Dark Riders have their uses, but on any difficulty above Normal the CPU stat bonuses render them ineffective at actual combat. When you have to use them in defensive garissons, you can get value out of them by harassing the enemy without making contact, which often splits up the enemy army so you can defeat in detail.
Really? I never recruit them, but many times I have used dark riglders to excelent effect while defending, since garrisons have them. They are quite fast and pack just enough punch to really effectively handle range units or rear charge the enemy line. I play on normal battles though, so that may be why. I have no desire to play where balance is juat thrown out the window and the enemy gets insane buffs for no reason. It just doesn't sound fun to me.
The man gives the people what they want. I really appreciate the thought and explanation behind these videos. Such dense (through all of your play time) material but conveyed in a straightforward manner. Nuance is there when needed but you cut through the chaff which is nice. Keep up the great work, fucker.
@@damienreilly4347 I can see why you say that. But as someone who is borderline suicidal because of my insane job requirements as a teacher (even more insane this year), it came from a genuine place. But yes, still definitely kiss arse. Cheers fuckers.
I feel like The Empire would be the most interesting tier list because their armies demand versatility and unit cooperation. Very few units can be doomstacked most will fall in the A-C range.
Like in the tabletop, Empire is "Jack of all trades, master of none" and might be the most balanced race in the game. It's actually pretty neat, now if we could only do something about those campaign mechanics
For the Medusas, both variants, you should have also taken into consideration settlement buildings since I think they are a tier lower and you are going to build the sorcery chain for increased hero capacity anyway. I'd still rank the Medusas the way they were here since they take too long to recruit, the settlements you can recruit them at are out of the way, and they don't support your damage dealing units very well. I'd like to see a Lizardmen tier list too.
Supposedly the Medusa got a projectile upgrade in the last patch so that they can fire over melee troops, but still shoot their usual fast projectile when not obstructed. They completely wreck infantry units in melee clumps and have a much easier time getting those shots now. The Shrine tends to get stuck in melee and its ranged attack has a minimum arming distance so it is much harder to use.
I must say I really like the tier list format, much more than the "top 5". It goes much more in depth with pros & cons for each unit compared to only pros or only cons of the "top/bottom 5" list. It's exhaustive so you're not missing the unit of which you want to have your opinion on. And finally it seems that you're enjoying them more which (maybe I'm wrong though). Just waiting for the tier list for my Lizardbois when all the feral units are going to be trashed while I'm in the middle of a Nakai "Kroxigors + Feral dinos army" campaign. :p
Manticores are entirely disposable, 1 turn recruit time means you can just throw 19 manticores at a problem and do at all over again next turn. Also costs peanuts in an black ark.
Yeah I get a hoard of manticores or vargheists and just hurl them at the archers. It's like a fire and forget missile. If they live? Cool. If they die? Who cares. They kill off the archers well and they're cheap.
I play at hard battle difficulty, and at hard battle difficulty I can throw a manticore at a hellcannon, forget about it, and the manticore will probably win. Even if it doesn't, who cares? Really convenient against Chaos Invasions.
Witch elves are recruited at tier 2 when playing as Cult of pleasure and since they need to build the Cultist gathering chain (public order/chaos corruption) building in every province they are B tier whie playing that faction Also with CoP medusae are tier 3, so player can spam those in early game and do well
Witch elves are A tier in hellebron's army ;) Legend is using an Admiral to show the tiers, which is different than settlements. It's for all the Dark Elf factions. Witch elves tier 2, snake ladies tier 3.
Yea, I'd put Medusae at A tier just for that reason - yer ALWAYS gonna spam their building (more so than shades) and they're tier 3 in major settlements. Harder from black arks, so I do see where Legend's coming from though.
They also cause rampage, so even if they suck at fighting they can force lords and other high value targets to stand their ground while you shoot them down.
It would be kind of hard because of race-only traits like Nurgles Foul Stink or Dread Incarnate that basically make you auto-win when stacked. I suppose Disciplined is the only A-tier trait that every race has access to and if you discount the Dwarfs it would be Knowledgeable. Unfortunately, after those two the pickings are rather slim with only minor upgrades like +5 Leadership or +10% movement, etc.
"If I rate a particular unit as trash, it doesn't mean it's a weak unit, or it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad." BuT LegeNd, BleakSwOrds aRe my FavoRiTe uNit! Thanks for another great tier list
With Dark Elves as my favourite campaign race to play, I feel like their cav is just absolutely useless, which is so annoying against high elves and lizardmen, their main opponents in campaign. Idk to be honest since my playstyle is very aggressive as I was originally a chaos/beastmen player.
I’ve used a unit of shard cavalry here and there to success. They’re useful to pull Agro, kite, and all can run down artillery in melee. Obviously my opinion(tm), it’s more how this game works rather than the cav being good
Yeah, I can usually overpower lizardmen, but vanilla low tier fighting is where I struggle more. Melee, and the high elf spears just seem to stand up to a lot of punishment. I probably just suck.
I dont even recruit cav against high elves since even their archers even have spears. But i have a lot of success using cold one knights to counter lizardmen cav or do some hit and run damage to dinos because of their anti large, also dread knights will rip up skink lines or rear charged saurus. Cold ones also are good for screening kroxigors before they can reach your infantry. Dark riders suck though
Cold One knights, both regular and dread, are pretty bad. Dark Riders are pretty bad. I've never used Doomfire Warlocks. But Crossbow Dark Riders are pretty damn good skirmishing cavalry.
Hello, as a player who have a lot of difficulties with the questions "which buildings to build in priority?" and "how to build my army for this race?", your tiers lists help me a lot and allow me to approach campaigns more serenely ! So, a big thank you to you ;)
Keep the Tier Lists coming! Very effective for High Elves, and as a HE beginner, I found a ton of value in your rankings and frequently referenced your rubric. Greenskins, pretty please... *crosses fingers*
Dont forget that this tierlist is for very hard battle difficulties. So all of melee infantry would suck whatever u do, no chances. But! In normal battle difficulties (which I think is more enjoyable) elite infantry can do real shit. Swordsmasters of hoeth would deal really good (and glorious, goddamn beautiful) work against other melee factions like vampires, norsca, orcs and others - for example ;)
Love the tier list videos. But a quick recomendation, when you compare two units like you did with the chariots, do it in the recruitment tab so you can pin them and see the difference in stats. If you want of course. Have a nice day :)
Very cool. Remember than Admiral recruit tiers are different than Settlement tiers. For example Witch Elves are actually tier 2, and regular Medusae are tier 3.
Hey Legend, I think you would benefit by adding an "unrecruitable" tier for units that you personally think are good but never recruit because of their associated building. You've mentioned before that if you capture a settlement that has one of those buildings, recruiting them is fine.
I would love to see a Lizardmen tier list, particularly to hear if anything has changed in your rating after the changes that came with Oxy. Particularly the shifting of dinosaur units around the build tiers.
On tabletop the Kharibdyss actually heals itself as well, in a vampiric sort of way by dealing damage (basically eating their victims). Disappointed it doesn't work like that in Total War.
I totally agree with the tier list, with one small detail. I wouldn't put Dark Riders (shielded, unshielded) at thrash. I mean, yeah, they're trash BUT they're T2 unit with very high speed. When I'm going for a missile army (and I usually do), I tend to get 1 or 2 units of dark riders. And their role is not to deal damage, but to split huge enemy armies. The AI is dumb and when you flank with fast cav, it sends units after them even if they can't catch them. So the Dark Riders split the army, the Darkshard deal with the main force, while 4 or more units chase around the Dark Riders. In most cases, it's not really necessary, but with large armies or garrison sallying out, this can really make a difference and 2 units of Dark Raiders are better than 2 units of Darkshards.
honestly I prefer scourgerunners or the dark riders for crossbows for this. Scourgerunner in particular are great, because they can fire while moving so deal damage even while baiting the army away.
This! I usually use one of them to scatter archers in skirmish mode so they cant shoot my units. Dont know if thats a thing in higher difficulties tho. Besides that they are really Bad imo
>when you flank with fast cav, it sends units after them even if they can't catch them Interesting trick. Why not Doomfire Warlocks or Scourgerunners then? Difference between T2 and T3 is very small and they both are way better than Dark Riders.
Oh definitely. I wouldn't be anywhere at the level I am now if it wasn't for Legend. I've gone from barely scraping by in normal difficulty with balanced armies to playing fairly comfortably in VH/VH with a variety of factions and races.
@@Regnier575 His siege "cheese" (feel weird calling it a cheese because it just seems sensible to remove the enemy towers, and selectively take out ranged before raining death on them.... but I guess it's cheesy to abuse AI passivity) made me a way more competent player by itself.
