About Skullcracker vs Iron Daemon. Skullcracker does better in meele than Iron Daemon because it have somewhat better attack pattern. Its frontal steam balst cone is better and also have additional front blades fall-attack pattern. But i cant say its that much better in its role, mainly because the blades fall-attack is rare and ofthen hits the spot that was cleared by the steam blast few seconds ago. Although it can deliver good damage if it lands TLDR : I agree with your tier placement, just wanted to bring up that differences
Wanted to know if you have also experienced the mortars instead of attacking the unit you targeted they instead just fire at whatever comes into range first
A case that can be made for the regular Dreadquake Mortar is that it only takes up a single artillerys-lot. The other two variants take up two slots each. Depending where you are in your campaign, that can make or break your armament-bank.
@@0NoName9 I'm not saying it doesn't make sense or anything, the ones with addons would be completely nobrainer if they cost the same amount of slots - it's just that Legend ignored the fact that the regular mortar costs half the amount of slots, which I thought is something worth mentioning, because it can make a huge difference.
Yep, it makes no sense to pay armament upkeep to give them extra powder and ammo if they don't benefit from it like the other machines. Hopefully they'll change it in a future patch.
Skullcracker's price is due to it having the old bugged Beastmen chariot multi-attack apparently from what I've found. One problem, it doesn't work properly right now and even if it did Iron Daemons are generally better.
Ive been testing the Skullcracker vs Iron Demon with melee mode a bit recently and the Skullcracker just barely tend to outcompete the Iron Demon, like the Skullcracker getting 58 kills vs Iron Demon getting 50, with firing turned off, mind you. Skullcracker needs a buff, it should do more damage or come with some other bonus. Also both Iron Demon and Skullcracker feels somewhat squishy for what they are supposed to be, should be slightly more tanky imo.
Yeah, agreed! They are cheap, available from the start, have insane range and good damage against all infantry. If you take availability into account, they are easily the best chorf artillery unit.
Fun fact: Blunderbussies and Fireglaives were supposed to have the Dig In ability (+accuracy and 40% range after not moving for 25s) but it seems CA removed the ability at some point in time. The stuff is still there for them to have it, it's just inactive rather than being removed. I also suspect that, in a similar manner, Bull Centaur Hero units were supposed to have either access to Strength From Flesh or the Hell-Forged ability due to their skill point that increases HP and battle healing cap, yet no access to healing beyond items. Also, ALSO: Sneaky Gits have a tendency to fucking FLY on some siege maps. As in, they will all fly into the air one-by-one and then move to where you tell them to move, only to then drop back down to the floor one-by-one. LOVE THIS DLC xD
god the fireglaves and blunderbussies would be so overpowered with dig in. They are already amazing standing still and mowing down enemies that come to them as is.
I think he's underestimated the magma cannon. On paper is missile damage isn't amazing. However it's shots leave a lingering burning effect that can devestate densely packed or slow units. 1 shot from a magma cannon will take of half the health of a unit of dwarf warriors. Not to mention their incredible acuracy means trhey practicaly never miss. if you ensure they're not warting their shots firing into injured or scattered units they can decimate an enemy army before they can even get into missile range.
Similar miss on the Dreadquakes. They don't have the accuracy of magma, but much easier with their high arcs for when engagement begins. They also have a slowing effect, as well as the DoT effect of the maga, and a larger radius for their explosion.
Agreed. Magma cannon is better then the hell cannon most of the time. Its lingering effect make it do fairly similar damage to the hell cannons plash, but its accuracy and range are just loads better.
We must have used different Magma Cannons. The flame that stays on the ground after shot is MURDEROUS vs infantry. Racked up hundreds of kills only because of that. In MP Magma Cannons alongside Bull Centaurs completely dictate meta now.
Legend doesn’t review based on how things perform in MP where you don’t have to balance things around a campaign as well, and obviously don’t deal with more intelligent real players. Like yeah magma cannons can get me hundreds of kills, but dreadquake mortars and even deathshriekers can get me thousands in campaign battles
Agree wholeheartedly, they are insane. In my main army with all the buffs going those things melt away infantry units to like 20% hp in 1 shot, maybe 2 shots for black orcs, phoenix guard and such. Meanwhile those deathshrieker rockets are complete ass, missing most of the time and doing fuck all for damage. In most battles the magma cannons got like 200 kills while the rockets got legit
@@Bojo29 Even then, the difference is that magma cannons are dirt cheap, you're not always going to want those. And magma cannons are tier 2, which is insane for how effective they are.
@@Bojo29 The magma cannon will out perform both the deathshrieks and hell cannons in campaign, and he rated the hell cannon quite well. It will lose out to the dreadquake in infantry kills, but its also a fraction of the price which matters in the mid game. My guess is legend just hasnt used the magma cannon in campaign much because he had access to the dreadquakes before he decided to buy more artillery, and he has past experience with hell cannons just fine. One thing about the dwarf armies is they can really abuse magic to a large extent due to their huge reserve, so infantry killing artillary is less important for your armies then you might initially think. Also when comparing the normal dread quake without its train, magma cannon has a lot of advantages. It wont deal quite as much splash as the dread quake, buts its accuracy and range start to matter a lot more when you have 20 speed and cant reposition. The fast dread quakes can get around these issues be getting closer to enemies to offset its accuracy, and kiting the enemy army through the map to offset its lower range. But the fast dread quake costs 2 capacity and is ungodly expensive, while also need tech 5 to get, which takes awhile.
@@TheSpencer1000 He rated the Hell Cannon high because it's a solid artillery piece that has it's own unit cap. Not sharing a cap means that it's practical to put one or two in all your armies that field artillery, because in the mid game adding warmachine capacity will become prohibitively expensive otherwise.
The big upside of the basic mortar is that it only costs 1 slot while the other 2 versions take 2, so half the armaments to unlock the same number of the other 2 versions. You are basically paying upkeep+slot for the daemon/skullcracker without using up an additional army slot.
that for me was a big nope in terms of the other 2 mortar variants....2 capacity slots for 1 piece of arty was not sustainable, as i went with 3-4 artileries per army...
@@TatsumiyaLightning I think thats only for the iron daemon one - and it's the ammo for the iron daemon itself in the stats, i think the mortar has the same amount as the other versions.
Ya I only run daemon mortars on my main army since I do love them for sieges and just general clean up duty after a fight. All my other armies just have the mortars alone.
Gonna have to slightly disagree on the 2 dreadquake Variants because the iron Daemon and Skullcracker Dreadquake Mortars take 2 unit capacities to recruit one of them but they are the better units but taking 2 capacities each gets expensive in armaments so much faster
One thing worth noting about the native fire attack on chaos dwarf units is that the Cdwarfs can actually stack a whole lot of fire weakness with spells and abilities. It can be crazy how fast you can shred single entities or melt infantry blobs once you drop 40-80% fire weakness on stuff.
I personally think the magma cannons/Deathshrieker/Hellcannon/Dreadquake should have been in its own category called artillery, and the skullcracker/iron daemon as warmachines. So much of its tier buffs only benefit one side or the other
I believe there should be even more cateogries, actually. Magma cannon/deathshrieker is one (early game artillery for both single entity and units with many entities), another one for hellcannon and another one for dreadquakes
You are absolutely right. And even in game despite all of them are sharing "War machine" slots, there are some bonuses for war machines that are affecting only iron daemons/skullcrackers, but not magma cannons or rockets.
I think we've been playing a different game, the Deathshriek multi target doesn't even hit anything 80% of the time, while the single target is probably the most accurate artillery round in the game currently. (the damage isn't great tho)
This is my experience as well, the deathshreiker is the most inaccurate artillery I've ever seen, played with 2 other friend for triple chorfs, and we were making fun of it the entire time I was playing zhatan the black, would've lost the first battle if weren't for blunderbusses
@@EkEMaN91 the multishot or the single shot? The multi shot was suuupper inaccurate for me, I'd have to do some digging but I think I got footage of it being like 300 yards off lol
Magma Cannons are easily the best anti-infantry artillery in the game. Super accurate, insane range and one shot is often enough to delete 50% of the unit but they suck hard against single entity units but they are ok against cavalry for example. Deathshriekers are terrible against infantry but their single target rocket is amazing against single entity units - they have homing rockets that 90% of the time hit their targets. I think you really should try these 2 units again and rerank them.
He might like them more if he is using single entities to tie up multiple units. This makes them hit several units in one shot. This can apply to field or siege battles due to their firing arc. Their accuracy issues are reduced this way. There are ways to boost their accuracy too. That’s my guess. Since Zhatan starts with one, I’ve found ways to make its value match or surpass magma cannons depending on the battle.
The opinions Legend expressed on the Magma Cannon(vs single entities???), multi-shot Deathshriekers and (the alleged inaccuracy) of single-shot Deathshriekers ammunition make me think we must've played different versions of the game
Yeah his artillery takes were... bad... straight up. I think he uses magma's as anti monster because they have canon in their name lmao. That would explain a lot actually.
