Tips to Defeat Chaos

[Zorro]

I’m playing my first game and picked the empire. I thought I was doing well for my first game I conquered a few provinces and razed some cities across the sea so I wouldn’t get raided. Then it was like something out of Warhammer lore. Norsa launched an invasion of my Nordland province. Two chaos armies invaded Middenland and some orcs invaded as well. This all happened in one turn.

I’m pretty terrible at fighting so what are some good Empire units to counter chaos?

[Scrotum Scratcher]

Spam outriders. As many as possible in a stack. Do damage, withdraw from battle when out of ammo, rinse & repeat. Halberds and greatswords work too. You won't need shields as they don't have many missile troops.

[Chrenergros]

Artillery could help and demygrhip knight are your main cavalry unit when chaos approaches. Try to use 2 or 3 stack of artillery , rocket launcher could work even if they don't have AP attack they do decent damage. Better option is the one that had AP damage (dont remember the name). Use greatsword to the front and demy with lance to flank. Bring some demy halberds for monsters or use halberdiers if u find yourself out of money. Try to use more armies too, this will make things easier.

[goumindong]

There are a lot of different ways to defeat chaos. Before we get to tactics lets talk strategy. Chaos comes in two primary forms. Norsca which is pretty much always there but you might not notice unless until they're invading. And Chaos itself, which spawns semi-randomly. Stoping Norsca is very hard, you cannot capture the north and the snow and chaos corruption make traversing that area take a lot of time.

Stopping Chaos is more about attrition. In Total Warhammer unit upkeeps range from 1/3 to 1/4 of unit production costs depending on skills. This means that you can lose an entire army and rebuild it in 4 turns off of the income saved from your units dieing. Chaos doesn't really have that luxuary. It can recruit but that stops it form moving. It can replenish troops but it still has the same problem. If it loses an army that army is generally gone. And if it does respawn it will respawn way up north and have to walk all the way back down.

So the way to beat Chaos strategically is to throw men at the problem until it stops. Additionally the "lightning strike" skill from the bottom row(requires 6 points of investment) will let you pick off individual chaos armies in 1 on 1 fights rather than having to fight 3 at a time.


Tactically you're going to want armor piercing damage and Anti-Large. Chaos is full of two types of units. Armored units and large units. The Large units tend to be anti-infantry. They may have some missile cavalry. Ignoring the very top end units like Demi-gryphs and Luminarks(which are both amazing against Chaos) the best solution to those problems is Handgunners. Outriders are OK, amazing even if the enemy is infantry heavy, but Handgunners do a lot more damage because of the unit size advantage. They will slaughter enemy missile cavalry as well as Chaos's most dangerous infantry. While its not ideal to shoot shielded units Handgunners will still slaughter pretty much anything you turn them on, so long as they have an open field of fire.

Your Handgunners will need protection from enemy chariots and wolves. They kill things fast but not so fast that they won't be run down. As well, you will need a backstop to prevent enemy infantry from walking up to your handgunners. Halberdiers are your solution here. They have sky high melee defense and are anti-large. Because chaos has no true ranged units their lack of armor and shields are not important. They can take alot of damage from missile cavalry but your handgunners will slaughter thlose long before that matters.

Because many chaos units have armor piercing damage greatswords are not a great backstop. They're just plain not good enough to stand up to the enemy infantry with their low melee defense. If Halberdiers are too pricy then Spearmen(Shields) are a decent second option. They aren't AP but will hold the line.

In order to facilitate this consider picking up three skills from the red line on your lord. The most important of them is Honest Steel. It increases the melee defense and attack of your basic units, swordsmen, spearmen(and shields), and Halberdiers. We care mainly about the Melee Defense but the value of this skill is immense. The second is "hold the line", which is an aura that your lord will have which will negate the charge bonus of the enemy if your units aren't moving. Its super good. The least important is "Pistolkorps". It increases the damage of your Handgunners by 12% and increases their ammo(which usually doesn't, but can matter). With "Volley Fire" researched your handgunners will do a hilarious amount of damage. With that and Gelt's "New Formulations" an obscene amount of damage.

[Zorro]

Thanks for all the advice. It looks like I’ll have to play around with my army compositions. I have five of them and they vary somewhat but they generally all have 4-6 shield spearmen, 2 halberdiers, 6 ranged units (usually 4 crossbowmen and 2 handgunners) and 2 Reiksgaurd. Then I throw in some random units to try out.

I have a couple more questions.

How are steam tanks against chaos I recruited 4 or 5 of them spread out between my armies.

