Kislev army comps/strategies

[Ariel Soto]

I'm having a very very very very hard time while playing as Kislev.

What are your guys's strategies and army comps? Honestly I can't seem to have armored Kossars do anything useful. I have to have Tzar Guard or they get destroyed.

As well, Streltsi just don't shot anything at all(?) I have to reposition them 90% of the fights I fight.

Please, help

[Jarmam]

Streltsi work wonders in my experience. If you don't touch them, they generally shoot in a much wider arc than if you manually ask them to shoot specific things. A good combo with them is Light Sleds to kite and harass the enemy into moving into your gunlines. Sleds can also charge into the enemies that go straight for the Streltsi, as being just 4 entities in a unit they dont really block firing that much.

Guns take some fiddling to get used to due to LOS being a much bigger issue for them than glorious Delf XBows, but once you you get into the habit of scouting the terrain for hills blocking LOS and using SEMs or small entity-units to keep the enemy at bay for the gunline, it proves its worth. Plus Streltsi can actually melee. They are great in the checkers formation, where half the units are moved 1 unit-length backwards to continue shooting at whatever is attacking the front half.

Once you reach Bear Riders and the new Gryphon Legions its gg, though Iceguard-based stacks also work perfectly fine. The trick is getting to t3 and surviving w these units long enough for t4.

Or spam Akshina Ambushers. Despite nerf after nerf they are still disgustingly strong.

[Ashardalon]

i mostly just play them like taller dwarves

[Ariel Soto]

Originally posted by Ashardalon:

i mostly just play them like taller dwarves

That's the thing. I can't seem to be able to. They armored kossars can't freaking hold the line at all. And Streltsi would just NOT shoot.

[Butcher]

Spam normal kossars. Place them in the corner of the map in multiple lines, one behind another. Get ice witch to spam AoE at enemy blob forming against your frontline.

If you feel fancy get some armored kossars (SHIELDS) for frontline, around 4 would be enough. Once you can, upgrade your kossars to ice guard.

[Kel'Thuzad]

My late game army is a back row of Ice Guard shooting over a front row of Strelsi.
With 2x War Bear Riders on each flank to counter any attempted flanking by cavalry.

Use Ice spells to slow approaching enemies as they get shredded by ranged volleys.

Early game it's a row of Kossars shooting over Armored Kossars. Same strategy as the late game army, bit weaker units.

Make sure your Lord takes the red skills that buff the appropriate units. Make sure you grab the key technologies that buff their reload skill etc.

As for Strelsi not shooting, you might be deploying them on bumpy terrain where they can't see the approaching enemy until they 'crest' the bump/hill in front of them.
Look for flat areas to deploy them. Or preferably at the top of a slope where they're looking down over the terrain.
Gunpowder units also don't shoot over friendly units, because their shots don't arc like bows or crossbows.

[Mepho]

Originally posted by Ariel Soto:

I'm having a very very very very hard time while playing as Kislev.

What are your guys's strategies and army comps? Honestly I can't seem to have armored Kossars do anything useful. I have to have Tzar Guard or they get destroyed.

As well, Streltsi just don't shot anything at all(?) I have to reposition them 90% of the fights I fight.

Please, help

If I remember correctly in my Kislev campaign I went mass chaff at first (don't remember the name, archer with green background?) then 4 light sleds and Streltsi spam. What they couldn't autoresolve with decent casualties would mean put sltretsi in a line and run around with sleds in front of them until all the baddies are dead or running.

Never had an issue with that but it was on normal difficulty. Gave me no reason to think it wouldn't work on higher ones tho, it was quite overwherlming the poor ai.

[Dagy47]

2 words:
frost wyrm doom stack

[Haxorzist]

Necro IK but Light War Sleds are the early game doom stack to go to IMO. your run all around the map shooting all the bastards, then finish off all infantry by using them as mass chariots (dogpile a unit).
I'm actually here because i wanted to see if I was doing anything wrong with Streltsi as their little gromm, Streltsi stack is performing abysmal in comparison to the light sleds.

[Gorgeous_Joe]

Firstly, you need to tell us your level of skill, are you good with the micro or not so much? Then you have to tell us what level difficulty you are playing the game on?
Otherwise it's all mute. I could advise you to built a mobile archer army and use mongol tactics on the enemy but that requires a LOT of clicking and micro intensive battles.
OR if you are playing as Boris, build a bear army and kill everything and anything in your way, just point click and watch everything die.
It is better to have one army of high tiers units than three armies of low tier trash that will just melt and run away, although you do get blood of the motherland with Kislev so trash army are slightly more viable.
Your best option with Kislev at the start is to use the old bait and attack ambush trick. Using a weak army on forced march while having your main strong army in range to reinforce will allow you to kill the rats and then you can push on early and wipe them out completely.
You can use the same tactics against the Chaos Dwarfs too and Chaos forces but by the time they arrive you should be on your way to building some decent armies.
Try and keep the Dwarfs alive and the Empire otherwise you can easily be overwhelmed.
Different Lords buff different units so bear that in mind when building your armies, but generally speaking War Bears and Ice Guard are your best units in terms of mass production and upkeep.
Tier 1 units are rarely viable after turn 40 because the A.I starts to spam out heavily armoured armies by then and your low tier Kislev units don't have armour piercing so disband them and build better.

