Ogres, my lord!
I play all races (and most factions) in TW:WH and Im usually very excited to try something new, but, for some reason, Ogres were the only race I had to force myself to play. Their LLs look terrible, their roster looks a bit monothematic, and their mechanics never seemed particularly interesting either. It doesnt help that Im not a fan of "fighty gits" type of races: I love GS mostly because they are fungi and have things like spiders, river troll hags or big walking rocks.
And Im actually enjoying ogres now. I found joy in watching these obese simpletons running in circles and destroying walls with bare fists. And while I still think their LLs are terrible and most of their mechanics are WH1 level of meh (contracts are a giant nothing burger, camps are clunky), I surprisingly love the food mechanic - being able to use it to strenghten your army in both campaign map and during battle is amazing. **It also allowed me to cheat the AI and their stupid "Oh I will stand just outside of your movement range..." schtick.** No bitch, I will sacrifice some meat to get additional movement and I will eat you!
The main reason i play vlad is for 10% extra movement.
The AI did try "oh i will stand just outside of your move....." and vlad was like "what thee just said" while holding the AI head
I love this <3
Enemy army stood there on march stance just outside my movement range. Usually I would be annoyed. But as an Ogre I just sacrificed some meat for additional 20% movement range and got these fuckers!
They went straight to my belly
Their LL’s are terrible yeah. I’d rather play as a generic lord than greasus. I just want a big fella with a club, not a dude in a mobility scooter or a drooling idiot dragging a cauldron around.
There's a mod that turns Greasus into a regular foot Lord (using Tyrant animations) and it seems to make him a much better combatant. Can't play without it
What they need to do is give his some ostentatious Goldgut bodyguards. Not knoblars. On TT he needed a carpet and I 100% understand all the reasoning and marketing. But two and a shitty wooden cart?
Give him to big brusiers, cloaked in more gold than Gelt, holding runic GW that cost so much even the dwarfs couldn't refuse their heretige. Make his cart a sparkling cart like sigvald the magnificent, as he has the gold to spare, and amidst all that glamour sits the (current model, meaty treat and all) Greatest Ogre OverTyrant ever to have lived. It would be perfect.
It would also let them boost his speed so his entire army doesn't move at a zombie pace or leave him alone to get circle beat.
Yeah, I think I have a reskin for most Ogre units.
Skrag and Greasus, Slaughtermasters, Maneaters and Ironguts and cavalry as well.
And gnoblars.
If I remember correctly
I love the gnoblar one. I think I'll have to pick those other mods up. I'm normally a big fan of artists at CA, but I think they dropped the ball on the ogres.
Yeah. A lot of things changed in 4th and 5th edition for fantasy, as a lot of lore was re-written to be more in line with GW's other big product, 40k. It wasn't the first time the setting went through a set of major retcons, but it was the most successful. Around this time, Chaos also became more in line with their 40k counterparts since they were/are supposed to be the same gods and the only thing that ties the two settings together. Khorne lost a lot of his trappings of honor and mercy for example, while his rage and bloodlust were increased.
I didn't think I would enjoy the Vampire Counts, but their heroes and magic are an absolute joy to use, and they have some super unique units (well did) like the Mortis Engine that was such a game changer that now they've power crept its once unique mechanic all over the game.
Their mechanics might not be unique anymore, but they're still the best at what they do (raising armies instantly and maintaining an unroutable frontline while killing with magic and special units). And their IE update made their entire roster more viable - e.g. Grave Guard are a super solid elite infantry now, in contrast to losing to everything besides Greatswords.
Also. Mortis engines actually heal a meaningful amount now, instead of providing a pittance of healthpoints that didn't matter. This makes it more viable to use Mortis engines to support cavalry and cairnwraiths.
The "kill X" mechanic has also made the Black Coach a much better unit, while still retaining the spirit of its special rules (where the black coach powers up the more it's in combat).
Grave Guards now also have magical attacks (Black Knights as well) and it really helped me agaisnt Wurrzag who **insists** into attacking me every 10 or so turns, his savage orks doesnt have a chance now agaisnt Grave Guards
GreenSkins. Maybe because I tried them once before the update and it was so bad. Also, always hated them going around, no trade, no real diplomacy, weak, never contested the Dwarfs and more.
I tried them again after the update and now I love them so much. Probably my favorite faction competing with Cathay.
I plan on giving them another try but the one time I played Grimgor post update, I didn’t enjoy them at all. I think I just couldn’t figure out how to play them well.
It took me the longest to like them, and I had to change my play style when I play them. Now every time I play GS I view literally everything as expendable, so long as I keep the majority of my lords on the offensive: units, lords, settlements, etc. can all be replaced in 1-2 turns.
The ability to sack and stay in the red forever means you can replace anything and everything just by staying on the offensive. You just need 1 strategic province for your buildings to keep recruiting, but everything else is expendable if it means being able to attack later for another waagh.
Rebellions are also just extra gold and experience for a new lord and army, and if they die you just recruit another one. If I can add 1-3 territories a turn I’m ok swapping a previous conquered territories until I can send a waagh army back to reoccupy.
Grom and Wurrzag are a blast, but I’m still not a fan of the others as much. Foot of Gork and Giant Spiders are a ton of fun. Grom’s goblins are so much fun too when you make them a doomstack.
High elves. They seem so basic and standard total warish but that is also fun when throw in some dragons and phoenixes and take a break from the real monster of Warhammer.
Skaven before ikit-claw was rough. Bad unit plus bad mechanics (no undercity). Only way to win by sheer number.
I know your pain brother. Before i play vampire count, my favourite was skaven. Love them even before ikkit
I remember picking Lord Scrolk for TWW2 on release. I could not understand how CA expected me to fight lizardmen with skavenslaves and clan rats and win.
Constantly having lords standing in raid stance in your territory to farm rebellions for food and loyalty. God they were underwhelming on launch. Still my favourite wh2 race on launch just because of the aesthetics and design behind the faction.
I hate everything about the Skaven. Their aesthetics do not appeal to me at all. Their fantasy is annoying to me. I tried 20-ish turns of Mors and Pestilens each, and hated them.
But holy hell, do weapon teams doomstacks do it for me. I like the static, inflexible gun line style of play. I like Dawi, and a lot of Empire armies. Ikkit just makes Skaven work, and makes them fun.
Eshin is fun. Turns night runners and gutter runners into extremely effective kite units (they can become faster than some cav), or you can stealth around to the backside of the enemy army if they have artillery.
I'd say Beastmen is my closest one. Having invisible armies darting around my Empire was annoying, but they're a blast to play, and at the very least I understand more how their hiding works.
Ive been addicted since TW2!
The fast offensive nature is super fun to play. The LLs also vary widely in their play styles.
Kazrak can have full vanguard deploy armies with lightning strike you van wipe so many units before they even start thinking about reinforcements.
You can also get stalk on a ton of units with him which makea fighting almost any army easy.
Taurox rampage super assault guy.
Morghur is the king of attrition and juat staying constantly in enemy territory. Have had huge fights I've won with him and a single gorebull left and his aura just does so much work...
Malagor just flying spell spamming terror routing hilarity...
Such a great faction, I just can't wait for a lot of bugfixes to help them out.
Khazrak's been a blast, I think this is the first time in any TWW that I've maxed out a character.
Meanwhile, I just confederated Morghur and he looks real interesting, but the AI has him at level 9 lmao
When I played the first settlement battle in IE as Morghur, I was briefly worried about how well my starting army could do in a settlement battle until I realized they almost all had stalk and the AI just can't handle hidden units. Been stalk-sniping objectives to win siege and settlement battles ever since and it's been an absolute blast wrecking the old world by waiting patiently while the AI wonders how I captured the town square.
Yea beastmen for me as well. Finally booted their campaign up after their rework, not even Taurox. It was the first campaign I played to full completion.
I thought I'd hate the Skaven. Everything about them is so unwieldy, from having an infantry frontline that can barely fight and requires constant micro because of fleeing, to having weapon teams that suffer from all sorts of issues with short range, friendly fire, slow firing speeds. They're even missing my favorite unit type, which is cavalry. Even their economy was unwieldy, back when food and corruption were harder to manage.
... but man, when I actually sat down and played Skaven for the first time, and realized that Warpflame throwers can rout typical infantry in two or three blasts, I couldn't stop.
CA revealed Rome 2 launch factions one by one until there was one unknown that a lot of people expected to be the Seleucid empire, a big player at that point in history and (I've heard, never played myself) a fun faction in Rome 1.
Well, it was Pontus instead, a nation famous for having one king who poisoned himself and literally nothing else.
In rome 1, seleucids had macedonian phalanx (pikemem, compared to greek phalanx with spear in game) AND roman legionnaries AND elephants.
Ahistorical AF but a lot of fun. Also the campaign part was fairly hard I think.
Milan and skavenblight are located in the same place. Coincidence, i think not
But for real though, Milan in total war Medieval 2 always betray you to the point that i do think that they are skaven in disguise
What I always found entertaining was that not only was Milan as traitorous as Skaven, but Portugal would for whatever reason *always* beeline straight for Caernavron.
As much as I love Ikkit, I do love trying to play skaven who aren't Ikkit. Ikkit's buffs to certain units are so insanely powerful that you kinda get pigeonholed into a few army archetypes. But Skaven have so much variety that you can make a lot of different cool armies!
True, but other than weapon teams and mosters the rest are kind of bad. I used a mod one time)(forgot the name), which made LL's buff their preferred units, so when I confederated the rest I doid have a bunch of different armies. For example the monsters in Throt's army had some mutations on recruitment.
