Chaos Dwarf: The good and the bad

[Tuz]

I gave Astragoth a spin the last 2 days focusing on a very hard expansion campaign with an end game crisis.

It is turn 100, I am invading Cathay, having confederated all of the dwarf lords and sitting on a staggering economy of 44k gold income, 14k raw materials/turn, 4k armaments /turn, 469 influence/turn. Sitting on 82 settlements and 25 completed provinces.

I found it easier to stack up on resources to be able to upgrade my entire empire by saving on troop upgrades, focusing on 1-2 that really made a difference for each unit type. I focused a lot more on raw materials early, but I am not realized with so many armies and elite troops I really need to hit armaments hard because each additional upgrade ends up being 650+ armament upkeep across the empire.

So far, I have been pleasantly surprised by the awesome scenery of the badlands, the mechanics focused on building a functional economy, and the new landmarks. The tech tree is satisfying, having relatively low research times and being varied. The tower was fun to snag bonuses across, but I later found it tedious as the other dwarf lords kept stealing positions since they tend to avoid the higher tiers to fill up the lower ones first. While you are saving for the higher ones, they are spending influence on the lower ones you own.

Oh well, I got the last laugh when I confederated and got all of their positions.

While the economy was largely fun earlier to mid campaign, I feel it is becoming more tedious later on, needing to manage each province. I am going for world domination so I can only assume it will become more annoying.

The labor hasn't really been an issue for me and I can usually stay at double what I need. The public order was harsh early game and I found myself relying on the temporary province buffs to keep out of the negative, which really drains your labor if you allow it to dip. If you run out of enemies to farm labor from, focus on caravans. That is the only resource I find myself running caravans for. Speaking on public order real quick, focus on the landmarks and the tech to improve it because it helps and eventually becomes a non-existent problem.

Speaking of caravans, they were fun in the beginning when I was getting unique items and new units for visiting cities, but that is a one time thing and you mostly need to rely on chance to get events gifting decent units. There is a tech for that though, but I haven't got there yet. Caravans DO become stale closer to mid game.

The issue with hobgoblins is outside the unique hero, there is really no great way to army buff them and I found myself avoiding laborers and hobgoblins entirely later on. They just can't compete with elite stacks past turn 100. However, Chaos Dwarves can't afford to only spam elite units, especially modified ones, and it makes early to mid game challenging but late game more tedious.

Yes, you do get awesome troops, but your biggest threat is ranged units, which other factions have better of due to the range of most archers and the unit size of enemy artillery. Factions with excellent armor piercing range absolutely shred your armies. You lack the range and have no way of dealing with large entities effectively without using your gunners.

Deathshriek artillery is abysmal, taking forever to shoot despite its relatively low reload and not being able to compete with other artillery. They don't really have a role. They are better vs. large units, but it's very hit or miss. I personally thought they were a waste of a unit spot. They need more accuracy or reliable damage to compete.

The trains, oh god, they are awful. I was worried they would not be effective given the state of chariot units and I was not wrong here. Their only redeeming quality is high armor, unbreakable, perfect vigor, and their ability which gives them massive bonuses to charge/mass. Outside of that skill, they get stuck too often and end up doing minimal damage. I last tested them against skeletons, who have 90 mass and it was getting bogged down despite having 10,000 mass. Took me minutes of micro to get 10,000 damage out of 5 skeleton units which would be 3-4 volleys from guns. They don't turn quick and don't accelerate quick, so it becomes difficult to turn around and roll back in efficiently.

Speaking of volleys, the blunderbusses are amazing. Their shotgun(knockdown) firing type is incredible and shreds a lot of units. The knockdown helps them reload and shoot again before enemies closing in. Giving them suppressed helps this even further. The issue, once again, is the 90 range. They get absolutely shredded by long range armor piercing archers of the elves who have 160+ range. The AI focuses on your ranged units first so even if you have a front line and try to bring in your blunderbusses, yea they get deleted. They are fine early to mid game, but this destroys them late game.

The fireglaives have more range and are better vs. single entities and monsters because of their accuracy and range but they lack the ooomph at closer range unfortunately. Speaking of fireglaives, the castellan hero is very meh when it comes to ranged capability. Ranged heroes have been very hit-or-miss in Warhammer and he barely ends up doing damage. The dwarf engineer with a shotgun can really do some work on the flanks and I was hoping for the same from this chap, especially with explosive ammunition, but it was extremely underwhelming. Thankfully he can be used in melee. The only real reason to keep him in an army is for the buffs. His combat proficiency is very mediocre.

Now, let's look at the daemons. The fireborn are extremely underperforming. Yes, stat wise they are solid. Their morale on the other hand, is an issue. As soon as they get below 50% hp and lose unbreakable they instantly get banished. I thought perhaps I can cheat the system and apply the unbreakable buff to them through the workshop, but their passive disables that buff at 50% hp and they still die due to low morale. There is no way to get rid of that effect. You can only really rely on 50% of their hp or 3,000 health. Very underwhelming.

