High Elves Early Game (First 15-20 Turns)

This guide is a compilation of advice I have given to several new players. I started up a High Elf (HE) campaign and figured out how I could quickly and efficiently secure a decent start. I did this with basic tactics in battle and without excessive abusive of AI mechanics.

This guide will be organised into a section for each turn with info on what you need to do and how you should do it. The end will have a few options as to "where to go from here."

By the end of this guide, you should have two provinces secured, several trade agreements, and the start of a decent campaign.

Basic Outline

This guide will basically just cover the first 15 turns of a Lothern (Tyrion) campaign for the VORTEX campaign. Each Section will be a short summary of what to do during that turn. I will finish with some battle tactics advice for new players.

This isn't a comprehensive guide and it isn't perfect. I don't really play much as elves and I'm more of an Empire/Dwarf player, but this core race is probably the best learning race for new players who have only bought Total War: Warhammer II.

I'm updating this for the Grom/Eltharion DLC. I'll include any info regarding potential threats from Greenskins and general info about what to do near the end of your first 15ish turns.

IF you would like me to add more or throw some extra advice in at the bottom, send me a message or leave it in the comments.

Abbreviation Guide:
NAP: Non-Aggression Pact
TA: Trade Agreement
LL: Legendary Lord

Before the First Turn

Before you start, you need to know the basics about the Elves.

They're a decent all-around race and they have some really fun factions you can play as.

All their units benefit from something called "MARTIAL PROWESS." Which means they're better at fighting as long as their at 50% health or higher. This gives them some decent sustainability in battle, so even their basic infantry can hold the line.
Their basic infantry are solid enough and their elites (Swordmasters and Phoenix Guard) are some of the best in the game.

Their cavalry is decent. They're fast enough and strong enough so that you can use hammer and anvil tactics throughout the early and late game.

Their heroes are all useful to varying degrees but the have a special use for their Nobles outside of basic combat. More on this later. Their mages have access to some very useful lores (schools/types).

Their monstrous units are fun. Some are actually quite powerful but you don't get them until late game. Tyrion starts with a Fire Phoenix though, so you'll be using that one quite a bit.

Their artillery is the only garbage thing about them. Not useless but its probably the worst in the game. It is quite useful early game though.

Turn One

Choose Tyrion, listen to him say "For the Greater Good," then make a decision: tutorial or no tutorial?

If you tick that tutorial box, you need to suffer through a ~30 minute introduction tutorial. Old Man Advisor chimes in with advice and guides your first couple of turns. Why do this? Because you get two extra units of Silver Helms. They can make your early game much easier but they can also cost extra upkeep. 

I'm not paid by the hour for this guide, so I skipped the tutorial and wrote the guide using an army without that benefit. If you choose to go through that tutorial, just adapt as much of this advice as you can and make use of the hammer and anvil tactics described at the end of this guide.

Turn 1-
Set up Non-Agression Pacts and Trade Agreements with as many High Elf Factions as you can. (Yvresse, Ellyrion, Cothique, Saphery, etc.) Each one you make a TA with gives you more map vision, improves your relationship with that faction, and allows you to focus more on your nearby enemy. 

The only HE faction that won't play nice is Caledor. Don't worry about them. They'll get what's coming to them soon enough.

Once that diplomacy is taken care of, you should have an extra 200-250+ gold per turn! Great. Now get to the war part. Move your army directly to the south-east and take on the Glittering Tower settlement. 

This guide assumes you're playing TW because you want to fight battles. All the battles I fight are pretty much manual because the auto-resolve algorithms aren't exactly fair. Research why for yourself.

Fight a manual battle with the garrison army and arrange your troops like so:


Line of spear men at the front, groups of archers at each end, and artillery safely behind those. 
Use the artillery in "scatter shot" mode (the option is on the left hand side of the screen) and focus on the "leader" enemy unit. It is clearly labelled and if you can weak them severely, that will really hurt enemy morale.