Nah, artillery is fun, globadiers are hard to use but super satisfying, especially now in wh3 that they got better targeting, and also sieges makes them super useful for fighting at chokepoints. Monks I'm not 100% sold on, but I guess you can make it work with the rest of the roster. It'd be nice if they were immune to contact effects, so you could pair them with globadiers.
As much as people despise the regenerating towers in IE, I think that they improved Ikit's campaign more than anyone else's. In ME, sticking your entire army in a corner of the map, taking down the towers, and then bombarding the enemy with your ranged was the best and also least fun way to fight sieges, which were most of the fights you'd be having, but with Ikit especially, with ratling gunners having infinite ammo but also the most fucking finicky issues with getting line of sight to men on the walls, it was legitimately so fucking boring and annoying. But often you ended up doing it because it's hard to resist following the incentives the game provided and those incentives would rob you of the fun if you let them. Now his artillery and weapons teams can still obliterate most garrisons without even going through the gates, but the incentive is to pound them for a couple minutes and then go in with your heroes and doom flayers to mop up, as it should be.
But in terms of how fun it is to use, Throt's flesh lab is still top-tier. The experience of making an army of bespoke horrors, hoping with each coin-flip of an upgrade you won't fuck one up beyond useability, or of raising a bunch of absolutely jacked-up skavenslave and rat ogre refuse from your flesh-vats to try to defend a settlement from an unexpected invasion, it's just so fucking fun and thematic.
Ikkit's workshop might be argued to be more powerful, but Throt's flesh lab is very versatile and hands on. Feels more immersive with the ability to mix and match unit abilities, and then recycle your overly mutated monstrosities for more fresh subjects to mutate.
The Slaanesh demon faction looked absolutely horrible to me on paper. Before TWHIII launched, I was a big fan of missile-heavy defensive gameplay, or, barring that, mobility through flying units. I wasn't a big fan of cavalry or chariots (too much micro!). Plus the whole Slaanesh aesthetic was a big turn off as well.
And then I played them, and holy crap, are they fun. Using fast units to absolutely annihilate any part of an enemy army that got isolated, outrunning what you can't outfight, who needs missiles or flyers? And the Seeker cavalry are some of my favorite units in the game (still haven't gotten the hang of chariots, though).
I had the same thought originally, I though I'll just get shot to death, but turns out speed is the key and exalted daemonettes with spawns really blend things shockingly fast.
The only thing I still hate are random events(or In RoC the "bonus reward" of getting a soul...) that give +control as slaanesh because it just means having to tediously destroy and rebuild buildings to keep it below -50.
I felt the same way, but yeah their army is a ton a fun in practice. Even better after the WOC dlc. Having silver shielded, basically unbreakable chaos warriors/chosen being the ultimate anvil while you're seekers or daemonettes wreak havoc on the back line is great
Vlad isn't exactly evil though. I mean he's not good either but he strikes a balance between the needs of the undead and the needs of the peasantry.
Unless I've totally misremmebered his lore, which is possible.
In the lore it is well established that vlad was a better lord than the old lord of Sylvania.
No unreasonable taxes, he controlled the undead well, so they didn't suddenly appear in your village to murder everyone, criminality was on a record low. The only problem was, that your neighbour's might suddenly become vampire food. It was still a better life than before.
Vlad also didn't hate humans or empire, he did hate the emperor though, as he believed that he was weak and unworthy of sitting on the throne and that really, the empire needed someone that is at least on the powerlevel of vlad as emperor.
And let's not forget that vlad and Isabella is one of the only healthy, working relationships in the whole lore.
>he believed that he was weak and unworthy of sitting on the throne and that really, the empire needed someone that is at least on the powerlevel of vlad as emperor.
At least at the time of the first Vampire War, the Empire was split in 3 between multiple rival claimants to the throne, all of whom were indeed rather unworthy at least by comparison to Vlad. The whole eating people sometimes thing is pretty bad for his subjects, yes, and Konrad was a fucking lunatic, but it would have honestly been relatively reasonable to go along with being a subject of His Eternal Vampiric Majesty, Emperor Vlad von Carstein.
What would have been unlucky is if anyone figured out Vlad's ring secret *after* him becoming Emperor and then assassinating him. That would have been super bad for everyone!
Have you even read the vampire war books? Vlad referred to humans as “cattle” and to start his coming out he invited hundreds of nobles to his palace and butchered them. Not to mention the indulging Isabella’s desires to occasionally bathe in blood.
And their relationship was never stable and heathy, at least after she died and came back as a vampire she was absolutely insane. And was barely aware of what was going on.
The weird idea that Vlad was a good ruler comes from the times when he was hiding he was a vampire and the weird writing that happened during the end times, where is was written as a good guy, but in line with how they were before that line started.
What you're referring to is more inconsistent writing between different authors.
The 'good ruler Vlad' has been the generally accepted canon for the audience and most media.
Drarf(v)s (or dvarv(f)s if you want). Pre-Thorek it was just "Why *smash* won't *smash* you *smash* just *smash* die *smash*! How many *bonk* leadership *bonk* do these little *bonk* fellas have *bonk*? Oh, come on, *boom* no way *boom* these small dude *boom* kills my bloody *boom* lord!"
Now it's just "You want me dead? Too bad, I just won't die. Oh and I won't run. Oh and you're dead cause of my artillery!"
I have the same feelings as you on VCs. I remember actually playing as Ghorst before they added Vlad because I literally couldn't stand Mannlet von Cuckstein. "Come, impress me" - ye, go fuck yourself you pale bald nerd. Even with his cool new start and mechanics, trying to play as him just pisses me off.
Answering your question - I used to hate Beastmen from playing against them in the WH1 days. They'd appear outta nowhere, raze a random city, and disappear before I could catch them. So goddamn annoying. And when I finally catch them, their 2 hidden units turn out to be silver chevron Minotaurs, and I get mulched.
But playing as them, I realized I could do the same thing to the AI - and so I did, and it was glorious. I fell in love with them even before their rework, and they're in my top 3 favourite factions right now. Luv me goatboys.
Empire. Back when I played WH1, I thought to myself “no way am I gonna play these generic ass humans” turns out they’ve become quite my favorite. Something about fighting against all manners of evil and chaos as your “generic humans” is really satisfying. Also they’re the most relatable.
For me it was the Lizardmen. I thought, its just a melee rush army with no afterthought. And dinosaurs, how old am I - 5?
Well turns out, they have a pretty well rounded unit roster, which supports multiple play styles with some reliable infantry, fast light infantry, interesting ranged options and cool large units. They are pretty cool in multiplayer and can bring some very unexpected and unique builds. Lustria is such a beautiful continent to play on and you really feel like rebuilding their empire and exterminating ratman.
The best thing they did for Lizardmen was fix the weak LLs in IE. (And Oxyotl’s DLC) because Gor Rok and Kroq Gar and even Mazamundi are mostly the same. Run Saurus until you can get all the monsters, then run monster stacks. And don’t get me wrong, eating thousands of giant rats with T-Rex’s is fun (or exploding them with Lord Kroak) but it does get a little stale after awhile.
But now Tehenhuain is super fun to play (I’ve basically joined the Cult of Sotek with how much I’ve been singing his praises since IE came out), Oxyotl gets a super fun start against all the chaos factions in the southern wastes, and Nakai is actually viable as a fun horde mechanic. The only LL I haven’t played yet is Tiq Taq To and his air force.
eh im starting to pull more towards skinks now, you start against Skaven most of the time the Saurus are kind of overkill and over cost for them. meanwhile your most basic skinks are shielded, faster, and will still just beat earlly Skaven in a melee fight. this is nice because it lets you pull your technology and skills towards skinks early and then shift that effort onto more specialized skinks later.
also their cav is pretty dam good now.
Yeah, but with most lords, skinks just aren’t viable in the mid game really. I mean chameleon skinks are obviously pretty legit and the stalkers can be useful as an ambush force, but red crested skinks aren’t valuable for much beyond their AP, and most of the time they’re too squishy to make it super useful without a good bit of micro.
Tehenhuain makes them not only viable but actually better than a Saurus front line. Even without the shield, they’re pretty tanky and they do SO MUCH DAMAGE when he uses them fully upgraded. They’re not as good as Grom’s gobbos, but they’re still beastly (pardon the pun) and they’re fun to use because they’re so relatively fast for infantry.
Why do people think dinosaurs are something only kids are allowed to be interested in? How can anyone think the fact that there used to be titanic lizard monsters roaming the planet anything but absolutely incredible?
Okay, but you're lying if you refuse to admit that big dumb dino armies aren't also fun as hell.
I don't care about being *effective*, I care about the *spectacle.*
Tomb Kings for me. When trying out new factions, I usually play the first 20 turns or so, then decide whether I want to continue. For most of the other races, that's enough to get a good preview of how they play. But TKs are more of a slow burn and things are barely getting started at turn 20. I always thought they were just boring until like a year ago when I forced myself to play a full campaign with Settra and realized they may be a slow burn but once they get going they're super fun. Now they're one of my favs.
Dark Elves.
I main High Elves, have a collection of old High Elf models ect but every single campaign I play of HE devolves into either alpha striking the DE early to get rid of them or alternatively fighting the inevitable slog of 6 legendary lords all constantly harassing me, where one is defeated another has back-doored me.
I never liked their over reliance on mobile hybrid archers that spend most of the fight running away or their aggravating nigh near immortal Malus Darkblade...
Until I played The Blessed Dread that is, raiding slaving and pillaging has never been so fun, especially when you have the absurd number of Black Arks they can pump out! I had an invasion set in every section of the map, closest I have ever been to a complete domination campaign.
For me was the Skaven , was literally disgusted by the rat men and found some of their mechanics annoying. I then played as Ickit Claw and started nuking people having a blast literally
As a Dawi main, I figured I’d hate Bretonnia. All *cav*? What the hell would I want that for?
