Warhammer:TW Strategy

So about a week and CA has been teasing us with Campaign play thrus. It has got Bob and I talking about how we will play. We will undoubtedly have multiple campaigns ourselves but of course we are going to have coop campaign as well.

Dwarf Campaign

John's thinking Coop: To start I would prefer to play as the Dwarves, I have the tabletop army and I love their style of play. So I definitely play a lot slower than the Devs play, but I don't want any of that rebellion bull crap. You're dwarves. So general strategy is to focus on one problem and hammer it till its gone. Single player this probably means attacking the orcs to my south and securing that while ignoring the north. However in the coop I figure I will be saving Bob a lot. We typically like to choose factions that border each other or at least are quickly close to have a shared/protected border.

Vampire Campaign

Having that protected edge is huge. Maybe the biggest thing imo. Being able to turn our armies around to face outward problems only is hugely beneficial. With the number of small factions available we are sure to be attacked from all around. In Coop, depending on who Bob plays as ,(Empire?) the quickest path will probably be straight through the Vampires. Which is fine imo. It gets us a shared border (BIG) gets rid of a couple enemy factions including one of the big ones (BIG). Getting rid of problems early will be very helpful and with one quickly removed we should be able to slow play the rest.

Bob's thinking Coop: I will of course be playing the Empire for several reasons: 1) I have a large Empire army, 2) the old alliance between Sigmar and the High King, and 3) it just makes sense considering how we play. Funny, I was going to say the same for helping John in the south (John: I do tend to be the lightning rod of hate)..... Having the ability to march and support each other is going to be huge as is the fact both races can expand to the north and south.

Empire Campaign

John's thinking Army Build: As dwarves I am not going to be fast, I am not going to be magicky and I am not going to lose. Defensive play with plenty of heavy infantry and artillery. In some of the gameplay I have seen the players like a lot of missile troops, I am not that way. My ideal army is probably General, 3 Organ Guns, 2 Quarellers, 2 slayers, 2 Hammerers and 9 Ironbreakers. Come get it. Organ guns to deal with any cav and flankers, quarellers to deal with any opposed missile troops (I like them for their longer range). The Ironbreakers will be my main line with the Hammerers as the anchors on the flanks and the Slayers as reserves. Not sure what I want to do with that last slot, maybe a cannon for range and ranged monster killing but otherwise I think they are going to be useless.

The idea of this army is to be able to dish out enough damage at range to be able to force the enemy to close into combat. with enemy ranged armies I will count on my artillery and superior armor to weather their fire, and for Chaos I still (I think) have enough heavy combat units to outlast them. In either case I will depend on my artillery dishing out a lot of damage and I need to protect them, therefore the slayers who just want to kill something and don't care how scary the enemy lord is on a dragon.

Bob's thinking army builds: Well I am of a few minds on this. The Empire has several different builds I am thinking of. On the table top and in Total War games I typically go for a combined arms type of set up. I am thinking of a General and Wizard in most armies when available with a Warrior Priest or Witch Hunter thrown in depending on how useful they are. I typically take a solid 8 to 10 Infantry units giving me a strong battle line. I am thinking 2-4 Greatswords, 3-4 Swordsmen and 3-4 Halberdiers, and maybe a spear unit or 2 depending on who I am mainly fighting. For support I want 3 units of Handgunners as I like their superior stopping power. Cav will consist of either 2 Demigryphs or 2 Knights with an addition of Outriders or Pistoliers if needed. Artillery is a must so I am planning on running at least 2-3 units at all times with composition being dictated by who I am predominately fighting. For Vamps I am thinking Mortars and Hellstorm rockets where as Chaos will be Hellblasters and Cannon. Oh and I wont be leaving home without a Steam Tank in my high tier armies. The STank is an capable of dealing with multiple threats while also withstanding some hurt back. The choices available are one of the many reasons why I like the Empire as an army.

If you plan on playing give us some of your thoughts in the comments!

Warhammer: Total War Update

So the original release date, April 28th, has come and gone and we have nothing to show for it. While we knew about the delay I always held onto hope that they would release a beta/something for those who preordered. Instead we have had to deal with more videos by guys who can't play the  game.

including this one I actually haven't watched at the time I typed this up.

They have been doing a couple different types of movies.

The Slayers Guide offers a perspective on some of the monstrous creatures out there

And they have even started getting the community involved vs devs. but again no one seems to know what they are doing (who brings trebuchets as the DEFENDER in a siege?)

And then of course they have been doing more set piece battles.

And lastly they have started doing "challenges" for each other, which I actually like. But again these people largely don't know how to play their own game. I admit it might be scripted just to show off some things, but come on. Also I am a big fan of the undead puns.

Plenty of other videos out there. also some commentary from fans and other blog runners. Some offer good insight and give good screen shots of unit stats, I still am curious to see some side by side stats, but others reviewers have voices fit for a brick to the face and a silent movie role.


Overall thoughts continue to be positive, after some of the early misgivings I had from videos and releases, seeing more and more come out has definitely put me back on the  happy side for this game. I have loved seeing the unit rosters expand and be fleshed out. The sieges have been great, protecting a quarter of the city doesn't bother me and I am interested in seeing how settlements defenses level.

I have been real happy seeing everything they are putting into the Bretonians as an unplayable race. Probably the first real dlc imo. I don't count chaos, yeah yeah yeah BS rabble rabble rabble, get over it.

I couldn't find it in a quick search, too lazy for more, but there was an awesome video breaking down the AI's thought process in sieges. In the video they go over how different blocks of units are assigned different roles within a subset (attack gates, attack walls, break down walls) which was amazing to see. Hopefully some of that carries over into the normal battles as well. would love to see some ranged enemies taking advantage of hills, or the enemy actually holding a choke point and not just an automatic engaged everything with everything mode. Hopefully this really evolves the battlefield. I am looking forward to the challenge as I usually play the battles with difficulty all the way up to have a little bit of back and forth. so if we start seeing strategy, unlike that ork vs bretonia video, I will be extremely happy with this game.