Really thorough and entertaining guide. I know some people don't like longer videos, but you kept it to the point and I watched it all in one sitting without getting bored. Hopefully you find the time to do one for every faction, you definitely deserve more subs! Only complaint I had was that you forgot to mention ironbrakers when doing your unit overview, would love to hear your thoughts on them.
Thank you! Im glad someone appreciates that part of it. Iron breakers are amazing but expensive, great vs non armor penetrating units but vs armor penetrating units they are still good but a lot weaker. Thanks again!
@@LordForwind Thanks for the prompt reply! I'd love to see a video on Lizardmen. I love the theme of the faction and they have always been a bit of a favourite of mine.
For thorgrim, I would recommend disbanding the gyro asap. It’s basically just a massive upkeep sink. For grombribdal, I usually do the option to boost my dwarf warrior stats. That plus grombrindals red line boost make them even more unbeatable. Also, the forge is great early game for runes to buff units and hero/lords. The late game stuff is the higher tier equipment
For all the Dwarf starts I find farming a fast 50 Oathgold and buying the Master Rune of Spite is a must. It gives you a constant drain to enemies with you are in melee and Dawi are a grinding faction so more AOE DPS is good.
I'd say rangers are more valuable in total war 3 because any stalking unit can be easily cheesed to cap town squares of walled settlements now. Just put your visible units on one side of the settlement so the ai puts all of its units near there. Then have the stalking units climb over the walls and cap the undefended town square.
was playing with my friend and he ran into the dwarves as tomb kings and got annihilated by them, i had to play them after that. thank you for the video!
You're welcome! Glad to help. Poor tomb kings suck early game espey vs armored factions. I'll do a guide on them in a few days, watch or get your friend to watch it.
The use of a Bolt thrower versus Grudge thrower can be found pretty easily, while Grudge throwers can obliterate approaching Infantry lines, the bolt thrower will be capable of lining up shots on Large Calvary and monstrous units, the ideal example of Bolt throwers being superior is against the Araknoc spiders of the Crooked moon, Thorgrim's starting Ork foe
I'm so so grateful for these guides. I played a bit of tw2 and got 3 for Cathay but didn't realize how much changed - these guides being for 3 specifically really really helps! I've watched the playlist a couple times through now and I'm using them to learn and play a run of immortal empires with every race. You're awesome!
When Belegar's Thanes reach level 12, they can take the Wanderer skill, and you can build yourself a ranger doomstack. Rangers get snipe so they can mow stuff down without the AI reacting. Use Belegar the 2 thanes and the runesmith hero to draw in the enemy while the Rangers rain down invisible death. This is more than enough power by the time you reach level 12 to just walk up to Karak 8 peaks and win. The runesmith can have maxed out wrath and ruin and rune of speed with 2 points in shapen weapon. 3rd point comes at level 13. If you save the level 11 point for Belegar when he hits 12, you can take rally the holds and tunnel warfare. I'd also grab the 3 points in the red line for rangers and route marcher. The rest just go blue line to eventually get replenishment. If you can manage to get furs in a trade, (one of the wood elves start with fur resources) you can make a prospectors mail for 90 oath gold, which also gives your engineer snipe. So he can also join the rangers in firing. If not he needs to have fire at will turned off in battle. But he can also get stalk from bare essentials skill. So you can pick up ballistics calibration and the other range buffs. Another good item for the engineer if you can manage is Prospectors spyglass. This will give everyone an accuracy buff around him. The thanes just need to grab Wanderer and defensive skills to hold while the rangers do their work. You can also get the master rune of disguise to bring an artillery piece that also has stalk and snipe. For next level cheese... Later on with enough oath gold you can make enough Prospector Mail armors so every lord and hero character can have stalk. It is very micro intensive, but you can run around and kill everything without even being detected if done properly.
I think the forge system with how it uses resources to make different items is an outstanding race feature that other races should have some version of. It makes trade good diversity actually mean something.
Although they only give access to the Gyrocopter units, I think Engineer Workshop buildings are worth building in every capital settlement, because they give 4%, 8%, and 12% research rate as you level them. Combined with ancillaries and steal technology you can easily get over 200% research rate. In my Grombrindal campaign, I had like 284% at the end.
Even if you disregard the research rate, each Workshop chain gives you another Engineer, and even if you don't use many ranged units like me, the Engineer does give you the cannonballs wind spell and the ability to apply contact effects like poison or dazed at range and is a game changer on the campaign map in terms of campaign movement range and the block army ability. The AI loves to run their armies away or have just enough movement to retreat to a safe distance when outmatched, which is smart to be fair, so you need that block ability to stop them getting away and you are miles better off versus Skaven by having loads of guys who can block armies dotted around.
@@SGProductions87 Totally agree I was going to say the same basically. The capacity for heroes is super important for Dwarves. I can see putting it off until you get to a tier 4 capital. Otherwise, literally every province should have the runesmith and engineer building. Every army should have a runesmith for the magic alone. They also provide army buffs with sharpen weapons or The armor skills. They can also reduce enemies resistances and winds. Even if you don't use massive ranged armies having increased movement range from the engineer is valuable and they can go the grudge raker path and be decent in melee with a strong short range ability.
Having never played a Total War game. Really like dwarfs in the 40k universe, I did buy WH1,2 &3 at once to play dwarfs. This guide is going to make my investment worth it lmaoo
For any newer players I recommend the ironbrow expedition honesty, they start with the strongest stuff and have insane bonuses compared to the others. It was one of the easiest campaigns ive ever run, even moreso than high elves due to the insane quallarers.