Use your Phoenix unit (not pictured) to "fire-bomb" enemy formations as they approach. Once the enemy infantry meet your infantry, have your Phoenix engage any archer units the enemy have. Make sure you archers are focusing infantry on approach, then switching to enemy archers (not the ones the Phoenix is fighting though. Avoid friendly fire, please.)

In the above picture, the garrison forces didn't even reach my front line.


Post battle, choose to occupy (not loot and occupy). Put your first LL point into "Route Marcher" a blue skill which increases your campaign marching distance. You need this to move quickly and secure your objectives.

Recruit two units of spear men and one unit of archers (or vice versa, you preference).

Build a trade building in Glittering Towers (gold per turn and some elven trinkets).

Congrats, you're mostly there. Sort of.

Note: This step remains mostly unchanged. The likelihood of friendly Elf factions is decent but sometimes certain factions will just hate you and not want to Trade or go for an NAP. Nothing you can do about it. Just be as friendly with as many as possible as quickly as possible while also avoiding actual Alliances.

Note2 : They revised the HE technology tree. You no longer need the upgraded infantry building to get basic techs (thank god). So you can actually demolish the building in the capital on turn one so you get some extra cash turn 2. You may eventually rebuild it later, but I prefer using Spears and Basic Archers (which both come from the settlement building now).

Turn Two

Move to the border between Lothern and the Tower of Lysean (North East of Lothern). Don't cross the border even if you have movement. You want to recruit this turn.




Secure more TA if you can. IF necessary, agree to join wars if those enemies aren't anywhere near you (example: Chrace might agree to a Trade Agreement if you join them in war against the Cult of Khaine dark elf faction). 

Recruit 2 spear men and 1 archer. Or vice versa. Whatever the opposite of the last turn was, really. You want some balance in your army.

Note: This turns has remain unchanged unless you demolished your barracks in T1. If you did, build a growth building in the capital. It'll help with replenishment and rapid development

Turn Three

Again, check Diplomacy for Trade Agreement opportunities. Map vision, extra cash, and relationship improvements will help you avoid unnecessary conflict in the future.

Attack and Capture the Tower of Lysean. Again, do it manually and you should be able to secure victory with minimal losses.

Put you second LL point into "Swordplay." Tyrion will be an incredibly useful warrior for the entire game. You can use him early game to blob enemies in front of your archers and get easy kills. He love fighting anyway, it's literally in his blood.

Congratulations, you now have control of your first province. Remember, you'll have two by the end of this guide, so you're half way there!

Issue the province commandment (click on a settlement, look in lower left hand corner of a blue button). Choose "Building Cost reduction and Growth" commandment. This will help with infrastructure improvements early game.

Recruit 3 more units, your choice. I usually focus on archers after I get 6-8 spear men

Build the Trade Resource building at Lysean.

NOTE:

So things get funky here. The Lord from Cult of Excess cruised down in forced march about halfway to the Glittering Towers. I had a choice: push on with Tyrion to take Angerrial before they level up their capital or fall back to defend. I went the aggressive route.

I hired a new lord, Lore of Life Archmage and had her recruit three archers. Her magic, troops and the garrison (still recovering from capturing the glittering towers settlement but at least half health) will be my defence. May fail, but I won't lose a turn. Meanwhile, demo the Rally Field (barracks) at Lysean and keep building economic and growth buildings whenever possible.

Turn Four

Move toward Angerrial to the East of Lysean.




The Cult of Excess might send an army toward Lothern. Don't panic, your garrison is enough to hold them off and they'll probably go after you anyway.

Build the Noble recruitment building and Public Order building (Promenade? Plaza? It has like five levels). 
You need the two buildings to get access to Noble heroes, which will be useful in gaining Influence points, and to improve Public Order (also for a quest).

End turn.

