After playing mainly Dark Elves when I initially bought the game. I came to the conclusion that dread spears are so bad they are worth no gold at all. They cannot even hold their own against other lowest tier spear units. Regarding the dragons, well personally that's where the game starts you begin with your high power units and work from there. The campaign teaches you to do this by giving you your most powerful leader/unit from day one. If a player whines about flying, magic or breath attacks they haven't learned need to get schooled.
I hate how in total war warhammer units don't really route. They route and then half way through the battle they come back, so even though you are about to win because you already overwhelmed your opponent and mass route their units. Full stacks of units come back to the battle and just destroy you. I hate it so much, either they should route all the way or atleast fight longer. When I played multiplayer on shogun and the other older titles I feel like this problem never happened.
I think it's just a bit too dated for people to enjoy if they're coming from Warhammer. It is my least played TW though to be honest, but I did enjoy it until I tried newer ones.
chameleon skinks anoy me... Had a match up with an army including 6 units of them and a few units of terradons and skink priests on terradons... as Skaven I just got massacred.... hateful game....
You lost your front line cos you charged with spearmen!!! These guys are supposed to stand still to take charges and your's would have lasted much longer had you done this and not charged them.
@@Zerkovich I know they only have a specific charge defence against large units, but they do tend to do better against other infantry when standing still as they still get a small charge defence (as do all infantry as far as am aware), even though this isn't mentioned, rather than charging as their charge bonus is so low, I believe since their melee defence is reasonably high this helps with that, I don't think I've ever charged with spears (except for the odd emergency). Maybe you could do a video testing it out, or just test it out yourself. (Edit, I honestly didn't think you'd reply to a two year old video, al slowly working my way through your older videos).
I would hardly say you were clearly defeated, you made the decision to make a huge investment into 2 Dragons and use of magic with Calvary and a weak Infantry line. HE on the other hand, decided to spam the SAME type of infantry unit, along with improper use of the cavalry he had and did nothing to do away with your expensive air units. The ONLY fault you have to bare, is the fact you overestimated the power of Dreadspears which is one of the cheap line infantry for a clear reason XD
No problem, just take into consideration of what is cheesy and what is truly reasonable. Going with an all air with one ground unit is cheesy, going with a solid mix of both but investing more on air is reasonable. Match-ups are not always meant to be perfectly squared up, if you had gone with a more traditional ground force, he would've mopped the floor with your dreadspears unless you had a few elite infantry or armored ones like the corsairs. Having those dragons were a lucky gamble for if they were Hydras, they'd be dead midway through the game bc he had spammed all anti large hard hitters. I enjoy your videos, keep up the good work!
I don't really think you lost in this case and then cheesed to win. Your two dragons are worth more than 5 units of savage biguns just on cost alone. If you put half of your funds into two units, and the other half of your funds into 18 units, the 2 expensive units are still "half" of your army strengthwise. people tend to forget this, spend all of their army on routing the weak, cheap fodder units that make up the bulk of your numbers, and then don't have enough left to beat the huge investment you put into your 2 or 3 hero units, and think they got cheesed when really they just lost too many expensive units fighting cheap ones
Air superiority winning is a historical inconvenience, as well.
If I recall correctly, Savage Orcs have magic resistance, so that's why your fire spell barely touched them.
Torag55 warpaint. Reduces ..% amount of dmg
Glad that you post wins as well as losses. Not everyone does that. And Just because you almost lost doesn't mean it's still not informative and entertaining. Nice vid!
Ork brought all our choppas an' got all excited 'bout getin some fighin' bit wez forgot our shootas at home.
I think you've won that fair and square. The enemy went incredibly melee heavy on the greenskin big 'uns and lacked basically any range. Now I know ranged on the greenskin side isn't much to speak of, but without it, you leave yourself way too open to flying
Id say the main problem is, do we want it to be more like Total War or more like Warhammer. Because in Warhammer magic is supposed to be powerful, its a fantasy setting were there are units wich can be terribly overpowered. Lore accurate Kholek could smash and entire city with one swing of his hammer for example.
And honestly, this is probably the one chance ca has to do something unique, less competitive and more flavorfull.
So me personally, id prefer a heavier concentration on the Warhammer side rather than the total war side.
And im not going to argue for or against multiplayer because i consider the campain to be "the game" and multiplayer to be more of an add on.
How the flying unit's balance out in other situations I couldn't say, but I feel like if you bring an entire force of beefy melee units to crush your opponents lines like this guy did, you have to expect the opponent to try and take advantage of your lack of missile units.
I don't really have a problem with the tactic. It's not something I really use, but it's part of bringing a balanced army. If you're not going to bring any ranged, then you're clearly at a disadvantage if your opponent brings air units. I've been stung by it a couple of times, and I've noted it was due to my army composition. The same goes for if you bring a majority infantry army with no ranged or cavalry, and complain about ranged Cav picking you off. If you didn't bring anything to counter the possibility, then it's your fault.
Don't forget about the 'no ground units' mechanic though, that will eventually force all air units to route if you don't have anything on the ground. You can test how this works by simply bringing an 'air-only' army, and watch yourself lose almost immediately as your morale drops across the board.
This guy took a risk vs reward scenario. His reward was that he totally smashed the majority of your ground forces. If he had focused on killing your Cav first, he would have won this quite happily, as you wouldn't have had any ground in which to prevent the penalty.