@@LordForwind honestly I don’t know if it was because I was on normal but I felt like I could expand upwards into the mountains for a long while before the lizard men decided to attack me. Maybe I got lucky I dont know but manfred left me alone and other races were satisfied with a gift now and then. I had the entire badlands killed on turn 50 or so and settra was an invaluable ally (dispite tomb king allied recruit being broken in the bad way) as he cleared the desert for me. I think allying tomb kings is the best strat because they can quickly roll over the other tomb kings in the area and usually dominate if you take out khorne. I think thorik honestly buffs his early game army so much as long as you focus your builds into it, thunders become obsolete which is nice because you dont gotta line up your shots as much.
Great guide! The only suggestion I’d add is to break it up into sections (I think you can add those when uploading). It helps with a long video like this where someone might only want to see one lord’s strategy, for instance. Keep up the good work!
Great content you cover everything people need to know with just the right amount of detail. For those playing with the no grudges at the start of your campaign mod how would that change what Legendary Lords are best and what technology to go for first.
Where were these guides when I started playing the game. Thank you kind sir. You are making this game so much more enjoyable. Most guides are just X unit here it's meh, and then at the end of the video they have a late game comp with nothing but that meh unit in there.
Haven't done extensive testing but I've found that Khatep (Exiles of Nehek) is a pretty good ally for Grombrindal. He's been very helpful in fighting the Chaos factions to the north and the Lizardmen to the south.
One of the values of stalk on Rangers is that it's particularly useful against Skaven weapons teams armies (and Plagueclaw Catapults) which are very common in Skaven armies (and absolutely disgusting to deal with, especially if ambushed as Dwarfs). The stalk won't get you out of a Skaven ambush, but units like Death Globe/Poison Wind Globadiers/Ratling Guns need to be able to see their enemy to target them. The same applies for Clanrats/Plague Monk summons which are frequently targeted at your ranged units. If you can approach from multiple angles in stalk mode and release concentrated Ranger volleys at these weapons teams they will go down before they can do your army any devastation. I wanted to say this because of all the enemies in the game as Dwarfs, Skaven give me the most problems, especially the weapons teams and warp lightning spam, and I really struggled to come up with good answers to them and suffered major defeats as a result. Rangers can be one of those answers and generally vanguard deployment and speed will be the best answers. Get in their face and shut them down before they can fire, so fire up a Rune of Speed or two on the approach while you bomb them with artillery. For melee against Skaven I find it's often better to use lords and heroes who will be less susceptible to weapons teams and magic, particularly as you can give them items that give them vanguard deployment and much higher speed than normal. Master Engineers will have good accuracy to take down weapons teams models too, and you'll notice they give +15% speed to all missile units - use it. Your typical Dwarf melee infantry take far too long to get into melee and will usually be obliterated or routing before they make contact, so disband them but if you're going to take melee infantry, take Slayers who have the speed to get in there fast, plus they won't rout off if they do come under fire. Of course, you need to have the foresight to have armies designed like this, tier 3 settlements to unlock these units too, and it's not nice to get into a war with Skaven once you're deeper into a campaign and have to disband those rank 9 Hammerers, so a better plan is to kill all the Skaven before they get weapons teams :D One other thing I found was that Grudge Throwers specifically are worse than other Dwarf artillery pieces against weapons teams armies. Weapons teams have high model spacing and low model count so require more accuracy. Cannons, Bolt Throwers and Organ Guns do a better job there IMO, and every hit will be a kill, whereas Grudge Throwers might only get damage on a hit but not a kill.
To be fair skaven can counter almost anyone if they prep for it, dwarfs lack of cav just makes it worse, although if you manage to ally brittonia or the empire their cav makes you insanely stronger
Really nice guide! Since the Dwarves have such a deep tech tree and are a slow faction overall would it be reasonable to take "breaks" of a dozen or so turns to just build up your holdings, juice up your treasury and research tech?
I think you overlooked the blasting charges miners a bit vs warriors. Against low tier skaven or beastmen, the miners are better because the charges will take between 25% and 50% health off of slaves or clanrats. Then they generally hold out in melee long enough for ranged to do the rest. In the early game when you want to stretch every gold piece you can, blasting charges miners are more cost effective due to lower cost but higher damage output. Warriors don't really have any worthwhile DPS, but they are really good for just holding. Blasting charges are better offensively especially in sieges. My strat is to get vanguard deployment items on my lord/heroes, vanguard them and the miners in field battles to soften up the enemy then follow up with warriors/hammerers/ranged. Kinda Roman tactics. Having vanguard on your characters is very helpful in offensive sieges because it allows them to immediately take tower fire and your army can deploy as close as allowed. If you can kill volkmar and get the +3 ma/d melee tech the miners get into the 30s for ma/d with some ranks. 40s with grombrindal.