[Andreas_Sturm]

In all honesty, I've gotten pretty good things out of armored kossars (I usually take the non-great weapons variant). I'm currently going through a legendary campaign with maximum AI battle cheats and I'd really have to say that it depends on who you are up against. It's always good to have at least one little grom in there to help in siege battles, streltsi are excellent against pretty much everything, but excel more against armored targets, their winged hussar-like cavalry is actually really good at flanking. Their light-war-sleds are pretty good as well. The hag witch (I love how she says "hag witch" as it sounds like some kind of sandwich :D ) is pretty good and has great synergy with the elemental forest monsters as she can give them stalk, and those monsters themselves are pretty good. Their generic lords are a bit meh, although the spellcaster ones can get an ice wyrm, which is a pretty decent beast. I'm not the biggest fan of the tsar guard simply because I prefer line-holders that can do some damage before the enemy reaches them, although I do sometimes have a few units in my armies just for kicks. The one thing that really tears my hide, though, is this annoying bug that happens with ranged cavalry/chariots/mounts in that when you disable fire-at-will and have the unit charge in with the melee only command, the unit will start firing at will anyway (typically at a completely different enemy unit than targeted), which can lead to unnecessary friendly casualties and/or wasted ammo.

That being said, always make sure there are little gaps in your front-line through which your ranged units can shoot (look up the checkerboard formation if you are unfamiliar with this tactic). Their missile cavalry can be real useful in the early game for harassing enemy units and quickly getting behind the enemy front-line to shoot them in the rear, although the war sleds will be more efficient in killing higher tier units later on in the campaign, with the light-war-sled being the better option as speed>armor. The war-sleds can also crash into the enemy's rear for maximum damage. Vanilla Kislev had pretty poor magic, but the addition of the hag witches makes up for that. All-in-all, I'd Kislev has a very balanced army composition that is solid in pretty much all areas, although some of their campaign mechanics do feel a bit half finished. Good luck!

[Heinz]

The question is: how can one faction be as OP as Kislev and at the same time so incredibly lame and traaaaaash?

Just look at the inconsistency of the lore vs reality. They seemingly have eternal number of bears and epic monsters, Naruto-level willpower, unique ice magic and mystical witches. Yet when Chaos sneezes they evaporate.

They are a joke.

[Andreas_Sturm]

Originally posted by Heinz:

The question is: how can one faction be as OP as Kislev and at the same time so incredibly lame and traaaaaash?

Just look at the inconsistency of the lore vs reality. They seemingly have eternal number of bears and epic monsters, Naruto-level willpower, unique ice magic and mystical witches. Yet when Chaos sneezes they evaporate.

They are a joke.

I think the problem ends up being that all of chaos sneezes at the same time and then one's AI allies end up being an absolute joke themselves, although allies in this game do perform a whole lot better than in WH2. But in the end, that's kind of their biggest downside, despite the good army selection; they're almost all alone, they're the first order race that chaos encounters, and no help is coming.

[DarkFenix]

Originally posted by Haxorzist:

Necro IK but Light War Sleds are the early game doom stack to go to IMO. your run all around the map shooting all the bastards, then finish off all infantry by using them as mass chariots (dogpile a unit).
I'm actually here because i wanted to see if I was doing anything wrong with Streltsi as their little gromm, Streltsi stack is performing abysmal in comparison to the light sleds.

Streltsi aren't really a unit you make a stack of. Given that they're a hybrid gun-great weapon unit, they're something you take a few of to shoot the hell out of armoured units the enemy brings, particularly large monsters/lords that guns are oh so good at annihilating. Their melee capability is merely decent, keep them shooting if possible, but feel free to charge them into a melee you're confident you can quickly win (ie. that charge will tip the enemy over the edge into routing).

[yuzhonglu]

17 light war sleds, 1 patriarch, 2 ice maidens with ice charioteer and ice lord with ice charioteer, too, for a -100% upkeep reduction with the blue line completed.

As Kislev there's little reason once you get war sleds to build anything but warsleds, as they wreck single entity and cav with their shooting, and kill infantry with their chariot.