(NOTE: Cult of Excess may turn back from Lothern and head toward Tyrion's army. They might start a combat with you. DON'T PANIC. I lost 189 against the 800 he lost. It's like free experience and cash!)



NOTE: Yeah, the Cult Lord is still heading to the Glittering Tower BUT he'll have a hard time taking it. Tyrion going for Angerial may make him rush back though

Turn Five

If you were attacked by Cult of Excess during their turn, congrats on Tyrion's new level and put his point into "Speed of Asuryan."

Attack the Cult of Excess army and in this case, because of your superior numbers and their (hopefully) massive losses from the earlier fight, you auto-resolve to wipe out the entire army.

Merge units to save some income. Losses should be minor so far, so you'll only lose maybe one or two units and the rest should be mostly okay.

Move toward Angerrial.

NOTE: So yeah, The Cult attacked the Glittering Towers in this run through. My Archmage and her three archer battalions made full use of the garrison fource (three damaged spearmen and two damaged archers). But we snagged a heroic victory.

Basically I used the Lore of Life Earthblood and Awakening (AoE burst of damage) to keep my front line from being overwhelmed.

Meanwhile, my archers did a bulk of the killing and focus-fired on the enemy archers/corsairs. once those broke, I moved my archers in behind the enemy frontline and shot them in the back with arrows. Lots and lots of arrows

Dude basically lost EVERYTHING. I got a free 500 gold and a level for my new mage. She has a -15% speed trait, but she'll do as a filler lord until I get some influence farming done. I won't give her a full stack because that's crazy expensive. Probably just a 7-8 unit defensive force to move as needed.

I've also named those three archer battalions "The Glittering Host" so they don't get accidentally disbanded in the future. They deserve to be respected for that accomplishment.

Turn Six

Congratulations! Your Rally Field is now upgraded. You can recruit different units now but more importantly, you can....

RESEARCH STUFF. Start with the basic one turn research for the military. This will complete a quest and get you some easy cash/influence.

Fight the Angerrial Battle. Use the blind spot on the left side of the map and set up your army. Use your archers and artillery to punish the idiots on the way. Have your Phoenix deployed on the opposite end of the map and have him swing in behind. He can fire bomb units along the wall and once empty, prepare to swoop in once Tyrion and his spearbois get sent in. I usually wait until after my archers and bolt thrower are all out of ammo, but you can use your own judgement here. It's a hard fight but your have massive superiority and you can rear charge your phoenix into fights your spear men are losing. You'll lose some soldiers but wipe out of the Cult in this battle. No worries.

Finish the battle and put your LL point into "Hard to Hit" to improve Tyrion's sustainability.

Upgrade the Public Order (PO) building in Lothern. 

Look for more TA. I got Tirana to join me for a total of six TA by turn six.

Turn Seven

Congratulations, you've just gotten the first research quest done. Now choose what you'd like to research. I usually opt for "Archery Prowess" which gives boosts to your ranged unit reload speeds.

Force March your army toward the Shrine of Asuryan. You'll be colonising it soon. 

Offer some small gifts (400-500 GP) to any HE factions that are resistant to NAP or TA. Caledor are probably busy dealing with Count Noctilus of the Dreadfleet. Good. They should be too busy to declare war on you for the time being.

You may get offers for "Defensive Alliances" or even "Military Alliances" with some of the HE factions. This is a terrible deal because AI allies tend to drag you into their wars. We don't want enemies who are close enough to actually fight you. Politely show them the door but give them a small gift as consolation. Might help them fend off Norscans and Pirates. With definitely help improve your relationship with them.

You may be able to hire a hero at this point. You can look at your options. You may have enough influence saved up from various scenarios the game offers you or from quest completion. If you do, buy a noble for 15 influence points. If you don't have enough for that, buy a scrub hero. 

HE need influence points to hire decent heroes/lords. The reason for this is because HE people tend to get really spoiled and arrogant living on their bubble continent of Ulthuan. Living for thousands of years tends to leave people with some personality issues.

