Choosing a faction for newbies.

[Brother Aermik]

So I've been seeing a lot more people joining Total War Warhammer 2 recently which is absolutely awesome! I really like that people have been joining due to the success of 3 Kingdoms and the sales going on recently. So I thought to help the new influx of people that I would write this guide on choosing what faction to play as since it can be extremely overwhelming to see the sheer amount of options that you have.

For this guide I will be going over first every Eye of the Vortex faction along with my suggestion for a lord if you're new. After this I'll be taking a look at the Mortal Empires factions since those who are new to the series may or may not have Total War Warhammer 1.

High Elves: Ranged units, aggressive, diplomatic, cavalry units. This is what you're going to get if you go high elves. All of their early game roster is centered around their archery units with some good melee units being sprinkled in to help assist. However, their bread and butter unit does perfectly fine in melee as well. This is a great pick for newcomers and can really help you learn the game without too much micromanaging. Definitely pick Tyrion as your lord.

Lizardmen: Dinosaurs. Lots of Dinosaurs. Great artillery which is also dinosaurs. Can be diplomatic if they want to be. They have options for just about everything now with the DLC. Their early game can be super aggressive or it can be fairly slow and more defensive, it really depends on personal preference. For a defensive style pick your lord as Mazdamundi. For an aggressive style, pick either Gor-Rok or Kroq'Gar.

Dark Elves: Ranged, good melee, super defensible position in Malekith and Moranthi, good lord in Malekith, can go balls to the wall or hang back and confederate. Going Dark Elves over High Elves really comes down to personal taste. If you want to be a bad guy then definitely go with Dark Elves over High Elves. Otherwise their roster really mirrors their high elf brethren with less of an emphasis on cavalry an more of an emphasis on ground monsters. No real diplomatic options for these guys outside of their own faction, but they're relatively secluded so you won't be facing much other than dark elves for the majority of your campaign. Pick Malekith as your lord.

Skaven: This is an odd faction. I would say if you want to play Skaven you really should get the DLC the Prophet and the Warlock since it adds more options to Skaven that are almost necessary such as jezzails and the ratling gun, not to mention their best lord is added in Ikkit Claw . Pick this race if you really like using artillery and backlines to do most of your damage while controlling a horde of units to drown your enemies in bodies. This is one of the few races I would say isn't very newbie friendly since it requires a lot of micromanagement. Their playstyle is a mixed bag as well of switching between extreme aggression then backing off to recover your food stores. If you're set on playing them then go with Ikkit Claw as he adds an ability to create actual nukes which really can swing battles one way or another.

Vampire Coasts: Spammable units, cannons, giant undead monsters, bulky as hell, hard to kill, literally pirates. Really doesn't have any sort of cavalry though, so if that's your thing you're going to be disappointed. Go this faction if you really want to do some roleplaying and get into the mindset of being a pirate as that's exactly how they play. They're really easy to learn and have some great options for newbies as well as a clear-cut endgame army. They're fairly aggressive but you don't necessarily have to declare war to be aggressive. Typically when playing Vampire Coasts you will spam hero units, have them go to a port, have them make a pirate cove, then dismiss them. Picking Count Noctilus is great for newbies as you don't really have to worry about your capital city and can instead focus on being a pirate.

Tomb Kings: Defensive, Patient, Large monsters, many spammable subjects, hard to kill if you protect your lord. Unlike other factions, tomb kings do not have to pay money for their units. You might think that this means money no longer becomes an issue, but you would be wrong. Instead, money is an issue whenever it comes to upgrading as you get so little of it. As such Tomb Kings are a great choice for a defensive player who only really wants to secure maybe a province or two and then wait out everyone else. End game Tomb Kings with their constructs can absolutely mow down everyone who stands in their path. Settra the Imperishable is going to be your main pick.

Humans: Difficult, great at killing big things, constant warfare, has options for everything. I recommend new players stay away from this one since you're going to be constantly fighting an uphill battle. However, if you're absolutely set on making it work then they can actually field multiple armies fairly easily due to how much income they can get if you set up correctly. There's only one legendary lord for this so.... Yeah you have to go Markus.

[OMG My Profile Name Does Not Fi]

Thanks!