Sure. Some valuable points. I can't help but feel a bit cheap though haha.
I versed my friend who did this with the high elves, and though I won the battle, in the end, it was only after me bitching at him for ruining the match for hiding in the sky.
Your commentary is really appreciated and it’s definitely one of the reasons I watch your videos cause your smart and you articulate your points well cheers good job. I like the variety of these that you never know exactly what’s in store.
Thank you brother **fist bump**
Zerkovich i love the battles that make a point there a nice change and we can learn from it. Love the end of videos where you review the fight and we get your opinion best part if you ask me.
Do the videos that YOU find to be the most entertaining to make and your subscribers will find that to be the most entertaining to watch. Love your videos about different tactics and race coverage so I would personally like more of these :)
well its kinda comparable to chess for me
when you play blitz and win on the board but you have only like 20 secs left to cheackmate with 2 bishops you are not gonna make it cause the enemy king wont go where you want him and he will play it down of course thats something nasty and you think he should resign but its part of the game and his right to do so
so to get this to warhammer the flying unit shit happened to me often and i hated it i used it in my advantage 2 or 3 times as well its annoying as shit but part of the game so you kind have to accept it even tough you might think rightly that its bullshit
also you learn from it you know that you have to prepare for flying units
You really changed your tune when Three Kingdoms came out - and I agree. You (basically) said "no monsters, no magic... Boooooooooorinnnnnnnng". Amen.
he did not bring any missile units, his own fault imho
The thing with low tier spearman units in any army is that while, yes, they have relatively high melee defense (even higher on shielded variants) they still have garbage armor. They don't get smacked in the face as often as low tier swordsman but they also don't deal as much damage and are often marked as "losing" a fight when you hover over them. Fights are a million dice rolls and the ones that connect with your spearmen will WRECK them because they have 30-40 armor and they aren't getting any leadership bonuses from causing casualties so it just mounts quickly and they rout. If you want a cheap wall to hold units so you can have expensive units hammer and anvil all over then sure, run Dreadspears or Ungor Herds or Men-at-arms but don't be surprised when they lose lots of models quickly against high attack units because their armor doesn't mitigate any of the hits that DO go through.
Magic went from support only to nuclear warheads(which makes sense in terms of lore) which I am sort of fine with, IF it were only on lords that are "caster only", so you sacrifice a lot of melee power for them; but then they have lords like Malaketh that can do everything and it became silly, so many DE games just revolve around malaketh surviving.
Same with Krog-Gar in lizards, people have revivication crystal builds that are focused on keeping the guy healthy and rampaging though the entire enemy army.
But with that said, its part of the charm of the Warhammer universe, as someone who used to play a lot of the table top games, this feels a lot like that; I think adapting tactics trying to beat that sort of thing is actually pretty fun, just that Total War Warhammer 2 has made some lords a bit too overpowered and thus overplayed, if you play the Dark Elves online there is a 90%chance he's running malaketh, same with Krog-Gar in Lizard; I think if they just rebalance these two the game is fine.
I don't think CA should change that much about their Warhammer titles since the entire point of the Fantasy setting is to do crazy stuff with supernatural units.
Zerk Thank you for the video.
In my opinion. You had to take his lord in the air, first thing. He had nothing to counter you in the air, two breath weapons on his lord. Then melee attack by your lord and black dragon till he routs, chase him off of the map with your dragon while the lord comebacks to support your front line with terror. Just my 2c
Yeee I'm just not a fan of going straight after an enemy Lord. Unless he's being silly with it.
Interesting you make the points you do about historical titles. I recently picked up Rome 2 and have been enjoying the heck out of it! TW:Warhammer was my first TW title, and I have found that some of the lessons learned with Warhammer -- not least those coming from you! -- have helped me in getting to grips with Rome. To be honest, though, whilst I am finding some of the campaign mechanics daunting (squalor is a cruel, cruel mistress), I would probably say that, overall, I am enjoying Rome 2 a little more than I did Warhammer. I think in large part that's due to what you're pointing out here: the sense of a level playing field in which the match-ups and maneuvers during battle are absolutely imperative for meaningful victory. I know, of course, that these things come into play in Warhammer; but in Rome 2, because all the factions are more or less fielding the same units with minor variations, victory seems to respond more to the actual selection and movement of those units, rather than, say, the judicious use of a fantasy hero or lord ability that amounts to dropping a hydrogen bomb on the opponent. I mean, it looks cool, and I guess it feels good, too. But is the victory it results in really as 'earned' or as satisfying as it would have been if the player had been forced instead to pull off something brilliant with the more mundane units?
Yeah, all very true about Rome. There's more to worry about in the Campaign itself for sure. Lots of management, which is what's missing from Warhammer. And yeah, battles are more of a test and come down to proper application of units rather than relying on some inbalanced mechanic. I think the problem is Warhammer allows people to play mindlessly and unintelligently and still potentially win. People like that, so never bother to learn the game properly, and can just find those exploits for victory.
Love the vids. Especially the live facecam ones. Puts the face to the name with funny gestures adding to the depth of your channel. Keep it up. Random fact i have horrible grammar.
"Savage... bastards!" OMG it was so British :D
I believe you made some fair points here. Though honestly I personally only got into Total War because of the Warhammer adaptation because of my preference to fantasy, not to say I wouldn't enjoy trying the historical titles. On the subject of overpowered units, I do agree it can feel rather "ugh...really?...just...ugh..." when dealing with those situations as you described with Malekith. I can completely understand and rather support the idea of it being rather nonsense that while an entire army can be decimated, one or two "supreme" units can simply still win the day without support.