Secondly the chaos, orc, and norsican armies are running from me and I can’t catch them. Any advice on actually catching up to them on the campaign map? I think must of my lords have the route marcher trait already. As I said I’m bad on the battle map so I like engaging with two armies.

[goumindong]

Your army composition is OK but i am guessing you find that the crossbowmen and Reiksguard don't end up doing much. When you add thunderers you're going to have a harder time fighting initially because you're probably not going to be used to the sight lines. Empire Cavalry, besides the top of the line units... aren't very good. Cavalry in general suffers from small numbers. Because they have half the units of a typical infantry unit they have half the attacks. So the charge is over a Reiksguard unit that has 32 attack and 28 defense is less tanky and less damaging than a unit of Swordsmen with 32 attack and 30 defense; not even counting if the Swordsmen have Honest Steel. Their speed lets them flank more and then they have to cycle charge. Against Chaos, which is all armored and has much better cavalry you're likely to just get run down.

That isn't to say that Reiksguard are bad. Any unit placed in its proper position can be very strong. Its just that the Reiksguards proper position is running into the back of basic infantry. And Empire Knights proper position is running into non-dwarven archers. And you might note that none of those are chaos units. On the other hand Demi-gryph Knights are just plain better. There are less of them, but they're armor piercing so they still do more damage except against units where it doesn't matter(they should have similar physics damage which negates that against most units where that matters). They have 130 armor and more HP per unit so they're less likely to die. They come in an anti-large version for even more hilarity. And they cause terror. They are the premier cavalry unit in the game.

Steam tanks are OK to great against them. Their best against armored, non-AP, infantry because they don't have much, if any, melee defence and they attack in an AoE. And Chaos indeed has armored, non-AP infantry(but keep them away from the AP infantry, shoot those with your handgunners). Their primary defence is having a load of armor. Everything hits them but it rarely does any damage. With Gelt i think you can get to something like 197 armor which makes them almost invulnerable to non-AP damage. I mean literally; with 197 armor they would have a 1.52% chance to take an average of .75% damage. The trick is that once Choas gets close enough you've got to put the units on melee mode, or they're going to keep pinking away (their gun is good but best used for killing enemy artillery. They're bad against monsters. They will get torn up against AP infantry.

To catch armies you can use a couple of tactics. One is bait(set an army to ambush next to a weaker army they will want to kill, this won't work on higher difficulties but you might them close enough to you that you can re-engage and kill). One is Lightning Strike (if the enemy has two units its unlikely to run against one, lightning strike will make it a one on one fight even if you walked up 2v1). One is having a weaker army by auto-resolve calculcations(if they think they have a chance of winning they won't run). And the last one is sabotage, get a Witch Hunter and have them follow in front of your army. Use the "block army" action on the enemy and they won't be able to run away(they can still withdraw but they will start close enough to you that you can engage again, and you can only run once per turn)

[AndyInnit⚡⚡]

quick tip for playing the battles manually.
Have at least 1 handgunner unit in every army. They will work with your lord to murder the enemy lord.

If your lord engages the enemy lord, for al 1 v 1 fight. Your handgunners can shoot into this melee, dropping the health of the enemy lord drastically, and when he tries to flee, the handgunners will shoot said enemy lord dead.
If you throw a unit into the fight, the handgunners stop shooting, until the line of sight is clear again, so make sure you get your lord to charge his, and make sure none of your squads get involved and the enemy lord is as good as dead.

usually at this point, most armies begin to break and go into full route, Vampire armies tend to shatter and vanish all of a sudden.

excellent tactic to get you out of a tight spot.

[bbolto]

What I like to bring:
4x halberdiers (flank infantry)
4x greatswords (center infantry)
2x handgunners (flank skirmishers, put them in front of the infantry line and then try to work them around the flanks as the melee battle is engaged)
2x crossbowmen (center skirmishers)
2x demigryph knights with halberds, or if I can't afford that, 2x reiksguard
2x reiksguard or 2x outriders if I have to economize further
an empire captain
a wizard, if my lord isn't Balthasar - if he is, a second empire captain or a warrior-priest
a cannon, and maybe a second cannon or rocket battery

why:

