Is this unbalanced or is Vampires just extra hard?

[Gunther von Rittersburg]

Love the Total War series, and love the fantasy world of WARHAMMER: TW

But for the love of Pete, is it just me or are all the factions more heavily rock-paper-scissors than the average TW game? Playing as Vampires, and have 3 armies, plus local garrison(yea I know useless force in-game) against 4 armies of Dwarves. In short, 4 vs 4, Grand Campaign. Fighting in a region of Grassland. I have a variety of troops, from zombies, to a Terrorgheist, Graveguard, Graveguard Heavyweapon, Skeletal Warriors, Skeletal Spearmen, Black coach, Mortis Engine, and some other chariot. It totals to be over 1000 troops, vs 7-800 some odd Dwarves.

Now in WH: TW I've noticed that its more about troop numbers than anything else, that wins. And WH: II seems little different. So in terms of numbers, I win. In terms of troop quality, should be right up there too. All my vampires, and assistants, have some magical powers and artifacts recovered.

Long story short, I get massacred, even trying the strategy listed in a guide for WH1, and having my Terrorgheist try and distract the artillery, but he got shotdown relatively quickly and for every 1 dwarf killed, 50+ of quality good Undead troops die.

So, the TLDR question is:

1. Is this game way to heavily focused on the rock-paper-scissors engine?

2. Are the Vampires a more advanced faction, and there is an easier faction to try?

3. Any guides to help explain early, mid, and late game Vampire strategies?

4. Any Steam groups dedicated to the Undead factions where I could find other players to discuss things? No discord groups, I should add.

Thx for reading and thx for any and all helpful answers.

[Ashantai]

Who are your Lords, and what level?

I'm playing a Normal difficulty Vlad campaign now and it was very slow going at the start after taking out Templehof.

However Vlad is insanely strong in combat, and your vampires and necromancers are also extremely handy.

Fight the Dwarves when they are weakest; no magic and low mobility.

They key I've found is engaging them head on with your heroes and good units whilst your cavalry and fliers hit their missile and artillery. As Vlad you start with blood knights, Vargulfs and bats. They are great for distracting/hammering the enemy backline. Charging the blood knights into their rear is devastating.
Magic, especially hexes, are devastating to get their armour and melee attack down.

Now, I conquered Zhufbar and Karak Kadrin then let the Orcs handle the Dwarves so I was only facing their lower tier troops.

[Gunther von Rittersburg]

All vampires, heros, etc. are randomly generated, not the starting lords you can choose from(Vlad, Mannfred, Kemmler, Isabella, etc.)

Nice strategy, but the Ai is disorganized, so artillery is in the back and mixed in with their assaultal troops, meaning flying units can only slow the artillery/missiles momentarily...and thats about as long as the flying units will last before becoming dangerously low in HP or killed. And melee is as bad a struggle as missile/artillery is causing.

Im on Turn 154, the Dwarves have a large empire to the South of the Eastern Border Princes, while the north is Vampiric. Any advice beyond getting a peace agreement?

[Sir uP]

Try not to engage full on war with dwarfs as vampires. At least not early game.

But if you do... An army with 10 units and lightning strike can basically destroy 4 stacks of dwarfs. Build up a tanky lord and use blood knights and vargeists combined with a few GG.

Send the lord out let the dumb aiblob around them, sneak your blood knights around the flanks but out of range of arty. Charge in from a good angle and use the vargeists to peel off anything that goes for the arty including their quarellersand rangers.

You can throw in some crypt horrors or replace the GG with crypt horrors for better results.

Also. The overcast wind of death can actually shred a line of dwarfs.

[Hurricane]

Vampires are actually easy, they have the best garrisons, they have the best spells and heroes, their heroes regen like the vamps and also get spells.

If you play on legendary it can be tough as the upkeep is huge and youll have rebels every turn due to the way the corruption works early game, but your garrisons easy handle them and the more battles you fight the better armies you can instantly raise!