However at the same time, considering the situation/unit in question, I do think it makes fantasy/battle sense that a giant dragon can seriously decimate infantry (Plus dragons rather play to the Greenskin weaknesses of low leadership and rather limited capability to deal with large monstrous units. That's right! I remember/am referencing your Greenskin guide! Hope Grimgor hasn't demolished your house any more since then.), and at the same time there're numerous answers to flying units as you said. Again I strongly believe you have very notable points here Zerk, but I also believe battle should feel, when it happens, for troops/generals to feel, "Darn it all! DRAGON!!!" Plus I find dragons to be one the flavor units/main strengths playing as an elven faction.
I think there's certainly call for perhaps not straight up nerfing such units, though maybe nerf Malekith by limiting his dragon to a single breath as he already has magic or even lords in general riding dragons so as to save dragon breath flavor for straight up just dragon units (maybe even only 2 breaths at that point, and me being mostly a fan of playing High Elves), but give other factions better/more subtler answers for situations as you've shown here. I think it'd be cool personally if infantry could start just throwing their weapons/rocks off the ground at flying units (much weaker than actual missiles of course, but something is better than nothing right?) or maybe infantry across the board has frontal brace against flying charges. Just ideas, but that's how everything develops right?
Definitely enjoyable to see you daring to put your opinion out as you've done here, and while yes there'll always be those whom harp on others for saying anything negative/criticizing, please know there're those among the audience who probably identify with some of your viewpoints/opinions. Plus what's life without conflict and struggle right? We are playing a war game here after all! xD
Anyways, glad to see more MP battles from ya, and see ya in tha futcha!
Yeeee. I think ultimately, it's just been made all too easy to take advantage of exploits in Warhammer than ever before. And most people use that. And CA do little to counter it, it seems.
You can use corsairs (BAC) instead spears. BAC win vs regular biguns and cost only 600 (vs 800). With fire spells (best DE magik lore) you can annihilate even savages. But not with this spell you used - use upgraded fire sword vs savages - it doubles your damage (more regular damage, fire damage + debuff - fire res; magick damage to counter res.; instead 75% damage you will deal 140-145% damage). Fire ball is BEST damage spell in game - one upgraded spell (only 9 mana; long range; track moving enemy squad) casted from flank (!!!) can deal over 3000 damage and kill over 1/3 of enemy squad (30-40 kills). For example one spell can destroy half squad of swordamsters of hoeth from 300 range and almost entire squad of seaguards! Casted properly fire ball deals same and even more damage then fate of bjuna but cost twice less. Fire cloak is awesome spell on lord or elite units and to restart fire debuff. Other spells are useless vs good human player.
Interesting video because of all the subjects that came up, i agree with most opinions you expressed and keep in mind i'm a long time warhammer fan and have only been into total war for a couple of years.
I think the best way to play any total war warhammer game would be with friends where you can set rules sometimes that ban certain unit types, problem is it costs alot at this point to buy the games and dlc's that you can't really excpect your friends to pay for that.
I love magic -- it requires some serious micro and can backfire -- but agree that flying units can be really very annoying. I wish they'd done something where flying units can only fly when moving and when not "exhausted". As soon as they lose vigor they would have to land. That way, fliers could do their job of flanking and having great mobility, but only for a limited time.
You play games with magic and terrifying beasts. If they are too weak, people start complaining that it hurts the immersion and that it's just a reskin of prior games. Make them too powerful and people complain that it is exploitive and takes away from strategy. It's tough to balance.
to answer your question. I watch your vids to learn about total war so the commentary on why and how you move your units planned tactics and how the opponent reacts are very usefull to me. Not bothered about good in game animations etc. Your comments re unbalance and gameplay are interesting as they are from someone who speaks from experience and not from some fanboy. GOing to try Rome 2 . cheers
lot of hate out there for Rome 2
The reason Bhead did nothing is most likely because savage orcs are spread out when marching. Waiting till they were in combat and in a tighter formation would've been ideal. Then again the dreadspear pick means this is impossible. As for the breath attack all you need to do is aim from the side of the unit, not the front. And greenskins are much more complicated than smash the front tbh, but it is indeed a good way of doing it.
Hey Zerk i know you talk to the CA devs a lot. I was wondering, do you think you can talk to them about how the greenskins might need a bit of a buff in both campaign and multiplayer? The Big Uns dont have any dedicated armor peircing and only have 12 anti large plus they now cost 800 each. Other than Boar Boy Big Uns the orcs dont have any anti large and its a problem to fight lizardmen for example when Big Uns get wrecked by saurus warriors and can barely drive away dinos. Also in campaign the dwarfs always seem to wipe put skaven and orcs mostly becuase the early orc and rat units cant punch through dwarf armor. Thanks for reading if you did
^ This 1000x over.
I actually don't talk to Devs at all. Only the community team, and they have no power to change the game. Even so, there's really no strength to change anything in me on my own either.
The only way to get them to listen about changes, is for you and me and the 28 people that liked your comment, to go and moan about these things on forums, twitter, RUclips, whatever. The mass of disgruntled fans can do more than I ever could alone. They do listen to public feedback to some degree so if it really bothers you. Try to make some noise about it and rally people to your cause, and maybe it'll get read by a Dev who will take note.