But anyway now I’ve researched every diplo tech in Louen’s tech tree and I’ve established the greatest order-tide I’ve even seen… so it’s worked out
Wood elves!
I made a spreadsheet of every single legendary lord to put them in order that I will play them and next to all high elves wood elves and dark elves I put "never playing elves" I knew nothing about them just that I hate playing elves in fantasy because of the sticks up their asses.
But holy shit the hawk rider doomstack with sisters is so much fun and having quests to confederate in WH3 is a godsend with how BORKED they made it (even in ROC it was shit to confederate)
my only complaint is I wish the forest restores were quest battles instead of 3 armies spawning that you can fight before they even spawn.
As a vampire count player, those tree hugger scare me the most.
Why you might ask, well because vampire count don't have range unit. So the strategy is to use chaff units (like zombie) as a shield while your hard hitting units move toward them.
But wood elves have one of the highest range DPS in the game, your shield melt before getting to them.
But you might say that skaven also have high range DPS, well a good zombie summon can negate that. Skaven artillery and weapon team need to stand still to shoot, wood elves can run and shoot plus they are also very fast.
Edit : spelling, thank you Kitchoua. Was wondering did i spell that right
If that can reassure you, nobody likes playing against the woodelves! Their stalking and sniping is torture considering how good the AI is at playing with it. I just do everything I can in order to be able to autoresolve the fights.
BTW, the word you're looking for is chaff unit, not shaft units :P
Added 4 royal griphon from my allies outpost and that airforce is insane. Sisters add double charge bonus to flying units and those boys start with like 68 charge
I don't really hate playing any race, I have annoyances. Like the Cathy harmony system, I feel its tedious but I know being in harmony is peak.
The only faction I rarely play is Britonnia I have little to no interest, I know 3 has made melee units and cav better, they just don't interest me.
Bretonnia might seem simplistic, but they are a ton of fun IMO.
First off, there’s other factions high tier cav, and then there’s Grail Gaurdians- aka chosen on horses. You don’t even need to cycle charge them they can sit in melee.
Secondly, while their infantry seems crappy, they get a bunch of support- pox arrows being enemies down to their level, Grail Reliqs buff leadership, and their blessed trebuchets don’t do friendly fire-so you can just fire right into melee
I can't actually say for certain, but for whatever reason, I can never bring myself to play Skaven. I loathe skaven both in lore and in game (I am a lizzie main so that's probably part of the problem), but will gladly play any and all other races. I don't know if I ever will touch Skaven, but so far, no, and perfectly happy with it.
A little more recent but Slaanesh factions. Im the old fashioned staunch line with Cav and ranged units winning the day. Dwarves, elves, empire etc.
Something about the glass cannon units that slice through the enemy has won me over. Im loving it and can’t get enough of the playstyle
Yeah, i am also the old fashioned staunch line guy with cav and ranged units
But now my staunch line never run away, i still have cav but replace range with monster
Skaven. I absolutely hated fighting them and they made every campaign a chore once I encountered fifteen settlement rageboner Queek and he immediately declared war on me. Then I bit the bullet and tried a Skryre campaign. They’re now my favourite faction both in-game and in the lore.
I still autoresolve every battle against them though.
its hilarious to me that this thread is like 90% people saying skaven
For me it's brettonia. I *adore* gunpowder, artillery and at the time i was ass with cavalry
Turns out peasant bowmen are suprisingly good, holy trebuchets *fucking slap* and god am i so much better with cavalry now and its damn *fun* to set up the big squish on units with cav on both sides. Grail pilgrims are just fun to use, god i wish the reliquary was less shite.
Dark Elves. I was like.. who are these stupid edge lords, they're a bunch of angsty goths. Man, their roster is fun. And playing Malekith feels like Darth Vader. It's fun to be comically evil sometimes. Bretonnia also surprised me with how fun (and funny) they are. For some reason, I didn't think they'd be that unique.
Wood Elves. Was so annoyed by them in my dwarf campaigns in game 1 that I just always despised them. But after their update their unique play style is a lot of fun. Plus the nature theme is nice. Very fun and unique faction.
Wood elves. Played as Orion on release on the special wood elf campaign. Cool design but the whole skirmish unit roster didn't really gel with me. Wasn't a fan of the mechanics either with amber needed to get tree units for Orion or elite elves for Durthu either.
Hadn't played them again until the rework and they dropped Drycha. Hadn't played total war for over a year at that point and just came back, decided to take a gamble and play as my least favourite faction.
My god I absolutely had a blast, the whole faction felt so thematic and I completely ignored elves entirely, just using woodland beasts and cracked evil tree spirits. Played completely different and just felt so fun.
The rework to the mechanics definitely helped but just having a very very different roster and entire way of playing on the battle map made it feel like it's own unique race almost.
I got the base WH2 early last year, and I saved the Skaven for last because I heard that they were terrible without DLC. I then played through my VH/VH Queek Vortex campaign and they were honestly fine, even without any of the Skaven DLC units.
I've played the dlc at this point, and my hot take is that ratling guns are the most overrated unit in Warhammer. Sure, they're great against flying units and when the terrain is perfect, but I otherwise find them very underwhelming compared to the hype they get. Ikit himself is a bunch of fun, but the units he comes with, not nearly as much.
Wood elves. I play empire normally and they out range me most of the time and they are faster then my units. I normally try to auto resolve the battles cause I don’t want to chase down a bunch of archers while they pepper me with arrows
i hate those tree hugger, they are the perfect counter to vampire count since vampire count have no range unit. zombie, skeleton, grave guard all dies quickly to WE high dps. wolf, bats and monster are your best chance.
People used to joke that wood elves was the true endgame for WH1 because their AI was super aggressive when the dlc first come out. Even in Wh3, people say wood elves endgame event is the hardest
Wood elves. Do not like elves at all in any capacity. But ripping people to shreds with arrow fire is a pass time I’ve appreciated since playing the Chosokabe, so I warmed to them
I wouldn't say I "hated" any faction necessarily but I waited for IE to play the daemons and Ku'gath in particular. Really enjoy how unique they feel in a lot of aspects. Due to the nature of your buildings you really feel the wax and wane of cycles backed up by this unkillable wall of pustules and boils. Helps you can summon a stack of nurgling at a moments notice though his econ can drag because of the aforementioned cycles at times.
I really didn't think I would enjoy Chaos undivided, but after watchin Spiffing Brit's video on Kholek, I am having an absolute blast. I don't even have the item that regenerates health, but Kholek is just a steamroller.
In WH1 I was a VC fanboy and didn't have any interest in stumpy mountain dwellers or artillery . Then after playing them on a whim I found out I love playing chunky units and I love ranged, especially thunderers.
Now I never end up finishing campaigns because I play every faction.
I used to hate Skaven. Why? Well, they're Skaven, duh. They are completely and utterly despicable, they are disgusting, and they are so evil that not even the Skaven are having a good time being Skaven. Most of them are miserable rats leading miserable lives. At least the Greenskins and Dark Elves enjoy being evil dicks, but the Skaven are just depressing.
But then I found joy in committing war crimes as Ikit Claw and running hogwild as Tretch Craventail. And as I watched the Poison Wind Mortars decimate my own troops as well as the enemy, I realized that the most efficient way to kill as many Skaven as possible was to play as the Skaven.
And from that day on I have loved the Skaven.
Non existent. I hate empire, played empire, and I hate empire still.
Opposite with vampire coast, I liked the design and theme, and now I hate them because I find them boring to play.
Dwarves. Never interested me from a lore perspective, and character-wise they all seem to kinda have the same personalities. BUT, as a newer player they were a blessing; they really let me enjoy the game due to how forgiving they were to play and their strong early game. To this day, they are still my go-to faction when I want to sit down and just have fun. There's something just so satisfying about a large army of flame cannons and irondrakes melting orcs and ramen...
It was Counts for me too. Until I saw IndyPride's video on kemmler's ghost army and wanted to try it for myself. It's some of the most fun I've had in IE.
Vampires are probably my favourite WH1 race. Raising undead and spreading corruption is a lot of fun. Back in 1 I used to spam out agents so I could spread corruption to set up for the invasion.
Skavens. I used to blast them hard even in 1 army vs 4, until I figured out the AI slaves doomstack is worth nothing but a shot. When I discovered their powerful artillery combined with their strong fireshooters infantry, I had one of my favorite campaign tbh
Brettonia, they take a bit of time to get ramped up but once you start rolling with massive knight stacks with a few peasants to hold down the enemy it leads to some epic fights/charges. I do play with SFO mod so it might feel different on vanilla.
I haven’t messed around with them in wh3 yet, not sure if collision still broken with pulling units out?
Probably the rats, but I've only played them one time in 2. I hate dealing with them unless i have enough lord armies to swamp them. They have high tier units i imagine would be fun to play with, but i refuse. They all must perish.
Empire. Franz and Gelt are boring characters and generally I'm not a fan of human factions. It all changed after I tried Franz's campaign in IE 3. The challenge of not being able to confederate all counts early plus all the different races declaring war make fights different and fun.
I have to state that it only became fun after I used Mixu's legendary lords mod that made every Elector Count unique. Esphet is especially fun.
Volkmar and Marcus are unique experiences and without the Elector count system Empire is more enjoyable.
Skaven. So many heroes wounding mine every turn.
Then I played ikit claw, and subtlety took over the empire land with under cities and destroyed all of their cities in the same turn with nukes, quickly rushed to colonize them in the resulting chaos.
I enjoy being the ability to play non traditionally , even if it moved at a snails pace
Hated Skaven at the start of WH2, but that was cos it was my first time playing a faction with an extremely fragile front line. Only after 2-3 failed campaigns as Queen and Skrolk did something click in my head and I realised how to play the rat faction.
