Fighting against greenskin

[Shion]

Hello people !

Not a pro player, just playing peacefully on normal difficulties.
I'm looking for some advice to handle the greenskin (usually grimgor).
They tend to extend a lot et be a really strong faction in each of my campaign.

Currently playing as the empire on turn around turn 150 (beat chaos warrior) but I have trouble making armies that can fight back against grimgor armies.
They got a bit of everything plus the waaagh going so it's like almost 2 armies in one.

Could I have some advice on some empire armies that are good in general and how to handle those greenskins?

Thanks !

[Mr Robert House]

Get lightning strike in the blur line of your lord skills, it forces a 1v1 fight when you attack armies that outnumber you.

Get guns to kill their chariots and hell storms to delete their infantry

[DarkFenix]

Demigryphs with halberds will delete any cav/chariots they have, handgunners will delete any large monster they have, helstorms will severely maul their infantry before they can get into melee. Those three plus an infantry meat shield will do fine.

Or just hit them with steam tank doomstacks, at turn 150 you should easily be able to afford those.

[Yippo the Clown]

My standard Empire army (once I've got a big enough empire to max out my settlements and create a dedicated recruitment territory) is:
1x Empire General (Griffon as soon as possible)
1x Wizard (usually Life lore, Death is also valid - these are basically the only universally good basic lores)
6x Greatswords (the anvil)
4x Crossbowmen (easier to deal with than Handgunners and I'll be busy micromanaging the cavalry)
4x Demigryph Knights (standard, not halberds - their job is to be the hammer, not to go hunting monsters)
4x Misc. (this slot can be 4x Steam Tanks, can be 4x artillery of your choice, or can be 2x artillery and 2x Demigryph Knights to bulk out your flankers)

It's not a doomstack, it won't beat absolutely any army in the game, but it's versatile enough as a force to take on most of the garbage the AI likes to dump into a single stack. Should also be cheap enough to run a lot of them (though Steam Tanks will inflate the costs a fair bit). Avoid the other lord types, they're basically just 'General but worse in exchange for some low-impact gimmicks'.

[Lack of Stuff]

Spam stack of battle priests with soulfire will beat just about anything short of a bunch of rogue idols and will rocket your province growth to the moon. Include a few mages and keep the priests on foot.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by Yippo the Clown:

My standard Empire army (once I've got a big enough empire to max out my settlements and create a dedicated recruitment territory) is:
1x Empire General (Griffon as soon as possible)
1x Wizard (usually Life lore, Death is also valid - these are basically the only universally good basic lores)
6x Greatswords (the anvil)
4x Crossbowmen (easier to deal with than Handgunners and I'll be busy micromanaging the cavalry)
4x Demigryph Knights (standard, not halberds - their job is to be the hammer, not to go hunting monsters)
4x Misc. (this slot can be 4x Steam Tanks, can be 4x artillery of your choice, or can be 2x artillery and 2x Demigryph Knights to bulk out your flankers)

It's not a doomstack, it won't beat absolutely any army in the game, but it's versatile enough as a force to take on most of the garbage the AI likes to dump into a single stack. Should also be cheap enough to run a lot of them (though Steam Tanks will inflate the costs a fair bit). Avoid the other lord types, they're basically just 'General but worse in exchange for some low-impact gimmicks'.

A hunter general can be very valid with a spear/archer cheap stack. Special skills+ red line skills make this army strong enough for its cost. If you use spears with shild and hunters this army is valuable aiganst most enemies (just put a few adds in like artillery/cav and a wiz+priests)

[rubyismycat]

Orcs are mele swarm fighters you need handgunners and arty to fight them oh and magic DO NOT TRY TO MELE FIGHT AGAINST ORCS YOU WILL LOSE so go build artillary spam armies and back up each with a firearm spam army the ai will try to use 2 or three stacks against you so use two stacks working as a team to counter this and remember to corner camp and order your units to NOT SKIRMISH dont let the faster orc units get to your arty by flanking you they will try to do that every time focus your fire wisely the orc units will run away do not chase them hold your formation they will come back and then rout for the last time i hope this helps

[rubyismycat]

Originally posted by DarkFenix:

Demigryphs with halberds will delete any cav/chariots they have, handgunners will delete any large monster they have, helstorms will severely maul their infantry before they can get into melee. Those three plus an infantry meat shield will do fine.

Or just hit them with steam tank doomstacks, at turn 150 you should easily be able to afford those.

this is true but its stupidly and pointlessly expensive but handgunners and hellstorms is good sound advise

[valky]

Originally posted by Yippo the Clown:

1x Wizard (usually Life lore, Death is also valid - these are basically the only universally good basic lores)

Fire is very legit as Empire and my preferable lore :> WHat's dead can't hurt you and you can imbue magical damage, which helps a great deal against Wurrzag or Savage Orcs in general.
I never mind fighting Grimgor, even if he hits like a truck but Wurrzag's 45% phys res savage orcs are a pain to deal with.

Rockits/Helblaster are preferable against Orcs, and maybe 1 Tank or cannon .. that worked pretty well for me. Empire cannons are pretty accurate on max rank and can reliable counter arty or snipe large entities.