Dont worry about building stuff that lets you recruit units, just focus on income. All the units you need can be recruited by fighting big battles.

Sacking towns gets you so much money and razing them speeds up your corruption, only take capitals as your own, the income buildings can only be built in capitals, the small towns get you no income.

Depending who you play as try kill the other vampire off fast, he will always traitor you on legendary.

On ME you can get rekt if all the factions focus you as you just cant build enough stacks on legendary due to upkeep penaltys.

[kamikharzeeh]

lel, yeah if u don't play blobbbstrats and abuse the ai's limited planning, it's way harder. try to avoid 4vs4 armie battles at any cost, its horrible to micromanage them... that gives the ai simply a big advantage.

(unless u're a based pro, but these guys wouldn't even ask for advice by they reck 4 armies easily with sth like 10 units :P )

normally dorfs are weak to monsters or stronger units than their own's. like using the endurance of the vampire units + healing techs should be the key i guess, in terms of noobgameplay (i cannot give better advice, i did start playing with twwh2 ;) )

[Gunther von Rittersburg]

Originally posted by Sir ♥♥♥♥♥foot:

Try not to engage full on war with dwarfs as vampires. At least not early game.

But if you do... An army with 10 units and lightning strike can basically destroy 4 stacks of dwarfs. Build up a tanky lord and use blood knights and vargeists combined with a few GG.

Send the lord out let the dumb aiblob around them, sneak your blood knights around the flanks but out of range of arty. Charge in from a good angle and use the vargeists to peel off anything that goes for the arty including their quarellersand rangers.

You can throw in some crypt horrors or replace the GG with crypt horrors for better results.

Also. The overcast wind of death can actually shred a line of dwarfs.

The missile/arty units seem to have a locked targeting system. Going around seems to only delay their destructive barrage by seconds.

I keep hearing about Crypt horrors but they seem to be not as strong in-game. Are they the best?

And, just for the record, I am past the early game. Im on Turn 154, and as far as recruiting goes, have most available, or soon to be available.

[Hurricane]

The best early units to use as vamps are black knights they are anti infantry and heal really fast. You can kite dwarves forever and kill their ranged super fast. Using gravegaurd is really slow but another option and then just winds of death everything gg.

[chronobomb]

Vlad makes the early game easy and Manfred is the better lord later. Vlad's buffs will never get old but his lack of mobility and getting owned by large units really limits him in the late game. Getting Vlad's vanguard for the whole army and insane xp gain is why he is number one pick.

Dwarf is tough for Vampires in the early game. If you have to take them on, you need Crypt Horrors and Vargulfs and Vargheists, as that is the only armor piercing you have early game.

Your better off dropping and attacking Greenskins to get some diplomatic bonuses with the Dawi so they become allies early. They are easy to finish off once you have full armies of GG with greatweps, Terrorgheists, Vargulfs, Blood Knights, etc... Evetually Dawi won't even be challenging.

They are really resistant to magic so any characters with magic attacks are a major NO!

Make sure to summon zombies behind their line to rear charge and tie up their arty and arrows. Most of their damage is done at range for the early game so get on them quickly.

Most of your magic doesn't do armor piercing, so go with healing/regen. Don't be afraid to pull your regens out of battle to heal up while your skellies and zombies hold the line.

The Dawi have almost nothing that can take on Large Units other than one late game unit and gunners. so use them a lot.

Stay away from fire as much as possible.

Using a necro hero with a corpse cart can double the hp of your skellies and zombies through passive and active regen abilities.

This will be good practice because Chaos will be even tougher and even more heavily armored with excellent flankers.

[Sir uP]

Well push your lord as close to the arty as you can before you engage withanything else.

Gotta be careful and quick when you devide to engage with your blood knights. Support them. That's where your main line crypt horrors or GG comes in to eat somr arty fire. I like crypt horrors more as they feel more impactful, are more maneuverable with a smaller unit size and faster. Invocation of nehek will help either the blood knights/vargeist combo or your main line.

Keep large away from slayers, kill those with your lord/magic.