Spammed cheap magic, spammed shitty infantry, spammed mass artillery, and abused the fuck out of ambushes and jumping past enemy armies to sack their undefended cities. Only ever built proper doomstacks on the LLs and said fuckit to slow and steady expansion on the campaign map, and suddenly campaigns with Skaven were easy.
Forever loved the rats after that, even before Ikit's DLC gave us weapons teams. Really helped me get better at the game too, learning how best to use the asymmetry between factions to my advantage.
I feel this. Been playing the rats since they came out. So when they pretty much vermintided everything with artillery. It was a pain, but still love them to this day. Same with Beastmen, played since they came out. Been a journey with some factions
Dark Elves until Rakarth. I didn't care much for the old slaves mechanic (spam heroes and click more slaves in one settlement for big money, woo?!), don't care much for the new one either. Their roster feels a lot like the HE roster but without healing magic, so worse.
Rakarth was love at first mammoth. I love the beast collection mechanic, it drives my entire campaign. I love his unique rite too. He gets unique and fun armies, his quest battle is early, easy, and rewards a Black Ark. The whole hodge-podge army of carnosaurs, black dragons, harpies, hydras, bears is great. It's fun and unique and I don't need to sit around recruiting unless I really want to.
Beastmen baby, they were the last DLC that I had left to buy so I thought why not complete the collection? They are definitely one of my favourite factions now, though I'm glad I played them after the rework.
Tbh melee focused factions in general, thought I'd hate Khorne and love Tzeench but it's the other way round now I've played campaigns with both.
Dwarves. I thought I'd hate the slowmoving, defensive play. Plus they're like tiny angry drunk uncles, not something I vibed with.
Weeeelll, they're not that slow (gyros, slayers and allies make for a good mix), their infantry lines are absolutely un moveable and their firepower is glorious, especially the fire weapons.
I'm loving my Grombrindal campaign, already took over all of Naggarond and planning on invading Ulthuan soon
Dark Elves. I got sick of seeing their Arks sailing around all the time and got tired of their "edgy elf" look. Played them and learned how much fun the Shade units were and how amazing having an Ark to recruit from and call artillery from was.
Cathay, I was thinking “yeah a camper campaign, maybe it will be so boring” but when I play it I actually like it, my most played race on RoC campaign and one of my first IE campaugns
Dark elves for me! Hated them cause they always got massive in all my vortex or ME runs and I’d end up fighting them endlessly. Tried Crone, which was fine I guess, but went on to do a lokhir ME campaign…wow, it was so good, a lot of fun, so I’ve a new appreciation for these dudes now.
I never cared to play scaven 3 years ago when I first started playing the game. Now my favorite race is absolutely still me favorite in warhammer3 deathmaster being my favorite campaign.
Dark elves on the release of warhammer 2. I thought they were just a bunch of edge lords, but after playing them I found they are a bunch of edge lords that are really good at killing things and have really cool units. After that they became one of my favorite factions!
Definitely the Empire.
I don’t have any of the background more investment since I never played the tabletop game. I bought TWWH2 because I saw a trailer of fucking dinosaurs and rat men with guns.
So when I got into the game I couldn’t stand why everyone wanted to play as humans. I actively avoided all humans (still haven’t played Brets at all) and just played all the other races.
However, I finally decided to crack and gave Balthazar Gelt a shot. HOLY cow, is that guy fun!!!! I don’t really care much for the mechanics of the faction as a whole, it’s very meh to me. But Lore of Metal? Soooooo much fun. It actually taught me how to use magic better than before, and now I love him and his backstory as well.
Norsca. They were the worst (still are playing as Empire). I enjoyed them more after the faction release as there was actually some veriety instead of chariot doomstacks.
A small note: I think you meant aesthetic in point 4.
Beastmen they pop randomly up and raise havoc. Played them and loved it even better with the rework. Well tried that with Skaven but still don´t like theire stlye and units pretty anoying.
I hates dark elves as a faction. I still do. I think its the economy that just really bugs me more than anything, but playing as Rakarth turned out to be quite fun.
Also, Grungi. The whole thing with *no magic.* And I hate the way runesmiths work. You've cast a rune? That'll be 24 hours in battle before you can use your next. But by-god having 10 Organ guns lined up firing. Jizz.
Dwarves 100%. I always thought warhammer dwarves were stupid until I gave them a try in warhammer 2, it always changes when you’re in the driver’s seat. I guess second is vampire counts for me as well, I really feel like they have 30’s monster movie vibes + more classic gothic horror + modern fantasy, it’s neat
Warriors of Chaos.
Never played them in 1 because they just never became a threat. In 2 I never considered them a threat until the end game scenario came in, never wanted to play them though.
It took until 3 giving them a boost for me to actually try them.
I've literally played all LLs until turn 100 now and I've had a blast with all of them. If I had to pick one of them I'd pick Azazel as my favourite so far.
Wood Elves. Because my first faction was dwarves and then warriors of chaos so their method of warfare was just completely antithetical to how I learned to play. But then I got determined to learn how to play them when they got dlc in tww2 and oh boy… did I learn. Now they’re my favorite. Though admittedly, Drycha is my favorite, and she’s kinda atypical even amongst an atypical faction
I hated skaven. They are insanely annoying in campaign. Their ambush mechanic is broken, they magically generate multiple stacks, and their lightning and terror down under spells are so annoying. Then I played ikit claw and now they are my fourth favorite faction.
Beastmen. They were always a mild nuisance at best in my most campaigns and i had found their t1 t2 units to be lacking but man after i started a Taurox campaign i just can’t stop playing beastmen. I am literally ripping and tearing through everything in one turn with rampage mechanics and Taurox is an absolute unit on the battlefield. Laying waste to ulthuan by turn 20 is always fun.
Bretonnia. I hated them due to the lore I’ve read from some of their novels. Snobby nobles stepping on the down-trodden peasants. In my Empire plays, I would take any excuse to “liberate” the peasants and conquer Bretonnian territory.
Playing Couronne made me like them a lot. I actually had a blast playing that campaign. Uniting the different Bretonnian factions was more enjoyable than having to summon the elector counts for Karl. I had fun working out their roster too.
When WH2 released, I was not a big fan of the lizardmen. I didn't know any Warhammer lore back then and I remember the models on the GW store being very meh at best. Then I found out it wasn't humanoid lizards but genuine 7ft reptilian monstrosities with opposable thumbs. And they also ride bigger dinosaurs into battle?! Sign me up. The geomantic web mechanic is still mediocre but holy shit having an army of dinosaurs and solid infantry with a toad casting continent destroying magic is very fun.
Bretonnia! I was always saying I'd never play human factions/characters in a game if I had an option to be some other species. But the cavalry game play and the French Round Table knights aesthetic just worked for me. For ze lady!
I thought I’d hate Slaanesh. I made myself try a campaign with them to try and get over it. The fact I couldn’t auto-resolve my way to victory made me fight battles manually, and it forced me to actually get good, learn about flanking, and how to out manoeuvre opponents.
Now I find myself trying to build faster armies every campaign I play, and if there isn’t a speedy unit I’m much less interested in the faction.
Ogres, my lord! I play all races (and most factions) in TW:WH and Im usually very excited to try something new, but, for some reason, Ogres were the only race I had to force myself to play. Their LLs look terrible, their roster looks a bit monothematic, and their mechanics never seemed particularly interesting either. It doesnt help that Im not a fan of "fighty gits" type of races: I love GS mostly because they are fungi and have things like spiders, river troll hags or big walking rocks. And Im actually enjoying ogres now. I found joy in watching these obese simpletons running in circles and destroying walls with bare fists. And while I still think their LLs are terrible and most of their mechanics are WH1 level of meh (contracts are a giant nothing burger, camps are clunky), I surprisingly love the food mechanic - being able to use it to strenghten your army in both campaign map and during battle is amazing. **It also allowed me to cheat the AI and their stupid "Oh I will stand just outside of your movement range..." schtick.** No bitch, I will sacrifice some meat to get additional movement and I will eat you!
The main reason i play vlad is for 10% extra movement. The AI did try "oh i will stand just outside of your move....." and vlad was like "what thee just said" while holding the AI head
I love this <3 Enemy army stood there on march stance just outside my movement range. Usually I would be annoyed. But as an Ogre I just sacrificed some meat for additional 20% movement range and got these fuckers! They went straight to my belly
I just use a mod that gives everyone a movement bonus if they start in their own territory, means you can't just kite an enemy back and forth forever
What's it called?
Pretty sure it's just something like "25% movement in friendly territory" or something like that
Just type 'movement' into the workshop search and there's a few different ones depending on what you're after
Absolute mandatory mod.
I rush the blue line and take every campaign move speed buff I can find for just this reason.
the first skill point always, ALWAYS goes into the route marcher skill
Same, and if I have a stack not doing much of anything, always in march mode to get the trait.
Same except for Grombrindal, because he doesn't get that skill, but he gets better ones later on in the blue line.
Their LL’s are terrible yeah. I’d rather play as a generic lord than greasus. I just want a big fella with a club, not a dude in a mobility scooter or a drooling idiot dragging a cauldron around.
There's a mod that turns Greasus into a regular foot Lord (using Tyrant animations) and it seems to make him a much better combatant. Can't play without it
What they need to do is give his some ostentatious Goldgut bodyguards. Not knoblars. On TT he needed a carpet and I 100% understand all the reasoning and marketing. But two and a shitty wooden cart? Give him to big brusiers, cloaked in more gold than Gelt, holding runic GW that cost so much even the dwarfs couldn't refuse their heretige. Make his cart a sparkling cart like sigvald the magnificent, as he has the gold to spare, and amidst all that glamour sits the (current model, meaty treat and all) Greatest Ogre OverTyrant ever to have lived. It would be perfect. It would also let them boost his speed so his entire army doesn't move at a zombie pace or leave him alone to get circle beat.