@@glassberg5018 definetly how it's done with the chorfs. The fireglaives are more consistent than the blunderbusses but can't delete like the blunderbuss can, they're basically infernal guard with halberds too. Magma canon DELETE artillery crews, infantry and even cav. It's bad to the point in multi the meta is to not field any decent infantry lest it get vaporized by magmas... You may be interested in deathshriekers for anti monsters too they deal consistent and accurate damage to them, in fact it's the only niche they're good at. Finally bull centaurs great weapons are amazing, they are good roadblock for monsters and they tear them apart too. Magmas and bull centaurs are the best chorf units rn.
I had completly different experience with deathshrieker rocket. Their anti-infantry shit misses absolutely everything unless i let enemy form massive blob. On the other hand the anti large shot landed almost every time i use it on single entity large monsters.
If you recruit an overseer, who has a unique skill tree ability to buff upkeep 15% and leadership of laborers, and then upgrade the red line for laborers on that overseer, the Orc laborers actually become very usable units for support armies with around 60 leadership and 30+ melee attack and 25+ melee defense on very hard battle difficulty. I have full stacks of them defending almost every border settlement in my campaign because they’re so cheap and actually decent with buffs
Magma canon is anti-infantry, it can solo units for cheaper than the Deathshrieker Rocket Launcher or dreadquake since every shot is like a mini vortex, like test it out. Beyond that I think the list is pretty accurate, I think the skull cracker should be like a tier 1 war machine and have its own cap with the iron daemon, because otherwise its either recruited because I have nothing else to make or Im trying to experiment.
For some reason, when I tested skull crackers, they seem to route infantry faster than the iron daemon with basic frontal charges. I’ll probably need to run more tests. The iron daemon shots are nice but once the distance closed and a charge becomes required, it didn’t necessarily cause a route like the skull cracker. I do enjoy placing my Iron Daemon in between blunderbusses and letting it fire in unison with blunderbusses. Skull crackers get buffed in a separate skill point line than iron daemons so they do have more potential in the melee department (+24% weapon STR, +6 MA, +12 charge bonus, +10 physical resistance) also receiving the same buffs as Iron daemons in the manufactory. When I tested them, it was in quick battles though. Minor but Zhatan can also provide all of his units +15 armour, +5 leadership, and plus 5 MD which further boost skullcrackers.
I think you have the magma cannon and death shrieker mixed up here, the magma cannon absolutely *shreds* infantry (and even cavalry). It's pretty bogus against large units, but the death shrieker demo rocket has like 500+ anti-large or something. The latter takes some time, but it obliterates large SE's.
Gobbo labourers have exactly 1 purpose, and that is to be recruited into a 20 stack with an overseer with harsh master and used to turn a settlement into an infinite labour farm. The Deathshrieker rocket is actually really really good at counterbattery too. 1 hit can kill an artillery model and the demo rocket actually has light tracking, kinda like the hellcannon which makes it surprisingly accurate. I had a deathshrieker in demo rocket mode outduel 3 little groms in a clean fight, it took a pasting in return fire but it survived the engagement. The other thing I've noticed is that the deathshreiker has lousy tracking because of its super low projectile speed and high firing arc, so its throughly useless against moving infantry
@Masque okay so labour farming 101. When you raid an enemy region, you get money and labour. If you raid a region with a 20 stack of gobbo labourers, then you get like 200 gold and 150 labour. The army itself costs about 600gpt, and you can do this with as many armies that you can cram into a region. Each army essentially converts 400 gold into 150 labour every turn, and 150 labour is worth about 1200 gold if you use sell labour, so it's essentially infinite profitif you do it somewhere that the enemy can't attack you
The issue I've had with the Iron demon and Skullcracker Dreadquake mortars is that they take 2 unit capacity to recruit. That's a huge disadvantage compared to the others. I haven't tested them on the battlefield yet, but it's possible they do provide double the value indeed
Would recommend giving them a go. Their high speed and HP means they can be way out in front of your army, then kite back as the enemy approaches while firing 360. Also you can recruit the ROR one for no armaments to give it a test run.
legend you didnt take into account that the dreadquake mortar without any attachment uses only 1 unit cap as oppose to the other variants which use two, therefore it makes it a lot harder to say which is better
Something to note with fire damage : fire resistances have been nerfed with the release of chorfs (on units like phoenix guard) I don't think having fire damage is as big of an issue now than it used to be
Yeah, I think he whines a bit too much about that, and you have tools to make enemy weaker to fire so use those methods. It's not like every faction is fire resistant, just make a gobbo army or 2 to beat those, not a big deal.
Dreadquake mortars with iron demons just enables crazy sort of kite builds. One dreadquake, 4 anti large bull centaurs and the rest hobgoblin cav (mostly archers) can handle most things the game will throw at them. And yes even though it's tempting to make full dwarf and full hobgoblin armies, I think those mixed armies have great potential and gives a ton of army compositions (same with hobgoblin cutthroats combined with blunderbusses).
Blunderbuss/Fireglaive/Iron Daemon gunlines are quickly becoming my favorite setup for chorf armies. Sprinkle in some bull centaurs/K'daai Fireborn and you have an absolutely savage short-range barrage followed by a brutal melee counter-charge to anything that manages to survive the initial volleys and crawl through the suppression/ash storm speed debuffs. Something I haven't tried yet is having all of them vanguard deploy, meaning youre lighting your enemy up as soon as the battle starts (though then youre missing out on Ash Storm support and cant use K'daai since they cant vanguard).
Honestly, they should have one combined unit cap for the artillery (including the hellcannon), and one for the locomotive war machines. And then put the Iron Daemon at like tier 3 and make the skullcracker cheaper, faster to recruit and better in melee. And the locomotive + dreadquake would use one unit cap from each category since it currently use 2x unit cap from the war machine category.
I've found that the magma cannons are MVPs with my armies on VH/VH. My lord harasses the army far away, taking out any artillery, the magma cannons target the ranged units and the blunderbusses wipe up any unit that gets close. With an infernal castellan at the edge of their range luring the melees
Indeed your insight into the K'daai Destroyer @23:00 rang true for me first time using one when a larger WOC army with two Hellcannons sniped the behemoth in no time flat. The key to using one is upgrading it with missile resistance and barrier I found otherwise its only good as a short lived damage soaker before it gets wrecked.
I like that Lamassu is an option for mount in the Totalwarhammer 3. In TT, there was a meme about "yo, dawg, you have a spellcaster that rides atop of a spellcaster" (sorc-prophet on a Lamassu, although i believe it was a unique option for one of the named characters), and in Twarhammer 3 this meme continues in all of it's glory.
My thoughts after ~150 turns playing Drazhoath on Hard battle/campaign difficulty: Magma Cannons abuse AI quirks and it's part of the reason they're so good imo. When they hit infantry, for example, the projectile/explosion will kill several entities, then the unit will attempt to reform and in the process, more entities will die running into the fire puddle left behind. Hobgoblin Archers are very cost-effective, especially if you abuse different fire weakness effects, which you have several to choose from in the form of magic and contact effects. Against low-armor targets with +fire damage debuffs, they can punch above their weight. Don't forget that the forge can give your melee infantry armor sundering for some extra damage, if you wanna go that route. The fire weakness concept applies to Fireglaives. They don't do as much damage per shot as Blunderbusses, but the higher range and fire damage gives them a lot of potential. Their anti-large bonus is only +5 so they're not actually all that great at fighting large enemies in melee, but it seems (in my experience) that they perform very well in auto-resolve. They also appear to be very accurate if you're worried about friendly fire, and your dwarf units having 25% fire resist helps mitigate this further. Blunderbusses can also abuse fire weakness with Flaming Sword of Rhuin for bursting enemies down. I don't know if there's any skill or technology that gives them permanent fire damage, however. For Fireglaives and Blunderbusses both, using the guard mode feature that allows them to keep shooting while in melee can make them very dangerous even when enemy infantry get on top of them. Hobgoblin Wolf Raiders have an ability somewhat similar to Devastating Flanker that allows them to get +25% weapon strength when flanking (including the archer variant). It's a no-brainer, but something to consider when trying to micro them onto archers or when using them as a decent-enough hammer to your anvil. The Oglah Khan's Wolfboyz RoR is really good imo. Higher armor, shields, better stats, and a ranged attack. However, I think they might be bugged and can't fire in a circle like the normal Wolf Raider archers can, but I haven't played without the community bug fix patch in a while. Deathshriekers sometimes struggle with hitting single entities with their single-target attack, and they don't do as much damage as the Magma Cannon against infantry, but their firing arc can still make them useful for firing over terrain, walls or your own units. I think it's a decent all-rounder but nothing too amazing.
I use my Chorfs like how you described the Dwarves and Empire years ago. All of these units are meant to hold the line so that artillery can obliterate the enemy. The K'daii destroyer can't really charge into a line, but they can crush an enemy approaching that's on their knees from being blasted to bits. Grabbing 2x of each here and there, seems to work fine for me. And those Lammasu's really are a secret - they disable all magick attacks just by being near?? Highway robbery. No more magick attacks taking out chunks out of your units - they've now got wet noodles again. I like the Skullcracker Dreadquake Mortar variants myself more. They got the range. Also, the Dreadquake Mortar units count as 2x values of Units. So you can have 2x dreadstorm rocket launchers, or 1 dreadquake mortar set, skullcracker or iron daemon.