[Yippo the Clown]

@Jodegafun - honestly I don't tend to care for things which are good for their cost, I want a stack that isn't going to force me to replace losses after every fight, or force me to play out every battle because the autoresolve can't abuse ranged units properly :P

@Valky - Fire is, in my view, the weakest of the basic lores:
- Kindleflame - decent for what it is, but lore attributes are kinda mediocre in general and it's nothing compared to Life Bloom when you're talking about an entire battlefield anyway
- Cascading Fire Cloak - single target and therefore rarely impactful on a stack -v- stack battle
- Fireball - Magic Missile and therefore basically a waste of Winds
- Flame Storm - Fine, but a vortex is a vortex to be honest, it's not going to perform very differently to a Purple Sun or Dwellers Below in practice
- Flaming Sword of Rhuin - An AoE buff, which is good, but just a bit of weapon/missile damage. Other lores have far more impactful buffs
- Piercing Bolts of Burning - The only spell in the lore I'd call 'good', and is still quite expensive for what it is
- Burning Head - Really expensive, but can be situationally good if the enemy line up right; probably isn't going to outperform Flame Storm on a per-Winds basis

In most lores you're pretty much just looking at 2-3 spells which are good enough to cast regularly, but comparing the above to Life (AoE heal, single target heal with massive unconditional physical resist, arguably more reliable vortex-style spell) or Death (snipe for otherwise hard-to-remove characters, AoE armour shred, comparable vortex) comes up very unfavourably in my view.

Of course, that's just my view, and the beauty of this kind of game is different people can make different strategies work. To be clear, though - I'm not saying Fire is unusable, not at all - I'm just saying it really doesn't offer much that other lores don't offer the same, or better, versions of. Even if you're going to just take it for the bombardment, I'd take Heavens instead since Urannon's Thunderbolt tends to outperform it on a per-winds basis (atrociously bad lore attribute notwithstanding).

[valky]

Originally posted by Yippo the Clown:

In most lores you're pretty much just looking at 2-3 spells which are good enough to cast regularly, but comparing the above to Life (AoE heal, single target heal with massive unconditional physical resist, arguably more reliable vortex-style spell) or Death (snipe for otherwise hard-to-remove characters, AoE armour shred, comparable vortex) comes up very unfavourably in my view.

Currently playing Bretonnia and my first to ever take Lore of Life. It works for them but I miss the various damaging elements of FIRE. But everybody plays different :P
Burning Head saved my a** so many times....

I also employ 2-3 Halberds even in late armies, they are surprisingly sturdy and hold the line long enough for my other stuff to start the killing - if even that many manage to make it to my lines. edit: or the spearmen you get from Gelt.

2 overlapping Helblaster are nasty machines of destruction.

[Yippo the Clown]

Originally posted by valky:

Originally posted by Yippo the Clown:

In most lores you're pretty much just looking at 2-3 spells which are good enough to cast regularly, but comparing the above to Life (AoE heal, single target heal with massive unconditional physical resist, arguably more reliable vortex-style spell) or Death (snipe for otherwise hard-to-remove characters, AoE armour shred, comparable vortex) comes up very unfavourably in my view.

Currently playing Bretonnia and my first to ever take Lore of Life. It works for them but I miss the various damaging elements of FIRE. But everybody plays different :P
Burning Head saved my a** so many times....

I also employ 2-3 Halberds even in late armies, they are surprisingly sturdy and hold the line long enough for my other stuff to start the killing - if even that many manage to make it to my lines. edit: or the spearmen you get from Gelt.

2 overlapping Helblaster are nasty machines of destruction.

Yeah, varying playstyles and all that. It's a shame Metal is so unavailable (only WoCs and Gelt so far as I'm aware) as that actually looks pretty good; unsure why other factions don't have access to it considering it was a basic lore on tabletop...

re: Halberdiers, I don't really see why you'd take them over Greatswords. Aside from charge bracing there's not really anything they offer that can't be done better by Greatswords, given their superior armour and melee defence.

[valky]

Originally posted by Yippo the Clown:

re: Halberdiers, I don't really see why you'd take them over Greatswords. Aside from charge bracing there's not really anything they offer that can't be done better by Greatswords, given their superior armour and melee defence.

started to play with tabletop-caps some time ago, so armies are more limited to mid/top-tier units. So I have to make low-tier chaff working and they do so surprisingly well.
I don't like stacking Tier 5 unit 19x in my stacks.

ANd they are nice to have on yer flank, reasonable MD, phys res (rank 7), chargeDef vs all .. and I usually take no more than 2 cav pieces and both (halberd + cav) work well in tandem.
Or even as center-block thanks to chargeRes depending on what am fighting.

That silly Lord-skill that boosts your trash-units ain't so bad ^^

edit: don't underestimate negating the charge of Black orcs or worse: Savage orcs!

[Yippo the Clown]

Originally posted by valky:

Originally posted by Yippo the Clown:

re: Halberdiers, I don't really see why you'd take them over Greatswords. Aside from charge bracing there's not really anything they offer that can't be done better by Greatswords, given their superior armour and melee defence.

started to play with tabletop-caps some time ago, so armies are more limited to mid/top-tier units. So I have to make low-tier chaff working and they do so surprisingly well.
I don't like stacking Tier 5 unit 19x in my stacks.

ANd they are nice to have on yer flank, reasonable MD, phys res (rank 7), chargeDef vs all .. and I usually take no more than 2 cav pieces and both (halberd + cav) work well in tandem.
Or even as center-block thanks to chargeRes depending on what am fighting.

That silly Lord-skill that boosts your trash-units ain't so bad ^^

edit: don't underestimate negating the charge of Black orcs or worse: Savage orcs!

If you're using caps then fair enough, Halberdiers would be the best available under those circumstances. Without those limitations, though...

[cary2010haha]

gs? On normal?

Snipe their lord and gg

[Empukris]

Lightning strike is the answer for any greenskin problem. If you dont want to use LS for balance reason then use AoE. Units like hellfire, mortar, grenade launcher, magic, not because of doomstacking but because you will not deal enough damage otherwise against 2 stacks of infantry. No greatsword or halberdier dont last against that many, you can use them to hold the line but you still need something to kill that blob. Hellblaster do work great too.