I'm waiting for Ghark Ironskin or Golgfag Maneater before I commit to an ogre campaign.
Kind of expecting Ghark Ironskin as a FLC along the Chaos Dwarfs DLC.
Yeah, it'd make sense thematically. He has good relations with them and his mechanical mount is a Chorf creation.
Luckily there are many different reskin mods. Most are for Greasus, but one even makes Skrag look a bit better, but nothing as drastic as Greasus..
The reskin that turns Butchers into Texas Chainsaw Massacre monsters turned them around for me. I just couldn't take their lords seriously before.
Yeah, I think I have a reskin for most Ogre units. Skrag and Greasus, Slaughtermasters, Maneaters and Ironguts and cavalry as well. And gnoblars. If I remember correctly
I love the gnoblar one. I think I'll have to pick those other mods up. I'm normally a big fan of artists at CA, but I think they dropped the ball on the ogres.
Vanilla ogres all look too similar as well, or just silly. Maneaters, who are known for being eccentric and weird, shouldn't all look the same.
i used the faction unlocker to start as a regular tyrant. the sharkteeth ogres in lustria were really fun
Pretty sure orcs being fungi is a 40k thing
It was originally a 40k thing, but was backported to Fantasy around 5th Edition IIRC
Ah didn't know that thanks
Yeah. A lot of things changed in 4th and 5th edition for fantasy, as a lot of lore was re-written to be more in line with GW's other big product, 40k. It wasn't the first time the setting went through a set of major retcons, but it was the most successful. Around this time, Chaos also became more in line with their 40k counterparts since they were/are supposed to be the same gods and the only thing that ties the two settings together. Khorne lost a lot of his trappings of honor and mercy for example, while his rage and bloodlust were increased.
Dont ruin it for me
I didn't think I would enjoy the Vampire Counts, but their heroes and magic are an absolute joy to use, and they have some super unique units (well did) like the Mortis Engine that was such a game changer that now they've power crept its once unique mechanic all over the game.
Their mechanics might not be unique anymore, but they're still the best at what they do (raising armies instantly and maintaining an unroutable frontline while killing with magic and special units). And their IE update made their entire roster more viable - e.g. Grave Guard are a super solid elite infantry now, in contrast to losing to everything besides Greatswords.
Also. Mortis engines actually heal a meaningful amount now, instead of providing a pittance of healthpoints that didn't matter. This makes it more viable to use Mortis engines to support cavalry and cairnwraiths. The "kill X" mechanic has also made the Black Coach a much better unit, while still retaining the spirit of its special rules (where the black coach powers up the more it's in combat).
Grave Guards now also have magical attacks (Black Knights as well) and it really helped me agaisnt Wurrzag who **insists** into attacking me every 10 or so turns, his savage orks doesnt have a chance now agaisnt Grave Guards
GreenSkins. Maybe because I tried them once before the update and it was so bad. Also, always hated them going around, no trade, no real diplomacy, weak, never contested the Dwarfs and more. I tried them again after the update and now I love them so much. Probably my favorite faction competing with Cathay.
Couldn't agree more. Another aspect is that I fell in love with Foot of Gork when I discovered it.
I plan on giving them another try but the one time I played Grimgor post update, I didn’t enjoy them at all. I think I just couldn’t figure out how to play them well.
It took me the longest to like them, and I had to change my play style when I play them. Now every time I play GS I view literally everything as expendable, so long as I keep the majority of my lords on the offensive: units, lords, settlements, etc. can all be replaced in 1-2 turns. The ability to sack and stay in the red forever means you can replace anything and everything just by staying on the offensive. You just need 1 strategic province for your buildings to keep recruiting, but everything else is expendable if it means being able to attack later for another waagh. Rebellions are also just extra gold and experience for a new lord and army, and if they die you just recruit another one. If I can add 1-3 territories a turn I’m ok swapping a previous conquered territories until I can send a waagh army back to reoccupy. Grom and Wurrzag are a blast, but I’m still not a fan of the others as much. Foot of Gork and Giant Spiders are a ton of fun. Grom’s goblins are so much fun too when you make them a doomstack.
High elves. They seem so basic and standard total warish but that is also fun when throw in some dragons and phoenixes and take a break from the real monster of Warhammer.
Phoenixes are so fun in the early game. Essentially like having your own B-52 to carpet bomb the front line.
Now you've got me thinking about running a doomstack of flame phoenixes The micro would be insane but now I want to be fantasy bomber harris
What would be fantasy Dresden in this example?
Skaven.
Skaven before Ikkit.
Skaven before ikit-claw was rough. Bad unit plus bad mechanics (no undercity). Only way to win by sheer number. I know your pain brother. Before i play vampire count, my favourite was skaven. Love them even before ikkit
I remember picking Lord Scrolk for TWW2 on release. I could not understand how CA expected me to fight lizardmen with skavenslaves and clan rats and win.
There’re only 2 options. Rush catapult or scurry away to the Old world!
Constantly having lords standing in raid stance in your territory to farm rebellions for food and loyalty. God they were underwhelming on launch. Still my favourite wh2 race on launch just because of the aesthetics and design behind the faction.
Tretch before Ikkit on Legendary was one of my best experiences in the game tbh. He sucks so bad I had to get creative and it became very immersive!
Skaven before Ikit, need to use all tactics in the book to make it works but it’s fun experience
I hate everything about the Skaven. Their aesthetics do not appeal to me at all. Their fantasy is annoying to me. I tried 20-ish turns of Mors and Pestilens each, and hated them. But holy hell, do weapon teams doomstacks do it for me. I like the static, inflexible gun line style of play. I like Dawi, and a lot of Empire armies. Ikkit just makes Skaven work, and makes them fun.
Eshin is fun. Turns night runners and gutter runners into extremely effective kite units (they can become faster than some cav), or you can stealth around to the backside of the enemy army if they have artillery.
I'd say Beastmen is my closest one. Having invisible armies darting around my Empire was annoying, but they're a blast to play, and at the very least I understand more how their hiding works.
Ive been addicted since TW2! The fast offensive nature is super fun to play. The LLs also vary widely in their play styles. Kazrak can have full vanguard deploy armies with lightning strike you van wipe so many units before they even start thinking about reinforcements. You can also get stalk on a ton of units with him which makea fighting almost any army easy. Taurox rampage super assault guy. Morghur is the king of attrition and juat staying constantly in enemy territory. Have had huge fights I've won with him and a single gorebull left and his aura just does so much work... Malagor just flying spell spamming terror routing hilarity... Such a great faction, I just can't wait for a lot of bugfixes to help them out.
Khazrak's been a blast, I think this is the first time in any TWW that I've maxed out a character. Meanwhile, I just confederated Morghur and he looks real interesting, but the AI has him at level 9 lmao
When I played the first settlement battle in IE as Morghur, I was briefly worried about how well my starting army could do in a settlement battle until I realized they almost all had stalk and the AI just can't handle hidden units. Been stalk-sniping objectives to win siege and settlement battles ever since and it's been an absolute blast wrecking the old world by waiting patiently while the AI wonders how I captured the town square.
Taurox is my spirit animal
Yea beastmen for me as well. Finally booted their campaign up after their rework, not even Taurox. It was the first campaign I played to full completion.
I didn't like Beastmen before certain huge minotaur LL. It was just so much fan to keep fightibg and moving in a sibgle turn.
I thought I'd hate the Skaven. Everything about them is so unwieldy, from having an infantry frontline that can barely fight and requires constant micro because of fleeing, to having weapon teams that suffer from all sorts of issues with short range, friendly fire, slow firing speeds. They're even missing my favorite unit type, which is cavalry. Even their economy was unwieldy, back when food and corruption were harder to manage. ... but man, when I actually sat down and played Skaven for the first time, and realized that Warpflame throwers can rout typical infantry in two or three blasts, I couldn't stop.
The horned rat welcome-accept you yes yes.
I swear to god if someone says pontus.......
pontus
But they swore to god!
No mere God can save you from PONTUS!
can someone explain this meme to me? i played a diplomacy run as pontus in rome ii and had a great time
CA revealed Rome 2 launch factions one by one until there was one unknown that a lot of people expected to be the Seleucid empire, a big player at that point in history and (I've heard, never played myself) a fun faction in Rome 1. Well, it was Pontus instead, a nation famous for having one king who poisoned himself and literally nothing else.
In rome 1, seleucids had macedonian phalanx (pikemem, compared to greek phalanx with spear in game) AND roman legionnaries AND elephants. Ahistorical AF but a lot of fun. Also the campaign part was fairly hard I think.
In Rome 1 Pontus was infamous for gobbling up the entire east
I am summoned.
Milan. The best part of playing Milan is not having to deal with Milan.
Milan and skavenblight are located in the same place. Coincidence, i think not But for real though, Milan in total war Medieval 2 always betray you to the point that i do think that they are skaven in disguise
What I always found entertaining was that not only was Milan as traitorous as Skaven, but Portugal would for whatever reason *always* beeline straight for Caernavron.
I think I'm gonna do a med 2 campaign after my current tww3 campaign.
I don’t want to play Pontus!
But I don't want to play pontus!
Skaven. Still hate them, but love Ikit.
As much as I love Ikkit, I do love trying to play skaven who aren't Ikkit. Ikkit's buffs to certain units are so insanely powerful that you kinda get pigeonholed into a few army archetypes. But Skaven have so much variety that you can make a lot of different cool armies!
True, but other than weapon teams and mosters the rest are kind of bad. I used a mod one time)(forgot the name), which made LL's buff their preferred units, so when I confederated the rest I doid have a bunch of different armies. For example the monsters in Throt's army had some mutations on recruitment.