Started up playing as Ironbrows Exposition on normal/normal his start really is rough. Nearing turn 80 I think, I managed to capture the two main regions with Thoriks -20 rulers prejudice it makes life difficult I almost want to start over. I pushed north to take the mountains and after securing the main province I start looking at maybe makeing friends with Khalida, so I could have someone watch Krokgar. She was getting stomped by the Silverhoast so I recaptured some of her starting territory, and sold it back in exchange for some early game cash and treaties. Skarbrand attacked the 2nd region capital, oh boy that was rough but managed to eek out a win after 1 or 2 reloads, emergency recruiting a few slayers and 1 rematch. (Nasty fight and lot of LoS issues) Furies can seriously chew through dwarf warriors with magic attacks. With the two provances secured and building up, I set my sights on Manfred and pushed him to Sudenburg. During those fights I allied with Teclis and massively improved my standing with Krokgar but just for non-agression. After working with Teclis to fight of Kyros (cause f that nonsense) Krokgar allowed a defensive alliance. I sold some territory to Krokgar and Teclis so I could focus on going north to reunite with Karak Azul / Kazador and Thorgrim. They did not like me one bit and most of it was cause of that -20 rulers prejudice (joy) also Karak Azul did not like I was friends with Khalida. No big deal I thought as I kept building up a Runesmith stackand policing my now 4 provinces: starting mountains too Sudenburg. [Fun fact t3 runeforges increase their hero cap by 1] Some time during all this I missed Khalida declaring war on Kharak Azul and my slowly upped with them relations plumiting. With no choice I have to break my pacts with Khalida and wait 10 turns to aid Kazador on turn 72. Some policing, punching in birdbois face + manfreds faces, and some army build up later I've got a solid army for Thoric where its mostly him and the heroes blasting stuff and cheeseing sieges (1 thane, 5 runesmiths, 1 ironbreaker, 1 longbeard gw, 3 quarrelers, 2 grudgethrowers, and 6 dwarf warriors). A 2nd army has been prepairing to take the grudgein to Khalida. A generic lord who'd been kicking ass against the odds and maintaining order where needed. (6 dwarf warriors, 2 irondrakes, 2 thunderers, 4 quarrelers, 1 miner with blasting charge, 1 engineer, 2 grudgethrowers, and 1 cannon.) Khalida kicks the genaric lords ass with overwhelming force thanks to 4 total armies with charriots and way more constructs than I thought she'd have (wh3 really did give the Tomb Kings some tlc with those building tiers). I'm forced to rethink my whole approach and after 4 long rematches and 1 reload I win at great cost. I'm working out how best to settle this grugde.
I apologize if this is a bad question but do these guides apply to warhammer 2? Or are the differences in the two games to much to be used for both? Of all the content for warhammer 2 guides on factions I find yours to be the best to date. Either way great job keep up the awesome work! In case you were wondering I dont own warhammer 3 currently.
Khazukan Kazakit-ha!! Fine moving-picture thing you did there. You do your ancestors proud, laddie*!! 🍺. Time to cross out some grudges from the great book!!
@@LordForwind tis my favorite end game scenario when it pops off. That one and the skaven being a close 2nd. Really makes for order vs chaotic chaos vs everything else.
@@LordForwind depends on the trigger and whats selected. Ive only seen dwarves, skaven, greenskins and lizardmen end times triggers. They are insane. Half the time u are friends other half. They are all over u. Unique mechanics play out from what i can tell is how you go about doing your short/long/ultimate campaign victories.
You weren't joking about ironbrows campaign. I pushed north and I was at war with skarbrand, greenskins, queek, and then all the way down south lizardman, and manred declared on me. I have to admit tho....I'm on turn 33, and this is one my most exciting campaigns. I just about lost my starting stack. Queek ambushed me, and I'm assuming it was a beefy army or 2 because it wouldn't show me their army comp.....because I auto resolve all my battles I come away with my 2 lords, 2 renown slayers units, and my artillery unit...lol. I was able to rebuild everything I lost. It just sucks losing all those experienced units.
Awesome guide. Been playing a campaign with a couple friends on hard as Thorgrim. Ran over the orcs and secured the Gunbad province, then fought a bloody war with the Skaven. Lost an entire army of 1000 dwarves after killing 3000 Skaven in a single battle, it was brutal. My biggest struggle is fighting the Skaven warrior Heroes, any tips for those?
Most heroes are vulnerable to ranged but usually the best counter is your own heroes backed up with soldiers. Two handed warriors are particularly good. Against green skin lord's, probably your best counter is your own lord and heroes, except vs grimgor, he is just op.
if you're talking about the assassins you need speed debuffs to stop them kiting (rune of slowness, poison, dazed) and magic attacks to bypass their physical resistance (check the forge).
That High King ability u should never take unless u dont want anything else really. It only activates when Thorgrim goes below 50%hp and unless he is swarmed by enemy lord and heroes he just isent gonna do so its a wasted point. U could argue the same for the diffrent skills named (Grudge against) becouse if your not fighting a specific faction its gonna be useless. Maybe take 1 to get a better start vs 1 early game faction but dont take them all.
"Mala Keith". I guess that makes me "Good Keith". But still, nice guide, I'm planning on doing a Grombrindal campaign next because Malakith deserves a good old fashioned grudgin' upside the head from Snorri.
Personally, I don’t think that’s there any trash dwarf units. Even their low tier units are better than most found in any other faction. The rangers come into use really when playing as belegar and he makes them disgusting and almost unfair to doom stack with
Alright. Your disrespect of rangers is cause for a grudging. Rangers are similar to quarrelers but have something like a bit less ammo and one other stat like melee defense or armor, but its very minor. In warhammer 3 thanes were updated to give rangers an upgrade to give them all snipe. Snipe is incredibly effective especially on AI. Also depending on the lords belegar also gives a massive boost to rangers specifically as a Legendary Lord
well depending how you use them they are okay, but most people arent that good at micromanaging their armies making quarrelers a better thing to recommend in a guide
@@LordForwind thats fine. I'm just explaining how you overlooked the rangers because in the right hands with the right lord built for them you can have an advantage in certain areas quarrelers would get stomped on. Siege battles can be won with 0 casualties and with no siege equipment and just rangers stealth sniping all the units in the wall. You can also use even 2 or 3 in an army to sneak on enemy ranged units though that is less used and risky because the ai will come for you and they are still slow. But their use with snipe can even help in a regular formation because ranged siege units won't fire at them. What I have noticed with the AI is they focus down ranged units some of the time over melee. To be fair to quarrelers, one of the best units in the game for dwarfs in normal campaigns, belegar is the only lord built for them specifically. I think he gets a bonus 20% missle damage bonus on rangers, and that makes them stronger for his army. And thats not even a faction thing thats a lord ability so you can confederate him and get the bonus. Just adding all this so people don't sleep on the rangers. They were garbage in warhammer 1 and 2 but in 3 they were given some good love to make then pretty strong
I had to hang back as belegar and take out the skaven, vamp coast, ogres, and pescy orcs that managed to sail across and target me for some strange reason.....THEN! Once they were all dead I could march to 8 peaks. My test runs when I B lined for 8 peaks....I got dog piled in my home provinces by skavevn, ogres, beastmen, vamp coast, and wurzag for some strange reason.....yea not a fun campaign. Do you have any diplomacy tips for people who b line for karak 8 peaks?