The destroyer did alright, but my initial visual woah was soured when I realized it just wasn't as punchy as I was hoping it would be. It's mostly a tarpit unit that gathers enemies up for a artillery, spell, ranged combo.

I liked everything else. Lords and heroes felt good. Melee infantry felt good. The mix of slow armored dwarves and fast hobs felt solid. I felt like Genghis Khan at one point with my swarm of hob wolf archers. I approve of the fire cows. Not a fan of the Lammasu though, just doesn't feel like it performs well compared to other flying units. It might be better in a deamon focused army where you are hiding behind physical resist and need an aoe cleanse for magical attacks, but its situational.

What set's these guys up is their late game opportunities. If you are like me and focused on high influence build, you will be able to occupy towers at tier 5 each turn. Then inject production to get maxed level buildings instantly, bringing in tier 5 garrisons, dreadquake mortal defenses, building that gives 30% movement speed across your province, etc.

You can rapidly expand and make a lot of money. The biggest limiting factor are the armaments and your unit caps. Once units cost over 1,000 armaments it becomes tedious to have good armies across your entire empire. You may say, just build more and sure, but the issue are the upgrades. Do you want to run stock armies or use upgrades? The more units on the field, the higher the upkeep. Currently, if I put 3 mods in one category I get a 2,100 armament upkeep, now multiply that by every category and I simply can't afford that much. Take the tech tree that allows 5 upgrades rather than 3. Yea, it becomes an issue.

The game pushes you into using hobgoblins and laborers, but they are just not efficient in the late game when high elves have a half stack of dragons or dwarves throw elite artillery, ironbreakers, and slayers against you. You may say, well use multiple armies, but the AI blobs up on higher difficulties as well. They may attack you with 3-4 stacks of elite armies, which you simply can't match.

I am still excited by them and had a lot of fun. I hope you are all enjoying yourselves as well. My hope is for CA to make some tweaks to their faction to make them more enjoyable in campaign and some units more competitive.

I would love for lower armament upkeep on the unit upgrades. A morale buff to the fireborn and for the unbreakable upgrade to make it unbreakable (permanently). A buff to deathshrieker artillery to make them competitive. Trains need to have more melee capability and not get easily get bogged down by infantry blobs. If they do, they need a way to actually fight back rather than doing minimal damage to the lowest tier units. Also unit caps costs should be cheaper and should not ramp up as quickly to help the player manage going from mid to late game and stay competitive.

What are your thoughts or experiences? These are just personal observations. I love this game, hell I am an addict haha with over 9,000 hours across the trilogy and almost 4,000 just in Warhammer III. I will play the game regardless and the chaos dwarves are an amazing addition. It just feels some little stuff is "off" here and there and they could be a better experience.

[Cpt Obvious]

The Good: it's great fun.
The Bad: Not much.

[cb4n28]

Originally posted by Cpt Obvious:

The Good: it's great fun.
The Bad: Not much.

Thank you Cpt Obvious

[Lamp]

Nice review.

Yeah I've found them about the same so far, but I haven't really have many economy struggles. was even able to hit tier V by like turn 40 or so.

Found them versatile enough to always have money and elite armies. Also found that nearing lategame managing the prisoners with jobs still wasn't too bad, been liking the overlapping adjacent control buildings.

And yeah those skullcrushers. I tried manually microing them a fair bit like chariots, but they were just overall blegh. There's probably a special purpose to them that I missed, like maybe they're good for wrecking doors and barricades.

I would disagree about the chorfs being outranged in general though. Those magma cannons are fantastic, (as are their artillery options in general), and they have some unit options regular dorfs don't have like cheap wolf archers/expendable fire archers. Also their magic helps a lot with superior enemy ranged armies because you can distract/toast them (and the chorf sorcerers get flying mounts pretty quick.)

Actually only got to like turn 85ish, but was in about the same position: all other dwarves absorbed, economy going nuts and steamrolling the map. Thinking of maybe starting as a a different chorf and maybe, *maybe* trying their RoC campaign...

Only holding off on that because when WH3 came out I spent 150 hours in RoC banging my head against the wall trying to find a faction/location/theme I liked only to realise that I hated the entire campaign. Map, story, specific combination of factions etc. About 100 of those hours were just me trying different campaign strategies with Daniel (before any reworking patches or mods) as I was so invested in DoC.
Yeah RoC, left a particularly rank stench for me. Chorfs tho...

[Sgt. Giggle Mittens]

I am having a different experience.

I am just bored.

the early game for them is just "greenskins but ♥♥♥♥♥♥" with some dwarf units mixed in. I have yet to make it to late game because the endless juggling of random resources gets me bored to tears, its like I am a middle manager of a company rather then a general.