@@JB-xl2jc Yes same! And just generally wasting their ammo in most battles helped too. People can give Legend shit all they want but he's entertaining and has helped far more people than any haters.
I'm happy to see sisters of slaughter being a bit higher despite being melee infantry. I think they are a super cool unit and efficient or not, I love to recruit them. Shields plus decent phys resist and poison once they reach melee actually make them surprisingly tanky too.
Yeah, if ranged units weren't OP in Warhammer they'd definitely be way up there. Melee units are really just there to rush ranged units and prevent the other side from doing the same, and most factions have single entity units that do it way better. Which I don't like, but that's how the cookie crumbles.
Based on my experience with DE, I completely agree. I wish more of their monsters had some regen, and I regret how frustrating the low-range of the Corsair Handbows is, really limits their effectiveness.
Dark Riders actually have a use, as a suicide Bomber with Dark conduit. Since they naturally appear in minor settlements you don`t even have to recruit them and they can help defend against smaller armies that just want to annoy you by retaking settlements. A minor settlement without walls can actually defend against 8-12 units of infantry that way.
one of the key things you missed about executioners and dread knights is that for tier 4/5 units, their entities die incredibly fast. I'm convinced they're bugged and CA has just ignored them because their stats do not reflect how squishy they are in combat
against legendary AI you can pretty much just flip the tier list upside down except the obviously shit DE units like cav and harpy. Their monsters are 2 tiers lower because easy to kill for ranged (which is most of your army in legendary). Their ranged units don't get any better with AI modifiers so they are 2 tiers lower. Their melee infantry get absurd stat modifiers so 3-4 tiers higher across the board. This is assuming legendary battle modifiers. Also when AI fight other AI its always with autoresolve so some units are autoresolve advantageous. That's a separate tier list but in essence higher tier = better autoresolve performance most of the time.
@@torquevonthorne948 except for shadow warriors. Usually with archers you can send a unit to them and they would skirmish and stop shooting. With shadow warriors they keep shooting which removes the AI’s stupidness. And surprisingly, the AIs LOVE to do shadow warrior doomstacks due to it being a tier 3 barrack unit.
Cold one knights and dread knights forego EVERYTHING that makes the Doomfire Warlocks (and any decent cavalry at that) good, they are reaaaally bad but at some point I remember they got nerfed and they are nigh unusable right now. I blame the decision of multiplayer balances being applied to campaign for them sucking so bad... Edit: Also guys, try not to blame the mp players too much, end of the day CA is the one that makes the choice to carry the mp changes over to campaign and they alone have the power to stop doing that, rather than the guys who play multiplayer.
Well said lads. Theres way more camp than mp players. I love legend but my armies are always well balanced and lacking cheese and I hate to see mp whining changing units on campaign
I think this is your best video series, you do this very well Would love to see this tier list for every faction and also heroes/normal lords at some point
Damn these tierlists make me realize how much different of the game Wh2 is in MP with limits. Dark Riders are probably the best light cav and Manticores are outright broken.
Love it, would just mention that i'd give Harpies higher score with Rakarth, maybe A or B, as they are quite good with him early-mid game like corsairs are with Lokhir. Those sweet melee bonuses wreck everything as they can pick out single units en masse.
Really appreciate the effort you put into these efforts, it's so good to have a comprehensive look at what you consider to be top tier units as some really do seem like filler and used for meme-ability.
I think witch elves are a good candidate for B tier because their inflict frenzy and speed is super useful for tying up skirmish and archer units. They're also not bad in a fight.
i would really think of witch elves as the ranger counterpart due to their similar traits of 20% physical resist and low armor but higher speed instead of black ark corsairs which have good armor and arent as fast
A couple harpies (especially as Rakarth) are usually good to have versus high elves because they trigger the skirmish mode on archers and do damage fairly quickly. For the most part they're like the doomfire warlocks: super squishy but have some tactical uses.
Also a good hack for fast flying creatures triggering skirmish mode: send them on walk to chase down archers. It pushes the archers away for longer with skirmish mode.
Really hope you continue this, it is helpful for trying new races with a notion of early, mid, late game rosters and what mistakes to avoid....also go algorithm RUclips fly!!!!
If you still actually wonder why scourgerunner chariots are tier 3, and cold one chariots tier 4, the answer is entirely in the armourpiercing weapon damage. This game hugely values armourpiercing. Also, in cities (for Malekith, but since someone said CoP too, I guess all dark elves), medusae are tier 3, so definitely A-tier, and early game doomstacks even, imo, when the AI is spamming a lot of infantry. Medusa shrines are still tier 5 though. Quality content again, really enjoying these unit tierlists! Would love a skaven tierlist next!
A tier list covering all the generic lords of each race would be nice! we know enough about all the LL, and for a lot of people that dont know all the diplomacy tricks, they often have more generic than legendary lord in their campaign. nice video keep'em coming!
Love these videos where you go into depth about what you consider when deciding whether a unit's good or bad! Another idea I'd love along these same lines (now that all the DLC is out) is to do "Ideal Army Compositions" for factions - where you talk about what units in what numbers to (generally) go for for early, mid, and late game, taking things like (non-legendary) lords, heroes, siege attackers, price, maneuverability, and usual enemies into consideration. You touch on these subjects when you do "Rate my Doomstack/Save my Disaster" videos, I'd just love to see a "what you Would do", having seen a lot of "what you Wouldn't do".
Really appreciate the clarification on the shade "stat" thing, I definitely thought their armor piercing missiles were different because of what you pointed out. My only suggestion for these videos is that maybe you could add hero's to the tier list as well, I would love to hear your opinions on the differences in effectiveness between things like Assassins and Sorcerer's, as I always keep a fire sorcerer in my DE stack, with Assassins running op's on the campaign map, but maybe you've found a reason to keep them in your armies. Thanks again for another fire video!
The shades' stats blurbs aren't wrong, it's just that they're all about the shades' melee weapons, not the shades' missile weapons. A reason to keep assassins in an army is if you're concerned about the general's loyalty, the assassins have a skill that can "encourage" the general to be more loyal :).
@@michael14195 right, but the fact one say's "armor piercing missles," and the other say's "armor piercing" would easily mislead people to think only the one listed has bolts that pierce armor, as he explained in the video. Definitely a good tip about the loyalty tho haha!
Lizardmen is gonna be a weird one, taking into account how the roster is very polarized between most dinos being really good and most infantry being really meh or outright bad. Im VERY curious of what legend's opinion is on Lizards roster due to this.
Looking at this tier list, Dark Elves don't look as Pay 2 Win as the High Elves do with their DLC (Sisters of Averlorn), is that correct? The tier list makes it seem that DLC units are nice and add spice to the roster but aren't critical to an enjoyable campaign with the base Dark Elve factions. Are there added mechanics or anything that suggest that DLC like Queen and the Crone or the Malus Darkblade are necessary? I played a Dark Elf campaign ages ago without the Queen and Crone DLC and still had fun, just wondering if there was any key FOMO in the campaign meta P.S. Awesome tier lists btw Legend!
Is one of the solution for melee infantry is to lower their recrutement tier? The max tier for infantry should be 3? I dont know if they would be too powerful early game and maybe CAV would be more useless than now. Great video Legend!
It's also their upkeep and recruit cost is insane for what they actually do. 325 on Black Guard when Shades cost 237 and Darkshard Shields cost 162 is just way too expensive. Lowering their recruitment tier would also be a massive buff to the AI where as upkeep is a problem only the player has, so that's probably where the buffs should be moreso. I do think you could make them tier 4 and it be fine but I think tier 3 is too much, but no melee infantry should be tier 5
Pretty much agree with everything. I personally go for Greatweapons Shades but as Legend said, it's about personal preference and play style. Lizardmen would make sense for the next video as they're a TWW2 launch race same as High Elves and Dark Elves. Then Skaven. I'm happy to wait for the Greenskins tier list.
I have several hundred hours on dark elf and I've never bothered to check shades missile strength and simply assumed greatswords must be the best. I need to try duel weapons more. Thanks Legend.
Great work as usual @LedgenofTotalWar. One critique would be to maybe lower the music volume slightly as somtimes it's a little too loud. Other than that, top tier video!
This is a great series! Keep it up! Finish out the elves listing before moving on, I think keeping the lists together with races with similar playstyles helps for comparative purposes.
Would not agree: The Darkshards as low tier AP missile unit and the arks as cheap mobile high xp recruitment base additionally bypassing supply lines and reduce upkeep are the dark elves unique features. I would even go so far to say they can be stronger then the high elves, but it's more difficult to get there.
@@0786RICARDO they are better once you get them all buffed up and in the army of a lord with either shadowdart or barbstorm, otherwise i’m pretty sure sisters are better
Would like to see Lizard men as they are the race I struggle with understanding their units the most that or norsca. Two hardest factions for me to play and beat.