@@LordForwind I did......that didn't really help me all that much save for trade. I'm still over in my starting area....I'm able to fully support a beefy army. I've taken out vamp coast, wurzag twice now, ogres, skaven, and now morgul. I'm good now to march for 8 peaks lol. I got dog piled in my first 2 test runs b lining for 8 peaks. Hanging back proved way less stressful for me, and once I got to 8 peaks I was able to support 4 armies almost immediately. It was a steam roll after that.
I hated thogrimms campaign so hard in warhammer 2 wich sucks because he is my favourite dwarf lord but now its really good just spam ecomony buildings he buffs build one research building in every province and recruit lords that buff your research in the beggining just spam dwarf warriors with shields and crowsbows and 2-3 units groudgetrhowers do this with every army you build and force the enemy to come to you the base units are so damn op i have beaten 2 fullstack armys of greenskins with just one later just swap all crossbows with quallarers and dwarf warriors with longbeards with shields slowly but steady it is
Not bad but you've grossly underestimated Thorek - comparing him to a run of the mill Runesmith is like comparing an apple to a genetically engineered super apple
Why no confederation tips? I want to gather all legendary lords together asap, can I receive Grombrindal if his faction is already destroyed on another side of a map?
@@LordForwind But the description states all characters factionwide? I'm wondering why they didn't say all units factionwide or all armies factionwide?
@@LordForwind To be fair, CA have been awful with scope descriptions throughout the series. For example, Strategist makes all us hopeful players that means for the whole army. If it's on a hero, we want to believe it adds 5% movement range to an army when embedded. The description is simply +5% campaign movement range. No scope specified, and after some digging, many are saying this simply means for that particular character, which is weak as hell. In WH3 they do seem to be improving trait scopes somewhat, but I'm yet to be satisfied with it overall! If it helps at all, I think I spotted something in the tech tree which also specifies all characters so I think that can be used as a reference.
Its not that bad in my experience once you control Naggorond and fortify it, she is a slow expander and countered reasonably well by the Dwarves! Just get high level infantry and artillery and you should be okay!
Do you know if the growth and income buffs as a battle rewards, stack if you win multiple battles in a turn? so win 3 battles and get + 60 growth for 2 turns?
But you can also win multiple battles with a number of close by armies, then have each of them hang out in the same province to stack the bonus. Reinforcers don't get the benefit.
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Really thorough and entertaining guide. I know some people don't like longer videos, but you kept it to the point and I watched it all in one sitting without getting bored. Hopefully you find the time to do one for every faction, you definitely deserve more subs!
Only complaint I had was that you forgot to mention ironbrakers when doing your unit overview, would love to hear your thoughts on them.
Thank you! Im glad someone appreciates that part of it. Iron breakers are amazing but expensive, great vs non armor penetrating units but vs armor penetrating units they are still good but a lot weaker. Thanks again!
Also forgot to ask, any faction in particular you want to see?
@@LordForwind Thanks for the prompt reply! I'd love to see a video on Lizardmen. I love the theme of the faction and they have always been a bit of a favourite of mine.
Definitely will do them then! Might be a few days though since I have to learn them especially the starts!
Great guide
For thorgrim, I would recommend disbanding the gyro asap. It’s basically just a massive upkeep sink.
For grombribdal, I usually do the option to boost my dwarf warrior stats. That plus grombrindals red line boost make them even more unbeatable.
Also, the forge is great early game for runes to buff units and hero/lords. The late game stuff is the higher tier equipment
Interesting, I personally like the research speed on grombrindal due to the massive tech tree, but yeah his forces are really strong
exactly what i needed. full comprehensive guide. thanks man
Glad it helped!
For all the Dwarf starts I find farming a fast 50 Oathgold and buying the Master Rune of Spite is a must. It gives you a constant drain to enemies with you are in melee and Dawi are a grinding faction so more AOE DPS is good.
Ooh cool strat!
This plus ironwardens tankard plus anything that makes the lord unbreakable makes him very dangerous.
I'd say rangers are more valuable in total war 3 because any stalking unit can be easily cheesed to cap town squares of walled settlements now. Just put your visible units on one side of the settlement so the ai puts all of its units near there. Then have the stalking units climb over the walls and cap the undefended town square.
Cool good tip, never tried that myself
you could also do this in warhammer 2. it was waaay to easy to take settlememts
Patched :(
Part of mes sad the others glad the ai is less brain dead now
was playing with my friend and he ran into the dwarves as tomb kings and got annihilated by them, i had to play them after that. thank you for the video!
You're welcome! Glad to help. Poor tomb kings suck early game espey vs armored factions. I'll do a guide on them in a few days, watch or get your friend to watch it.