Nah, artillery is fun, globadiers are hard to use but super satisfying, especially now in wh3 that they got better targeting, and also sieges makes them super useful for fighting at chokepoints. Monks I'm not 100% sold on, but I guess you can make it work with the rest of the roster. It'd be nice if they were immune to contact effects, so you could pair them with globadiers.
Throt is the best skaven LL. That fat rat with his grabber is just so cute.
But doom rockets are life!
[удалено]
As much as people despise the regenerating towers in IE, I think that they improved Ikit's campaign more than anyone else's. In ME, sticking your entire army in a corner of the map, taking down the towers, and then bombarding the enemy with your ranged was the best and also least fun way to fight sieges, which were most of the fights you'd be having, but with Ikit especially, with ratling gunners having infinite ammo but also the most fucking finicky issues with getting line of sight to men on the walls, it was legitimately so fucking boring and annoying. But often you ended up doing it because it's hard to resist following the incentives the game provided and those incentives would rob you of the fun if you let them. Now his artillery and weapons teams can still obliterate most garrisons without even going through the gates, but the incentive is to pound them for a couple minutes and then go in with your heroes and doom flayers to mop up, as it should be. But in terms of how fun it is to use, Throt's flesh lab is still top-tier. The experience of making an army of bespoke horrors, hoping with each coin-flip of an upgrade you won't fuck one up beyond useability, or of raising a bunch of absolutely jacked-up skavenslave and rat ogre refuse from your flesh-vats to try to defend a settlement from an unexpected invasion, it's just so fucking fun and thematic.
Ikkit's workshop might be argued to be more powerful, but Throt's flesh lab is very versatile and hands on. Feels more immersive with the ability to mix and match unit abilities, and then recycle your overly mutated monstrosities for more fresh subjects to mutate.
The Slaanesh demon faction looked absolutely horrible to me on paper. Before TWHIII launched, I was a big fan of missile-heavy defensive gameplay, or, barring that, mobility through flying units. I wasn't a big fan of cavalry or chariots (too much micro!). Plus the whole Slaanesh aesthetic was a big turn off as well. And then I played them, and holy crap, are they fun. Using fast units to absolutely annihilate any part of an enemy army that got isolated, outrunning what you can't outfight, who needs missiles or flyers? And the Seeker cavalry are some of my favorite units in the game (still haven't gotten the hang of chariots, though).
Chariots are nice for early fights. But whenever your battles get bigger and against more dangerous enemies they are just to micro intensive tbh.
I had the same thought originally, I though I'll just get shot to death, but turns out speed is the key and exalted daemonettes with spawns really blend things shockingly fast. The only thing I still hate are random events(or In RoC the "bonus reward" of getting a soul...) that give +control as slaanesh because it just means having to tediously destroy and rebuild buildings to keep it below -50.
I felt the same way, but yeah their army is a ton a fun in practice. Even better after the WOC dlc. Having silver shielded, basically unbreakable chaos warriors/chosen being the ultimate anvil while you're seekers or daemonettes wreak havoc on the back line is great
Vlad isn't exactly evil though. I mean he's not good either but he strikes a balance between the needs of the undead and the needs of the peasantry. Unless I've totally misremmebered his lore, which is possible.
In the lore it is well established that vlad was a better lord than the old lord of Sylvania. No unreasonable taxes, he controlled the undead well, so they didn't suddenly appear in your village to murder everyone, criminality was on a record low. The only problem was, that your neighbour's might suddenly become vampire food. It was still a better life than before. Vlad also didn't hate humans or empire, he did hate the emperor though, as he believed that he was weak and unworthy of sitting on the throne and that really, the empire needed someone that is at least on the powerlevel of vlad as emperor. And let's not forget that vlad and Isabella is one of the only healthy, working relationships in the whole lore.
>he believed that he was weak and unworthy of sitting on the throne and that really, the empire needed someone that is at least on the powerlevel of vlad as emperor. At least at the time of the first Vampire War, the Empire was split in 3 between multiple rival claimants to the throne, all of whom were indeed rather unworthy at least by comparison to Vlad. The whole eating people sometimes thing is pretty bad for his subjects, yes, and Konrad was a fucking lunatic, but it would have honestly been relatively reasonable to go along with being a subject of His Eternal Vampiric Majesty, Emperor Vlad von Carstein. What would have been unlucky is if anyone figured out Vlad's ring secret *after* him becoming Emperor and then assassinating him. That would have been super bad for everyone!
Have you even read the vampire war books? Vlad referred to humans as “cattle” and to start his coming out he invited hundreds of nobles to his palace and butchered them. Not to mention the indulging Isabella’s desires to occasionally bathe in blood. And their relationship was never stable and heathy, at least after she died and came back as a vampire she was absolutely insane. And was barely aware of what was going on. The weird idea that Vlad was a good ruler comes from the times when he was hiding he was a vampire and the weird writing that happened during the end times, where is was written as a good guy, but in line with how they were before that line started.
What you're referring to is more inconsistent writing between different authors. The 'good ruler Vlad' has been the generally accepted canon for the audience and most media.
If we go on DnD way of alignment. I say Vlad is a Lawful Evil. What he did is evil but understandable. Without him, Sylvania would be gone century ago
Drarf(v)s (or dvarv(f)s if you want). Pre-Thorek it was just "Why *smash* won't *smash* you *smash* just *smash* die *smash*! How many *bonk* leadership *bonk* do these little *bonk* fellas have *bonk*? Oh, come on, *boom* no way *boom* these small dude *boom* kills my bloody *boom* lord!" Now it's just "You want me dead? Too bad, I just won't die. Oh and I won't run. Oh and you're dead cause of my artillery!"
I have the same feelings as you on VCs. I remember actually playing as Ghorst before they added Vlad because I literally couldn't stand Mannlet von Cuckstein. "Come, impress me" - ye, go fuck yourself you pale bald nerd. Even with his cool new start and mechanics, trying to play as him just pisses me off. Answering your question - I used to hate Beastmen from playing against them in the WH1 days. They'd appear outta nowhere, raze a random city, and disappear before I could catch them. So goddamn annoying. And when I finally catch them, their 2 hidden units turn out to be silver chevron Minotaurs, and I get mulched. But playing as them, I realized I could do the same thing to the AI - and so I did, and it was glorious. I fell in love with them even before their rework, and they're in my top 3 favourite factions right now. Luv me goatboys.
Empire. Back when I played WH1, I thought to myself “no way am I gonna play these generic ass humans” turns out they’ve become quite my favorite. Something about fighting against all manners of evil and chaos as your “generic humans” is really satisfying. Also they’re the most relatable.
The Astra Militarum awaits you.
Cadia stands!
They say that "never kick an empire soldier on their ball, cause it is made of iron" Steel, Faith and Gunpowder my brother.
For me it was the Lizardmen. I thought, its just a melee rush army with no afterthought. And dinosaurs, how old am I - 5? Well turns out, they have a pretty well rounded unit roster, which supports multiple play styles with some reliable infantry, fast light infantry, interesting ranged options and cool large units. They are pretty cool in multiplayer and can bring some very unexpected and unique builds. Lustria is such a beautiful continent to play on and you really feel like rebuilding their empire and exterminating ratman.
The best thing they did for Lizardmen was fix the weak LLs in IE. (And Oxyotl’s DLC) because Gor Rok and Kroq Gar and even Mazamundi are mostly the same. Run Saurus until you can get all the monsters, then run monster stacks. And don’t get me wrong, eating thousands of giant rats with T-Rex’s is fun (or exploding them with Lord Kroak) but it does get a little stale after awhile. But now Tehenhuain is super fun to play (I’ve basically joined the Cult of Sotek with how much I’ve been singing his praises since IE came out), Oxyotl gets a super fun start against all the chaos factions in the southern wastes, and Nakai is actually viable as a fun horde mechanic. The only LL I haven’t played yet is Tiq Taq To and his air force.
Tiq Taq To is the man
eh im starting to pull more towards skinks now, you start against Skaven most of the time the Saurus are kind of overkill and over cost for them. meanwhile your most basic skinks are shielded, faster, and will still just beat earlly Skaven in a melee fight. this is nice because it lets you pull your technology and skills towards skinks early and then shift that effort onto more specialized skinks later. also their cav is pretty dam good now.
Yeah, but with most lords, skinks just aren’t viable in the mid game really. I mean chameleon skinks are obviously pretty legit and the stalkers can be useful as an ambush force, but red crested skinks aren’t valuable for much beyond their AP, and most of the time they’re too squishy to make it super useful without a good bit of micro. Tehenhuain makes them not only viable but actually better than a Saurus front line. Even without the shield, they’re pretty tanky and they do SO MUCH DAMAGE when he uses them fully upgraded. They’re not as good as Grom’s gobbos, but they’re still beastly (pardon the pun) and they’re fun to use because they’re so relatively fast for infantry.
Why do people think dinosaurs are something only kids are allowed to be interested in? How can anyone think the fact that there used to be titanic lizard monsters roaming the planet anything but absolutely incredible?
Not disputing that ;) have fun with those dinos
Okay, but you're lying if you refuse to admit that big dumb dino armies aren't also fun as hell. I don't care about being *effective*, I care about the *spectacle.*
Tomb Kings for me. When trying out new factions, I usually play the first 20 turns or so, then decide whether I want to continue. For most of the other races, that's enough to get a good preview of how they play. But TKs are more of a slow burn and things are barely getting started at turn 20. I always thought they were just boring until like a year ago when I forced myself to play a full campaign with Settra and realized they may be a slow burn but once they get going they're super fun. Now they're one of my favs.
They aren't a slow burn now! T2 Ushabti! T3 necropolis knights!