- greatswords do fine when supported by the heroes
- yes, handgunners are very effective versus armor but you still have to maintain line of sight which crossbows do more easily, and besides, the crossbows work plenty well in dealing with marauder horsemen and other nuisances. basically, I find it easier to maintain fire with 2 handgunners + 2 crossbowmen. It also works fine if the chaos horde is fielding a giant
- the heroes are there to support your line and beat down chariots, trolls, chaos spawn. Warrior-priests can be pretty squishy sometimes but the replenishment between battles is appreciated
- reiksguard, again, fine in numbers... if you bring 4 and Chaos brings 2 chaos knights you should do fine. If you play conservatively and only engage the chaos knights when they're on your flanks you should be able to hold out long enough for your nearest halberdier to join in. Problem with outriders vs. Chaos is the hounds. But, demigryph knights are much better if you can afford them.
- cannon is the best for pounding Chaos monsters and chariots, but a rocket battery can beat up squishier Chaos or Norsca infantry pretty well
- wizard.. I don't have a huge preference in terms of lore except fire is less than ideal vs. Chaos, but on the other hand if you have to fight a Norsca army...

Steam tanks are indeed lovely vs. Chaos and I'd swap out cavalry for them but I rarely have the money. Luminarks... better for vampires but I could see some use for one...

[Smokedice]

lots of the above posted tactis are very good, but at the end of the day you want to have 2 stacks to Chaos' 1.

[Zorro]

I seem to be just plain bad. I had two stacks agaist one chaos and barely won. I had a good mixture as troops as well. On the same turn I lost to an orc stack agaist my "best" army that had the emperor, a light wizard, demi knights, steam tanks, etc. I reloaded and the autoresolve won with few loses.

My infantry can't hold the line long enough for other units to get around and attack from behind. my ranged units get off two volleys of shots an then they stop. I usally have to fight off the enemy flank attacks and by the time all that is over the battle is lost.

Does it matter how far I spread out my spearmen? Do they need so many rows of men deep to be effective?

[Chrenergros]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Zorro:

I seem to be just plain bad. I had two stacks agaist one chaos and barely won. I had a good mixture as troops as well. On the same turn I lost to an orc stack agaist my "best" army that had the emperor, a light wizard, demi knights, steam tanks, etc. I reloaded and the autoresolve won with few loses.

My infantry can't hold the line long enough for other units to get around and attack from behind. my ranged units get off two volleys of shots an then they stop. I usally have to fight off the enemy flank attacks and by the time all that is over the battle is lost.

Does it matter how far I spread out my spearmen? Do they need so many rows of men deep to be effective?

Well, deeper last longer but does low damage. If u need a solid front line that have just to hold for let u flank, than use deeper formation and u will find it well.
Also note that autoresolve follows some rules, so sometimes autoresolve shows bad result, maybe an unwinnable fight the autoresolve will just win with few casualites or an easy fight the autoresolve will show as unwinnable. For the rest, try to make a line of 5 or 6 spearman with shield (they have good MD) and attack first with them. I reccomend headgunners vs chaos because all infantry are armored, so use the headgunners to kill the chariots and crossbowman to hit their ranged cavalry or units with low armor and/or no shield. When your spearman engage, u can flank and kill every man with cycle charge. I reccomend to bring 2-3 rocket battery aswell, they will help u to wounds their front line before the engage.

[Zorro]

I kept getting smashed so I got into the bad habit of auto resolving. I started a new game with The Empire and make it a point to fight every battle myself. I didn't realize some Lord talents have multiple levels. I invested fully into honest steel and that helps alot. I also now charge right before the enemy line hits me.

I don't use as much handgunners anymore as they were hard for me to use with their line of sight. Crossbowmen seem to do the job and have better LOS.

Any tips to deal with missle cav?

[Echo419]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Zorro:

I kept getting smashed so I got into the bad habit of auto resolving. I started a new game with The Empire and make it a point to fight every battle myself. I didn't realize some Lord talents have multiple levels. I invested fully into honest steel and that helps alot. I also now charge right before the enemy line hits me.

I don't use as much handgunners anymore as they were hard for me to use with their line of sight. Crossbowmen seem to do the job and have better LOS.

Any tips to deal with missle cav?

You can use either crossbowman or regular cavalry to take down missle cavalry.

[Zorro]

Does thhe empire have Cav that can catch them?

[Chrenergros]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Zorro:

Does thhe empire have Cav that can catch them?

Well, only his 2 range cavalry (empire's side). The best way is to use crossbowman, so bring 2 or 3 cross and u will be fine.

[Smokedice]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Zorro:

I don't use as much handgunners anymore as they were hard for me to use with their line of sight.

That's a big mistake, but understandable since handgunners don't have a good line of sight, but all you got to do is guide them around the flanks and fire into the back. You'll need to dedicate a unit of cavalry or greatswords to protect them though, but once you fire a volley into the back of chaos warriors, they'll rout fast!