And will I do agree to some extent. I think it's just meant to be a Greenskins weakness.
cossack9991 You don't use big UN's against lizards, you use black orcs. Greenskins don't need any big buffs in MP.
TheIceDragon Bud what do you do if the dinos bring like 3 large dinos with massive health and 110 armor each? Not use any anti large?
Zerkovich sorry zerk, i thought since you did all thos videos for CA's youtube channel that you had access to the devs. My mistake
yo man, u said u wanted people to comment, so I'm commenting, firstly I don't find u annoying at all, in fact I find your clear and detailed way of explaining things incredibly useful, secondly, i don't realy mind but I reckon the community will be 50/50 split on the content they would like, I reckon u could make two separate playlists 1 for tips and tricks, detailed guides and such 2 for epic battle scenarios, obviously your content is your own u can do what u like with it just trying to help, love the channel, keep it up and thanks for the content dude
Zerkovich: "My plan here is to move my dreadspears as a front line and then move around with these repeated crossbows and the shades into a very nice missile flanking tactic, and I've got my dragons here to support and also to harass that frontline and do some terror, and breath attacks all across the front"
The opponent: "I'm gonna select my army and right click :3"
Opponent wins
Man I love bloody frontlines (and dreams) being crushed.
Opponent wins? What battle were you watching?
I know 'select + right click' is your favourite tactic you maniac.
Zerkovich you lost your dignity, that's losing
I have to admit that this is quite disapointing. I agree with you, that magic and flying monsters should play support role in the battles, as well as heroes.. I remember times, when we used to play Warhammer Fantasy Battles on the table, as a miniature game. It was a lot of fun [well, you had to paint all those figures before, which was a pain :)]. And then, many years ago we had the same problem.. If you played by the rules from Rulebook, heroes and magic was far to powerful, and instead battles of armies it was battles of heroes riding monsters, with addition of some core units. In this battle here I expected your infantry would last much much longer. I was surprised that they routed all so quickly. Nice video, I like your style of battle reports :)
this explains alot. i always used dreadspears as my frontline and always lose. thanks zerk
I like the fantasy setting but I absolutely loved the siege battles in Rome 2 and when I saw those in the first warhammer I honestly thought it was an aprils joke.
Hahah. Didn't we all.... didn't. we. all....
Malecith's cost accounts also for his magic. Waste of money bringing a second. His vortex is ok vs unarmoured, but soulstealer + malecith=pain train. It regenerates SO MUCH
if i was the orcs i would have kept the boar boys in reserve after taking out your shades for that exact situation. he also kept his troops blobbed, which is a bad idea against dragons and especialy casters. and then once your ammo ran out ud have to engage in glorious melee combat.
The only online tactic I frown upon is spam armies. For anyone unaware that's like if someone only brought dragons. Magic and flying are fine just don't spam.
I think the Warhammer games have allowed the developers to grow in terms of Total War mechanics and design, and I am very interested in seeing how they apply these skills and technologies to the new historical title.
Grow?! The game has shrunk in as many ways as it's grown I think. There are some cool new features but Total War Warhammer has succumb to the 'dumbing down for success' formula that plagues many franchises. If they do this with Historical titles... The series is in trouble. But yeah, there is some exciting things that will hopefully carry over to new games. But some things need to be reversed.
Zerkovich what I had in mind would be something like Rome 2 or Attila but on a truly global scale. Not sure if that's possible but Mortal Empires makes me optimistic. Like Ancient China vs India vs Persia vs Europe etc.
I would definitely like them to return to the more immersive 360 siege battles, but I think simplifying the building chains in campaign for Warhammer has made the game a lot more playable. Also the heroes and magic may be much, but the variety of unit types and strategies for the various races in Warhammer makes the battles a lot more interesting in my opinion. I don't want all infantry and cavalry of all the factions to just be reskins with slightly varying stats.
Im fine with flying and magic but they need to be balanced.
Yay more online battles!!
In the context of the Warhammer game, I think it is more or less fine as is, and we need to adapt to it. It follows the lore and tabletop game reasonably well. If anything most of the spells are underpowered - look at your fire spell in this game as an example - but a notable few are potentially overpowered, so you do see an imbalance there of sorts. In this particular game 2 units of missiles would have wrecked you. I feel we need to adapt to army rosters that can take care of flying monsters and magic and not concentrate wholly on the usual strategies to win matches, which adds another aspect to it which I enjoy. If you want games without magic, as you rightly point out there are many historical total wars out there for that, and I'm looking forward to the next one of those also. This was an interesting topic to discuss and raise, and I understand your points I just don't necessarily agree with them. Keep up the great work, fave TW channel by a mile.
Air and magic superiority are always part of the Tactics. Everything has a counter in each army, depending on the strategy. If they don't think about air superiority, they deserve to lose.
Cheese is cheese, sure the historical total war games didn't have magic or crazy flying dragons but I have 3 words for you "Germanic Spear Phalanx".
I play the first TWW with ArtMoney because i never before played ANY Total War game and f***ed up royaly before getting behind how the economy works in the game.
Now i play a coop campaigne with a friend and seriously hope i don´t mess up too hard. He knows how to TW, but me, well. I learn. But it takes time.
I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WON THAT
I was like "ok, the great Zerkovich lost battles sometimes..."
but wow
The power of the uncatchable Dragon.
kinda wish there was a way to play with just “low fantasy” units. like, no steam tanks and dragons, but you still get great army veriety of different races.