The use of a Bolt thrower versus Grudge thrower can be found pretty easily, while Grudge throwers can obliterate approaching Infantry lines, the bolt thrower will be capable of lining up shots on Large Calvary and monstrous units, the ideal example of Bolt throwers being superior is against the Araknoc spiders of the Crooked moon, Thorgrim's starting Ork foe
Nice summary!
It's a low tier cannon.
I'm so so grateful for these guides. I played a bit of tw2 and got 3 for Cathay but didn't realize how much changed - these guides being for 3 specifically really really helps!
I've watched the playlist a couple times through now and I'm using them to learn and play a run of immortal empires with every race. You're awesome!
Glad the guides are doing what I wanted them too! GL
Love those videos very great insights. Will you do Chaos dwarves as well in the future?
Already have! Should be on the playlist, or under the tw3 guides on the main channel page
@@LordForwind oh yea it is just so far in the back that I did not find it. Thanks for the awesome content man!
np, going to do more when things get updated@@stoxx399
When Belegar's Thanes reach level 12, they can take the Wanderer skill, and you can build yourself a ranger doomstack. Rangers get snipe so they can mow stuff down without the AI reacting. Use Belegar the 2 thanes and the runesmith hero to draw in the enemy while the Rangers rain down invisible death.
This is more than enough power by the time you reach level 12 to just walk up to Karak 8 peaks and win. The runesmith can have maxed out wrath and ruin and rune of speed with 2 points in shapen weapon. 3rd point comes at level 13. If you save the level 11 point for Belegar when he hits 12, you can take rally the holds and tunnel warfare. I'd also grab the 3 points in the red line for rangers and route marcher. The rest just go blue line to eventually get replenishment. If you can manage to get furs in a trade, (one of the wood elves start with fur resources) you can make a prospectors mail for 90 oath gold, which also gives your engineer snipe. So he can also join the rangers in firing. If not he needs to have fire at will turned off in battle. But he can also get stalk from bare essentials skill. So you can pick up ballistics calibration and the other range buffs. Another good item for the engineer if you can manage is Prospectors spyglass. This will give everyone an accuracy buff around him. The thanes just need to grab Wanderer and defensive skills to hold while the rangers do their work. You can also get the master rune of disguise to bring an artillery piece that also has stalk and snipe.
For next level cheese... Later on with enough oath gold you can make enough Prospector Mail armors so every lord and hero character can have stalk. It is very micro intensive, but you can run around and kill everything without even being detected if done properly.
That sounds fun to do if you have the time and willpower!
Great guide, deserves more attention!
Thank you glad you enjoy it.
I think the forge system with how it uses resources to make different items is an outstanding race feature that other races should have some version of. It makes trade good diversity actually mean something.
Yeah trading goods need to do more, like shogun 2
Although they only give access to the Gyrocopter units, I think Engineer Workshop buildings are worth building in every capital settlement, because they give 4%, 8%, and 12% research rate as you level them. Combined with ancillaries and steal technology you can easily get over 200% research rate. In my Grombrindal campaign, I had like 284% at the end.
good point but I wouldnt bother on your first major capital since you usually have more important things to build, 2nd and on, probably worth it.
Even if you disregard the research rate, each Workshop chain gives you another Engineer, and even if you don't use many ranged units like me, the Engineer does give you the cannonballs wind spell and the ability to apply contact effects like poison or dazed at range and is a game changer on the campaign map in terms of campaign movement range and the block army ability. The AI loves to run their armies away or have just enough movement to retreat to a safe distance when outmatched, which is smart to be fair, so you need that block ability to stop them getting away and you are miles better off versus Skaven by having loads of guys who can block armies dotted around.
@@SGProductions87 Totally agree I was going to say the same basically. The capacity for heroes is super important for Dwarves. I can see putting it off until you get to a tier 4 capital. Otherwise, literally every province should have the runesmith and engineer building. Every army should have a runesmith for the magic alone. They also provide army buffs with sharpen weapons or The armor skills. They can also reduce enemies resistances and winds. Even if you don't use massive ranged armies having increased movement range from the engineer is valuable and they can go the grudge raker path and be decent in melee with a strong short range ability.
Having never played a Total War game. Really like dwarfs in the 40k universe, I did buy WH1,2 &3 at once to play dwarfs. This guide is going to make my investment worth it lmaoo
I hope you enjoy it, just don't do grombrindal or ironhammer first! Grudgebearer is the best on for beginners!
For any newer players I recommend the ironbrow expedition honesty, they start with the strongest stuff and have insane bonuses compared to the others. It was one of the easiest campaigns ive ever run, even moreso than high elves due to the insane quallarers.
The big issue is the lack of allies and getting attacked from several directions at once.
@@LordForwind well yes. but they also have the strongest faction
@@LordForwind honestly I don’t know if it was because I was on normal but I felt like I could expand upwards into the mountains for a long while before the lizard men decided to attack me. Maybe I got lucky I dont know but manfred left me alone and other races were satisfied with a gift now and then. I had the entire badlands killed on turn 50 or so and settra was an invaluable ally (dispite tomb king allied recruit being broken in the bad way) as he cleared the desert for me. I think allying tomb kings is the best strat because they can quickly roll over the other tomb kings in the area and usually dominate if you take out khorne. I think thorik honestly buffs his early game army so much as long as you focus your builds into it, thunders become obsolete which is nice because you dont gotta line up your shots as much.
@@fluffybat5421 yeah if you know what your doing its easy, but most new players still struggle with building and recruiting properly
Great guide! The only suggestion I’d add is to break it up into sections (I think you can add those when uploading). It helps with a long video like this where someone might only want to see one lord’s strategy, for instance. Keep up the good work!