Lightning strike is critical for very hard and legendary campaigns.

[Sevens]

In single player campaign don't use skeletons and zombies unless you have no choice. Only use Grave Guard. Use the ones with shileds as front line, and the ones with greatweapons stay in the rear untill the front is engaged. Use cavalry to circle the enemy and hit their range troops. Use Terrorgiests against enemy horses or heros, not the arty or archers. If you want flyers to hit archers use Varghgeists. Use invocation of nehek overcast on the spots in the fight that are getting injured. Use Mortis Engines against the biggest blobs of enemies, but don't have them solo. You can end a fight as VC vs Dwarves with 0 casualties if you keep the battle going and heal your troops as the enemy flees at the end of the battle. I don't know how you play, but if you are losing against dwarves on equal terms on very hard or lower, then you are doing something very wrong.

[Wh♂♂par]

There's so many things, that happen in the battle, and so many variables about the levels and perks, that one cannot possibly say, that if it was your fault or the game's. There's just too much to give you an adequate answer on your question. RPS, no. Countering units? Yes. And some quite hard, while some are soft-counters.

Things like spawning units in their ranged units, zombies especially, can turn the tide significantly. Magic at the right time can devastate the bot, even if it's dwarfs. How well you used the chariots, that were at your disposal, the ranks of the enemy units and yours, just like your lords. I, for one, have defeated dwarf armies with a 20 stack of felbats and a few vargheists, with the lord on the ground. It's hilarious.

[Gunther von Rittersburg]

So basically, I need to restart the campaign?

[Gunther von Rittersburg]

Originally posted by Wh♂♂par:

There's so many things, that happen in the battle, and so many variables about the levels and perks, that one cannot possibly say, that if it was your fault or the game's. There's just too much to give you an adequate answer on your question. RPS, no. Countering units? Yes. And some quite hard, while some are soft-counters.

Things like spawning units in their ranged units, zombies especially, can turn the tide significantly. Magic at the right time can devastate the bot, even if it's dwarfs. How well you used the chariots, that were at your disposal, the ranks of the enemy units and yours, just like your lords. I, for one, have defeated dwarf armies with a 20 stack of felbats and a few vargheists, with the lord on the ground. It's hilarious.

The chariots I kept close to my lords to regen the magic or whatever. In combat they seem to try and run the enemy over, which ends without success.

[Wh♂♂par]

If you feel it's unsalvageable, yes. Else, just keep fighting until you are fed up. Both have pros and cons. Thing is, you might already implement things, you learnt, into the new campaign and never face this issue again or you will encounter another problem like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CHAOS, NORSCA OR other enjoyable stuff, while you are fighting somewhere else.

[Wh♂♂par]

Originally posted by Jack Skellington:

Originally posted by Wh♂♂par:

There's so many things, that happen in the battle, and so many variables about the levels and perks, that one cannot possibly say, that if it was your fault or the game's. There's just too much to give you an adequate answer on your question. RPS, no. Countering units? Yes. And some quite hard, while some are soft-counters.

Things like spawning units in their ranged units, zombies especially, can turn the tide significantly. Magic at the right time can devastate the bot, even if it's dwarfs. How well you used the chariots, that were at your disposal, the ranks of the enemy units and yours, just like your lords. I, for one, have defeated dwarf armies with a 20 stack of felbats and a few vargheists, with the lord on the ground. It's hilarious.

The chariots I kept close to my lords to regen the magic or whatever. In combat they seem to try and run the enemy over, which ends without success.

Chariots are meant to be used as hit and run. Quite literally.

Charge them in, roll them over, charge them in cycles. The mortis engine has an AoE DoT around itself, it's constant. Keep an eye on it, and have it in an enemy blob. Didn't understand, if you had corpse carts or not, but THOSE you keep out of the fight to buff your troops in vicinity or debuff enemies, that fight other troops.

Oh, and yeah. Vampires have a few problems expanding, early game, due to corruption. But you can use rebels to level and gain money, too.