Yeah, the Blunderbusses are amazing. I had two of them delete Vilitch, 2 Aspiring Champions (one of them the RoR), the RoR Chaos Knights, and a couple of Chosen and Chaos Warrior units. There was a little help from a Hellcannon in there, but they did amazing. On maps without choke points, I still prefer the Fireglaives, on a unit-for-unit basis. Mostly because they're less micro-intensive (what I found I like the most was a combination, though) As for the fire damage on some of the Chord units, with the multitude of ways that the Chorfs can increase weakness to fire, I don't think it's really a problem. Stacking those weaknesses can be really powerful.
When I've finally got over the overkill content for these guys I'll come back and rewatch. Great analysis as usual. Really hoping for a legend stream (in the shirt) with no chorfs!
I dont get why you think magma cannons are just good, i feel like they are very easy to get, do great damage against infantry and are really cost effective
One major benefit of the greenskin archers of this roster is that they innately deal fire damage, which can be boosted by one of their Pyromancy wizards. Also, with CHaos Dwarf starting locations (Immortal Empire map) there are plenty of factions that have regenerating and weak to fire units.
For their fire resistance worry since there is so many fire attacks. With the ash storm (can’t remember the specific spell name) from the lore of hashut, increases fire vulnerability to enemies. Really adds to that help against resistances to fire
You probably should have let this one cook until having a better understanding of the Chorfs. For example - it is obvious you have never recruited the non-regular Dreadquakes, because you would have known it takes two Armoury slots and is not worth it.
Some things about the arty and the dissing of the fire attacks also, the fire attack resistances aren't that big of a thing usually, the troops are powerful nevertheless.
@@ilari90 Yeah, the Fire attacks are actually a big boon in the Chorf roster imo. You can give the enemy 20% Fire weakness with Ash Storm, another 20% with Kindleflame and another 20% from Sorcerer-Prophet or Daemonsmith ranged attack. All combined for a whopping 60% Fire Weakness. This can make your basic Hobgobbo archers absolutely delete units with ease. Also the Deathshrieker fucking sucks compared to Magma Cannon or Dreadquake and should basically never be recruited. And Magma Cannon is pure anti-infantry, not good against large at all, not sure what Legend is talking about there.
Chaos dwarfs are so strong once they get going. They start off pretty weak with armies largely made of cannon fodder but by about turn 50 they’re pretty unstoppable, the frontlines are amazing, the blunderbusses tear through everything when they have a good line of fire, and there monsters, artillery and war machines are all strong af
I personally really, really, really like their orc and goblin units early game. Because unlike the hobgoblins, they break, and when they break the blunderbusses that are behind them get free shots, and you can EASILY afford to just let them die, to just be ripped apart, proper cannon fodder type of trash units, but they do their job, they die on command like they are supposed to. It has been one of, if not the best early game strategy I have had for Legendary/Very Hard ever with any faction.
The gobbo laborers are great slowers, you stick them near valuable range or artillery to slow down any enemy charges, and then bring in heavier units to wipe out the enemy attackers
4:55 the best use case ive found for goblins is to spam a few of them with a lord to help maintain public order in a provinence since theyre so cheap and theres no supply lines
So I’m guessing this was made before the Skullcracker buff. Because now the things absolutely _mulch_ infantry. One of the best Chariot units in the game.
Chorfs Blunderbusses are the result of a secret relationship between Shimazu heavy gunners and Ottomo Blunderbusses cav. They have knock back impacts and obscene damage output.
I don't usually disagree, but your experience with artillery was pretty different from mine. Magma cannons were absolute mvps. TORE through enemy infantry. I switched to mortars later on and was honestly a little underwhelmed. If they got a direct hit they were nasty, but magma cannons continually equalled if not exceeded their kill numbers. Are for how much cheaper they are, and how early they're available? Yeah. Magma S tier, no question. I also ended up favouring the mortars without trains. The double unit capacity was not worth the extra movement speed. Fast mortar is good, but two mortars, or two magma cannons, is better.
The Blunderbuss us nuts. I had 3 as my only missile infantry in my first CD campaign(astragoth) and they were taking out entire units of gyrocopters in single volleys. They shred incoming flyers and monstrous large units. Use Hobgoblins for targeting infantry groups, Fireglaives for Armor and Cavalry. Glad you see that all the Renders have value, not just the great weapons. I put a trio of them in armies utilizing them, 1 Shield and 2 Great Weapon, allowing the shield to lead them before selecting charge targets. Sometimes I put a pair of the Anti-Infantry instead for some good ole hammer and anvil. Great Taurus is good for what it is, but I'd put it on "trash" because once you get Lammasu and Bale Taurus, they're obsolete. Lammasu and Bale Taurus are both "Get me more of these" both are super versatile. K'Dai Fireborn are disappointing in contrast to the rest of the army. Destroyer is a great centerpiece, but you won't need to increase the cap much as you'll only ever have 1 in a given army, and they're not so great that all armies need one. I only found use for the skullcracker in my Hobgoblin armies. The Wallbreaker in the cheap armies like that is handy, and it is fun watching the hobs pile through those gaps it makes.
The deathshriek single rocket is amaaazing for single entities if they are moving slowing in advance, or you have the attack option. 3 of them can damn near wipe out a unit. Very effective against enemy artillery, and unmounted lords and heroes.
Chaos Dwarfs might be my favourite rosters in the whole game. You can make so many viable armies with them in campaign and nearly all units have some kind of utility or synchronicity. All my lords have quite varied builds and they've all been fun to use differently each battle. Love this dlc.
via the tower of zharr you can get 1 free unit cap upgrade every 5(?) turns of various units so you can technically get infinite units of them if you wait a loooooooooong time there is one very good use for the goblin laborers, fill an army with 19 of them and have it stay in provinces with public order problems, the army wont be that expensive especially with a trained lord and if you are attacked it will help out by giving lots of extra fodder for the garrison
please dont ever use your conclave influence on those stupid unit cap buffs, they are incredibly stupid. you don't even get to choose which one it increases as the unit selection is random. you should also be swimming in armaments quite easily. use your influence for more important things like ancillaries and industry improvements
You can also use them to raid for more labour in valuable provinces, like Zharr Naggrund. Fast track your industry with rush constructions, sell excess for money and conclave influence. There's no supply lines penalty either as Chorfs.
@@zacharyjackson1829 bruh I'll have every seat in the whole tower and you want all the caps increased no matter what so free unit cap is good either way
@Nightmare _ of course go for it when there's nothing else left but those seats should be the literal last you go for Hell I'd even argue that ignoring them and using the influence for boosting captured tower settlements would be more useful...
Lengend one thing i would love to see in these vids if u have the time to include is ur recommended comps for the mid/late game against endgame scenarios.
Also worth noting that, when you recruit dreadquake trains, it takes up 2 slots on the unit cap instead of one. You are still paying for the iron daemon or skullcracker in the unit cap.
I use army cap mods and that makes the labourer units extremly useful. They have loose formations, perfect for absorbing missile fire and as fodder. you also don't need a specific production structure to produce them
I wonder if you added notes on some of the upgrade potential for chaos dwarf units how that would adjust any ratings potentially. The K'dai becoming unbreakable permanently for example seems like something that might boost them higher. But I guess it would be a different list ultimately, maybe covering which types of units have better upgrade mechanics in the hell forge
Chaos Dwarves armament/resource mechanic should be given to other factions as well, which will have the positive benefit of making 1 unit spam doomstacks fewer.
You missed a part of magma cannons that might bring their value up: the residual flames combined with the AI's desire to reform ranks after getting them disrupted before continuing to advance. Three of them will perform wonders against any faction that is focused on overwhelming numbers of infantry, especially low leadership ones like undead or skaven, or Grom and his goblins.
This was pretty much my experience with my Astragoth campaign. So many units were practically overqualified. The skullcracker was the only disappointment cause it looks like it would just easily mow through hordes like a hot knife through butter.
I like the chaos dwarf really solid roster. I must say that having 2-3 magama canon as soon as possible allows for an ez victory for the quest item battle. They SHRED those vampire and tomb king units so bad! (That weakness to fire comes in handy).
Something you might have missed, the Skullcracker and iron demon variants of dreadquake mortars take up 2 unit cap (presumably because it's 2 units in one), whilst the regular (inferior in battle for the reasons you stated) version only takes up 1.
Because chaos dwarfs dont have supply lines, I've found a lot of success with an ai controlled trash stack or laborers (slowly upgrading to have hobgoblins mixed in) paired with a small (6-8units) stack of just some blunder busses, 2 meleebodyguards, and a single cannon... with the swarm of fodder running about it gives you ample opportunity to turn the tide microing a small group of blunderbuss units... and friendly fire is a non issue because it's just orc laborers.! (This strategy backfires horribly against tzennetch and skaven because ambushes). (What this means however is you can generally get by with 2-4 blunder busses per army group.. it saves a lot on unit cap.)
i treat the laborer goblins the way i would treat zombies as the vampire counts, just use them to tie up units so i can shoot them or manuver, their use falls off quickly as you advance in the campaign, but early game their upkeep is 1/3 that of a regular hobgoblin unit. a big part of the CD are that the dwarfs are unaffected by routing of the goblins, so i just use them up to tire out and tie down enemy units
The skullcracker can like stick to a wall or gate and absolutely shred it. Also If you charge down a line of infantry with its buff active it can go through multiple units. That said it's still trash and an iron daemon or magma canon will probably have the infantry at half health by the time they engage anyway and the chorfs have so many ways to blow up walls with cannons from long range.