I added chapters. Dont know anything about sections?
Great content you cover everything people need to know with just the right amount of detail. For those playing with the no grudges at the start of your campaign mod how would that change what Legendary Lords are best and what technology to go for first.
Not drastically, you tend to clear most of the basic grudges quickly and the public order tech really helps with the dwarves poor corruption issues
Where were these guides when I started playing the game. Thank you kind sir. You are making this game so much more enjoyable. Most guides are just X unit here it's meh, and then at the end of the video they have a late game comp with nothing but that meh unit in there.
Glad you like them! I hope you can still learn something from them!
Haven't done extensive testing but I've found that Khatep (Exiles of Nehek) is a pretty good ally for Grombrindal. He's been very helpful in fighting the Chaos factions to the north and the Lizardmen to the south.
Yeah the issue I find is that they tend to die to the sisters of twilight and the less you fight them the better, since they stabilize the whole aream
One of the values of stalk on Rangers is that it's particularly useful against Skaven weapons teams armies (and Plagueclaw Catapults) which are very common in Skaven armies (and absolutely disgusting to deal with, especially if ambushed as Dwarfs). The stalk won't get you out of a Skaven ambush, but units like Death Globe/Poison Wind Globadiers/Ratling Guns need to be able to see their enemy to target them. The same applies for Clanrats/Plague Monk summons which are frequently targeted at your ranged units. If you can approach from multiple angles in stalk mode and release concentrated Ranger volleys at these weapons teams they will go down before they can do your army any devastation.
I wanted to say this because of all the enemies in the game as Dwarfs, Skaven give me the most problems, especially the weapons teams and warp lightning spam, and I really struggled to come up with good answers to them and suffered major defeats as a result. Rangers can be one of those answers and generally vanguard deployment and speed will be the best answers. Get in their face and shut them down before they can fire, so fire up a Rune of Speed or two on the approach while you bomb them with artillery.
For melee against Skaven I find it's often better to use lords and heroes who will be less susceptible to weapons teams and magic, particularly as you can give them items that give them vanguard deployment and much higher speed than normal. Master Engineers will have good accuracy to take down weapons teams models too, and you'll notice they give +15% speed to all missile units - use it. Your typical Dwarf melee infantry take far too long to get into melee and will usually be obliterated or routing before they make contact, so disband them but if you're going to take melee infantry, take Slayers who have the speed to get in there fast, plus they won't rout off if they do come under fire.
Of course, you need to have the foresight to have armies designed like this, tier 3 settlements to unlock these units too, and it's not nice to get into a war with Skaven once you're deeper into a campaign and have to disband those rank 9 Hammerers, so a better plan is to kill all the Skaven before they get weapons teams :D
One other thing I found was that Grudge Throwers specifically are worse than other Dwarf artillery pieces against weapons teams armies. Weapons teams have high model spacing and low model count so require more accuracy. Cannons, Bolt Throwers and Organ Guns do a better job there IMO, and every hit will be a kill, whereas Grudge Throwers might only get damage on a hit but not a kill.
To be fair skaven can counter almost anyone if they prep for it, dwarfs lack of cav just makes it worse, although if you manage to ally brittonia or the empire their cav makes you insanely stronger
Super helpful video, in depth but doesnt drag on. Many thanks Azumgi!
My pleasure!
Very well done and most useful, thank you!
Glad to help
Really nice guide! Since the Dwarves have such a deep tech tree and are a slow faction overall would it be reasonable to take "breaks" of a dozen or so turns to just build up your holdings, juice up your treasury and research tech?
Yeah, the thing to remember is that you make plenty of money from battles.
I think you overlooked the blasting charges miners a bit vs warriors. Against low tier skaven or beastmen, the miners are better because the charges will take between 25% and 50% health off of slaves or clanrats. Then they generally hold out in melee long enough for ranged to do the rest.
In the early game when you want to stretch every gold piece you can, blasting charges miners are more cost effective due to lower cost but higher damage output.
Warriors don't really have any worthwhile DPS, but they are really good for just holding.
Blasting charges are better offensively especially in sieges.
My strat is to get vanguard deployment items on my lord/heroes, vanguard them and the miners in field battles to soften up the enemy then follow up with warriors/hammerers/ranged. Kinda Roman tactics. Having vanguard on your characters is very helpful in offensive sieges because it allows them to immediately take tower fire and your army can deploy as close as allowed.
If you can kill volkmar and get the +3 ma/d melee tech the miners get into the 30s for ma/d with some ranks. 40s with grombrindal.
I personally find them almost useless in battles, which is why I dont recommend them for new players
Started up playing as Ironbrows Exposition on normal/normal his start really is rough. Nearing turn 80 I think, I managed to capture the two main regions with Thoriks -20 rulers prejudice it makes life difficult I almost want to start over.
I pushed north to take the mountains and after securing the main province
I start looking at maybe makeing friends with Khalida, so I could have someone watch Krokgar. She was getting stomped by the Silverhoast so I recaptured some of her starting territory, and sold it back in exchange for some early game cash and treaties. Skarbrand attacked the 2nd region capital, oh boy that was rough but managed to eek out a win after 1 or 2 reloads, emergency recruiting a few slayers and 1 rematch. (Nasty fight and lot of LoS issues) Furies can seriously chew through dwarf warriors with magic attacks.