Orcs went from top tier to bottom tier excellent balancing , large rules the game since orcs have no tools against large they get cheesed easily
I'm a fantasy fan. its the only reason I got into totalwar. I love the lore. I'm reading legend of sjgmar right now
Well that's fairy muff.
Hey Zerk, Im always hoping to run into you on quick match. If you ever see "Atticus" holla at your boy lol. You would kick my butt three ways to Sunday but it would be cool to play a game with you. You taught me how to play the game after all
He could always fan out though. Massing in one spot is asking to get nuked
Zerkovich I can't seem to find out the building I need to recruit Orc Savage Bastards in the campaign help pl0x
Hahaha
I use the flame pillar over the skull. Never really found the skull strong
Could you play as the Vampire Counts a bit? I don’t think I’ve seen you play a multiplayer battle as them
I find kroq-gar to be MUCH more annoying than malekith. I was playing a campaign battle once with skaven, and a lvl 10 KG beat my lvl 30 queek, who had about 800 attack and all of his abilities without taking any damage. Mind you this is on legendary, but I feel like KG has bugged animations or something that make him much harder to deal with in any battle than any other lord.
As far as magic being buffs, that's just the general abilities from the historical titles. I don't mind spells being like nukes but the top tier ones should not only cost lots of winds but also drain reserves instantly if they stay at their current strength
Yeah Kroqqy is a bit of a bastud too.
Yeah, some need higher cost. Like Bladewind. I don't like having one of my top units wasted by someone clicking their mouse twice. Especially if my gameplan heavily involves them.
YASS MA BOY ZERK UPLOADED, WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE
I m a big fan of your content and i have a question for you: when the next historical total war will come out will you abandon warhammer?
I like warhammer but attila is much better.Keep it up
I will not. I will see Warhammer to the end. At least to the point of doing all Faction Guides. But I imagine Warhammer will live on pretty well because it's so different than Historical.
To many people use cheesy strategies great videos
The reason that your flaming skull did no damage is because they have high magic resistance.
They have physical resistance, not magical.
I thought for savage orks their leadership and moral was their armor
For the battles: upload both hilarious stuff like this, and great tactical victories. Why choose when you can upload both? Whatever happens, happens. As for the dragons, I'd make the breath attack only work on missile units due to whatever made up reason. That being said, I think its fair dragon tears through units when its down there as long as it takes some damage while doing so.
Its Big UNS not BIGINS, they are not Frodo Baggins friends! :P
Ey! Didnt you say something in the last video like "yeah I got reckognized quite often, but its good because they know how I am playing and I am forced to try out different units and tactics!"? ;P
edit: because you wanted to hear suggestions for dark elve army builds: heirofcartage had a nice one built around several units of shades which worked quite well against the high elves(there is also a video if you wanna take a look). his opponent had a lot of phoenix guards and they got totally ripped (or better shot) into pieces.
edit part 2: I know what you mean by "overpowered magic". I didnt play the old total war stuff but I played warhammer tabletop. and in the 8. edition the magic became suddenly extremely powerfull and casting just one spell could seriously destroy almost the whole army of the opponent if the person is exploiting it. and even if he/she doesnt it can influence the battle drastically. My solution would be just a little checkbox infront of the online battle to forbid all magic.
About the flying units... well, I am not a big online player so I cant judge the situation. But isnt there kinda a penalty if you hide in the air too long without any ground units? In your situation of the video: first of all if you hate it so much you could have also given up ;). But in any case I wouldnt say you were hiding sooooo much. I mean at the end you just waited to use all your breath attacks before going back to the ground. And at the end you paid for this ability. The same for the terror: thats the problem with all big monsters. If you cant kill it during the battle you will have a problem at the end, especially with low moral units. I mean you showed this by yourself in another video ;). Also I think he could be more carefull with his general and yeah he could bring some anti-large artillery. that was the risk of the army build.
I did. But there's only so much one can do! Plus I can still try some weird builds anyway! :D
I've got another fella lined up for another build as I didn't get much response on that front haha. But thanks for the mention.
Thanks for the input Chief!
Zerkovich, considering the comment you make at the end of this video (regarding magic and cheesy tactics), have you considered trying Total War Arena now in closed beta? I really appreciate your approach to Total War and therefore would love to hear of your impressions of that game. Not a big fan of supporting Wargaming.net, but Creative Assembly seems well worth it.
I'm yet to try it but probably will when it hits open beta.
I am at tier 5 greek archers and roman arty. Playing just one unit type for all three units gives the game a focus which other total war battles with 20 units lack. Hope it promotes teamwork. Thanks for the reply and enjoy your helpful approach to the subject. Looking forward to your thoughts on TW Arena.
Any more army guides on the way?
Yo yo yo! It's your boy Zerkovich! Love your vids bro.
There's nothing wrong with your opinion man don't act like people on here don't want to hear it. That being said I personally love riding MALIKITH yes and blasting people with spells and breath and dropping my Dragon on them. I really love this game. Never played any other total wars tho but I want to. I do feel like a new counter other fractions though as in I don't feel like each faction and Jen fight against every other effectively. It is definitely possible but it is something I noticed versus total war Warhammer one. That being said again I really love dragons and if you're any of the elves people should expect a dragon from you especially since they are so much better now. Also I'm not gonna lie I fucking well I was putting leaders on dragons or just having dragons slam into people
I am personally not the biggest fan of hiding in the sky stuff since that basically changes the victory condition from defeat the enemy army to remove all their units that can deal with units in the sky. So kill all their archers and flying units and you win the match which is kind of dull imo.
