Mastering your faction TW: Warhammer Guide

Those who are unfamiliar with the Total War series will probably have problems understanding the game, as the player is thrown in at the deep. Additionally, even though there's a tutorial for each faction (aside from the Warriors of Chaos), it doesn't explain all the necessary aspects of the gameplay, or does it inaccurately. This can cause serious problems in late game.

• Understand your faction
• Learn about other factions

Understand your faction

You should look through available technologies before deciding which one to choose.

Despite the fact that the game contains a small number of factions (especially in comparison to other installments of the series), those differ severely from each other. Those aren't limited to the gameplay only (about which you can read in chapters about each faction) - each faction has access to different units (and unlocks them at different times), heroes, or huge technology trees.

This is why you should start your adventure with a given faction by looking through the units, buildings, heroes and technologies (as well as the requirements to unlock them) available to them. All of those options can be accessed from the world map view - there you can find all the things that can be unlocked, even if you still can't purchase / build them.

This process is extremely important - if you properly plan your development, you will be able to gain access to units that you want to use earlier, instead of wasting time and constructing random buildings and researching pointless technologies, that will influence units that you don't even have. You will eventually be able to unlock all the units, buildings and technologies, but at the beginning of the campaign you will have limited space and resources, which is why you should plan everything beforehand. Each tactic is viable provided that you think it through. If you:

• Prefer more defensive approach, in which you focus on a more static style of play (creating walls of troops, overwhelming enemies with rain of fire from missile units and artillery located behind said walls) you should focus on unlocking the most powerful melee, missile and artillery units and focus on upgrading them.
• However, if you want to harass enemy by using the hit & run tactics, in which you use cavalry and missile cavalry to charge at the enemy and then run away and repeat the whole process again, you should focus on those units. Unlock more powerful units, research technologies that increase their combat capabilities and decrease their upkeep.

The above "tactics" are only two of countless ways to develop your kingdom. While doing so you should remember about the following rules:

• Monitor your enemies. If you noticed that the enemy you're planning to attack focuses on infantry that is effective against cavalry (spearmen-like) and cavalry archers ("normal" marksmen - those units are effective against mobile missile units) consider whether it's worth to even attack him. Even if you manage to defeat him you will most probably suffer extreme casualties.
• Never focus on a single type of units. Games of the Total War franchise aren't the same as the RTS titles that dominated years ago, where you just had to swarm the enemy with dozens of units. Having 19 units of the best cavalry units available for your faction (like the Demigryph Knights for the Empire) won't give you anything when the enemy will have a balanced army, that is effective during long encounters, and where the cavalry units are the weakest. The same applies to missile and artillery units - those are powerful, but they become useless when engaged in melee range, or when they run out of ammo.

Learn about other factions

Armies of other factions differ from each other.

Despite the fact, that there are only 5 playable factions in the game, they severely differ from each other. Learning about those differences and using them both during the time on the world map and on the battlefield can give you a huge advantage over the enemy, making every encounter a lot easier.

The differences aren't limited to available units, Lords, heroes and available buildings. A perfect example is the complete lack of missile and artillery units of the Vampire Counts, which forces the usage of a more aggressive style of play and changes sieges for that faction significantly. All of the differences between factions can be found in the chapters dedicated to them.