With the two provances secured and building up, I set my sights on Manfred and pushed him to Sudenburg. During those fights I allied with Teclis and massively improved my standing with Krokgar but just for non-agression. After working with Teclis to fight of Kyros (cause f that nonsense) Krokgar allowed a defensive alliance. I sold some territory to Krokgar and Teclis so I could focus on going north to reunite with Karak Azul / Kazador and Thorgrim. They did not like me one bit and most of it was cause of that -20 rulers prejudice (joy) also Karak Azul did not like I was friends with Khalida. No big deal I thought as I kept building up a Runesmith stackand policing my now 4 provinces: starting mountains too Sudenburg. [Fun fact t3 runeforges increase their hero cap by 1]
Some time during all this I missed Khalida declaring war on Kharak Azul and my slowly upped with them relations plumiting. With no choice I have to break my pacts with Khalida and wait 10 turns to aid Kazador on turn 72.
Some policing, punching in birdbois face + manfreds faces, and some army build up later I've got a solid army for Thoric where its mostly him and the heroes blasting stuff and cheeseing sieges (1 thane, 5 runesmiths, 1 ironbreaker, 1 longbeard gw, 3 quarrelers, 2 grudgethrowers, and 6 dwarf warriors).
A 2nd army has been prepairing to take the grudgein to Khalida. A generic lord who'd been kicking ass against the odds and maintaining order where needed.
(6 dwarf warriors, 2 irondrakes, 2 thunderers, 4 quarrelers, 1 miner with blasting charge, 1 engineer, 2 grudgethrowers, and 1 cannon.)
Khalida kicks the genaric lords ass with overwhelming force thanks to 4 total armies with charriots and way more constructs than I thought she'd have (wh3 really did give the Tomb Kings some tlc with those building tiers). I'm forced to rethink my whole approach and after 4 long rematches and 1 reload I win at great cost. I'm working out how best to settle this grugde.
yeah his start is super rough
I apologize if this is a bad question but do these guides apply to warhammer 2? Or are the differences in the two games to much to be used for both? Of all the content for warhammer 2 guides on factions I find yours to be the best to date. Either way great job keep up the awesome work! In case you were wondering I dont own warhammer 3 currently.
Depends, by and large the strategies are the same but some of the unit stuff is different
Khazukan Kazakit-ha!! Fine moving-picture thing you did there. You do your ancestors proud, laddie*!! 🍺. Time to cross out some grudges from the great book!!
KILL ANYTHING WITHOUT A BEARD!!!! 🧔
Yep that endgame is terrifying.
@@LordForwind tis my favorite end game scenario when it pops off. That one and the skaven being a close 2nd. Really makes for order vs chaotic chaos vs everything else.
@@HammarPwnsYourFace Its super fun! Now when do they add high elves or the empire or dark elves ones?
@@LordForwind depends on the trigger and whats selected. Ive only seen dwarves, skaven, greenskins and lizardmen end times triggers. They are insane. Half the time u are friends other half. They are all over u. Unique mechanics play out from what i can tell is how you go about doing your short/long/ultimate campaign victories.
You weren't joking about ironbrows campaign. I pushed north and I was at war with skarbrand, greenskins, queek, and then all the way down south lizardman, and manred declared on me. I have to admit tho....I'm on turn 33, and this is one my most exciting campaigns. I just about lost my starting stack. Queek ambushed me, and I'm assuming it was a beefy army or 2 because it wouldn't show me their army comp.....because I auto resolve all my battles I come away with my 2 lords, 2 renown slayers units, and my artillery unit...lol. I was able to rebuild everything I lost. It just sucks losing all those experienced units.
Ironbrow is either super easy or hard, depending if people dogpile you.
Awesome guide. Been playing a campaign with a couple friends on hard as Thorgrim. Ran over the orcs and secured the Gunbad province, then fought a bloody war with the Skaven. Lost an entire army of 1000 dwarves after killing 3000 Skaven in a single battle, it was brutal. My biggest struggle is fighting the Skaven warrior Heroes, any tips for those?
Most heroes are vulnerable to ranged but usually the best counter is your own heroes backed up with soldiers. Two handed warriors are particularly good. Against green skin lord's, probably your best counter is your own lord and heroes, except vs grimgor, he is just op.
if you're talking about the assassins you need speed debuffs to stop them kiting (rune of slowness, poison, dazed) and magic attacks to bypass their physical resistance (check the forge).
That High King ability u should never take unless u dont want anything else really. It only activates when Thorgrim goes below 50%hp and unless he is swarmed by enemy lord and heroes he just isent gonna do so its a wasted point. U could argue the same for the diffrent skills named (Grudge against) becouse if your not fighting a specific faction its gonna be useless. Maybe take 1 to get a better start vs 1 early game faction but dont take them all.
It's worth it on higher levels where you lord and heroes are targeted alot
"Mala Keith". I guess that makes me "Good Keith".
But still, nice guide, I'm planning on doing a Grombrindal campaign next because Malakith deserves a good old fashioned grudgin' upside the head from Snorri.
Nice to meet you GoodKith He really does, its a fun game especially if you move quickly before he gets good units.
Did you forget iron breakers if you did then I would say that in my opinion they are THE BEST for holding the line
yep I did. I commented about them here already though!
Can't wait to play the dwarves! Whos the best one right now edit: nm, I'm later in the video and i think im gonna go with thorgrim.
Got an upcoming LP as the dwarves. Depends what you look for in lord I guess.
Personally, I don’t think that’s there any trash dwarf units. Even their low tier units are better than most found in any other faction. The rangers come into use really when playing as belegar and he makes them disgusting and almost unfair to doom stack with
They and Kislev are great trash armies. CWs as well I guess...
Alright. Your disrespect of rangers is cause for a grudging.
Rangers are similar to quarrelers but have something like a bit less ammo and one other stat like melee defense or armor, but its very minor.