Let them hide in the sky, just target what land units they actually have. If they've spent money on flying units then the land units will be cheap
I get why Zerkovich would feel that way about flying units and magic since he seems to be a big fan of ancient real world strategy and tactics but I don't agree. If someone is able to hide in the air then to me that means you failed to bring the right units. Not to mention the high cost of those units he had in the air was a big contributing factor to the ground war being lost so totally since the air units were so expensive so to me its just like any other give and take between picking your other units.
Sure, fair point man.
I️ apologize if I’m not the first one to say this (after a quick scan of the comments) but although savage orcs don’t have any armor they have painted bodies which gives them a higher passive resistance to magic. That’s probably why your fire spell didn’t do a lot to them
It's a physical resistance, not a magical one. You can see the buff on their unit card.
@Zerkovich. Ohhh ok my bad I️t has been awhile since I️ played greenskins
Learnings!
Also you already addressed your issue with the battle and that was you didn't know the units as well.
meh errors in micro can happen
I see these exploits and unbalances as a challenge to overcome.
Say that after someone brings 5 Black Dragons on ya
I have faced 4 in one game. Lothern Seaguard are now my must take against Dark Elves.
Well, I just think you won because you had an advantage over him, that's is absolute fair, if he was a bit more prepared to fight dark elves, he would have brought with his army some orc archers and that was his flaw and his defeat... there's no rule saying that a fiar battle should be fought with feet on the ground.
This is true. I just can't help feeling a bit dirty with my Dragons haha.
haha
that's part of the fun too :D
btw, looking at this match, it does seem that "unit matching on the battlefield" has more weight than pure strategy... do you think so?
Absolutely. Sometimes you just get a terrible match up. But that's actually when you need tactics the most.
I have 4 units of DARKSHARDS.
charging those spears was not a good idea at all, they usually have much higher melee defence and that charge bonus is not really worth it, no wonder he's got wrecked there soon
They don't have a charge defence against infantry?
Charging is a better idea than standing there unless it was Cav or Monsters.
Savage orks are da best orks! :P
I don't really think that dragons or malakith are op, especially if you play skaven. Anytime I play high elves or dark elves I bring a couple lightning cannons and the plague book on my lord. And a couple globadiers. That deals with any flying monsters in a hurry.
maybe an adjustment to the magic would be good, but if you do not include ranged units its totaly your fault,
more so if your strategy is to charge and cross your fingers
Yeah that's probably the case pretty much ahah
ramble all you want you are not a machine to pump out videos and much of the enjoyment is getting these different points of view. i personally like the magic and sky tactics though i will say they need mechanisms for some races to at least stand a chance against others or a way to prevent race abuse. he fought dark elves and should have expected dragons end of story, air power is an important part of war. my issue now is how would the orcs even counter the dragons with such poor archers? i know not all races match up equally, they shouldn't its part of the draw of warhammer, and i really don't think you made a deliberate choice to get a race advantage considering the disgust you have expressed for such things in the past but some extra options for some races would be good
Fucking dragons.
Orcs and Skaven - why do you like all factions i hate?
To start with, I'll be upfront that I:
1. haven't actually played the game (can't run it),
2. haven't played previous total wars (I bought Rome 1 and Medieval 2 to give them a try a while ago but my PC committed suicide before I could actually play them and I haven't been able to get a new PC since), and
3. have played other strategy games (albeit, mostly base-building ones like the first Dawn of War and the Red Alert franchise)
So by all means take what I say/ask as the musing of a pleb ;).
Anyway, I'm curious about how you use magic/your general attitude towards it now, Zerkovich because I seem to recall from several lets plays (Wood Elves and Chaos come to mind specifically, but I'm sure that there's others) that you either don't use or rarely use magic.
That being said, if your anti-magic stance (either not using it, or not using it much) is still around then perhaps that is part of the issue? Yes, it's changed since 1 so that magic is more impactful as that's something a lot of people complained about (it also more accurately represents the Tabletop game its based on, but that's not strictly relevant) but even in 1 you had to take magic (and flying units, which IIRC aren't in any previous TW games either) into account when fighting in campaign and multiplayer.
Couldn't it be argued that not using them is like, for example, not using cavalry, spears or archers, even when those units might be exactly what you need? I'm not arguing on the liking or not aspect here, more a practical point of view as I have worried in the past that you make life more difficult for yourself by not using magic, as the game is designed for balance with the use of magic in mind.
To take an example from another RUclipsr I watch content for: LegendofTotalWar has come around to heroes in his latest campaign. In particular the use of magic, as he's ended up turning around difficult fights with well placed spells (specifically, using Burning Head to decimate opposing lines of infantry) which work well with his typically defensive play style, at least in campaign.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you SHOULD use magic, especially if its not to your taste/play style and if you don't want to then I'm certainly not going to belittle you for doing so, as the whole point is to play the game how you want. I'm just arguing that if you don't tend to use it then you'll end up suffering as a result as the game is designed with magic being an integral part to the game (especially so in 2 as opposed to 1).