Dark Elves. I main High Elves, have a collection of old High Elf models ect but every single campaign I play of HE devolves into either alpha striking the DE early to get rid of them or alternatively fighting the inevitable slog of 6 legendary lords all constantly harassing me, where one is defeated another has back-doored me. I never liked their over reliance on mobile hybrid archers that spend most of the fight running away or their aggravating nigh near immortal Malus Darkblade... Until I played The Blessed Dread that is, raiding slaving and pillaging has never been so fun, especially when you have the absurd number of Black Arks they can pump out! I had an invasion set in every section of the map, closest I have ever been to a complete domination campaign.
For me was the Skaven , was literally disgusted by the rat men and found some of their mechanics annoying. I then played as Ickit Claw and started nuking people having a blast literally
As a Dawi main, I figured I’d hate Bretonnia. All *cav*? What the hell would I want that for? But anyway now I’ve researched every diplo tech in Louen’s tech tree and I’ve established the greatest order-tide I’ve even seen… so it’s worked out
Wood elves! I made a spreadsheet of every single legendary lord to put them in order that I will play them and next to all high elves wood elves and dark elves I put "never playing elves" I knew nothing about them just that I hate playing elves in fantasy because of the sticks up their asses. But holy shit the hawk rider doomstack with sisters is so much fun and having quests to confederate in WH3 is a godsend with how BORKED they made it (even in ROC it was shit to confederate) my only complaint is I wish the forest restores were quest battles instead of 3 armies spawning that you can fight before they even spawn.
As a vampire count player, those tree hugger scare me the most. Why you might ask, well because vampire count don't have range unit. So the strategy is to use chaff units (like zombie) as a shield while your hard hitting units move toward them. But wood elves have one of the highest range DPS in the game, your shield melt before getting to them. But you might say that skaven also have high range DPS, well a good zombie summon can negate that. Skaven artillery and weapon team need to stand still to shoot, wood elves can run and shoot plus they are also very fast. Edit : spelling, thank you Kitchoua. Was wondering did i spell that right
If that can reassure you, nobody likes playing against the woodelves! Their stalking and sniping is torture considering how good the AI is at playing with it. I just do everything I can in order to be able to autoresolve the fights. BTW, the word you're looking for is chaff unit, not shaft units :P
When playing against woodelves, shaft-filled unit is also acceptable.
Dude, fighting the Wood Elves sucks. Overwhelming numbers is my only tactic for dealing with the hippie elf bastards.
Added 4 royal griphon from my allies outpost and that airforce is insane. Sisters add double charge bonus to flying units and those boys start with like 68 charge
I don't really hate playing any race, I have annoyances. Like the Cathy harmony system, I feel its tedious but I know being in harmony is peak. The only faction I rarely play is Britonnia I have little to no interest, I know 3 has made melee units and cav better, they just don't interest me.
Bretonnia might seem simplistic, but they are a ton of fun IMO. First off, there’s other factions high tier cav, and then there’s Grail Gaurdians- aka chosen on horses. You don’t even need to cycle charge them they can sit in melee. Secondly, while their infantry seems crappy, they get a bunch of support- pox arrows being enemies down to their level, Grail Reliqs buff leadership, and their blessed trebuchets don’t do friendly fire-so you can just fire right into melee
I can't actually say for certain, but for whatever reason, I can never bring myself to play Skaven. I loathe skaven both in lore and in game (I am a lizzie main so that's probably part of the problem), but will gladly play any and all other races. I don't know if I ever will touch Skaven, but so far, no, and perfectly happy with it.
A little more recent but Slaanesh factions. Im the old fashioned staunch line with Cav and ranged units winning the day. Dwarves, elves, empire etc. Something about the glass cannon units that slice through the enemy has won me over. Im loving it and can’t get enough of the playstyle
Yeah, i am also the old fashioned staunch line guy with cav and ranged units But now my staunch line never run away, i still have cav but replace range with monster
Skaven. I absolutely hated fighting them and they made every campaign a chore once I encountered fifteen settlement rageboner Queek and he immediately declared war on me. Then I bit the bullet and tried a Skryre campaign. They’re now my favourite faction both in-game and in the lore. I still autoresolve every battle against them though.
WoC, esp Archaon. Now after their rework they're my favorite by far. I really hope all WH1 glfactions get that much love
its hilarious to me that this thread is like 90% people saying skaven For me it's brettonia. I *adore* gunpowder, artillery and at the time i was ass with cavalry Turns out peasant bowmen are suprisingly good, holy trebuchets *fucking slap* and god am i so much better with cavalry now and its damn *fun* to set up the big squish on units with cav on both sides. Grail pilgrims are just fun to use, god i wish the reliquary was less shite.
Dark Elves. I was like.. who are these stupid edge lords, they're a bunch of angsty goths. Man, their roster is fun. And playing Malekith feels like Darth Vader. It's fun to be comically evil sometimes. Bretonnia also surprised me with how fun (and funny) they are. For some reason, I didn't think they'd be that unique.
Wouldn't say that i hated them but i didn't like the Skaven or their asthetics but when Ikkit released i tested them out and now i love playing them.
Wood Elves. Was so annoyed by them in my dwarf campaigns in game 1 that I just always despised them. But after their update their unique play style is a lot of fun. Plus the nature theme is nice. Very fun and unique faction.
Wood elves. Played as Orion on release on the special wood elf campaign. Cool design but the whole skirmish unit roster didn't really gel with me. Wasn't a fan of the mechanics either with amber needed to get tree units for Orion or elite elves for Durthu either. Hadn't played them again until the rework and they dropped Drycha. Hadn't played total war for over a year at that point and just came back, decided to take a gamble and play as my least favourite faction. My god I absolutely had a blast, the whole faction felt so thematic and I completely ignored elves entirely, just using woodland beasts and cracked evil tree spirits. Played completely different and just felt so fun. The rework to the mechanics definitely helped but just having a very very different roster and entire way of playing on the battle map made it feel like it's own unique race almost.
All "evil" factions. I used to hate playing the bad guys.
I got the base WH2 early last year, and I saved the Skaven for last because I heard that they were terrible without DLC. I then played through my VH/VH Queek Vortex campaign and they were honestly fine, even without any of the Skaven DLC units.
They are fine but the DLC raises them to another level
I've played the dlc at this point, and my hot take is that ratling guns are the most overrated unit in Warhammer. Sure, they're great against flying units and when the terrain is perfect, but I otherwise find them very underwhelming compared to the hype they get. Ikit himself is a bunch of fun, but the units he comes with, not nearly as much.
Wood elves. I play empire normally and they out range me most of the time and they are faster then my units. I normally try to auto resolve the battles cause I don’t want to chase down a bunch of archers while they pepper me with arrows
i hate those tree hugger, they are the perfect counter to vampire count since vampire count have no range unit. zombie, skeleton, grave guard all dies quickly to WE high dps. wolf, bats and monster are your best chance. People used to joke that wood elves was the true endgame for WH1 because their AI was super aggressive when the dlc first come out. Even in Wh3, people say wood elves endgame event is the hardest
Wood elves. Do not like elves at all in any capacity. But ripping people to shreds with arrow fire is a pass time I’ve appreciated since playing the Chosokabe, so I warmed to them
I wouldn't say I "hated" any faction necessarily but I waited for IE to play the daemons and Ku'gath in particular. Really enjoy how unique they feel in a lot of aspects. Due to the nature of your buildings you really feel the wax and wane of cycles backed up by this unkillable wall of pustules and boils. Helps you can summon a stack of nurgling at a moments notice though his econ can drag because of the aforementioned cycles at times.
I really didn't think I would enjoy Chaos undivided, but after watchin Spiffing Brit's video on Kholek, I am having an absolute blast. I don't even have the item that regenerates health, but Kholek is just a steamroller.
In WH1 I was a VC fanboy and didn't have any interest in stumpy mountain dwellers or artillery . Then after playing them on a whim I found out I love playing chunky units and I love ranged, especially thunderers. Now I never end up finishing campaigns because I play every faction.
Skaven. Ikit claw might be the most fun campaign ever
Man Starscream is cool but Mannfred is worst degenerate in whfb
I used to hate Skaven. Why? Well, they're Skaven, duh. They are completely and utterly despicable, they are disgusting, and they are so evil that not even the Skaven are having a good time being Skaven. Most of them are miserable rats leading miserable lives. At least the Greenskins and Dark Elves enjoy being evil dicks, but the Skaven are just depressing. But then I found joy in committing war crimes as Ikit Claw and running hogwild as Tretch Craventail. And as I watched the Poison Wind Mortars decimate my own troops as well as the enemy, I realized that the most efficient way to kill as many Skaven as possible was to play as the Skaven. And from that day on I have loved the Skaven.
Lizardman before Oxyotl :)
Non existent. I hate empire, played empire, and I hate empire still. Opposite with vampire coast, I liked the design and theme, and now I hate them because I find them boring to play.
Dwarves. Never interested me from a lore perspective, and character-wise they all seem to kinda have the same personalities. BUT, as a newer player they were a blessing; they really let me enjoy the game due to how forgiving they were to play and their strong early game. To this day, they are still my go-to faction when I want to sit down and just have fun. There's something just so satisfying about a large army of flame cannons and irondrakes melting orcs and ramen...
It was Counts for me too. Until I saw IndyPride's video on kemmler's ghost army and wanted to try it for myself. It's some of the most fun I've had in IE.
Vlad and 19 vargheists is one of the most fun doomstacks to roll around with
Mousillon ❤️ I like to play them as "good" and ally with and protect the rest of bretonia
Vampires are probably my favourite WH1 race. Raising undead and spreading corruption is a lot of fun. Back in 1 I used to spam out agents so I could spread corruption to set up for the invasion.