In warhammer 3 thanes were updated to give rangers an upgrade to give them all snipe. Snipe is incredibly effective especially on AI.
Also depending on the lords belegar also gives a massive boost to rangers specifically as a Legendary Lord
well depending how you use them they are okay, but most people arent that good at micromanaging their armies making quarrelers a better thing to recommend in a guide
@@LordForwind thats fine. I'm just explaining how you overlooked the rangers because in the right hands with the right lord built for them you can have an advantage in certain areas quarrelers would get stomped on.
Siege battles can be won with 0 casualties and with no siege equipment and just rangers stealth sniping all the units in the wall.
You can also use even 2 or 3 in an army to sneak on enemy ranged units though that is less used and risky because the ai will come for you and they are still slow.
But their use with snipe can even help in a regular formation because ranged siege units won't fire at them. What I have noticed with the AI is they focus down ranged units some of the time over melee.
To be fair to quarrelers, one of the best units in the game for dwarfs in normal campaigns, belegar is the only lord built for them specifically. I think he gets a bonus 20% missle damage bonus on rangers, and that makes them stronger for his army. And thats not even a faction thing thats a lord ability so you can confederate him and get the bonus.
Just adding all this so people don't sleep on the rangers. They were garbage in warhammer 1 and 2 but in 3 they were given some good love to make then pretty strong
I had to hang back as belegar and take out the skaven, vamp coast, ogres, and pescy orcs that managed to sail across and target me for some strange reason.....THEN! Once they were all dead I could march to 8 peaks. My test runs when I B lined for 8 peaks....I got dog piled in my home provinces by skavevn, ogres, beastmen, vamp coast, and wurzag for some strange reason.....yea not a fun campaign. Do you have any diplomacy tips for people who b line for karak 8 peaks?
Hmm ally the wood elves and probably the golden order.
@@LordForwind I did......that didn't really help me all that much save for trade. I'm still over in my starting area....I'm able to fully support a beefy army. I've taken out vamp coast, wurzag twice now, ogres, skaven, and now morgul. I'm good now to march for 8 peaks lol. I got dog piled in my first 2 test runs b lining for 8 peaks. Hanging back proved way less stressful for me, and once I got to 8 peaks I was able to support 4 armies almost immediately. It was a steam roll after that.
I hated thogrimms campaign so hard in warhammer 2 wich sucks because he is my favourite dwarf lord but now its really good just spam ecomony buildings he buffs build one research building in every province and recruit lords that buff your research in the beggining just spam dwarf warriors with shields and crowsbows and 2-3 units groudgetrhowers do this with every army you build and force the enemy to come to you the base units are so damn op i have beaten 2 fullstack armys of greenskins with just one later just swap all crossbows with quallarers and dwarf warriors with longbeards with shields slowly but steady it is
Yeah dwarves are easy mode if you manage the economy and stuff.
Have you tried the "change starting settlement " mod to start Belegar at 8 peaks?
Nope not yet, I like the quest honestly its rather unique and forces you to think strategically!
Not bad but you've grossly underestimated Thorek - comparing him to a run of the mill Runesmith is like comparing an apple to a genetically engineered super apple
He is great just not as good as the other lords early or for new players, plus he takes longer to get OP than the others.
Why no confederation tips? I want to gather all legendary lords together asap, can I receive Grombrindal if his faction is already destroyed on another side of a map?
Nope, you cant get him, its very hard to confederate all the dwarves. Almost impossible I would say to do quickly.
For Grombrindal, does the Get Up skill apply only to all characters factionwide or to units as well, eg units in a lord's army?
All units, which makes it one of the best replenishment abilities in the game because you can stack it with other lords replenishment abilities
@@LordForwind But the description states all characters factionwide? I'm wondering why they didn't say all units factionwide or all armies factionwide?
@@SGProductions87 hmm odd, as far as im aware all dwarven units are effected, I can check soon to make sure.
@@LordForwind To be fair, CA have been awful with scope descriptions throughout the series. For example, Strategist makes all us hopeful players that means for the whole army. If it's on a hero, we want to believe it adds 5% movement range to an army when embedded. The description is simply +5% campaign movement range. No scope specified, and after some digging, many are saying this simply means for that particular character, which is weak as hell. In WH3 they do seem to be improving trait scopes somewhat, but I'm yet to be satisfied with it overall!
If it helps at all, I think I spotted something in the tech tree which also specifies all characters so I think that can be used as a reference.
@@LordForwind I did check this and you're right it's all units. Despite being a small % replenishment it does make a big impact - factionwide too.
I've not played dwarfs yet, but man they are terrible to fight against!
Yep armor piercing or artillery is needed to break them. Magic is okay but a weaker option as well.
It's Dwarfs not Dwarves in Warhammer.
Ah forgive the Tolkien language.
Ironbreakers?
Might have forgotten to do them but super strong!
@@LordForwind They are the unit I was waiting for from the start of video! They just refuse to die. Great guide anyway.
How does Valkia effect Grombrindles start?
Its not that bad in my experience once you control Naggorond and fortify it, she is a slow expander and countered reasonably well by the Dwarves! Just get high level infantry and artillery and you should be okay!
You forgot to mention the Ironbreakers , what a unit!!!For sure one of the best in the game
oops...
@LordForwind that's going in the book
Do you know if the growth and income buffs as a battle rewards, stack if you win multiple battles in a turn? so win 3 battles and get + 60 growth for 2 turns?
honestly no idea, but if I had to guess it would extend the buff rather than doubling because that would be totally OP.
It extends the number of active turns
But you can also win multiple battles with a number of close by armies, then have each of them hang out in the same province to stack the bonus. Reinforcers don't get the benefit.