If you don'd mind updating this every now and then it would make a good mini-guide i think.

[Hannibal Barca]

high elf or dwarves is always the answer

[Sn3z]

HE are very mirco intensive T3+ due to how their armies are structured, if you want to keep late game armies mirroring T1-T2 that's easier for newbies, however the person's view of HE becomes distorted, dawi is the best starting out faction.

[✳Sindri Myr✳]

Originally posted by OMG My Profile Name Does Not Fi:

Thanks!

If you don'd mind updating this every now and then it would make a good mini-guide i think.

^this

[Brother Aermik]

Originally posted by Sn3z:

HE are very mirco intensive T3+ due to how their armies are structured, if you want to keep late game armies mirroring T1-T2 that's easier for newbies, however the person's view of HE becomes distorted, dawi is the best starting out faction.

Dawi are only in ME which starting players don't necessarily have access to. Someone might have just bought TWW2 so this is specifically going over eye of the vortex campaign factions which the Dawi are not apart of.

THAT BEING SAID. High elves don't actually require a ton of micromanaging provided that you keep your armies mainly focused on range and only use maybe 1-2 actual calvary units per army. The worst of it is that you may need to pause the game to reselect targets for your archery units. Dawi will feel very underwhelming to most new players who don't really know what a backline is and how to rely on it, not to mention in ME they have a pretty unfavorable start due to how many orcs like to come up and smack you around.

Pretending like there is a one size fits all faction for all new players is exactly why I made this guide. People will have different tastes and each faction can help satisfy a different niche that a person wants to go. If you'll notice the guide does not actually favor any one particular faction over the other, it just makes mention that Skaven is very unfriendly for newbies.

[Brother Aermik]

Originally posted by OMG My Profile Name Does Not Fi:

Thanks!

If you don'd mind updating this every now and then it would make a good mini-guide i think.

I fully intend to do a separate post for Mortal Empires. I will update this though if more campaigns come out for Vortex and I will also do an overview of each LL in Vortex. This is meant to be a sort of way oversimplified view of each faction in Vortex that a newbie might find it easier to consume than say those 1 hour long youtube videos.

[Dr. Uncredible]

Good initiative, should perhaps mention the Vampire Coasts very heavy ranged focus, a newb trying to play Vcoast like lizardman army is going to have a really bad time.

They need that heavy artillery and massed gunline to force the enemy over to their side.

Not to mention that they have something as rare as a hero-choice entirely focused around further buffing their ranged units!

[MrDark086]

Can someone pin this mans thread?

[Vladimiś]

Wouldnt it make more sense to make it into guide than a forum post?

[Haplo]

that's sweet, bro

[Sn3z]

Originally posted by Sweet bro:

Originally posted by Sn3z:

HE are very mirco intensive T3+ due to how their armies are structured, if you want to keep late game armies mirroring T1-T2 that's easier for newbies, however the person's view of HE becomes distorted, dawi is the best starting out faction.

Dawi are only in ME which starting players don't necessarily have access to. Someone might have just bought TWW2 so this is specifically going over eye of the vortex campaign factions which the Dawi are not apart of.

THAT BEING SAID. High elves don't actually require a ton of micromanaging provided that you keep your armies mainly focused on range and only use maybe 1-2 actual calvary units per army. The worst of it is that you may need to pause the game to reselect targets for your archery units. Dawi will feel very underwhelming to most new players who don't really know what a backline is and how to rely on it, not to mention in ME they have a pretty unfavorable start due to how many orcs like to come up and smack you around.

Pretending like there is a one size fits all faction for all new players is exactly why I made this guide. People will have different tastes and each faction can help satisfy a different niche that a person wants to go. If you'll notice the guide does not actually favor any one particular faction over the other, it just makes mention that Skaven is very unfriendly for newbies.

You are a source off propagating a 1D look on HE then just so you are aware of it. Newbies can learn to actively use the tiers whilst still keeping a less mirco intensive army. But to deny HE are not mirco intensive late game is foolish, they literally function around air, there's no getting out the T3 pit of despair without reliance on air but comes at cost of more micro and a more diverse army. To be able to successfully use cavalry a good HE army would have air as a foundation. What about the transition to no shield units you need air, ranged in the late game becomes less desirable. In late game scenario I would say, no appeal to how a HE should look rather than largely ignoring tiers its a bad way of approaching the game.