This shows how valuable these are. I like ones for races I play, because it refines and informs my choices. I love ones about races I don't play, like DE, as I now have a good idea where to start once I do try them. Much appreciated.
The only problem I have with the Scourgerunner Chariots is that they always get massacred in auto resolve. It's like the artillery always dying levels of loses. My army sometimes get through an auto resolve unscathed but the Scourgerunner Chariots die to the last model.
Thank you so much for making this tier list! I've watched a few videos as a new TWW3 player and played the game a few times but still none of them broke it down in game as easily to understand list and WHY you think this is where the units are as yours even with it being TWW2 list (not that there is a huge difference in the roster in Warhammer 2 vs 3 for Dark Elves lol). Found this super informative and helpful (as I have your streams :D)
I really like the tier lists. They are kinda cliche, but they are honestly a very good system to convey a lot of information and put it into perspective
I'd love an empire Tier list, I'd also love a faction-power comparison video, especially seeing as it's something that you've explicitly left out of your legendary lord power comparison videos. Feel like it'll work as a really strong compliment to them and can be a great place to clear up some misconceptions and explain some strats, even if a lot of the rankings are likely going to be fairly obvious.
So what I’m getting from all this is that the most dangerous units for cost to come out of Naggaroth is a bunch of outlaws and some fire breathing snake. Considering the sheer balls it take to survive as an outlaw in a society as dangerous as the Dark Elves’, the main surprise for me is that the regenerating fire breathing snake monsters can keep up with them.
The reason Scourgerunner Chariots are tier 3 units that are better than the tier 4 Cold One chariots is that Scourgerunner Chariots are a DLC unit and Cold One chariots are a base game unit. Pay your real life $, get better units. Black Guard are good tarpit units, e.g. against monsters, at lower battle difficulties where the AI doesn't get so many melee buffs. They have the psych immunity which is tailor-made for fighting creatures with fear or terror. They also have a niche use in Vortex where you can recruit them in one turn at high rank from a landmark building in Naggarond, and then Malekith pays only half maintenance if they're in his personal army, and since it's Vortex Malekith is likely to be hanging around Naggarond a lot to defend it from the ritual invasions. So if someone is playing Dark Elves for the first time, and it's a Vortex campaign, and they're probably not playing at the highest battle difficulty, Black Guard have a place. But I absolutely wouldn't use them if I were playing at higher battle difficulties like you do. I play with cost-based army cap and I usually keep a manticore in each army, because they are REALLY CHEAP and really mobile and I can just target them at something squishy that the AI would normally keep in a hard-to-get-at place behind its lines, and forget about them. At hard battle difficulty they can kill hellcannon, and that's a really good trade. If they die, they die; did I mention that they are really cheap? But if you're playing with vanilla rules so you have all the money you might need anyway. The crossbow horsemen are good flanking troops if you're fighting an AI army without cavalry. They can quickly move around the enemy's flanks and shoot into the rear of the enemy's units instead of having to shoot over your own units like the infantry archers do. Shades can also sneak around the enemy's flanks but they can also get caught in melee while they are trying to do that.
Cold One Chariot is ok but the only time you will use it is when starting as Malekith. Hydras for me is more of an auto resolve stack, back in the days just put one Hydra Ark at both Northern and Southern of Ulthuan, and the new world Chaos invasion end in one turn. Good old time.
I feel like dreadspears are actually viable flank guards even later(mid?) into the campaign depending on your army roster. They're really easy to recruit and cheap too. I'd rate them at B personally. I'm not the best player though, but they're worked reliable for me against silver helms and other cheapish cav/monsters.
The problem on higher difficulty is that they get shredded real fast. They dont have amazing armor or melee defence, they dont have any good ability or resistance. Also the buffs they get from the red line are very mediocre. So on normal, sure, as a meatshield they are okay, they can delay enemies while your shades rip them apart, but on very hard they will loose 2/3 of the entities from a Elonian reaver charge
They do the job of disposable road block very well. I think that Legend meant he didn't feel DE needed that. Personally, I use them until I can get hydras to tarpit, and replace my darkshards with shades. Shades have no need of a meatshield, and hydras do a better job of pinning the enemy. But darkshards and dreadspears can work perfectly well right up to the late/midgame.
Legend regular medusa units are built at a settlement tier 3 building, which you are definately gonna have loads of due to increasing sorceress capacity.
Although some people here say a Beastmen tier list would be kinda predictable, I think it´d be really insterenting to have some advice about some of their units like Centigors for example, since I never knew how to make them perform better than minotaurs. Nonetheless an Empire tier list would be pretty sweet
Love this style of video, bit more thought and time goes into this than a SYDB I bet, and it shows. SYDBs are also good, but I'm enjoying this a lot. In regards to shades, I always interpreted the Armour piercing missiles as "only missiles are AP" vs armour piercing meaning "melee and missiles are AP". Bit misleading I agree but not straight up wrong. Some descriptions in unit cards ARE straight up wrong. CA why you gotta make a mess?
Really enjoying these tier lists, also found the damage explanation super useful. I watch your streams to understand the game and these are great peeks into how it all works... I hope you do this for all the races :)
Sisters of Avelorn lead by Alarielle can beat maxed out shades army because she can also heal them and give them phisicayl resistance with spells. While the shades will unleash a couple of volleys first because they stalk and slighty better range, the sisters would win with Aly casting heals and protective spells. And probably they could win in melee too having 43 ma 61 md at rank 7
Even with the nerf in the twisted and twlight dlc, waywatchers are still prolly the best, and hell, it does make sense for them to be the best ranged unit the game
I think you need a D tier on these lists. In the mid and low tiers there's a lot of overlap between units that really aren't on par whit each other. But I really like how these lists take they logistic side of things like cost, installment and recruitment times. Also, yes to Lizardmen next :)
A small annotation: Under Rakarth the Charybdiss does have a breath attack in his army with one of his skilltree nodes. Not a major advantage, but it is something to mention. Otherwise i wouldn't spam them either due to the reasons listed.
Legend, I really appreciate these. I do have a request: a simple video (so you don't have to dump a ton of time on it) maybe giving a couple examples of how you might pick these in comps and maybe some good (or less obvious) synergies in the army. I love your content, but you have one of the most extensive content libraries on one topic... and I'm a working dad. Heck, you might even be able to link back to previous streams with timestamps so you don't have to demo what you're describing. Anyways, fantastic job. Looking forward to more.
its a bit of a shame with the Black Guard, everthing un the game, that uses a halberd should be good against everything. Its just the best meleeweapon, that was used in real history.
Wait... what? Halberd was the best melee weapon used in history? Since when? Halberds are very hard to use in dense formations because they're long swingy things, as opposed to the best melee weapon for disciplined infantry (the spear) or the best melee weapon for undisciplined infantry (the sword). Halberds were given to guards for that very reason - they aren't in tightly packed formations or crushed melee so they can make full use of the weapon's swings.
@@deadlyydude5522 they are very versatile, and it was less skill needed to craft them. Most normal Toolmakers where able to. And in Combat you have a higher range than a sword, and they don't have the Problem, that spears have, that when the enemy was to close, you can't realy use your weapon very well. But I'm open to other opinions, just say, why you think other weapons are better not just halberds aren't the best :D
@@Mythralblade04 You have a point, but i still would say, the halberd is better than a spear, if the user is skilled. and you don't want undisciplined soldiers with a sword. Using a sword isn't easy and it needs a lot of skill too, to use it right, maybe a mace would be a better weapon for unskilled or unexperieced fighters. But thanks for your Comment i appreciate it :) Edit: But i should not say only halberds, but rod weapons...spear with shield might be the best for a bigger Formation, but i will stay with my Choice.
@@chron3262 Yea, gotta disagree with you. A sword is a sharp club. Sure you can MASTER it with a ton of effort, but the bar for EFFECTIVE use is really low (unless you're looking at specialized/massive variants). Basically, consider this; the Halberd was used in a couple areas for a short period during Medieval Europe specifically. the Sword and the Spear were worldwide and their usage lasted for millennia. It's because the designs are simple, they're easy to use, and they're scarily effective with minimal investment. Halberds were given to guards for the same reason that two-handed swords were given to guards - they're effective at clearing space around the wielder. That's fantastic for a guard, much less so for a rank and file soldier (because you want your friends in the space around you instead of it being empty). Look at the basic mechanics - a halberd needs about 3ft of clearance on either side of you to be swung effectively without hitting your own side. If you were using a spear instead, your two buddies could be occupying that space with THEIR spears. Additionally, the people BEHIND you could also be stabbing with THEIR spears (and let's not go into trained phalanxes that would have the third and fourth ranks ALSO stabbing with their spears). A single halberd cannot compete against that amount of metal on target. Saying a Halberd is best is like saying that the Katana is the best sword ever. It looks cool, it's effective within it's realm, but armies used the weapons they did for a reason.