For some reason, when I tested Skullcrackers against infantry, they routed them faster than Iron Daemons in quick battle. I’ll have to run more tests because the sample size is small right now. Campaign wise, Skull crackers can separate themselves from iron daemons as a melee powerhouse with the tools provided to the player. Skullcrackers can get up to 24% weapon strength, +6 melee attack, 10% physical resist, and +12 charge from skill points alone. They share the same armament buffs as iron daemons so you can give them barrier, perfect vigor, an additional 20% physical resistance, a hex to reduce armour by 15, and blazing body (increasing melee damage reflection up to 25 and 10%, if they for some reason, get stuck in combat instead of charging). They can be healed so any damage taken in battle can be resolved before ending the battle. They can also get vanguard deployment and stride to keep their speed up-ignoring terrain. Zhatan can also provide them with additional armor, leadership, and MD. Of course, all of this takes investment. Other units are good without it. But we definitely have the tools to make them chainsaw chariots that take little damage.
Love the Kaadai fire born, they get the most kills, blunderbusses second, put them in a good position whether shooting up a hill or down over your units and they can get over 100 easy love them. They can fight and shoot at the same time, one took down 3 orc boyz groups defending a settlement by itself on a final stand, it was a disaster save but I almost won it if they didn’t have that one extra full health power unit running around the caps
Swap the HellCannon and the Magma Cannons around in my opinion. I've never found Hell Cannon's to be good, their shots always seem to miss. But the Magma Cannon can delete 3/4 of tier 3 infantry's health in one shot. Longbeards are my favourite fodder for magma cannons.
I find Skullscrackers amazing and they carry my campaigns against Grimgors initial Greenskin WAAAGH really well. They are the heaviest chariots in the game, the anti infantry does come in handy and they cause no friendly fire which the regular Iron Demon does. Especially on Dreadquake mortar. Because also there the Iron Demon cannons are a strong Hazard for the own infantry. Its Blunderbusses infront of it. Overall I think both versions are good and have their uses.
I actually really like the melee hobgoblin wolf riders, as opposed to the archers; they're fast, great at suppressing enemy missile fire, they shred through trolls, and you can stick Gorduz Backstabber in there for a pretty good mobile strike team. I also prefer the normal Dreadquake instead of the variants, I just don't think they provide double the value to justify their cost.
The renown Dreadquake Mortar is perhaps the best renown unit I've ever seen. The thing is absolutely insane because not only do you get the amazing dreadquake mortar, it has a flamethrower attack on the Iron Daemon, much like an Irondrake unit. This flamethrower has seemingly infinite ammo as long as the mortar has ammo, so the thing can be insanely efficient.
For me it only had one shot of the Flamethrower. This attack nnearly wracked everthing in its pass but it only fired once. Like it is mentioned in the tooltip. Did u use any exploit im not aware of?
Using the hobgoblin legendary hero you can recruit hobgoblins with the same upkeep as orc slaves, well also making them significantly better than normal, buffing their melee attack and defense by a lot, their speed, and ranged capabilities and also gives them missile resistance and stalk. However I have also found having an army of 4 or so hobgoblins with shields 5 or so archers and the remainder as goblin and ork slaves(surprisingly), goblin slaves kinda work better for this due to their size and formation, and just build a defence blob wall around the archers such putting units overlapping with the slaves over the hobgoblins, this way I have found you can beat much larger and stronger green skin forces you would lose to in auto resolve, with put even having backstabber in the army, you basicly have all your melee units splitting damge between them, the hobgoblins blocking projectiles for every one but orcs, the orcs aways the first to die, well your archers focus down any of their archers or large units, well your overseer just stayed in the blob wall to keep them from breaking and to fight lord, generally the overseer beats ork lords even more so if that ork lord is buried in your blob wall, generally hobgoblins archers seem to be better then orc/goblin archers and can quickly focus fire and break them, but also decimate trolls witch are quite common in orc armies, I have found this to work vs green skins in 2:1 fights where they have more expensive units like chariots, trolls and cav. I am able to regularly bully the slaves of zhar witch I kept alive just to bully for slaves, generally you swap out slaves for more hobgoblins as is affordable, but regulardless, using the shit shack and that tatic, I have found regular success fighting 2 lords with 1.7 stacks settlement rank 2 garrison outnumbering us by often more then 2 to 1, simply by holding the front line will the archers kill off their archers, trolls and chariots, well I use my lord to kill their loads, forcing the army to break where we finally break formation to kill as many as possible before they get away. Afterwards I generally merge all the slave units and dismiss low ones and hire hobgoblins or more slaves if I can't afford the hobgoblins. Unfortunately this whole strategy only really works well on green skin, skaven and beastmen who lack arty or significant casters, and is useless against the elves who will just decimate your trash units along with their hoards of archers that have better range.
Was wonderin' when you'd get around to one of these for Chaos Dwarves. Thanks, Legend, always good to see someone experienced give their opinion in a visual format.
i wish i could play chaos dwarfs for a second first time. the rush of playing CD and recruiting blunderbuss units and seeing them turn enemy troops into cheddar cheese was such a delight
Goblin laborers can be used for cheesing being cheapest unit then having overseer with harsh master skill to reduce more upkeep plust another skill and make them raiding army to raid location like Zharr-Naggrund to give infinite labor
Like other comments here have mentioned; you haven’t taken into account the fact that the skullcracker and iron demon variants of the dreadquake mortar take 2 slots. They do have far more utility than the basic one but it can be difficult to justify dedicating 2 slots for 1 unit, especially earlier in the campaign.
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About Skullcracker vs Iron Daemon.
Skullcracker does better in meele than Iron Daemon because it have somewhat better attack pattern. Its frontal steam balst cone is better and also have additional front blades fall-attack pattern.
But i cant say its that much better in its role, mainly because the blades fall-attack is rare and ofthen hits the spot that was cleared by the steam blast few seconds ago. Although it can deliver good damage if it lands
TLDR : I agree with your tier placement, just wanted to bring up that differences
Wanted to know if you have also experienced the mortars instead of attacking the unit you targeted they instead just fire at whatever comes into range first
I am surprised you didn't mention at the truck race motors with attached trains on them cost to unit cards
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"Small entities like Dwarf Lords."
In the book.
A case that can be made for the regular Dreadquake Mortar is that it only takes up a single artillerys-lot. The other two variants take up two slots each.
Depending where you are in your campaign, that can make or break your armament-bank.
Completely agree, i think he missed the mark completely on how he valued the dreadquake units
It does make sense since they're two machines linked together, but it should be kept in mind. At least they take up only one army unit slot.
Yeah, i'd rather have two mortars than one quick mortar that's too valuable to risk sending in melee.
@@0NoName9 I'm not saying it doesn't make sense or anything, the ones with addons would be completely nobrainer if they cost the same amount of slots - it's just that Legend ignored the fact that the regular mortar costs half the amount of slots, which I thought is something worth mentioning, because it can make a huge difference.
It is absolutely worth it to get half as many, but 3x as fast dreadquake mortars. The Speed drastically increases their utility.
I really think the Iron Daemon/Skullcracker units should have their own separate caps and upgrades
Agreed
The fighty warmachines (Iron Daemon, Skullcracker, Hellcannon) under 1 cap, the shooty warmachines (Cannon, Mortar, Rocket) under a second cap.
@@AK-lq8ig Hellcannon is a "Shooty warmachine"
@@turist4673 Of a kind. I like that grouping since it seems weird to have Hellcannon cap all on its own.
Yep, it makes no sense to pay armament upkeep to give them extra powder and ammo if they don't benefit from it like the other machines. Hopefully they'll change it in a future patch.
Supposedly the Skullcracker has better melee animations and splash targets than the Iron Demon, all stats that are not reflected in it's tooltip.
Since when does it have melee animations?..
Still useless tho
Its also affected by a different red line skill than the Iron Daemon.
Skullcracker's price is due to it having the old bugged Beastmen chariot multi-attack apparently from what I've found. One problem, it doesn't work properly right now and even if it did Iron Daemons are generally better.
Ive been testing the Skullcracker vs Iron Demon with melee mode a bit recently and the Skullcracker just barely tend to outcompete the Iron Demon, like the Skullcracker getting 58 kills vs Iron Demon getting 50, with firing turned off, mind you. Skullcracker needs a buff, it should do more damage or come with some other bonus. Also both Iron Demon and Skullcracker feels somewhat squishy for what they are supposed to be, should be slightly more tanky imo.
Magma cannons are S tier easily, such a strong artilery.
Ohh I’m gonna have to try them out, I always over looked them cause the nuke mortars
yeah, i have to disagree with that that ranking too, their range makes them a superp unit, i only swith the out for the mortars
Yeah, agreed! They are cheap, available from the start, have insane range and good damage against all infantry. If you take availability into account, they are easily the best chorf artillery unit.