Skaven are really just about spamming plague claws is that not also then noob friendly? The plague claws should of been moved in the last patch to T4.

[Ferreus the Umbral Arrow]

Originally posted by Sweet bro:

So I've been seeing a lot more people joining Total War Warhammer 2 recently which is absolutely awesome! I really like that people have been joining due to the success of 3 Kingdoms and the sales going on recently. So I thought to help the new influx of people that I would write this guide on choosing what faction to play as since it can be extremely overwhelming to see the sheer amount of options that you have.

For this guide I will be going over first every Eye of the Vortex faction along with my suggestion for a lord if you're new. After this I'll be taking a look at the Mortal Empires factions since those who are new to the series may or may not have Total War Warhammer 1.

High Elves: Ranged units, aggressive, diplomatic, cavalry units. This is what you're going to get if you go high elves. All of their early game roster is centered around their archery units with some good melee units being sprinkled in to help assist. However, their bread and butter unit does perfectly fine in melee as well. This is a great pick for newcomers and can really help you learn the game without too much micromanaging. Definitely pick Tyrion as your lord.

Lizardmen: Dinosaurs. Lots of Dinosaurs. Great artillery which is also dinosaurs. Can be diplomatic if they want to be. They have options for just about everything now with the DLC. Their early game can be super aggressive or it can be fairly slow and more defensive, it really depends on personal preference. For a defensive style pick your lord as Mazdamundi. For an aggressive style, pick either Gor-Rok or Kroq'Gar.

Dark Elves: Ranged, good melee, super defensible position in Malekith and Moranthi, good lord in Malekith, can go balls to the wall or hang back and confederate. Going Dark Elves over High Elves really comes down to personal taste. If you want to be a bad guy then definitely go with Dark Elves over High Elves. Otherwise their roster really mirrors their high elf brethren with less of an emphasis on cavalry an more of an emphasis on ground monsters. No real diplomatic options for these guys outside of their own faction, but they're relatively secluded so you won't be facing much other than dark elves for the majority of your campaign. Pick Malekith as your lord.

Skaven: This is an odd faction. I would say if you want to play Skaven you really should get the DLC the Prophet and the Warlock since it adds more options to Skaven that are almost necessary such as jezzails and the ratling gun, not to mention their best lord is added in Ikkit Claw . Pick this race if you really like using artillery and backlines to do most of your damage while controlling a horde of units to drown your enemies in bodies. This is one of the few races I would say isn't very newbie friendly since it requires a lot of micromanagement. Their playstyle is a mixed bag as well of switching between extreme aggression then backing off to recover your food stores. If you're set on playing them then go with Ikkit Claw as he adds an ability to create actual nukes which really can swing battles one way or another.

Vampire Coasts: Spammable units, cannons, giant undead monsters, bulky as hell, hard to kill, literally pirates. Really doesn't have any sort of cavalry though, so if that's your thing you're going to be disappointed. Go this faction if you really want to do some roleplaying and get into the mindset of being a pirate as that's exactly how they play. They're really easy to learn and have some great options for newbies as well as a clear-cut endgame army. They're fairly aggressive but you don't necessarily have to declare war to be aggressive. Typically when playing Vampire Coasts you will spam hero units, have them go to a port, have them make a pirate cove, then dismiss them. Picking Count Noctilus is great for newbies as you don't really have to worry about your capital city and can instead focus on being a pirate.

Tomb Kings: Defensive, Patient, Large monsters, many spammable subjects, hard to kill if you protect your lord. Unlike other factions, tomb kings do not have to pay money for their units. You might think that this means money no longer becomes an issue, but you would be wrong. Instead, money is an issue whenever it comes to upgrading as you get so little of it. As such Tomb Kings are a great choice for a defensive player who only really wants to secure maybe a province or two and then wait out everyone else. End game Tomb Kings with their constructs can absolutely mow down everyone who stands in their path. Settra the Imperishable is going to be your main pick.