26:11 if Manticores had a tech that removed rampage they could be pretty good. They're okay on Rakarth if you use them as emergency summons to protect a settlement since you can farm them easily by raiding in the chaos wastes. Since you only need them for one or two battles If say you need an emergency helper for your garrison during the chaos invasion they can shut down Hellcannons.
just a note on harpies: they fight REALLY well in the air (they win 1v1 vs dragons in melee combat on very hard+ difficulty, i think because they get a full surround off), and for rakarth they cost basicly nothing. As for dark elf magic synergy vs high elf synergy: yes healing is best for dragons/monsters doomstack, but the shadow +50% AP damage buff on your entire army with one cast can be pretty amazing too.
I always like to have one or two flying units to deal with unguarded artillery. The manticore with terror can route artillery without rampaging and is more efficient at it than a big dragon. There's actually nothing much in your higher tiers to deal with artillery given the DE will often be outranged.
That’s because of how he plays. You don’t need artillery if you have another siege attacker and are attacking yourself. You can then always waste ammo.
This videos are great. I guess that all who watches Legend knows what he think about certain units (Manticores :)), but it is really nice to see all of this in one video. More of this please!!!
Unit Roster Ranking Request: 1) Empire 2) Dwarfes 3) Lizardmen Always very factual and without unnecessary chitchat and at the same time very entertaining! Keep up the great work!
One nice thing about the manticore is that it has siege attacker and only takes one turn to recruit. If you've got an army that doesn't want to be shackled to defending an artillery piece, it makes sense to take one. And they can be sacrificed to destroy artillery if needed, or deployed in situations against any unit with weak melee stats and no missile support. Bloodwrack medusae can be made to work very well in melee despite being so fragile, and their missile attack is quite strong. Their big advantage over shades is that you can freely use dangerous fire magic near or on top of them and they can surround a monster or an isolated infantry unit and take it down quickly with melee strikes rather than needing to use ammo. their melee stats aren't the best, but you can put so many of them in one spot that it usually doesn't matter. And against anything that it would matter against, you can use their ranged attack. Very enjoyable unit to play with if you're bored of shade spam. Biggest weakness is anti-large artillery, but that can be dealt with in various ways.
the thing about the scourgerunner chariot is that is part of DLC, unlike the cold one chariot, so that sort of "explains" why it's avaible earlier and performs better... tbh don't see a reason to complain here, because often with dlc units in the game the opposite will happen, and you'll end up with very little reason to ever recruit the dlc unit in higher difficulties because they just don't perform well or are too expensive or maybe become avaible very late in the campaign when you don't need them anymore. love the work on these tier list, looking forward to the other factions :D
I've played more campaigns with Dark Elves than any other race, and I think this is a pretty good tier list. I have a few differences of opinion, naturally, but they aren't big. A big difference in the way I play them vs. Legend is that I use a 4-unit front line to defend my missile units where Legend usually doesn't. He tanks with lords and heroes. Dread Spears do this fine. Sisters of Slaughter also do this well, except they fall a little too quickly to missile attacks. They have very high melee defense, but very little armour. When I get rich I tend to use Black Guard if I have time to recruit them. I agree that for fighting battles the Dark Elves has no cavalry worth recruiting; they just die. What's funny is how well they do in auto-resolve. This goes for the chariot units as well, which auto-resolve seems to love. Manticores are a joke, except for Hellibron's, which is what you should put her on when you can. I hate Corsairs with Handbows, and consider them garbage tier. I know they can stalk, and fire while moving, but their short range and lack of AP early makes them underwhelming to me. I rarely put more than one Black Dragon in any army, and often it's only the one the Lord is on once she gets to that level. I like using Supreme Sorceresses for my lords. Shades with Dual Weapons are the best, in my experience. I've fought them side-by-side with regular shades and Shades with Great Weapons, and they out-perform both. They just barely out-perform Shades with GW, but once you factor in the extra turn for recruitment it's a no-brainer. Medusas are OK, but I never recruit them any more, because there are better units to take that slot.
Great videos, keep it up man. One suggestion I have is that you could include a theoretical army composition at the end of the video, something you would go with, some situational/synergy picks. Just for example, I rly like to run 1 unit of Harpies in my armies - just to run down routing enemy forces/taking out some occasional artillery pieces.
IMO harpies are actually really good at hunting down squishy targets and archers so that your shades can prioritize shooting the high-value targets they want to be melt. They accomplish what light cavalry are meant to do while having the safety of being airborne to avoid most of the units that would mow them down in sustained combat.
The problem is he is recommending these based on very hard battle difficulty where a lot of AI controlled ranged units will get extra melee stats and be able to beat the harpies. At witch point they could only be used as a distraction witch legend prefers actual units that deal damage like a darkshard unit, over distraction ones. On normal difficulty almost every unit in the game is viable.
Legend, the Total War's Gordon Ramsay
Never have I read a sentence so perfectly descriptive of a person than this
ITS F*CKING RAAAAW
@@KokkeliMonke1311 IT'S F*CKING MEELE INFANTRY!
@@indrickboreale7381 Imao I hope CA tone down ranged or address melee in WH3.
@@victuz I hope more for cavarly buff
I used Dark Riders twice in the defensive battles. In the first one they lost to Skaven slaves, the second they lost to dire wolves
Once I charged them into backs of beaten Swordmasters of Hoeth (they had ~50% health left) and they got 1 kill
Dark Riders have their uses, but on any difficulty above Normal the CPU stat bonuses render them ineffective at actual combat. When you have to use them in defensive garissons, you can get value out of them by harassing the enemy without making contact, which often splits up the enemy army so you can defeat in detail.
Really? I never recruit them, but many times I have used dark riglders to excelent effect while defending, since garrisons have them. They are quite fast and pack just enough punch to really effectively handle range units or rear charge the enemy line. I play on normal battles though, so that may be why. I have no desire to play where balance is juat thrown out the window and the enemy gets insane buffs for no reason. It just doesn't sound fun to me.
Cav is fucked in TWW at the moment.
I lost mines to high elf archers in meele, charging them in the back at full speed, you look arround for 5 secconds andddd it is gone
The man gives the people what they want. I really appreciate the thought and explanation behind these videos. Such dense (through all of your play time) material but conveyed in a straightforward manner. Nuance is there when needed but you cut through the chaff which is nice. Keep up the great work, fucker.
The ending got me so good man
"Harpies, TRASH, do I really need to get into it? No? Okay let's move on."
Legend is the perfect balance of information and entertainment lol
Well said lol especially that last bit
The biggest kiss arse comment ive ever seen hahaha
@@damienreilly4347 I can see why you say that. But as someone who is borderline suicidal because of my insane job requirements as a teacher (even more insane this year), it came from a genuine place. But yes, still definitely kiss arse. Cheers fuckers.
I feel like The Empire would be the most interesting tier list because their armies demand versatility and unit cooperation. Very few units can be doomstacked most will fall in the A-C range.
Like in the tabletop, Empire is "Jack of all trades, master of none" and might be the most balanced race in the game. It's actually pretty neat, now if we could only do something about those campaign mechanics
I second this.
Agree 100%
19 hellstorm rocket batteries say what?
@@ThePenitentSquirrel might I introduce you to a hellstorm battery doomstack?
For the Medusas, both variants, you should have also taken into consideration settlement buildings since I think they are a tier lower and you are going to build the sorcery chain for increased hero capacity anyway. I'd still rank the Medusas the way they were here since they take too long to recruit, the settlements you can recruit them at are out of the way, and they don't support your damage dealing units very well.
I'd like to see a Lizardmen tier list too.
Morathi gets the first sorcery building at tier 3, so the medusas are a bit more viable with her
Supposedly the Medusa got a projectile upgrade in the last patch so that they can fire over melee troops, but still shoot their usual fast projectile when not obstructed. They completely wreck infantry units in melee clumps and have a much easier time getting those shots now. The Shrine tends to get stuck in melee and its ranged attack has a minimum arming distance so it is much harder to use.
I must say I really like the tier list format, much more than the "top 5". It goes much more in depth with pros & cons for each unit compared to only pros or only cons of the "top/bottom 5" list. It's exhaustive so you're not missing the unit of which you want to have your opinion on. And finally it seems that you're enjoying them more which (maybe I'm wrong though).
Just waiting for the tier list for my Lizardbois when all the feral units are going to be trashed while I'm in the middle of a Nakai "Kroxigors + Feral dinos army" campaign. :p
Manticores are entirely disposable, 1 turn recruit time means you can just throw 19 manticores at a problem and do at all over again next turn. Also costs peanuts in an black ark.
i feel like flying monsters in general deserve a shit ton of asterisks because they make current siege battles all the bit more bearable
I agree. I only use them as a way to have a cheap siege attacker and if I don't have a bolt thrower.