To show this in game, 'scrub' heroes cost you zero influence but they have negative traits (like penalties to upkeep, public order, etc.). Decent heroes and lords may cost 15 influence. BUT the expensive ones for 45 or 60 influence points are almost as good as proper Legendary Lords. So it's a mixed bag. 

Regardless, buy a noble if you can, then get ready to send him abroad. He'll be "securing" influence from our Caledorian brothers to the West.

Turn Eight

Secure more TA with other HE factions. I know this sounds repetitive but your race gains vision of trade partners AND you can improve your relationships in the process. The income isn't great (only 55-65 per agreement) but as you gain territory and build more trade resource structures, you'll quickly jump up the pay scale.

Here you need to make a choice: Search ruins or colonise? I prefer the searching option for the extra cash to cover next turn's colonisation and also the potential for a nice new item. NOTE: if Saphery has an army nearby, don't search; colonise. Those Lore Master snobs may try to steal that city from you next turn.

If there are not other HE armies nearby and you think you have time, search! The puzzles aren't that hard and I'll give you a quick explanation here: - dice puzzle: common sense, use some logical to figure out what symbol goes on that face of the die. -sudoku puzzle: look up how to play Sudoku. Basically you need a 1, 2, 3, or 4 in each column or row but you can't have two of the same number in a single row or column. Take a minute to figure out which number you need, then check the colours For this puzzle, you need to choose a colour that isn't in that row or column. Figuring out which number leaves you with two options and then you just choose the correct colour Easy peasy

-the dial of the old ones: this one is a little annoying, but not that hard. Use your spatial reasoning skills or just count spaces between the outer symbols and the different number lines. If the red lines need 3 spaces for one and a symbol on the opposite side, check the options you have at the bottom of the screen. If those symbols aren't in that pattern, it probably isn't the red lines. Try the other colours Maybe it's more than a little annoying. But you can snag some cool items from these runes. I got a rare one that gave me vanguard deployment for spear men!

You can build anything you want from this point on, but I usually prioritise growth buildings (Wheat fields, I think) and walls for minor settlements.

Send that Noble west to either search that ruin, Caledor's Repose, or to secure influence from it if it's been settled. This second option might hurt your relationship with Caledor but they're going to hate you no matter what. Changing their opinion of you would require WAY too much time and influence points. Besides, they should still be busy with the pirates. 

If the Noble is successful, he should level up. Put your first three points with this guy into "Specialist." This lowers the cost of hero actions by -40% at its third level and it doesn't require higher levels. This means you can spam hero actions, gain influence faster, and level your noble up faster.

After Specialist is full, you can throw points into "Secure Influence" and "Wound/Assassinate". The first option increases the amount of influence you gain for each successful action against a settlement. The second one increases your heroes chance of success. Both are useful but slower to upgrade because they require your hero to be a certain levels to add more points.

You can later add points to other abilities as you see fit. You can eventually add this hero to your army and have him fight alongside a Lord. IF he is one of the "scrub" options though, you may not want to keep him forever. Your choice.

Turns Nine to 12 (ish)

T9- 

Colonise and merge units. 

The cost of colonisation should be off-set by the cash you gained from the ruins. You may lose a bunch of troops but you can easily recruit higher ranked later, so don't worry about merging most of them. You'll save a bunch of upkeep in the next couple of turns and you can't recruit until you get back to Lothern province anyway.

DON'T MERGE YOUR CAVALRY UNITS. They're actually harder to replace since you don't have a cavalry recruitment building yet. Your phoenix and artillery should be fine. 

Use hero to secure influence.

T10- 

Move your army to Angerrial. 

Build a wall in Glittering Towers.

Change the commandment in Lothern province to the one that improves recruitment. 

Use hero to secure influence.

T11-

Move to the Tower of Lysean. 

Recruit more units. By this time you should know which units you enjoy using and can use effectively. Read more about managing your army in battle in the later "Tactics" section.