Humans: Difficult, great at killing big things, constant warfare, has options for everything. I recommend new players stay away from this one since you're going to be constantly fighting an uphill battle. However, if you're absolutely set on making it work then they can actually field multiple armies fairly easily due to how much income they can get if you set up correctly. There's only one legendary lord for this so.... Yeah you have to go Markus.

And for the tldr people out there - if you are new, start with either Tyrion or Count Nocticulus (the dlc is worth it, as he has the easiest campaign in the game and easiest type of combat style. So learn the basics of campaign from Noct, swap to tyrion to learn more about cav in an easier way. After that, do what you want. Cause you'll be good to go)

[Brother Aermik]

Originally posted by Sn3z:

Originally posted by Sweet bro:

Dawi are only in ME which starting players don't necessarily have access to. Someone might have just bought TWW2 so this is specifically going over eye of the vortex campaign factions which the Dawi are not apart of.

THAT BEING SAID. High elves don't actually require a ton of micromanaging provided that you keep your armies mainly focused on range and only use maybe 1-2 actual calvary units per army. The worst of it is that you may need to pause the game to reselect targets for your archery units. Dawi will feel very underwhelming to most new players who don't really know what a backline is and how to rely on it, not to mention in ME they have a pretty unfavorable start due to how many orcs like to come up and smack you around.

Pretending like there is a one size fits all faction for all new players is exactly why I made this guide. People will have different tastes and each faction can help satisfy a different niche that a person wants to go. If you'll notice the guide does not actually favor any one particular faction over the other, it just makes mention that Skaven is very unfriendly for newbies.

You are a source off propagating a 1D look on HE then just so you are aware of it. Newbies can learn to actively use the tiers whilst still keeping a less mirco intensive army. But to deny HE are not mirco intensive late game is foolish, they literally function around air, there's no getting out the T3 pit of despair without reliance on air but comes at cost of more micro and a more diverse army. To be able to successfully use cavalry a good HE army would have air as a foundation. What about the transition to no shield units you need air, ranged in the late game becomes less desirable. In late game scenario I would say, no appeal to how a HE should look rather than largely ignoring tiers its a bad way of approaching the game.

Skaven are really just about spamming plague claws is that not also then noob friendly? The plague claws should of been moved in the last patch to T4.

I'm aware that it's a one dimensional look, but if this is someone who's entirely new to playing total war warhammer then trying to force feed them everything is just going to end with newbies either getting overwhelmed by how tedious the game can be. And HE have at least some experimentation you can do later game in a relatively safe environment considering how hard it is to lose with them. Dwarves if you don't know what you're doing are supremely frustrating early game.

[andywarholscorpse]

From experience, I've done very well with lizardmen in both single player and campaign. Most of their dinosaur units offer great bang for buck, making them not only effective, but versatile as well. Kroxigor are devastating against high armour infantry. I tend to play them aggressively with a massive early expansion, hold, then more 'smash and grab', wash, rinse, repeat. Also, regarding lizardmen as a whole, I've been hearing around the forums and boards that they are a great faction in single player and campaign modes, but average or "middling" in multiplayer. Although maybe this has changed recently.

[Ferreus the Umbral Arrow]

Originally posted by andywarholscorpse:

From experience, I've done very well with lizardmen in single player and campaign. Most of their dinosaur units offer great bang for buck, making them not only effective, but versatile as well.Kroxigor are devastating against high armour infantry. I tend to play them aggressively with a massive early expansion, hold, then more 'smash and grab', wash, rinse, repeat. Also, regarding lizardmen as a whole, I've been hearing around the forums and boards that they are a great faction in single player and campaign modes, but average or "middling" in multiplayer. Although maybe this has changed recently.

With Lustria being so overpopulated, the easiest of the Lizardmen right now (campaign wise) is Kroq'gar
Though he still has some difficult land to hold for new players.

Dreadfleet by far is the easiest faction for new players. Yeah, DLC - but rarely do armies attack the Maelstrom, the Vampirates also can go wherever they want. There is no "wrong move"
Whereas (unless you know what you are doing) most factions have to go about things a certain way early, or they make life harder on themselves. Just for example, Greenskins. As Grimgor if you don't blitz and take out the Dwarves, an let them get strong and start confederating - you are screwed.
New players need safer starting positions to learn from.