Yeah against armies with a lot of infantry / archers they just clean up so effectively.
Prob the best and most cost effective artillery piece at this tier, butting them in the same tier as deathshrieker rocket launcher is blasphemie.
Fun fact: Blunderbussies and Fireglaives were supposed to have the Dig In ability (+accuracy and 40% range after not moving for 25s) but it seems CA removed the ability at some point in time. The stuff is still there for them to have it, it's just inactive rather than being removed.
I also suspect that, in a similar manner, Bull Centaur Hero units were supposed to have either access to Strength From Flesh or the Hell-Forged ability due to their skill point that increases HP and battle healing cap, yet no access to healing beyond items.
Also, ALSO: Sneaky Gits have a tendency to fucking FLY on some siege maps. As in, they will all fly into the air one-by-one and then move to where you tell them to move, only to then drop back down to the floor one-by-one.
LOVE THIS DLC xD
god the fireglaves and blunderbussies would be so overpowered with dig in. They are already amazing standing still and mowing down enemies that come to them as is.
I ended up with like half my army located in the air on a siege battle once during deployment, it was quite odd to say the least
I think that's a siege map bug not a unit bug.
@@TPKPatchy yep it is most likely. vampire counts had a few flying zombies and grave guards in one of my sieges
Thats a siege map bug, I've had it on most dwarfhold maps. Skaven spears turning into the Skavens only flying unit!
I think he's underestimated the magma cannon. On paper is missile damage isn't amazing. However it's shots leave a lingering burning effect that can devestate densely packed or slow units. 1 shot from a magma cannon will take of half the health of a unit of dwarf warriors. Not to mention their incredible acuracy means trhey practicaly never miss. if you ensure they're not warting their shots firing into injured or scattered units they can decimate an enemy army before they can even get into missile range.
I prefer magma then hellcannons. Hellcannons have a strange arch of fire and get blocked by the terrain a lot.
And magma cannons also good vs enemy artiilery because of that burning effect ability. Tested on cathay cannons.
This. This makes me feel like he didn't really use these units in campaign enough. Same for skullcrackers which still have their uses.
Similar miss on the Dreadquakes. They don't have the accuracy of magma, but much easier with their high arcs for when engagement begins. They also have a slowing effect, as well as the DoT effect of the maga, and a larger radius for their explosion.
Agreed. Magma cannon is better then the hell cannon most of the time. Its lingering effect make it do fairly similar damage to the hell cannons plash, but its accuracy and range are just loads better.
We must have used different Magma Cannons. The flame that stays on the ground after shot is MURDEROUS vs infantry. Racked up hundreds of kills only because of that. In MP Magma Cannons alongside Bull Centaurs completely dictate meta now.
Legend doesn’t review based on how things perform in MP where you don’t have to balance things around a campaign as well, and obviously don’t deal with more intelligent real players. Like yeah magma cannons can get me hundreds of kills, but dreadquake mortars and even deathshriekers can get me thousands in campaign battles
Agree wholeheartedly, they are insane. In my main army with all the buffs going those things melt away infantry units to like 20% hp in 1 shot, maybe 2 shots for black orcs, phoenix guard and such. Meanwhile those deathshrieker rockets are complete ass, missing most of the time and doing fuck all for damage. In most battles the magma cannons got like 200 kills while the rockets got legit
@@Bojo29 Even then, the difference is that magma cannons are dirt cheap, you're not always going to want those. And magma cannons are tier 2, which is insane for how effective they are.
@@Bojo29 The magma cannon will out perform both the deathshrieks and hell cannons in campaign, and he rated the hell cannon quite well. It will lose out to the dreadquake in infantry kills, but its also a fraction of the price which matters in the mid game. My guess is legend just hasnt used the magma cannon in campaign much because he had access to the dreadquakes before he decided to buy more artillery, and he has past experience with hell cannons just fine. One thing about the dwarf armies is they can really abuse magic to a large extent due to their huge reserve, so infantry killing artillary is less important for your armies then you might initially think.
Also when comparing the normal dread quake without its train, magma cannon has a lot of advantages. It wont deal quite as much splash as the dread quake, buts its accuracy and range start to matter a lot more when you have 20 speed and cant reposition. The fast dread quakes can get around these issues be getting closer to enemies to offset its accuracy, and kiting the enemy army through the map to offset its lower range. But the fast dread quake costs 2 capacity and is ungodly expensive, while also need tech 5 to get, which takes awhile.
@@TheSpencer1000 He rated the Hell Cannon high because it's a solid artillery piece that has it's own unit cap. Not sharing a cap means that it's practical to put one or two in all your armies that field artillery, because in the mid game adding warmachine capacity will become prohibitively expensive otherwise.
The big upside of the basic mortar is that it only costs 1 slot while the other 2 versions take 2, so half the armaments to unlock the same number of the other 2 versions.
You are basically paying upkeep+slot for the daemon/skullcracker without using up an additional army slot.
that for me was a big nope in terms of the other 2 mortar variants....2 capacity slots for 1 piece of arty was not sustainable, as i went with 3-4 artileries per army...
More ammo too I believe.
@@TatsumiyaLightning I think thats only for the iron daemon one - and it's the ammo for the iron daemon itself in the stats, i think the mortar has the same amount as the other versions.
Ya I only run daemon mortars on my main army since I do love them for sieges and just general clean up duty after a fight. All my other armies just have the mortars alone.
@@TheChreezyy It's about endgame scaling. You have the option (at great cost in every way) to have 2 units in the army taking up one army slot.
Gonna have to slightly disagree on the 2 dreadquake Variants because the iron Daemon and Skullcracker Dreadquake Mortars take 2 unit capacities to recruit one of them but they are the better units but taking 2 capacities each gets expensive in armaments so much faster
yeah i agree i think he overlooked that
One thing worth noting about the native fire attack on chaos dwarf units is that the Cdwarfs can actually stack a whole lot of fire weakness with spells and abilities. It can be crazy how fast you can shred single entities or melt infantry blobs once you drop 40-80% fire weakness on stuff.
I personally think the magma cannons/Deathshrieker/Hellcannon/Dreadquake should have been in its own category called artillery, and the skullcracker/iron daemon as warmachines. So much of its tier buffs only benefit one side or the other
I believe there should be even more cateogries, actually. Magma cannon/deathshrieker is one (early game artillery for both single entity and units with many entities), another one for hellcannon and another one for dreadquakes
You are absolutely right. And even in game despite all of them are sharing "War machine" slots, there are some bonuses for war machines that are affecting only iron daemons/skullcrackers, but not magma cannons or rockets.
I think we've been playing a different game, the Deathshriek multi target doesn't even hit anything 80% of the time, while the single target is probably the most accurate artillery round in the game currently. (the damage isn't great tho)
This is my experience as well, the deathshreiker is the most inaccurate artillery I've ever seen, played with 2 other friend for triple chorfs, and we were making fun of it the entire time I was playing zhatan the black, would've lost the first battle if weren't for blunderbusses
I've watched the rocket home in on flying enemies. I'd say it has about the homing of a fireball.
@@EkEMaN91 the multishot or the single shot? The multi shot was suuupper inaccurate for me, I'd have to do some digging but I think I got footage of it being like 300 yards off lol
Magma Cannons are easily the best anti-infantry artillery in the game. Super accurate, insane range and one shot is often enough to delete 50% of the unit but they suck hard against single entity units but they are ok against cavalry for example. Deathshriekers are terrible against infantry but their single target rocket is amazing against single entity units - they have homing rockets that 90% of the time hit their targets.
I think you really should try these 2 units again and rerank them.
Exactly. I dont understand how Legend could possibly like the multi-shot Deathshriekers so much
Exactly same thoughts.
i agree with magma cannons but my deathdhriekers are missing a lot against large, i often feel that my magma canons hit them more often.
Exactly
He might like them more if he is using single entities to tie up multiple units. This makes them hit several units in one shot. This can apply to field or siege battles due to their firing arc. Their accuracy issues are reduced this way. There are ways to boost their accuracy too.
That’s my guess. Since Zhatan starts with one, I’ve found ways to make its value match or surpass magma cannons depending on the battle.
The opinions Legend expressed on the Magma Cannon(vs single entities???), multi-shot Deathshriekers and (the alleged inaccuracy) of single-shot Deathshriekers ammunition make me think we must've played different versions of the game
Totally agree
I dismissed my starting Deathshrieker rocket because of how mad I got at it missing all the time.
Yeah his artillery takes were... bad... straight up.
I think he uses magma's as anti monster because they have canon in their name lmao. That would explain a lot actually.
@@pougetguillaume4632 Maybe, I use magma cannons for Anti-infantry and then rely on my guns and archers for anti-large
@@glassberg5018 definetly how it's done with the chorfs. The fireglaives are more consistent than the blunderbusses but can't delete like the blunderbuss can, they're basically infernal guard with halberds too.
Magma canon DELETE artillery crews, infantry and even cav. It's bad to the point in multi the meta is to not field any decent infantry lest it get vaporized by magmas...