Use hero to secure influence.

T12 and beyond...

Keep recruiting units until you have a full army.

Keep using your noble to gain influence. Once he is experienced enough, you can use him to wound/assassinate enemy heroes.

Keep building up your settlements with walls in minor and growth/trade buildings in others. Keep Lothern as your main recruitment centre until you can specialise other Ulthuan provinces for specific unit-types (Chrace has bonus to the White Lions, Saphery has bonuses to Loremasters, etc.)

And so it begins...

Congratulations. Seriously.

You have two provinces, a decent economy, good relationships with MOST of your neighbours, and a good start to a campaign.

I bet you're asking yourself, "Where next, Mr. Argo? What will I do without your guidance and kind words of encouragement? How will I unite Ulthuan and drive out all the invaders who plague our lands?"

Very slowly, my readers, very slowly. You'll struggle to deal with certain aspects of managing your first empire. You'll fail to anticipate betrayals and sudden invasion. But remember....you can always start this campaign again.

Seriously though, you should consider one of two options: East or West?

Some say west is best because Caledor will always hate you so you might as well invade them while you have the time. A valid argument and one you should consider. Build some bolt throwers to counter Vampire Coast monsters, maybe some cavalry to rear-charge, and head west.

But I generally push East. Caledor can usually do okay-ish against Noctilus and that silly Count will sometimes go North instead of East, giving Tirana/Ellyrion a hard time. Which is actually good for you because if they're weak but on good terms with you, you might be able to absorb them more easily. To the East, there is trouble...

Aranessa Saltspite, daughter of the Sea God, is a pain. She invades Southern Yvresse and starts spreading corruption along the SE coast of Ulthuan. You gotta knock her down a peg or you'll regret it later. She usually takes out Yrvresse's main army, so look to confed them as soon as possible. 

Defeat Aranessa once and she'll probably sue for peace. You might even convince her to go after Dread Fleet or the Skaelings instead of you. Or you can go after her hard and take out Sartosa. Leave it in ruins if you don't feel like dealing with the corruption.

While you're confeding, consider leaving a token force of a decent lord (15 influence or higher) with a few spear men, Lothern Sea Guard, and or archers. Those guys plus a garrison should hold back MOST enemies and deter invasions. I think I only recruited one other lord for the first 25-40 turns. Not because I couldn't afford more, but because I had built enough security/relations that I could rely on those to protect me.

Tactics

Okay, so you may have skipped ahead to check this before doing your first battle. Let's do some review.

In typical ancient combat, two groups of warriors (usually underpaid dudes from different cities) ran at each other and tried to stab each other until one group said "F*** this" and ran away. 

Obviously someone needed to innovate and the world got to see some really basic tactics, like lines of dudes marching into each other, THEN stabbing each other for a while. Some dudes in the Middle East/Egypt invented chariots, which spiced things up a bit, then King of Phil of Macedon decided to mess with infantry. 

Super long spears and super deep spear formation meant his men could 'pin' other infantry groups, which means CAVALRY could win the day. 

This brief and superficial overview of our world's history has two purposes. First of all, no matter how new you are, you can't be a bad as our earlier war leaders. Secondly, just read up on stuff that famous generals did and copy their tactics. That's what they did to become awesome (they obviously changed some stuff after a while to keep things exciting).

So, basic tactics we can use in this game? Well, first go into the options section, and turn OFF skirmish mode by default. Turn ON guard mode by default. More on why later.

Hammer and Anvil:

Spear men in a line. Cavalry on the wings. Archers behind, near the left and right sides. 

SSSSSSSS
C AA AA C

Your archers shoot at approaching enemies, then exchange arrows with enemy archers. Your CAV can swing around the sides (flanks) and slam into the enemy archers or into the backs of the enemy infantry.

The spear men are the anvil (solid, unmoving, etc.) and the CAV are the hammer (powerful, decisive, etc.).