Yeah I get a hoard of manticores or vargheists and just hurl them at the archers. It's like a fire and forget missile. If they live? Cool. If they die? Who cares. They kill off the archers well and they're cheap.
I play at hard battle difficulty, and at hard battle difficulty I can throw a manticore at a hellcannon, forget about it, and the manticore will probably win. Even if it doesn't, who cares? Really convenient against Chaos Invasions.
Well idk about getting 19, but yeah they have a place. Darkshards are just so good I often forget to recruit anything else
Lizardmen would definetly be great for the next tier list. Also can't wait for the beastmen if we ever get one
theres no doubt with beastmen
minotaurs is the doomstack
Malagor is the doomstack
I’m waiting for the Norsca episode. Watching legend demolishing their roster and only filling up trash.
Witch elves are recruited at tier 2 when playing as Cult of pleasure and since they need to build the Cultist gathering chain (public order/chaos corruption) building in every province they are B tier whie playing that faction
Also with CoP medusae are tier 3, so player can spam those in early game and do well
Witch elves are A tier in hellebron's army ;)
Legend is using an Admiral to show the tiers, which is different than settlements. It's for all the Dark Elf factions. Witch elves tier 2, snake ladies tier 3.
Also with Medusa you want the building for the hero and research. Plus the first settlements building is built at tier 3.
Yea, I'd put Medusae at A tier just for that reason - yer ALWAYS gonna spam their building (more so than shades) and they're tier 3 in major settlements. Harder from black arks, so I do see where Legend's coming from though.
They also cause rampage, so even if they suck at fighting they can force lords and other high value targets to stand their ground while you shoot them down.
@@Mythralblade04 Also they are fast enough to retreat and keep firing, to chose their fights and disengage combat.
Think we could get a trait tier list ? Like knowledgeable and such
I think that would be hard to do in tierlist because there is no picture for traits
It may be different for different races, eg Skagen like the cunning trait but other factions probs don't really want it
Maybe race unique traits? So he can rank them base on their usefulness to the Faction.
It would have to be by race and it would be a very long and time consuming list to create but it would definitely be useful
It would be kind of hard because of race-only traits like Nurgles Foul Stink or Dread Incarnate that basically make you auto-win when stacked.
I suppose Disciplined is the only A-tier trait that every race has access to and if you discount the Dwarfs it would be Knowledgeable. Unfortunately, after those two the pickings are rather slim with only minor upgrades like +5 Leadership or +10% movement, etc.
"If I rate a particular unit as trash, it doesn't mean it's a weak unit, or it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad." BuT LegeNd, BleakSwOrds aRe my FavoRiTe uNit! Thanks for another great tier list
Harpy doomstack!
@@canadianeh4792 contact okoii
@ikit taylor it means it's Garbage, :D
You’re literally crying about a made up scenario!!🤣🤣🤣
@@retroplayer56 huh
With Dark Elves as my favourite campaign race to play, I feel like their cav is just absolutely useless, which is so annoying against high elves and lizardmen, their main opponents in campaign. Idk to be honest since my playstyle is very aggressive as I was originally a chaos/beastmen player.
I’ve used a unit of shard cavalry here and there to success. They’re useful to pull Agro, kite, and all can run down artillery in melee. Obviously my opinion(tm), it’s more how this game works rather than the cav being good
Yeah, I can usually overpower lizardmen, but vanilla low tier fighting is where I struggle more. Melee, and the high elf spears just seem to stand up to a lot of punishment. I probably just suck.
I dont even recruit cav against high elves since even their archers even have spears. But i have a lot of success using cold one knights to counter lizardmen cav or do some hit and run damage to dinos because of their anti large, also dread knights will rip up skink lines or rear charged saurus. Cold ones also are good for screening kroxigors before they can reach your infantry. Dark riders suck though
Cold One knights, both regular and dread, are pretty bad. Dark Riders are pretty bad. I've never used Doomfire Warlocks. But Crossbow Dark Riders are pretty damn good skirmishing cavalry.
Hello, as a player who have a lot of difficulties with the questions "which buildings to build in priority?" and "how to build my army for this race?", your tiers lists help me a lot and allow me to approach campaigns more serenely !
So, a big thank you to you ;)
Keep the Tier Lists coming! Very effective for High Elves, and as a HE beginner, I found a ton of value in your rankings and frequently referenced your rubric.
Greenskins, pretty please... *crosses fingers*
UwU
Dont forget that this tierlist is for very hard battle difficulties. So all of melee infantry would suck whatever u do, no chances.
But! In normal battle difficulties (which I think is more enjoyable) elite infantry can do real shit. Swordsmasters of hoeth would deal really good (and glorious, goddamn beautiful) work against other melee factions like vampires, norsca, orcs and others - for example ;)
Loving this Tier List videos from someone with so much context about the game!
Love the tier list videos. But a quick recomendation, when you compare two units like you did with the chariots, do it in the recruitment tab so you can pin them and see the difference in stats. If you want of course. Have a nice day :)
It almost feels like, that legend felt insulted on a personal level by the awfulness of those trash units.
Very cool.
Remember than Admiral recruit tiers are different than Settlement tiers.
For example Witch Elves are actually tier 2, and regular Medusae are tier 3.
You can really feel Legends love towards the Cold Ones
Hey Legend, I think you would benefit by adding an "unrecruitable" tier for units that you personally think are good but never recruit because of their associated building. You've mentioned before that if you capture a settlement that has one of those buildings, recruiting them is fine.
I would love to see a Lizardmen tier list, particularly to hear if anything has changed in your rating after the changes that came with Oxy. Particularly the shifting of dinosaur units around the build tiers.
Like this series. Do Lizards next! Much needed, especially after recent DLC.
On tabletop the Kharibdyss actually heals itself as well, in a vampiric sort of way by dealing damage (basically eating their victims). Disappointed it doesn't work like that in Total War.
I actually hoped they would make it a tier 5 unit with better abilitys like it has in lore/possibly tabletop
So they should have The Hunger?
I totally agree with the tier list, with one small detail. I wouldn't put Dark Riders (shielded, unshielded) at thrash. I mean, yeah, they're trash BUT they're T2 unit with very high speed. When I'm going for a missile army (and I usually do), I tend to get 1 or 2 units of dark riders. And their role is not to deal damage, but to split huge enemy armies. The AI is dumb and when you flank with fast cav, it sends units after them even if they can't catch them. So the Dark Riders split the army, the Darkshard deal with the main force, while 4 or more units chase around the Dark Riders. In most cases, it's not really necessary, but with large armies or garrison sallying out, this can really make a difference and 2 units of Dark Raiders are better than 2 units of Darkshards.
honestly I prefer scourgerunners or the dark riders for crossbows for this. Scourgerunner in particular are great, because they can fire while moving so deal damage even while baiting the army away.
This! I usually use one of them to scatter archers in skirmish mode so they cant shoot my units. Dont know if thats a thing in higher difficulties tho.
Besides that they are really Bad imo
>when you flank with fast cav, it sends units after them even if they can't catch them
Interesting trick.
Why not Doomfire Warlocks or Scourgerunners then? Difference between T2 and T3 is very small and they both are way better than Dark Riders.
Its always funny how Legend is suprised people think highly of his opinions. People are tuning in because of all of your knowledge!!
Oh definitely. I wouldn't be anywhere at the level I am now if it wasn't for Legend. I've gone from barely scraping by in normal difficulty with balanced armies to playing fairly comfortably in VH/VH with a variety of factions and races.
legend is knowledgeable, +5 winds
Some people are seriously into "staunch line of spears" and can get quite heated about it
@@Regnier575 His siege "cheese" (feel weird calling it a cheese because it just seems sensible to remove the enemy towers, and selectively take out ranged before raining death on them.... but I guess it's cheesy to abuse AI passivity) made me a way more competent player by itself.
@@JB-xl2jc Yes same! And just generally wasting their ammo in most battles helped too. People can give Legend shit all they want but he's entertaining and has helped far more people than any haters.
I'm happy to see sisters of slaughter being a bit higher despite being melee infantry. I think they are a super cool unit and efficient or not, I love to recruit them. Shields plus decent phys resist and poison once they reach melee actually make them surprisingly tanky too.
Yeah, if ranged units weren't OP in Warhammer they'd definitely be way up there. Melee units are really just there to rush ranged units and prevent the other side from doing the same, and most factions have single entity units that do it way better. Which I don't like, but that's how the cookie crumbles.
Based on my experience with DE, I completely agree. I wish more of their monsters had some regen, and I regret how frustrating the low-range of the Corsair Handbows is, really limits their effectiveness.