As for liking magic, I personally like that aspect of the game (which probably won't surprise you due to the above comments), but then I'm a big fantasy buff, used to play the table top game (both fantasy and 40k) and generally like that sort of thing. I can fully understand not personally liking the mechanic itself though, especially for those who prefer/are more used to the more historical games, but it is a massive part of the source material and for many (including me) a big appeal of it.
I do completely agree with you on the cheesiness of some flying tactics (I saw one lets play where 4 HE dragons, two of them Stars, completely ran roughshod over an entire army for example). While there is a sort of balance in that they rapidly lose morale if there's no ground forces, it still allows you to hide a single ground unit somewhere to avoid that. I'd personally like to see a more gradual approach. I.e. an increasing morale penalty while in the air that depends on army losses, but I'm not sure if that could/would actually work to be honest.
Fliers also don't actually work like that in the tabletop either, as they specifically just fly to move around, but always 'land' on the ground between turns and so can be attacked by ground units quite easily (pinning them down was still hard mind).
I don't, however, agree on the cheesiness of Malekith specifically, though he is certainly a powerful/flexible Lord choice, especially on his dragon (hence why most seem to use him). Just as often as he's been able to win a fight, I've also seen him taken down or negated for one reason or another (usually either aerial superiority or archers), sometimes quite early, and he costs a lot to field. He, and any big flying lord for that matter, are undoubtedly potential game-winners in the late game though, especially if their counters are taken out and you can dive bomb them with impunity.
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text and please don't take the first part of this to be an attack on you or the like, as I do enjoy your content (you're actually the first Total War RUclipsr I subscribed to in fact), it's just something I've been curious about for a while now.
No, you're right, I absolutely make life harder for myself by not always using magic. I'm well aware of it and have probably said it in a video once or twice. And yeah, it's a bigger player in Warhammer 2 so I have been trying to use it more.
My disdain for magic is actually rooted in Dark Souls. I don't know if you've played it but, on the PvP side of things in Dark Souls. People can put their stats a certain way and be able to one-shot kill another player with a magic spell. Which home in on you. So if you're pre occupied or misstime a dodge. You're dead... And it took that person ZERO skill to get that kill. He just pushed one button on his controller to cast the spell, and won. And as Dark Souls PvP is very much about melee skill and timing. Magic could be an utter bane. So yeah... Basically the same deal in other games is why I hate it haha. I love a good old skillful melee war!
So when I bring a nice expensive strong melee unit in Warhammer. Then Malekith flys over and drops Bladewind on them and oh!.... They're all dead. Cool. Nothing I could do about it. No skill required again eh... Even if I have Archers to shoot at him, it only takes him a second to reel off a complex powerful spell so, he can hit and run it all he wants.
So yes. I make things harder, but... I'm not afraid of the challenge! Although I will probably moan about it haha.
I've never played Dark Souls but that sounds...well...really crappy. Definitely not the sort of thing that I'd enjoy either, especially if its a one shot kill like you say on what is (I presume) a single entity game (i.e. you only control one entity, it dies and you lose).
I would argue that Warhammer is quite different than that though. Yes, there are some magic spells, particularly when they were more broken (I'm looking at you early game spirit leech!), that made the game worse/more unfun to play.
The majority of the time though, when, where and how to deploy your magic is just as much a tactical decision as it is where you target your archers or when to flank, albeit a different sort of tactical decision. Sure, a vortex might wreck the enemy, but if you mistime it then they'll just get out of the way, or if you drop it in a melee you could end up wiping out your own units if it wanders in the wrong direction. Also, using that vortex, especially on overcast, could mean you can't use a different spell when you really needed it later on due to the cost of it as the more magic you use the slower it is to come back without using abilities (and if we're talking about dark elves, they tend to hurt your own units).
I can certainly understand the frustration when an elite unit gets targetted by magic but then...how is that different than targetting them with artillery or archers on the approach? Yes, magic is quicker to actually damage them in most cases (dark elf crossbows of almost any sort, for example, can absolutely murder armoured units/entities pretty much as quickly as any spell can in the right circumstances), but it also won't last you as long (as in, magic comes and goes, and you might only use it a handful of times in a game but your units are there all the time).
Granted, part of the problem with this is something else that I've seen often mentioned as a critique of Warhammer, and that's the rock, papers, scissors element to gameplay. I can't really argue against that as, again, it comes direct from the TT and, really, it's something that any strategy game with widely different armies are going to have to deal with.
Take Malekith for example, if you're a high elf player taking on dark elves then, in the current meta, facing Malekith is a fairly safe bet, and it just so happens that you have a lot of tools to take him out (Tempest to hold him down/damage him, long range archers to whittle him down and a boatload of flyers you can use to bully him/kill him, to name a few). Most of them also aren't one trick ponies, so its not like your dragons or phoenixes will be useless if your opponent picks Malekith on foot or someone else. In this case, the problem is that other factions (Greenskins for example) are a lot more susceptible to being bullied from the air, especially by a caster.
Honestly, there's part of that that bothers me, even if it comes from the TT, mostly because of how overly lop-sided some of the fights feel or how situational some of the counters are to try and 'balance' the rosters (anti flying vortexes are a minor example of this).
Anyway, sorry again for the wall of text, I guess I'm just trying to convert you to the magic fan club a little (however unlikely that may be).
I also really appreciate the answer and the insight.