You may be interested in deathshriekers for anti monsters too they deal consistent and accurate damage to them, in fact it's the only niche they're good at.
Finally bull centaurs great weapons are amazing, they are good roadblock for monsters and they tear them apart too.
Magmas and bull centaurs are the best chorf units rn.
I had completly different experience with deathshrieker rocket. Their anti-infantry shit misses absolutely everything unless i let enemy form massive blob. On the other hand the anti large shot landed almost every time i use it on single entity large monsters.
If you recruit an overseer, who has a unique skill tree ability to buff upkeep 15% and leadership of laborers, and then upgrade the red line for laborers on that overseer, the Orc laborers actually become very usable units for support armies with around 60 leadership and 30+ melee attack and 25+ melee defense on very hard battle difficulty. I have full stacks of them defending almost every border settlement in my campaign because they’re so cheap and actually decent with buffs
Magma canon is anti-infantry, it can solo units for cheaper than the Deathshrieker Rocket Launcher or dreadquake since every shot is like a mini vortex, like test it out. Beyond that I think the list is pretty accurate, I think the skull cracker should be like a tier 1 war machine and have its own cap with the iron daemon, because otherwise its either recruited because I have nothing else to make or Im trying to experiment.
For some reason, when I tested skull crackers, they seem to route infantry faster than the iron daemon with basic frontal charges. I’ll probably need to run more tests. The iron daemon shots are nice but once the distance closed and a charge becomes required, it didn’t necessarily cause a route like the skull cracker. I do enjoy placing my Iron Daemon in between blunderbusses and letting it fire in unison with blunderbusses.
Skull crackers get buffed in a separate skill point line than iron daemons so they do have more potential in the melee department (+24% weapon STR, +6 MA, +12 charge bonus, +10 physical resistance) also receiving the same buffs as Iron daemons in the manufactory. When I tested them, it was in quick battles though.
Minor but Zhatan can also provide all of his units +15 armour, +5 leadership, and plus 5 MD which further boost skullcrackers.
I think you have the magma cannon and death shrieker mixed up here, the magma cannon absolutely *shreds* infantry (and even cavalry). It's pretty bogus against large units, but the death shrieker demo rocket has like 500+ anti-large or something. The latter takes some time, but it obliterates large SE's.
Gobbo labourers have exactly 1 purpose, and that is to be recruited into a 20 stack with an overseer with harsh master and used to turn a settlement into an infinite labour farm.
The Deathshrieker rocket is actually really really good at counterbattery too. 1 hit can kill an artillery model and the demo rocket actually has light tracking, kinda like the hellcannon which makes it surprisingly accurate. I had a deathshrieker in demo rocket mode outduel 3 little groms in a clean fight, it took a pasting in return fire but it survived the engagement. The other thing I've noticed is that the deathshreiker has lousy tracking because of its super low projectile speed and high firing arc, so its throughly useless against moving infantry
@simonbas6 what do you mean by turn a settlement into an infinite labour farm?
@Masque okay so labour farming 101. When you raid an enemy region, you get money and labour. If you raid a region with a 20 stack of gobbo labourers, then you get like 200 gold and 150 labour. The army itself costs about 600gpt, and you can do this with as many armies that you can cram into a region. Each army essentially converts 400 gold into 150 labour every turn, and 150 labour is worth about 1200 gold if you use sell labour, so it's essentially infinite profitif you do it somewhere that the enemy can't attack you
@@simonbas6 the bigbrain strats
@@WyvernLi lol, I wish. Credit for this one goes to battlesey
The issue I've had with the Iron demon and Skullcracker Dreadquake mortars is that they take 2 unit capacity to recruit. That's a huge disadvantage compared to the others. I haven't tested them on the battlefield yet, but it's possible they do provide double the value indeed
Would recommend giving them a go. Their high speed and HP means they can be way out in front of your army, then kite back as the enemy approaches while firing 360. Also you can recruit the ROR one for no armaments to give it a test run.
legend you didnt take into account that the dreadquake mortar without any attachment uses only 1 unit cap as oppose to the other variants which use two, therefore it makes it a lot harder to say which is better
Something to note with fire damage : fire resistances have been nerfed with the release of chorfs (on units like phoenix guard)
I don't think having fire damage is as big of an issue now than it used to be
Yeah, I think he whines a bit too much about that, and you have tools to make enemy weaker to fire so use those methods. It's not like every faction is fire resistant, just make a gobbo army or 2 to beat those, not a big deal.
Dreadquake mortars with iron demons just enables crazy sort of kite builds. One dreadquake, 4 anti large bull centaurs and the rest hobgoblin cav (mostly archers) can handle most things the game will throw at them. And yes even though it's tempting to make full dwarf and full hobgoblin armies, I think those mixed armies have great potential and gives a ton of army compositions (same with hobgoblin cutthroats combined with blunderbusses).
Blunderbuss/Fireglaive/Iron Daemon gunlines are quickly becoming my favorite setup for chorf armies. Sprinkle in some bull centaurs/K'daai Fireborn and you have an absolutely savage short-range barrage followed by a brutal melee counter-charge to anything that manages to survive the initial volleys and crawl through the suppression/ash storm speed debuffs. Something I haven't tried yet is having all of them vanguard deploy, meaning youre lighting your enemy up as soon as the battle starts (though then youre missing out on Ash Storm support and cant use K'daai since they cant vanguard).
Honestly, they should have one combined unit cap for the artillery (including the hellcannon), and one for the locomotive war machines. And then put the Iron Daemon at like tier 3 and make the skullcracker cheaper, faster to recruit and better in melee.
And the locomotive + dreadquake would use one unit cap from each category since it currently use 2x unit cap from the war machine category.
I love how Legend completely gave the game away right at the start by explaining unit caps while showing what he increases lol
Your caps increase randomly throughout the campaign it doesn't mean as much as you think
@@Totaluser1 Yeah, when you have those seats in the Tower, you're gonna end up with a whole bunch of free random increases
I've found that the magma cannons are MVPs with my armies on VH/VH.
My lord harasses the army far away, taking out any artillery, the magma cannons target the ranged units and the blunderbusses wipe up any unit that gets close. With an infernal castellan at the edge of their range luring the melees
Indeed your insight into the K'daai Destroyer @23:00 rang true for me first time using one when a larger WOC army with two Hellcannons sniped the behemoth in no time flat. The key to using one is upgrading it with missile resistance and barrier I found otherwise its only good as a short lived damage soaker before it gets wrecked.
absolutely in love with this army roster. it's so diverse and wonderful. so glad we saw so many hobgoblins
I like that Lamassu is an option for mount in the Totalwarhammer 3. In TT, there was a meme about "yo, dawg, you have a spellcaster that rides atop of a spellcaster" (sorc-prophet on a Lamassu, although i believe it was a unique option for one of the named characters), and in Twarhammer 3 this meme continues in all of it's glory.
My thoughts after ~150 turns playing Drazhoath on Hard battle/campaign difficulty:
Magma Cannons abuse AI quirks and it's part of the reason they're so good imo. When they hit infantry, for example, the projectile/explosion will kill several entities, then the unit will attempt to reform and in the process, more entities will die running into the fire puddle left behind.
Hobgoblin Archers are very cost-effective, especially if you abuse different fire weakness effects, which you have several to choose from in the form of magic and contact effects. Against low-armor targets with +fire damage debuffs, they can punch above their weight. Don't forget that the forge can give your melee infantry armor sundering for some extra damage, if you wanna go that route.
The fire weakness concept applies to Fireglaives. They don't do as much damage per shot as Blunderbusses, but the higher range and fire damage gives them a lot of potential. Their anti-large bonus is only +5 so they're not actually all that great at fighting large enemies in melee, but it seems (in my experience) that they perform very well in auto-resolve. They also appear to be very accurate if you're worried about friendly fire, and your dwarf units having 25% fire resist helps mitigate this further.
Blunderbusses can also abuse fire weakness with Flaming Sword of Rhuin for bursting enemies down. I don't know if there's any skill or technology that gives them permanent fire damage, however.
For Fireglaives and Blunderbusses both, using the guard mode feature that allows them to keep shooting while in melee can make them very dangerous even when enemy infantry get on top of them.
Hobgoblin Wolf Raiders have an ability somewhat similar to Devastating Flanker that allows them to get +25% weapon strength when flanking (including the archer variant). It's a no-brainer, but something to consider when trying to micro them onto archers or when using them as a decent-enough hammer to your anvil. The Oglah Khan's Wolfboyz RoR is really good imo. Higher armor, shields, better stats, and a ranged attack. However, I think they might be bugged and can't fire in a circle like the normal Wolf Raider archers can, but I haven't played without the community bug fix patch in a while.
Deathshriekers sometimes struggle with hitting single entities with their single-target attack, and they don't do as much damage as the Magma Cannon against infantry, but their firing arc can still make them useful for firing over terrain, walls or your own units. I think it's a decent all-rounder but nothing too amazing.