Dark Riders actually have a use, as a suicide Bomber with Dark conduit. Since they naturally appear in minor settlements you don`t even have to recruit them and they can help defend against smaller armies that just want to annoy you by retaking settlements.
A minor settlement without walls can actually defend against 8-12 units of infantry that way.
one of the key things you missed about executioners and dread knights is that for tier 4/5 units, their entities die incredibly fast. I'm convinced they're bugged and CA has just ignored them because their stats do not reflect how squishy they are in combat
Would be interesting to do vice versa as well.
How dangerous the units are in the hands of the AI.
Under the AI control every cavarly unit gains one tier level, every missile unit loses 2 tier level.
against legendary AI you can pretty much just flip the tier list upside down except the obviously shit DE units like cav and harpy. Their monsters are 2 tiers lower because easy to kill for ranged (which is most of your army in legendary). Their ranged units don't get any better with AI modifiers so they are 2 tiers lower. Their melee infantry get absurd stat modifiers so 3-4 tiers higher across the board. This is assuming legendary battle modifiers.
Also when AI fight other AI its always with autoresolve so some units are autoresolve advantageous. That's a separate tier list but in essence higher tier = better autoresolve performance most of the time.
@@killcount6994 Depends heavily on army composition. Two dragons in the AI army are easy to shoot down. Ten dragons and you are in big trouble.
@@torquevonthorne948 except for shadow warriors. Usually with archers you can send a unit to them and they would skirmish and stop shooting. With shadow warriors they keep shooting which removes the AI’s stupidness.
And surprisingly, the AIs LOVE to do shadow warrior doomstacks due to it being a tier 3 barrack unit.
@@JayJay-wf2oe Seems to me they prefer lothern sea guards to them, probably because they have higher defence
Cold one knights and dread knights forego EVERYTHING that makes the Doomfire Warlocks (and any decent cavalry at that) good, they are reaaaally bad but at some point I remember they got nerfed and they are nigh unusable right now.
I blame the decision of multiplayer balances being applied to campaign for them sucking so bad...
Edit: Also guys, try not to blame the mp players too much, end of the day CA is the one that makes the choice to carry the mp changes over to campaign and they alone have the power to stop doing that, rather than the guys who play multiplayer.
Fucking multiplayer clowns...they're the ones that rant the most about the game. Completely useless bunch, those guys
@@Anand70707 Especially since it's like 5 people playing it, which is BS then to balance things around the loud minority
Well said lads. Theres way more camp than mp players. I love legend but my armies are always well balanced and lacking cheese and I hate to see mp whining changing units on campaign
They've always sucked though
@@russellthewonderbeast3265 you ment well varied?
I think this is your best video series, you do this very well
Would love to see this tier list for every faction and also heroes/normal lords at some point
Damn these tierlists make me realize how much different of the game Wh2 is in MP with limits. Dark Riders are probably the best light cav and Manticores are outright broken.
I have seen manticore strats and agree xD Dunno about Dark Riders, I find them quite useless if there is any counter cav
Regular Dark Riders suck in MP too, their combat stats are just weak. Dark Riders with Repeater Crossbows however are great there.
@@Philipp1500 lol wut? Do you even play MP?
These guides are really nice and informative. I love these to bits. Cant wait-wait for you to make the skaven list, yes-yes.
Love it, would just mention that i'd give Harpies higher score with Rakarth, maybe A or B, as they are quite good with him early-mid game like corsairs are with Lokhir. Those sweet melee bonuses wreck everything as they can pick out single units en masse.
" I hate them" "absolute crap" well.... Guess its time to send legend some cold one stack then
Im going to make a guess before I see the video:
S tier - every single ranged.
S+ - Ikit claw
ABSOLUTE POOOWAAH!!
@@DzinkyDzink they really should've given him this line
Most traveled rat
Really appreciate the effort you put into these efforts, it's so good to have a comprehensive look at what you consider to be top tier units as some really do seem like filler and used for meme-ability.
I think witch elves are a good candidate for B tier because their inflict frenzy and speed is super useful for tying up skirmish and archer units. They're also not bad in a fight.
i would really think of witch elves as the ranger counterpart due to their similar traits of 20% physical resist and low armor but higher speed instead of black ark corsairs which have good armor and arent as fast
Absolutely love this Mr. Legend :D Would be lovely if u could turn the music down a lil bit :)
A couple harpies (especially as Rakarth) are usually good to have versus high elves because they trigger the skirmish mode on archers and do damage fairly quickly. For the most part they're like the doomfire warlocks: super squishy but have some tactical uses.
Also a good hack for fast flying creatures triggering skirmish mode: send them on walk to chase down archers. It pushes the archers away for longer with skirmish mode.
AI doomfire warlocks are cracked as fk. They can wipe out anything.
Really hope you continue this, it is helpful for trying new races with a notion of early, mid, late game rosters and what mistakes to avoid....also go algorithm RUclips fly!!!!
If you still actually wonder why scourgerunner chariots are tier 3, and cold one chariots tier 4, the answer is entirely in the armourpiercing weapon damage. This game hugely values armourpiercing. Also, in cities (for Malekith, but since someone said CoP too, I guess all dark elves), medusae are tier 3, so definitely A-tier, and early game doomstacks even, imo, when the AI is spamming a lot of infantry. Medusa shrines are still tier 5 though. Quality content again, really enjoying these unit tierlists! Would love a skaven tierlist next!
Keep up the good content!
I say do either an Empire tier list but I’m happy to wait for you to do them later on.
A tier list covering all the generic lords of each race would be nice! we know enough about all the LL, and for a lot of people that dont know all the diplomacy tricks, they often have more generic than legendary lord in their campaign. nice video keep'em coming!
Lords and heroes.
Watching you really improved my play style. Thanks sincerely Legend
Love these videos where you go into depth about what you consider when deciding whether a unit's good or bad! Another idea I'd love along these same lines (now that all the DLC is out) is to do "Ideal Army Compositions" for factions - where you talk about what units in what numbers to (generally) go for for early, mid, and late game, taking things like (non-legendary) lords, heroes, siege attackers, price, maneuverability, and usual enemies into consideration. You touch on these subjects when you do "Rate my Doomstack/Save my Disaster" videos, I'd just love to see a "what you Would do", having seen a lot of "what you Wouldn't do".
would love the Dwarf-unit tier list next ; )
He will put Slayers in the Trash Tier, it will be grudgin'
Lots of units in A tier, maybe just the bugman rangers in the doomstack level.
They are all trash
@@mickethegoblin7167 Elgi lover!
@@indrickboreale7381 Never!
Really appreciate the clarification on the shade "stat" thing, I definitely thought their armor piercing missiles were different because of what you pointed out. My only suggestion for these videos is that maybe you could add hero's to the tier list as well, I would love to hear your opinions on the differences in effectiveness between things like Assassins and Sorcerer's, as I always keep a fire sorcerer in my DE stack, with Assassins running op's on the campaign map, but maybe you've found a reason to keep them in your armies. Thanks again for another fire video!
The shades' stats blurbs aren't wrong, it's just that they're all about the shades' melee weapons, not the shades' missile weapons. A reason to keep assassins in an army is if you're concerned about the general's loyalty, the assassins have a skill that can "encourage" the general to be more loyal :).
@@michael14195 right, but the fact one say's "armor piercing missles," and the other say's "armor piercing" would easily mislead people to think only the one listed has bolts that pierce armor, as he explained in the video. Definitely a good tip about the loyalty tho haha!
I love these tierlists!
Keep them coming! Lizardmen would be cool to do next for sure
Lizardmen is gonna be a weird one, taking into account how the roster is very polarized between most dinos being really good and most infantry being really meh or outright bad. Im VERY curious of what legend's opinion is on Lizards roster due to this.
@@varo2122 yeah agreed. Im very mixed with lizardmen in general and def think they need a rework in the future.
people saying what tier list should be next but you do you, whatever, you are awoseme and this tier lists are also great
Looking at this tier list, Dark Elves don't look as Pay 2 Win as the High Elves do with their DLC (Sisters of Averlorn), is that correct? The tier list makes it seem that DLC units are nice and add spice to the roster but aren't critical to an enjoyable campaign with the base Dark Elve factions. Are there added mechanics or anything that suggest that DLC like Queen and the Crone or the Malus Darkblade are necessary?
I played a Dark Elf campaign ages ago without the Queen and Crone DLC and still had fun, just wondering if there was any key FOMO in the campaign meta
P.S. Awesome tier lists btw Legend!
Malus DLC is really good for the Dark Elves because it adds the masters which can bring the slave decline rate to 0%.
I love your passion, every video you make or stream I can see clearly you don''t guess - you KNOW what you talking about. Great vid as always.
Is one of the solution for melee infantry is to lower their recrutement tier? The max tier for infantry should be 3? I dont know if they would be too powerful early game and maybe CAV would be more useless than now.