This tactic will be your best friend until you learn a few handy tricks. You'll screw it up a lot by forgetting to move your CAV or by allowing your spear men to move out of position. But you'll learn from every mistake, so it's okay.

Your spear men and archers should be on guard mode to keep them in position and prevent them from chasing. You can click off guard mode to encourage them to chase if you're winning a lot. For CAV, turn OFF guard mode at the beginning of battles.

Anvil and ThowkThowk:
This is basically Hammer and Anvil without CAV. You may not have the building or starting units, so make do with this variant.

SSSSSSSS
AA AA AA

Spear men engage (or wait for enemy to engage with them).

Archer pepper enemy until front lines meet, then left and right groups begin to swing around the wings. Center group continues to trade with enemy archers.

When left and right groups move into position, start firing into the backs of the enemy front line. This minimizes friendly fire for your team and prevents the enemy from using their shield (which have a chance to deflect incoming arrows if you're firing at them head-on)

This works a hilarious amount of the time. Obviously, you can't do this if the enemy have CAV, but you can wait to move your wings until after you've turned enemy CAV into pincushions. 

The Anvil, Whatever, and Moving ThowkThowk:

Do the same thing as above, but with a couple of Ellyrian Archers sent ahead. These guys are mounted archers and they suck in melee. BUT they can harass like nobody's business.

If the enemy army is light on actual archers, your Ellyrian Archers can be tasked as skirmishers and placed on opposing flanks. They'll draw off at least one enemy unit each, maybe more. They'll continue to move whilst firing, which may or may not kill the enemy, but at the very least it'll distract them for a while.

This doesn't sound like much, but it can REALLY help you by lessening the pressure on your anvil and allowing your lord more time to wade through chaff.

MORE INFO LATER.

[artfreeman43]

Thank you.

[Ben Argo]

Yeah, I would say "Don't worry about completing a Quest ASAP". Do them when you're confident in your army. This guide is pretty outdated at this point though, so you're welcome to just add me as a friend and contact me directly for specific advice.

[artfreeman43]

Hey Ben, how are you? I have been putting in some more time in the game. Getting a better feel for the magic. I seem to be out of position or to involved when a quest pops up. Any advice on completing quests like the Phoenix Gate? Thank you.

[Ben Argo]

You're welcome to add me as a friend and hit me up with questions. I'm in the NZ timezone though, so that might impact my usefulness.

[ZivaL]

I bought the game a few months ago but only tried playing it once. Any community or some place you recommend I learn from? This is my first total war game in general

[Ben Argo]

@artfreeman43 no problem. I enjoy introducing new players to the game. I just started a Cathay playthrough on WH3 and I'm enjoying it so far. I may make a guide for that in the future.

Magic is SUPER game changing. Take your time, maybe fool around a bit in the battle mode vs a weak AI army. Some factions really need magic to even the playing field, like Skaven. I fell in love with those rat mad lads thanks to their plague lore.

[artfreeman43]

Thanks for this guide. I am a Rome TW veteran. See barbarian kill barbarian. This game seems like I have more to follow each turn. The magic stuff is a curve ball to me. This guide is a big help. Thank you.

[Ben Argo]

Feel free to add me to your friends list and I can give you some advice. I've helped several others get more into this game. The biggest difference between this and other Total War games is the many many many abilities the units have. Some units can shoot different types of ammo, some units can cast different spells, some units can regenerate health or models... It's great but sometimes confusing.

[Semen Reaper]

I see, i'm still learning the game in it's entirety, my previous experience was with 3K

[Ben Argo]

@FahQ - Entirely up to you. I typically favour techs that boost what I currently have in my army or most armies. That means Archery Prowess, Trumpeters, Spear Wall, and Militia Training. I like the reload reduction, speed boost, damage boost, and recruitment bonus.

Later on, I go for economy boosts but they're harder to get to because most require certain trade resource buildings to unlock. They're generally worth it though.