That poor conga line of orcs... :(
I mainly play orcs and have had a lot of trouble dealing with black dragons. The breath attacks can be insanely powerful if they get a lucky hit and they're super tanky with a whole plethora of other good points. I don't think you should feel guilty about your win though, as orcs he should expect dragons and prepare accordingly, so there should definitely be arrers on the field and you shouldn't be letting your wyvern get caught like that under any circumstances since you outrun dragons by a good amount.
I'm surprised you recommend Rome II as a starting point though? I haven't played it yet but from what I've seen it seems like a poor game. I'd recommend this over rome II but if somebody was intolerant of fantasy I'd say Shogun II even though I think the best game in the series (assuming I don't say warhammer) is the original RTW.
Hahah Conga line.
Yeah, that's true.
Yaaa Rome 2 is one of the more polished TWs now I think. It has more factions diversity than Shogun and the AI actually fights in formation to some degree D: There's more management in the Campaign and it's better optimised than Atilla.
I think Rome 1/Medieval 2 are a bit too dated for someones first Historical outing.
Which would you recommend?
M I S S L E F L A N K
I still hate units being tied to a general
I'm new to the game and I'd really like to know how you turn on the unit card in the bottom left corner pls help
Press i
Thanks Zerk
The thing is this isn't a historical game, there should be magic and mythical creatures that fly. Its really hard to balance it, I know you like the historical games tactics without the magic and flying, but this is a Warhammer game - it has to get across the Warhammer aspect as well as it can. I've not played the historical titles since I was a kid but I am looking forward to the Rome 2 expansion to try it out, but Warhammer Total War has become one of my favourite games ever.
Absolutely. I love the fantasy aspect of the game. I just think CA could do more to stop the abuse of some things.
What's with this glit on shadows ? It really mess me up. It've never been in previous total war games. Models, effect, textures,, enviroment ... everything looks freakin awesome but shadows are all wrong. Is it happens on every computer or it varies from card to card. Is anyone who does not have this issue ? If so, what's your grahpic card please ?
It happened in Warhammer 1 as well. If you look down on a unit, the shadows will look awesome. But if you look straight at them, they're all blurry. It's weird and annoys me too. I've had 3 GPUs in the past few years and it did it on all of them. I wish they'd fix it too.
After playing mainly Dark Elves when I initially bought the game. I came to the conclusion that dread spears are so bad they are worth no gold at all. They cannot even hold their own against other lowest tier spear units. Regarding the dragons, well personally that's where the game starts you begin with your high power units and work from there. The campaign teaches you to do this by giving you your most powerful leader/unit from day one. If a player whines about flying, magic or breath attacks they haven't learned need to get schooled.
sUpA sEcRe(T) pR0FiLe
Medieval 2 is the best Total War of all time.
I hate how in total war warhammer units don't really route. They route and then half way through the battle they come back, so even though you are about to win because you already overwhelmed your opponent and mass route their units. Full stacks of units come back to the battle and just destroy you. I hate it so much, either they should route all the way or atleast fight longer. When I played multiplayer on shogun and the other older titles I feel like this problem never happened.
Well, he defeated your army BECAUSE of the black dragons, they cost you a lot of money and meant your army was weaker
Post more often pls
how could u not recommend med 2? best historic title..
I think it's just a bit too dated for people to enjoy if they're coming from Warhammer. It is my least played TW though to be honest, but I did enjoy it until I tried newer ones.
different tastes for different people i suppose, i just prefer the older engine
chameleon skinks anoy me... Had a match up with an army including 6 units of them and a few units of terradons and skink priests on terradons... as Skaven I just got massacred.... hateful game....
Ranged builds are real yo.... Hard times.
Zerkovich yeah and skaven dont really have a lot of answers for such a built or am i missing something 🤔
Korg
"Rome 2 is a great game!" Oh... well okay then. It isn't my opinion of the game but to each there own.
And why is that?
Zerkovich I thought Rome 2 was a buggy mess
You lost your front line cos you charged with spearmen!!! These guys are supposed to stand still to take charges and your's would have lasted much longer had you done this and not charged them.
Only against large. Their charge defence doesn't protect them when charged by infantry.
@@Zerkovich I know they only have a specific charge defence against large units, but they do tend to do better against other infantry when standing still as they still get a small charge defence (as do all infantry as far as am aware), even though this isn't mentioned, rather than charging as their charge bonus is so low, I believe since their melee defence is reasonably high this helps with that, I don't think I've ever charged with spears (except for the odd emergency). Maybe you could do a video testing it out, or just test it out yourself. (Edit, I honestly didn't think you'd reply to a two year old video, al slowly working my way through your older videos).
I would hardly say you were clearly defeated, you made the decision to make a huge investment into 2 Dragons and use of magic with Calvary and a weak Infantry line. HE on the other hand, decided to spam the SAME type of infantry unit, along with improper use of the cavalry he had and did nothing to do away with your expensive air units. The ONLY fault you have to bare, is the fact you overestimated the power of Dreadspears which is one of the cheap line infantry for a clear reason XD
All good points. Didn't really look at it like that, thanks.
No problem, just take into consideration of what is cheesy and what is truly reasonable. Going with an all air with one ground unit is cheesy, going with a solid mix of both but investing more on air is reasonable. Match-ups are not always meant to be perfectly squared up, if you had gone with a more traditional ground force, he would've mopped the floor with your dreadspears unless you had a few elite infantry or armored ones like the corsairs. Having those dragons were a lucky gamble for if they were Hydras, they'd be dead midway through the game bc he had spammed all anti large hard hitters. I enjoy your videos, keep up the good work!