Great video Legend!
It's also their upkeep and recruit cost is insane for what they actually do. 325 on Black Guard when Shades cost 237 and Darkshard Shields cost 162 is just way too expensive. Lowering their recruitment tier would also be a massive buff to the AI where as upkeep is a problem only the player has, so that's probably where the buffs should be moreso. I do think you could make them tier 4 and it be fine but I think tier 3 is too much, but no melee infantry should be tier 5
Pretty much agree with everything. I personally go for Greatweapons Shades but as Legend said, it's about personal preference and play style.
Lizardmen would make sense for the next video as they're a TWW2 launch race same as High Elves and Dark Elves. Then Skaven. I'm happy to wait for the Greenskins tier list.
I have several hundred hours on dark elf and I've never bothered to check shades missile strength and simply assumed greatswords must be the best. I need to try duel weapons more. Thanks Legend.
Great work as usual @LedgenofTotalWar. One critique would be to maybe lower the music volume slightly as somtimes it's a little too loud. Other than that, top tier video!
Love how passionate he is about the cold ones 🤣
This is a great series! Keep it up! Finish out the elves listing before moving on, I think keeping the lists together with races with similar playstyles helps for comparative purposes.
I'm waiting for game 3 where every enemy units gets 40% missile resistance on legendary.
Hahahahahahaha yep sounds like a way how they might deal with missile blobs.....
Still won't be enough sadly to make melee any more viable I think
Your power comparisons and tier lists are my favorite videos you do Legend! I have learned so much from watching all of your vids, thanks man.
Do Empire when you think you've mastered the format and feel like you need a bit of spice, I get this feeling they're a fairly popular faction
Really enjoyed the video Legend! Haven’t got around to playing the dark elves yet but I at least know what to target first now 👍🏻
dark elf is truly the "gets everything, but master of nothing", meanwhile high elf is the master of everything
Would not agree:
The Darkshards as low tier AP missile unit and the arks as cheap mobile high xp recruitment base additionally bypassing supply lines and reduce upkeep are the dark elves unique features.
I would even go so far to say they can be stronger then the high elves, but it's more difficult to get there.
That's just not true. Shades are better than sisters.
I have to agree with Charleston 787. Dark Elves are as strong as high elves but harder to figure their play style out
@@0786RICARDO they are better once you get them all buffed up and in the army of a lord with either shadowdart or barbstorm, otherwise i’m pretty sure sisters are better
@@Charlys787 they do have some good early-game units, but they lack strong enough late-game doomstacks
I really loved your Lokhir donut campaign (the one you show in the background in this video). Wish you’d continue it at some point.
love these videos makes me learn alot about the game
These are my favorite videos that you do. as a newer player i've been seeking info like this relentlessly and its just not out there.
Would like to see Lizard men as they are the race I struggle with understanding their units the most that or norsca. Two hardest factions for me to play and beat.
This shows how valuable these are. I like ones for races I play, because it refines and informs my choices. I love ones about races I don't play, like DE, as I now have a good idea where to start once I do try them. Much appreciated.
The only problem I have with the Scourgerunner Chariots is that they always get massacred in auto resolve. It's like the artillery always dying levels of loses. My army sometimes get through an auto resolve unscathed but the Scourgerunner Chariots die to the last model.
Thank you so much for making this tier list! I've watched a few videos as a new TWW3 player and played the game a few times but still none of them broke it down in game as easily to understand list and WHY you think this is where the units are as yours even with it being TWW2 list (not that there is a huge difference in the roster in Warhammer 2 vs 3 for Dark Elves lol).
Found this super informative and helpful (as I have your streams :D)
I really like the tier lists. They are kinda cliche, but they are honestly a very good system to convey a lot of information and put it into perspective
I'd love an empire Tier list, I'd also love a faction-power comparison video, especially seeing as it's something that you've explicitly left out of your legendary lord power comparison videos. Feel like it'll work as a really strong compliment to them and can be a great place to clear up some misconceptions and explain some strats, even if a lot of the rankings are likely going to be fairly obvious.
So what I’m getting from all this is that the most dangerous units for cost to come out of Naggaroth is a bunch of outlaws and some fire breathing snake.
Considering the sheer balls it take to survive as an outlaw in a society as dangerous as the Dark Elves’, the main surprise for me is that the regenerating fire breathing snake monsters can keep up with them.
The reason Scourgerunner Chariots are tier 3 units that are better than the tier 4 Cold One chariots is that Scourgerunner Chariots are a DLC unit and Cold One chariots are a base game unit. Pay your real life $, get better units.
Black Guard are good tarpit units, e.g. against monsters, at lower battle difficulties where the AI doesn't get so many melee buffs. They have the psych immunity which is tailor-made for fighting creatures with fear or terror. They also have a niche use in Vortex where you can recruit them in one turn at high rank from a landmark building in Naggarond, and then Malekith pays only half maintenance if they're in his personal army, and since it's Vortex Malekith is likely to be hanging around Naggarond a lot to defend it from the ritual invasions. So if someone is playing Dark Elves for the first time, and it's a Vortex campaign, and they're probably not playing at the highest battle difficulty, Black Guard have a place. But I absolutely wouldn't use them if I were playing at higher battle difficulties like you do.
I play with cost-based army cap and I usually keep a manticore in each army, because they are REALLY CHEAP and really mobile and I can just target them at something squishy that the AI would normally keep in a hard-to-get-at place behind its lines, and forget about them. At hard battle difficulty they can kill hellcannon, and that's a really good trade. If they die, they die; did I mention that they are really cheap? But if you're playing with vanilla rules so you have all the money you might need anyway.
The crossbow horsemen are good flanking troops if you're fighting an AI army without cavalry. They can quickly move around the enemy's flanks and shoot into the rear of the enemy's units instead of having to shoot over your own units like the infantry archers do. Shades can also sneak around the enemy's flanks but they can also get caught in melee while they are trying to do that.
Cold One Chariot is ok but the only time you will use it is when starting as Malekith.
Hydras for me is more of an auto resolve stack, back in the days just put one Hydra Ark at both Northern and Southern of Ulthuan, and the new world Chaos invasion end in one turn. Good old time.
Loving these lists, very helpful. Would love a video about faction heroes and trait hierarchy similar to these.
I feel like dreadspears are actually viable flank guards even later(mid?) into the campaign depending on your army roster. They're really easy to recruit and cheap too. I'd rate them at B personally. I'm not the best player though, but they're worked reliable for me against silver helms and other cheapish cav/monsters.
The problem on higher difficulty is that they get shredded real fast. They dont have amazing armor or melee defence, they dont have any good ability or resistance. Also the buffs they get from the red line are very mediocre. So on normal, sure, as a meatshield they are okay, they can delay enemies while your shades rip them apart, but on very hard they will loose 2/3 of the entities from a Elonian reaver charge
They do the job of disposable road block very well. I think that Legend meant he didn't feel DE needed that. Personally, I use them until I can get hydras to tarpit, and replace my darkshards with shades. Shades have no need of a meatshield, and hydras do a better job of pinning the enemy. But darkshards and dreadspears can work perfectly well right up to the late/midgame.
Legend regular medusa units are built at a settlement tier 3 building, which you are definately gonna have loads of due to increasing sorceress capacity.
This needs a WH3 update because I'm certain your opinions are different now
Although some people here say a Beastmen tier list would be kinda predictable, I think it´d be really insterenting to have some advice about some of their units like Centigors for example, since I never knew how to make them perform better than minotaurs. Nonetheless an Empire tier list would be pretty sweet
Love this style of video, bit more thought and time goes into this than a SYDB I bet, and it shows. SYDBs are also good, but I'm enjoying this a lot. In regards to shades, I always interpreted the Armour piercing missiles as "only missiles are AP" vs armour piercing meaning "melee and missiles are AP". Bit misleading I agree but not straight up wrong. Some descriptions in unit cards ARE straight up wrong. CA why you gotta make a mess?
Really enjoying these tier lists, also found the damage explanation super useful. I watch your streams to understand the game and these are great peeks into how it all works... I hope you do this for all the races :)
Shades, IMO are the best ranged unit in the game when you include all the Lord and Tech range bonuses
I think that goes to waywatchers.
Sisters of Avelorn lead by Alarielle can beat maxed out shades army because she can also heal them and give them phisicayl resistance with spells. While the shades will unleash a couple of volleys first because they stalk and slighty better range, the sisters would win with Aly casting heals and protective spells. And probably they could win in melee too having 43 ma 61 md at rank 7
Waywatchers are better
@@torquevonthorne948 in a vacuum shades beat sisters, but that never happens in campaign so you are overall definitely right
Even with the nerf in the twisted and twlight dlc, waywatchers are still prolly the best, and hell, it does make sense for them to be the best ranged unit the game
I think you need a D tier on these lists. In the mid and low tiers there's a lot of overlap between units that really aren't on par whit each other. But I really like how these lists take they logistic side of things like cost, installment and recruitment times.