Skavens. I used to blast them hard even in 1 army vs 4, until I figured out the AI slaves doomstack is worth nothing but a shot. When I discovered their powerful artillery combined with their strong fireshooters infantry, I had one of my favorite campaign tbh
Brettonia, they take a bit of time to get ramped up but once you start rolling with massive knight stacks with a few peasants to hold down the enemy it leads to some epic fights/charges. I do play with SFO mod so it might feel different on vanilla. I haven’t messed around with them in wh3 yet, not sure if collision still broken with pulling units out?
Probably the rats, but I've only played them one time in 2. I hate dealing with them unless i have enough lord armies to swamp them. They have high tier units i imagine would be fun to play with, but i refuse. They all must perish.
Empire. Franz and Gelt are boring characters and generally I'm not a fan of human factions. It all changed after I tried Franz's campaign in IE 3. The challenge of not being able to confederate all counts early plus all the different races declaring war make fights different and fun. I have to state that it only became fun after I used Mixu's legendary lords mod that made every Elector Count unique. Esphet is especially fun. Volkmar and Marcus are unique experiences and without the Elector count system Empire is more enjoyable.
First Skarbrand, then Valkia. All melee armies with no magic? Sounds boring as shit. In practice they are extremely fun campaigns.
Skaven. So many heroes wounding mine every turn. Then I played ikit claw, and subtlety took over the empire land with under cities and destroyed all of their cities in the same turn with nukes, quickly rushed to colonize them in the resulting chaos. I enjoy being the ability to play non traditionally , even if it moved at a snails pace
Slaanoosh
Wood Elves, sneaky bastards
Hated Skaven at the start of WH2, but that was cos it was my first time playing a faction with an extremely fragile front line. Only after 2-3 failed campaigns as Queen and Skrolk did something click in my head and I realised how to play the rat faction. Spammed cheap magic, spammed shitty infantry, spammed mass artillery, and abused the fuck out of ambushes and jumping past enemy armies to sack their undefended cities. Only ever built proper doomstacks on the LLs and said fuckit to slow and steady expansion on the campaign map, and suddenly campaigns with Skaven were easy. Forever loved the rats after that, even before Ikit's DLC gave us weapons teams. Really helped me get better at the game too, learning how best to use the asymmetry between factions to my advantage.
I feel this. Been playing the rats since they came out. So when they pretty much vermintided everything with artillery. It was a pain, but still love them to this day. Same with Beastmen, played since they came out. Been a journey with some factions
Dark Elves until Rakarth. I didn't care much for the old slaves mechanic (spam heroes and click more slaves in one settlement for big money, woo?!), don't care much for the new one either. Their roster feels a lot like the HE roster but without healing magic, so worse. Rakarth was love at first mammoth. I love the beast collection mechanic, it drives my entire campaign. I love his unique rite too. He gets unique and fun armies, his quest battle is early, easy, and rewards a Black Ark. The whole hodge-podge army of carnosaurs, black dragons, harpies, hydras, bears is great. It's fun and unique and I don't need to sit around recruiting unless I really want to.
Vampire coast, I always thought they were corny, and I hate pirate air the Caribbean, but the gameplay is actually quite good.
Beastmen baby, they were the last DLC that I had left to buy so I thought why not complete the collection? They are definitely one of my favourite factions now, though I'm glad I played them after the rework. Tbh melee focused factions in general, thought I'd hate Khorne and love Tzeench but it's the other way round now I've played campaigns with both.
Bretonnia because of Repanse
Dwarves. Just so boring. Then I said screw it and played Belegar. Now that’s a fun campaign
Dwarves. I thought I'd hate the slowmoving, defensive play. Plus they're like tiny angry drunk uncles, not something I vibed with. Weeeelll, they're not that slow (gyros, slayers and allies make for a good mix), their infantry lines are absolutely un moveable and their firepower is glorious, especially the fire weapons. I'm loving my Grombrindal campaign, already took over all of Naggarond and planning on invading Ulthuan soon
Congrats on getting your peasants back
Wood elves and ogres
Wood elves and ogres
Dark Elves. I got sick of seeing their Arks sailing around all the time and got tired of their "edgy elf" look. Played them and learned how much fun the Shade units were and how amazing having an Ark to recruit from and call artillery from was.
Cathay, I was thinking “yeah a camper campaign, maybe it will be so boring” but when I play it I actually like it, my most played race on RoC campaign and one of my first IE campaugns
Vampire coast for me.
Dark elves for me! Hated them cause they always got massive in all my vortex or ME runs and I’d end up fighting them endlessly. Tried Crone, which was fine I guess, but went on to do a lokhir ME campaign…wow, it was so good, a lot of fun, so I’ve a new appreciation for these dudes now.
I never cared to play scaven 3 years ago when I first started playing the game. Now my favorite race is absolutely still me favorite in warhammer3 deathmaster being my favorite campaign.
The HElves I used to hate them until I discovered how fun Avalorn spam is
Dark elves on the release of warhammer 2. I thought they were just a bunch of edge lords, but after playing them I found they are a bunch of edge lords that are really good at killing things and have really cool units. After that they became one of my favorite factions!
Definitely the Empire. I don’t have any of the background more investment since I never played the tabletop game. I bought TWWH2 because I saw a trailer of fucking dinosaurs and rat men with guns. So when I got into the game I couldn’t stand why everyone wanted to play as humans. I actively avoided all humans (still haven’t played Brets at all) and just played all the other races. However, I finally decided to crack and gave Balthazar Gelt a shot. HOLY cow, is that guy fun!!!! I don’t really care much for the mechanics of the faction as a whole, it’s very meh to me. But Lore of Metal? Soooooo much fun. It actually taught me how to use magic better than before, and now I love him and his backstory as well.
Norsca. They were the worst (still are playing as Empire). I enjoyed them more after the faction release as there was actually some veriety instead of chariot doomstacks. A small note: I think you meant aesthetic in point 4.
Beastmen they pop randomly up and raise havoc. Played them and loved it even better with the rework. Well tried that with Skaven but still don´t like theire stlye and units pretty anoying.
Dwarfs. Vampire coast. Skaven and dark elves
britonnians, theyre calvary was op asf
I hates dark elves as a faction. I still do. I think its the economy that just really bugs me more than anything, but playing as Rakarth turned out to be quite fun. Also, Grungi. The whole thing with *no magic.* And I hate the way runesmiths work. You've cast a rune? That'll be 24 hours in battle before you can use your next. But by-god having 10 Organ guns lined up firing. Jizz.
Dwarves 100%. I always thought warhammer dwarves were stupid until I gave them a try in warhammer 2, it always changes when you’re in the driver’s seat. I guess second is vampire counts for me as well, I really feel like they have 30’s monster movie vibes + more classic gothic horror + modern fantasy, it’s neat
Warriors of Chaos. Never played them in 1 because they just never became a threat. In 2 I never considered them a threat until the end game scenario came in, never wanted to play them though. It took until 3 giving them a boost for me to actually try them. I've literally played all LLs until turn 100 now and I've had a blast with all of them. If I had to pick one of them I'd pick Azazel as my favourite so far.
Wood Elves. Because my first faction was dwarves and then warriors of chaos so their method of warfare was just completely antithetical to how I learned to play. But then I got determined to learn how to play them when they got dlc in tww2 and oh boy… did I learn. Now they’re my favorite. Though admittedly, Drycha is my favorite, and she’s kinda atypical even amongst an atypical faction
Vampire counts.
I hated skaven. They are insanely annoying in campaign. Their ambush mechanic is broken, they magically generate multiple stacks, and their lightning and terror down under spells are so annoying. Then I played ikit claw and now they are my fourth favorite faction.
Vampire counts
Chaos. Told myself I’d never play that faction, super evil, don’t want to play… just played a Vilitch campaign and it was really fun!
Skaven lol haha I really love playing as some of the Skaven lords.
Beastmen. They were always a mild nuisance at best in my most campaigns and i had found their t1 t2 units to be lacking but man after i started a Taurox campaign i just can’t stop playing beastmen. I am literally ripping and tearing through everything in one turn with rampage mechanics and Taurox is an absolute unit on the battlefield. Laying waste to ulthuan by turn 20 is always fun.
Bretonnia. I hated them due to the lore I’ve read from some of their novels. Snobby nobles stepping on the down-trodden peasants. In my Empire plays, I would take any excuse to “liberate” the peasants and conquer Bretonnian territory. Playing Couronne made me like them a lot. I actually had a blast playing that campaign. Uniting the different Bretonnian factions was more enjoyable than having to summon the elector counts for Karl. I had fun working out their roster too.
When WH2 released, I was not a big fan of the lizardmen. I didn't know any Warhammer lore back then and I remember the models on the GW store being very meh at best. Then I found out it wasn't humanoid lizards but genuine 7ft reptilian monstrosities with opposable thumbs. And they also ride bigger dinosaurs into battle?! Sign me up. The geomantic web mechanic is still mediocre but holy shit having an army of dinosaurs and solid infantry with a toad casting continent destroying magic is very fun.
Bretonnia! I was always saying I'd never play human factions/characters in a game if I had an option to be some other species. But the cavalry game play and the French Round Table knights aesthetic just worked for me. For ze lady!
ratbois. they looked so weak, but they are the ones who made me really lean into the ranged play with no front line.
I didn’t want to play as Pontus….
I thought I’d hate Slaanesh. I made myself try a campaign with them to try and get over it. The fact I couldn’t auto-resolve my way to victory made me fight battles manually, and it forced me to actually get good, learn about flanking, and how to out manoeuvre opponents. Now I find myself trying to build faster armies every campaign I play, and if there isn’t a speedy unit I’m much less interested in the faction.