I use my Chorfs like how you described the Dwarves and Empire years ago. All of these units are meant to hold the line so that artillery can obliterate the enemy. The K'daii destroyer can't really charge into a line, but they can crush an enemy approaching that's on their knees from being blasted to bits. Grabbing 2x of each here and there, seems to work fine for me. And those Lammasu's really are a secret - they disable all magick attacks just by being near?? Highway robbery. No more magick attacks taking out chunks out of your units - they've now got wet noodles again.
I like the Skullcracker Dreadquake Mortar variants myself more. They got the range. Also, the Dreadquake Mortar units count as 2x values of Units. So you can have 2x dreadstorm rocket launchers, or 1 dreadquake mortar set, skullcracker or iron daemon.
Dreadquake Mortar = 1 unit caps,Iron Daemon-Dreadquake Mortar = Skullcrusher-Dreadquake Mortar = 2 unit caps
Sure, but mobile artillery that can defend itself and do more than be artillery once lines meet > than regular artillery.
my only problem with dreadquake variants is that they take 2 poins of capacity. They get expensive really fast.
Yeah, the Blunderbusses are amazing. I had two of them delete Vilitch, 2 Aspiring Champions (one of them the RoR), the RoR Chaos Knights, and a couple of Chosen and Chaos Warrior units. There was a little help from a Hellcannon in there, but they did amazing.
On maps without choke points, I still prefer the Fireglaives, on a unit-for-unit basis. Mostly because they're less micro-intensive (what I found I like the most was a combination, though)
As for the fire damage on some of the Chord units, with the multitude of ways that the Chorfs can increase weakness to fire, I don't think it's really a problem. Stacking those weaknesses can be really powerful.
When I've finally got over the overkill content for these guys I'll come back and rewatch. Great analysis as usual. Really hoping for a legend stream (in the shirt) with no chorfs!
I dont get why you think magma cannons are just good, i feel like they are very easy to get, do great damage against infantry and are really cost effective
Listening to and watching blunderbuss units wreck havoc to enemy frontlines is _extremely_ satisfying.
@Legendoftotalwar, remember, that those mortars witch attachments take "2" unit slots of their tier.
i like using the wolf riders to skirmish or chase down fleeing units even with a full chaos dwarf stack ill have a hobb gobo stack back em up
The hobbo sneaky gits are surprisingly awesome
One major benefit of the greenskin archers of this roster is that they innately deal fire damage, which can be boosted by one of their Pyromancy wizards. Also, with CHaos Dwarf starting locations (Immortal Empire map) there are plenty of factions that have regenerating and weak to fire units.
We want a FULL FACTION TIER LIST FOR IE!
How about you make one? Or at the very least say please?
was actually in the middle of searching up if you've done a chorfs roster TL. thanks for auspicious timing
This was a well done list divided up well good job bro !
For their fire resistance worry since there is so many fire attacks. With the ash storm (can’t remember the specific spell name) from the lore of hashut, increases fire vulnerability to enemies. Really adds to that help against resistances to fire
You probably should have let this one cook until having a better understanding of the Chorfs. For example - it is obvious you have never recruited the non-regular Dreadquakes, because you would have known it takes two Armoury slots and is not worth it.
Some things about the arty and the dissing of the fire attacks also, the fire attack resistances aren't that big of a thing usually, the troops are powerful nevertheless.
@@ilari90 Yeah, the Fire attacks are actually a big boon in the Chorf roster imo. You can give the enemy 20% Fire weakness with Ash Storm, another 20% with Kindleflame and another 20% from Sorcerer-Prophet or Daemonsmith ranged attack. All combined for a whopping 60% Fire Weakness. This can make your basic Hobgobbo archers absolutely delete units with ease.
Also the Deathshrieker fucking sucks compared to Magma Cannon or Dreadquake and should basically never be recruited.
And Magma Cannon is pure anti-infantry, not good against large at all, not sure what Legend is talking about there.
Chaos dwarfs are so strong once they get going. They start off pretty weak with armies largely made of cannon fodder but by about turn 50 they’re pretty unstoppable, the frontlines are amazing, the blunderbusses tear through everything when they have a good line of fire, and there monsters, artillery and war machines are all strong af
You can make kadai unbreakable so that they aren’t that squishy
I personally really, really, really like their orc and goblin units early game. Because unlike the hobgoblins, they break, and when they break the blunderbusses that are behind them get free shots, and you can EASILY afford to just let them die, to just be ripped apart, proper cannon fodder type of trash units, but they do their job, they die on command like they are supposed to. It has been one of, if not the best early game strategy I have had for Legendary/Very Hard ever with any faction.
Honestly, unit caps should be put for all races. No more single unit doomstacks.
Magma cannons are S+ tier. In a league of their own.
The gobbo laborers are great slowers, you stick them near valuable range or artillery to slow down any enemy charges, and then bring in heavier units to wipe out the enemy attackers
4:55 the best use case ive found for goblins is to spam a few of them with a lord to help maintain public order in a provinence since theyre so cheap and theres no supply lines
Been looking forward to this video in particular, thank legend!!!
So I’m guessing this was made before the Skullcracker buff.
Because now the things absolutely _mulch_ infantry. One of the best Chariot units in the game.
It was
Chorfs Blunderbusses are the result of a secret relationship between Shimazu heavy gunners and Ottomo Blunderbusses cav. They have knock back impacts and obscene damage output.
I don't usually disagree, but your experience with artillery was pretty different from mine.
Magma cannons were absolute mvps. TORE through enemy infantry. I switched to mortars later on and was honestly a little underwhelmed. If they got a direct hit they were nasty, but magma cannons continually equalled if not exceeded their kill numbers. Are for how much cheaper they are, and how early they're available? Yeah. Magma S tier, no question.
I also ended up favouring the mortars without trains. The double unit capacity was not worth the extra movement speed. Fast mortar is good, but two mortars, or two magma cannons, is better.
The Blunderbuss us nuts. I had 3 as my only missile infantry in my first CD campaign(astragoth) and they were taking out entire units of gyrocopters in single volleys. They shred incoming flyers and monstrous large units. Use Hobgoblins for targeting infantry groups, Fireglaives for Armor and Cavalry.
Glad you see that all the Renders have value, not just the great weapons. I put a trio of them in armies utilizing them, 1 Shield and 2 Great Weapon, allowing the shield to lead them before selecting charge targets. Sometimes I put a pair of the Anti-Infantry instead for some good ole hammer and anvil.
Great Taurus is good for what it is, but I'd put it on "trash" because once you get Lammasu and Bale Taurus, they're obsolete. Lammasu and Bale Taurus are both "Get me more of these" both are super versatile.
K'Dai Fireborn are disappointing in contrast to the rest of the army. Destroyer is a great centerpiece, but you won't need to increase the cap much as you'll only ever have 1 in a given army, and they're not so great that all armies need one.
I only found use for the skullcracker in my Hobgoblin armies. The Wallbreaker in the cheap armies like that is handy, and it is fun watching the hobs pile through those gaps it makes.
The deathshriek single rocket is amaaazing for single entities if they are moving slowing in advance, or you have the attack option. 3 of them can damn near wipe out a unit. Very effective against enemy artillery, and unmounted lords and heroes.
Chaos Dwarfs might be my favourite rosters in the whole game. You can make so many viable armies with them in campaign and nearly all units have some kind of utility or synchronicity. All my lords have quite varied builds and they've all been fun to use differently each battle. Love this dlc.
via the tower of zharr you can get 1 free unit cap upgrade every 5(?) turns of various units so you can technically get infinite units of them if you wait a loooooooooong time
there is one very good use for the goblin laborers, fill an army with 19 of them and have it stay in provinces with public order problems, the army wont be that expensive especially with a trained lord and if you are attacked it will help out by giving lots of extra fodder for the garrison
Actually not a bad idea since there is increased army upkeep for chorfs
please dont ever use your conclave influence on those stupid unit cap buffs, they are incredibly stupid. you don't even get to choose which one it increases as the unit selection is random. you should also be swimming in armaments quite easily.
use your influence for more important things like ancillaries and industry improvements
You can also use them to raid for more labour in valuable provinces, like Zharr Naggrund. Fast track your industry with rush constructions, sell excess for money and conclave influence. There's no supply lines penalty either as Chorfs.
@@zacharyjackson1829 bruh I'll have every seat in the whole tower and you want all the caps increased no matter what so free unit cap is good either way
@Nightmare _ of course go for it when there's nothing else left but those seats should be the literal last you go for
Hell I'd even argue that ignoring them and using the influence for boosting captured tower settlements would be more useful...
Lengend one thing i would love to see in these vids if u have the time to include is ur recommended comps for the mid/late game against endgame scenarios.
Also worth noting that, when you recruit dreadquake trains, it takes up 2 slots on the unit cap instead of one. You are still paying for the iron daemon or skullcracker in the unit cap.
I use army cap mods and that makes the labourer units extremly useful.
They have loose formations, perfect for absorbing missile fire and as fodder.
you also don't need a specific production structure to produce them
I wonder if you added notes on some of the upgrade potential for chaos dwarf units how that would adjust any ratings potentially. The K'dai becoming unbreakable permanently for example seems like something that might boost them higher. But I guess it would be a different list ultimately, maybe covering which types of units have better upgrade mechanics in the hell forge
Those blunderbuss troops are terrifying on the flanks and against large monsters and horses MELT
Chaos Dwarves armament/resource mechanic should be given to other factions as well, which will have the positive benefit of making 1 unit spam doomstacks fewer.