Also, yes to Lizardmen next :)
A small annotation: Under Rakarth the Charybdiss does have a breath attack in his army with one of his skilltree nodes. Not a major advantage, but it is something to mention. Otherwise i wouldn't spam them either due to the reasons listed.
Legend, I really appreciate these. I do have a request: a simple video (so you don't have to dump a ton of time on it) maybe giving a couple examples of how you might pick these in comps and maybe some good (or less obvious) synergies in the army. I love your content, but you have one of the most extensive content libraries on one topic... and I'm a working dad. Heck, you might even be able to link back to previous streams with timestamps so you don't have to demo what you're describing.
Anyways, fantastic job. Looking forward to more.
its a bit of a shame with the Black Guard, everthing un the game, that uses a halberd should be good against everything. Its just the best meleeweapon, that was used in real history.
Yeah melee infantry just needs some love in WH series, they're trash right now
Wait... what? Halberd was the best melee weapon used in history? Since when? Halberds are very hard to use in dense formations because they're long swingy things, as opposed to the best melee weapon for disciplined infantry (the spear) or the best melee weapon for undisciplined infantry (the sword). Halberds were given to guards for that very reason - they aren't in tightly packed formations or crushed melee so they can make full use of the weapon's swings.
@@deadlyydude5522 they are very versatile, and it was less skill needed to craft them. Most normal Toolmakers where able to. And in Combat you have a higher range than a sword, and they don't have the Problem, that spears have, that when the enemy was to close, you can't realy use your weapon very well. But I'm open to other opinions, just say, why you think other weapons are better not just halberds aren't the best :D
@@Mythralblade04 You have a point, but i still would say, the halberd is better than a spear, if the user is skilled. and you don't want undisciplined soldiers with a sword. Using a sword isn't easy and it needs a lot of skill too, to use it right, maybe a mace would be a better weapon for unskilled or unexperieced fighters. But thanks for your Comment i appreciate it :)
Edit: But i should not say only halberds, but rod weapons...spear with shield might be the best for a bigger Formation, but i will stay with my Choice.
@@chron3262 Yea, gotta disagree with you. A sword is a sharp club. Sure you can MASTER it with a ton of effort, but the bar for EFFECTIVE use is really low (unless you're looking at specialized/massive variants). Basically, consider this; the Halberd was used in a couple areas for a short period during Medieval Europe specifically. the Sword and the Spear were worldwide and their usage lasted for millennia. It's because the designs are simple, they're easy to use, and they're scarily effective with minimal investment. Halberds were given to guards for the same reason that two-handed swords were given to guards - they're effective at clearing space around the wielder. That's fantastic for a guard, much less so for a rank and file soldier (because you want your friends in the space around you instead of it being empty).
Look at the basic mechanics - a halberd needs about 3ft of clearance on either side of you to be swung effectively without hitting your own side. If you were using a spear instead, your two buddies could be occupying that space with THEIR spears. Additionally, the people BEHIND you could also be stabbing with THEIR spears (and let's not go into trained phalanxes that would have the third and fourth ranks ALSO stabbing with their spears). A single halberd cannot compete against that amount of metal on target.
Saying a Halberd is best is like saying that the Katana is the best sword ever. It looks cool, it's effective within it's realm, but armies used the weapons they did for a reason.
26:11 if Manticores had a tech that removed rampage they could be pretty good. They're okay on Rakarth if you use them as emergency summons to protect a settlement since you can farm them easily by raiding in the chaos wastes. Since you only need them for one or two battles If say you need an emergency helper for your garrison during the chaos invasion they can shut down Hellcannons.
I feel like most people play on VH/N so I can't agree with the melee unit slander 🤣🤣
just a note on harpies: they fight REALLY well in the air (they win 1v1 vs dragons in melee combat on very hard+ difficulty, i think because they get a full surround off), and for rakarth they cost basicly nothing.
As for dark elf magic synergy vs high elf synergy: yes healing is best for dragons/monsters doomstack, but the shadow +50% AP damage buff on your entire army with one cast can be pretty amazing too.
I always like to have one or two flying units to deal with unguarded artillery. The manticore with terror can route artillery without rampaging and is more efficient at it than a big dragon. There's actually nothing much in your higher tiers to deal with artillery given the DE will often be outranged.
Shades have stalk and can take artillery out while hyderas don't care and can easily push through and kill the artillery
That’s because of how he plays. You don’t need artillery if you have another siege attacker and are attacking yourself. You can then always waste ammo.
master on pegasus can take out artillery without getting rampaged.
I'm guessing if artillery is ever a problem, Legend will just waste their ammo using Lords and Heroes since they all get Pegasi
Shades are the best to deal with artillery, simply because they stalk. Your shadow sorceress deals with them fairly well with miasma
This videos are great. I guess that all who watches Legend knows what he think about certain units (Manticores :)), but it is really nice to see all of this in one video. More of this please!!!
And yeah, lizardmen next would be useful
Unit Roster Ranking Request:
1) Empire
2) Dwarfes
3) Lizardmen
Always very factual and without unnecessary chitchat and at the same time very entertaining!
Keep up the great work!
One nice thing about the manticore is that it has siege attacker and only takes one turn to recruit. If you've got an army that doesn't want to be shackled to defending an artillery piece, it makes sense to take one. And they can be sacrificed to destroy artillery if needed, or deployed in situations against any unit with weak melee stats and no missile support.
Bloodwrack medusae can be made to work very well in melee despite being so fragile, and their missile attack is quite strong. Their big advantage over shades is that you can freely use dangerous fire magic near or on top of them and they can surround a monster or an isolated infantry unit and take it down quickly with melee strikes rather than needing to use ammo. their melee stats aren't the best, but you can put so many of them in one spot that it usually doesn't matter. And against anything that it would matter against, you can use their ranged attack. Very enjoyable unit to play with if you're bored of shade spam. Biggest weakness is anti-large artillery, but that can be dealt with in various ways.
the thing about the scourgerunner chariot is that is part of DLC, unlike the cold one chariot, so that sort of "explains" why it's avaible earlier and performs better... tbh don't see a reason to complain here, because often with dlc units in the game the opposite will happen, and you'll end up with very little reason to ever recruit the dlc unit in higher difficulties because they just don't perform well or are too expensive or maybe become avaible very late in the campaign when you don't need them anymore. love the work on these tier list, looking forward to the other factions :D
I've played more campaigns with Dark Elves than any other race, and I think this is a pretty good tier list. I have a few differences of opinion, naturally, but they aren't big. A big difference in the way I play them vs. Legend is that I use a 4-unit front line to defend my missile units where Legend usually doesn't. He tanks with lords and heroes. Dread Spears do this fine. Sisters of Slaughter also do this well, except they fall a little too quickly to missile attacks. They have very high melee defense, but very little armour. When I get rich I tend to use Black Guard if I have time to recruit them. I agree that for fighting battles the Dark Elves has no cavalry worth recruiting; they just die. What's funny is how well they do in auto-resolve. This goes for the chariot units as well, which auto-resolve seems to love. Manticores are a joke, except for Hellibron's, which is what you should put her on when you can. I hate Corsairs with Handbows, and consider them garbage tier. I know they can stalk, and fire while moving, but their short range and lack of AP early makes them underwhelming to me. I rarely put more than one Black Dragon in any army, and often it's only the one the Lord is on once she gets to that level. I like using Supreme Sorceresses for my lords. Shades with Dual Weapons are the best, in my experience. I've fought them side-by-side with regular shades and Shades with Great Weapons, and they out-perform both. They just barely out-perform Shades with GW, but once you factor in the extra turn for recruitment it's a no-brainer. Medusas are OK, but I never recruit them any more, because there are better units to take that slot.
Great videos, keep it up man. One suggestion I have is that you could include a theoretical army composition at the end of the video, something you would go with, some situational/synergy picks. Just for example, I rly like to run 1 unit of Harpies in my armies - just to run down routing enemy forces/taking out some occasional artillery pieces.
IMO harpies are actually really good at hunting down squishy targets and archers so that your shades can prioritize shooting the high-value targets they want to be melt. They accomplish what light cavalry are meant to do while having the safety of being airborne to avoid most of the units that would mow them down in sustained combat.
The problem is he is recommending these based on very hard battle difficulty where a lot of AI controlled ranged units will get extra melee stats and be able to beat the harpies. At witch point they could only be used as a distraction witch legend prefers actual units that deal damage like a darkshard unit, over distraction ones. On normal difficulty almost every unit in the game is viable.