[Mania]

I, for one, have enjoyed the economy management of the Chaos Dwarfs. Usually I just spam growth and income buildings, get a couple military here and there or fortifications if I’m threatened.

With Chaos Dwarfs, I actually have to plan out my provinces and make sure I have
1. enough gold to form new armies
2. armaments to get good units for said armies
3. raw materials for economic development
4. enough laborers to not go bankrupt.

First time I’ve actually liked managing economy in a grand strategy.

[strike478]

I dont enjoy their economy and dislike their low range on shooting units. I played only some couple of hours but I actually enjoyed their artillery when I could shoot into middle of lage cluster of units. But reloads are far too slow.

Regarding economy it requires loots of micromanagement and I dont enjoy it. But I feel like if I were different type of persone I would liked it very much. Its just not my taste.

[MiserBomb]

So whats your secret to making gold as CD? I can't make any strong bank early on so I cant afford a 2nd 20 stack and just getting rolled when the war declarations start rolling in on by back line.

[MrSoul]

Originally posted by Chicken Warrior:

So whats your secret to making gold as CD? I can't make any strong bank early on so I cant afford a 2nd 20 stack and just getting rolled when the war declarations start rolling in on by back line.

fewer outposts, more factories. I found once had about 2-3 outposts(one that consume slaves and produce materials), I could feed few of the income buildings. I suffered on armaments earlier on tho as just had one in the starting province.

Factories are alot easier to micro too as dont have to move labour around, just fire and forget once have enough material surplus, say like 2-3 of those income buildings early on should be able to get a second army rolling ,don't forget too if didnt know: have no supply lines, so only pay for extra upkeep on individual units of said army, not the increased percentage per army as well. Just thought mention that in case like me and have agita over recruiting new army even when have a fair bit of extra cash rolling around, they will not insta' bankrupt you like normal.

[Haggis]

Blunderbusses are INSANELY powerful all game long. It takes a little bit of practice to get good with positioning them due to line of sight issues, but get a tanky lord or some tanky dwarfs and have them be in a square formation with gaps between them and the next unit, and that allows your blunderbusses to blow holes into the enemy, while the enemy are still tied up in melee. Alternatively when the enemy are tied up have them move around to the flanks to shoot freely.

They will tear absolutely anything apart. Chosen? No problem. Legendary Lords? No problem. Chaff? It will disintegrate as each gun fires 3 shots each per volley, so where normal guns or arrows can only kill 1 enemy per unit that shoots; blunderbusses can kill 3. On top of that they knock enemies back. There is nothing that they are not good against, and I think every lord starts with some, and you can quickly and easily get more. As long as you can keep them out of melee they will be able to carry you to victory.

[Kangaroo Salesman]

So far i've found if your blunderbusses get within range of pretty much anything they win. I have them doing 98dmg i killed Miao Ying in 5 seconds flat in dragon form, and Ku'gath the same. Ungrim dies quite fast, Chosen of nurgle just vanish, even dragon ogres/Kholek. Plus putting them in melee mode to equip shields when moving is great.

[BigRockWall]

There really isnt as much strategy as people seem to say about planning the Chorf economy. In my current game, its turn 64 and i have 185 cities.

Every single province = Tower (single city province) + outpost (2 city prov) + factory (3 city) + outpost (4 city). In that order pending number of cities in the province.

Towers are prtty straight forward. Landmark + trade good + gold + the 3 hero cap buildings + the arty building for global recruit slots. Garrison and hobgoblin recruit building as needed on the front, delete when city becomes back line. I play VH and have never needed the order buildings. Just play aggressively and you will stay at or near 100% labor.

The outposts all get raw mats + landmark + trade good + income + order, in order of preference based on what landmarks or trade goods may or may not be available in the city. Not suggesting you can get them all with the 3 (2 in coastal) build slots available.

The factories all get garrison (where needed on the fronts) + gold + landmark + trade good + 30% raw mats + armaments, in order of preference again based on what landmarks and trade goods exist. Also, when possible i choose chokepoint cities as factories since they can get unwalled settlement battles with their garrison building.

I also am currently running 23 full stacks. Majority hobgoblins. There was a thread I read earlier about how the sorc lord is bad and you should only use overseers. Phooey. Hashut lord, fire hero (or the opposite if the traits you like work out that way). 2 casters per stack that have synergy with ash storm + fire magic. Caster lord, caster hero, castellan, magma cannon +16 mixed hobs per stack. Dwarf units concentrated in LL stacks and hobs do just fine everywhere else. Those 23 stacks cost me 43k a turn upkeep currently.

185 cities, 105k (gross, 57k net) income per turn, 10k raw mats and 8k armaments per turn. I havent even bothered with the manufactory persistent unit upgrades yet, hasnt felt necessary. I am not special. I am not better or smarter than anyone else. I simply recognized that Chorfs are OP if you are aggressive all game from turn 1. Don't try to play tall. Constant conquest = constant labor supply so you are always at 100% everywhere.