You missed a part of magma cannons that might bring their value up: the residual flames combined with the AI's desire to reform ranks after getting them disrupted before continuing to advance. Three of them will perform wonders against any faction that is focused on overwhelming numbers of infantry, especially low leadership ones like undead or skaven, or Grom and his goblins.
This was pretty much my experience with my Astragoth campaign. So many units were practically overqualified. The skullcracker was the only disappointment cause it looks like it would just easily mow through hordes like a hot knife through butter.
I like the chaos dwarf really solid roster. I must say that having 2-3 magama canon as soon as possible allows for an ez victory for the quest item battle. They SHRED those vampire and tomb king units so bad! (That weakness to fire comes in handy).
Something you might have missed, the Skullcracker and iron demon variants of dreadquake mortars take up 2 unit cap (presumably because it's 2 units in one), whilst the regular (inferior in battle for the reasons you stated) version only takes up 1.
Chaos Dwarfs are the right implementation of Skavens: a lot of trash and good units that's are limited.
Good skaven units are limited by their regular economy, though.
@@NaimHrustanovic skaven economy is being richer than anyone else
Skaven are implemented fine. The only issue affecting them is LOS, which is not a race specific issue.
@@meyr1992 😎
Oh, I've been waiting for this one!
My friend said this faction plays like a mobile game and I couldn't agree more with him. Very fun faction
Because chaos dwarfs dont have supply lines, I've found a lot of success with an ai controlled trash stack or laborers (slowly upgrading to have hobgoblins mixed in) paired with a small (6-8units) stack of just some blunder busses, 2 meleebodyguards, and a single cannon... with the swarm of fodder running about it gives you ample opportunity to turn the tide microing a small group of blunderbuss units... and friendly fire is a non issue because it's just orc laborers.! (This strategy backfires horribly against tzennetch and skaven because ambushes). (What this means however is you can generally get by with 2-4 blunder busses per army group.. it saves a lot on unit cap.)
Anyone else notice that in the top left corner of the Hell-Forge upgrades it says Legend is going to get +7056 armaments next turn?? 🤯
Whenever he started talking about the dreadquakes the Thomas theme just played in my head
Infernal Guard Fireglaives for me Toptier is my Doomstack.
Chaos Dwarves rule! Love their little buddies as well. Hob Gobbos are the BEST Gobbos!
The skull cracker is mainly meant to be used as a siege engine to quickly batter down the gate. It's pretty much its only saving grace.
i treat the laborer goblins the way i would treat zombies as the vampire counts, just use them to tie up units so i can shoot them or manuver, their use falls off quickly as you advance in the campaign, but early game their upkeep is 1/3 that of a regular hobgoblin unit. a big part of the CD are that the dwarfs are unaffected by routing of the goblins, so i just use them up to tire out and tie down enemy units
The skullcracker can like stick to a wall or gate and absolutely shred it. Also If you charge down a line of infantry with its buff active it can go through multiple units. That said it's still trash and an iron daemon or magma canon will probably have the infantry at half health by the time they engage anyway and the chorfs have so many ways to blow up walls with cannons from long range.
For some reason, when I tested Skullcrackers against infantry, they routed them faster than Iron Daemons in quick battle. I’ll have to run more tests because the sample size is small right now.
Campaign wise, Skull crackers can separate themselves from iron daemons as a melee powerhouse with the tools provided to the player.
Skullcrackers can get up to 24% weapon strength, +6 melee attack, 10% physical resist, and +12 charge from skill points alone.
They share the same armament buffs as iron daemons so you can give them barrier, perfect vigor, an additional 20% physical resistance, a hex to reduce armour by 15, and blazing body (increasing melee damage reflection up to 25 and 10%, if they for some reason, get stuck in combat instead of charging). They can be healed so any damage taken in battle can be resolved before ending the battle. They can also get vanguard deployment and stride to keep their speed up-ignoring terrain.
Zhatan can also provide them with additional armor, leadership, and MD. Of course, all of this takes investment. Other units are good without it. But we definitely have the tools to make them chainsaw chariots that take little damage.
Love the Kaadai fire born, they get the most kills, blunderbusses second, put them in a good position whether shooting up a hill or down over your units and they can get over 100 easy love them. They can fight and shoot at the same time, one took down 3 orc boyz groups defending a settlement by itself on a final stand, it was a disaster save but I almost won it if they didn’t have that one extra full health power unit running around the caps
Swap the HellCannon and the Magma Cannons around in my opinion. I've never found Hell Cannon's to be good, their shots always seem to miss. But the Magma Cannon can delete 3/4 of tier 3 infantry's health in one shot. Longbeards are my favourite fodder for magma cannons.
I find Skullscrackers amazing and they carry my campaigns against Grimgors initial Greenskin WAAAGH really well.
They are the heaviest chariots in the game, the anti infantry does come in handy and they cause no friendly fire which the regular Iron Demon does.
Especially on Dreadquake mortar. Because also there the Iron Demon cannons are a strong Hazard for the own infantry. Its Blunderbusses infront of it.
Overall I think both versions are good and have their uses.
I actually really like the melee hobgoblin wolf riders, as opposed to the archers; they're fast, great at suppressing enemy missile fire, they shred through trolls, and you can stick Gorduz Backstabber in there for a pretty good mobile strike team. I also prefer the normal Dreadquake instead of the variants, I just don't think they provide double the value to justify their cost.
Amazing video as usual
The renown Dreadquake Mortar is perhaps the best renown unit I've ever seen. The thing is absolutely insane because not only do you get the amazing dreadquake mortar, it has a flamethrower attack on the Iron Daemon, much like an Irondrake unit. This flamethrower has seemingly infinite ammo as long as the mortar has ammo, so the thing can be insanely efficient.
For me it only had one shot of the Flamethrower. This attack nnearly wracked everthing in its pass but it only fired once. Like it is mentioned in the tooltip. Did u use any exploit im not aware of?
The blunderbussy absolutely melts flying heros. Lured Imrik into fighting my lord right in front of my gun line and he died in less than 30sec.
Using the hobgoblin legendary hero you can recruit hobgoblins with the same upkeep as orc slaves, well also making them significantly better than normal, buffing their melee attack and
defense by a lot, their speed, and ranged capabilities and also gives them missile resistance and stalk.
However I have also found having an army of 4 or so hobgoblins with shields 5 or so archers and the remainder as goblin and ork slaves(surprisingly), goblin slaves kinda work better for this due to their size and formation, and just build a defence blob wall around the archers such putting units overlapping with the slaves over the hobgoblins, this way I have found you can beat much larger and stronger green skin forces you would lose to in auto resolve, with put even having backstabber in the army, you basicly have all your melee units splitting damge between them, the hobgoblins blocking projectiles for every one but orcs, the orcs aways the first to die, well your archers focus down any of their archers or large units, well your overseer just stayed in the blob wall to keep them from breaking and to fight lord, generally the overseer beats ork lords even more so if that ork lord is buried in your blob wall, generally hobgoblins archers seem to be better then orc/goblin archers and can quickly focus fire and break them, but also decimate trolls witch are quite common in orc armies, I have found this to work vs green skins in 2:1 fights where they have more expensive units like chariots, trolls and cav. I am able to regularly bully the slaves of zhar witch I kept alive just to bully for slaves, generally you swap out slaves for more hobgoblins as is affordable, but regulardless, using the shit shack and that tatic, I have found regular success fighting 2 lords with 1.7 stacks settlement rank 2 garrison outnumbering us by often more then 2 to 1, simply by holding the front line will the archers kill off their archers, trolls and chariots, well I use my lord to kill their loads, forcing the army to break where we finally break formation to kill as many as possible before they get away. Afterwards I generally merge all the slave units and dismiss low ones and hire hobgoblins or more slaves if I can't afford the hobgoblins. Unfortunately this whole strategy only really works well on green skin, skaven and beastmen who lack arty or significant casters, and is useless against the elves who will just decimate your trash units along with their hoards of archers that have better range.
An army of hobgoblins with Gorduz, gold chevrons, red line skills and tech gets ridiculously cost effective it's pretty fun.
Was wonderin' when you'd get around to one of these for Chaos Dwarves. Thanks, Legend, always good to see someone experienced give their opinion in a visual format.
i wish i could play chaos dwarfs for a second first time. the rush of playing CD and recruiting blunderbuss units and seeing them turn enemy troops into cheddar cheese was such a delight
YESSSSSSS!!!! Been waiting for this.
Goblin laborers can be used for cheesing being cheapest unit then having overseer with harsh master skill to reduce more upkeep plust another skill and make them raiding army to raid location like Zharr-Naggrund to give infinite labor
Like other comments here have mentioned; you haven’t taken into account the fact that the skullcracker and iron demon variants of the dreadquake mortar take 2 slots. They do have far more utility than the basic one but it can be difficult to justify dedicating 2 slots for 1 unit, especially earlier in the campaign.
I like to use the dual axe bull centaurs the most. They just have the best general stats imo and you tend to fight a lot of infantry.