Funny how in WH2 before all these defense options for the defender, the AI always had at least one unit at the capture point, while here they completely forget about it.
honestly I feel like this is a bit better, I'd rather that the AI try to stop you from reaching the capture point in the first place than have their troops just waiting there. also other people have mentioned the times that army losses will kill those units before you ever reach them, I'd much rather that those units die fighting (or at least running after a unit) than simply collapse without having ever moved.
Here's a fun thing I discovered in my Skarbrand campaign: Using Eternal War to draw out city garrisons of enemy chaos factions! Encircle a city and then call it down on your army. The garrison will join the battle as reinforcements, directly behind your starting position for you to easily intercept! Completely shuts down ranged enemies and prevents them from maneuvering. The army you summon will be so small as to be a worthwhile tradeoff. Be careful not to kill the Khorne army before reinforcements arrive, or they won't come. Once you return your attentions to the city itself, you'll face a depleted enemy garrison with no demons and heavily damaged mortals. This only works with factions that don't automatically declare war on daemon factions: All the Chaos factions, Skaven, and Ogres.
I’ve only seen the timer stop after wiping out the sacrificial army when I tried this. I’m not sure what the issue would be if other people saw the timer continue. Maybe it’s different if the reinforcing by army is from a different faction than the main defender?
I've been using this strategy since the beginning with WH3. I've found It's actually pretty iffy. It works just fine for weakly held cities, but If your faction lacks any decent mobility, both in terms of speed and killing power, it becomes very difficult to actually hold the main capture point. That's why I usually have the rest of my army attack the other side of the fortress. Since the mobile force threatens the main objective, the AI is forced to pull more and more forces off their front line to protect it. This makes it easier for your main force to break through. That way, if your mobile force fails, your main force has a much easier time reaching the objective themselves.
Yeah, I guess you can forget about it as Nurgle. But there a big grind around the gate actually works to your advantage or just hitting them with the right plagues before starting the siege. I guess it will be a weakness for Chaos Dwarfs too, as they probably won't get anything that's fast AND strong.
This isn't even cheese, just straight good tactics. Send a fast and agile contingent through a weakly or undefended point to threaten the enemy backline, while a normal force threatens them from the front. This is literally the entire reason why you want cavalry on the flanks. I love how games like this make people rediscover such tried and true tactics.
Works wonders on my bretonnia campaign. Two separate commando groups of knights go to two less defended gates, and just storm through everything until they get to the capture point. Meanwhile I use my flying lord as a road block until the timer runs out. It actually made me better at the game, because I suck at battlefield control, but this taught me how to manouvre in other situations as well.
I did something nearly identical with the Hattori in Shogun 2 to take the capital city. Tons of crap infantry sent to die in front, ninja units climbing up the back. By the time they got to them I had already won.
Bit of an odd thing, isn't it? Your army is actually beaten, your mainline is defeated and all you had was infiltrators, but an arbitrary flag change meant you won against the enemy now. But a good use of tactics.
@@l0rf If you look at it from the perspective of a random yari ashigaru not really. You fight, don't know wtf is going on and suddenly the enemy banners are behind you on top of the castle. Reasonably speaking that means you probably lost and there could be god knows how many enemies there. Maybe even traitors. Further, you probably don't wanna fight in the first place since so that is a good excuse to give up. You know. Or something.
As a loyal son of Dorn, I love sieges. Especially the setting-up and anticipation of changing tactics while I'm laying artillery on my surprise guests.
Also what helps with this is when you do get a victory objective and you see a lot of their army coming back and you're unsure if you'll be able to hold them off, start sending your main army up as well. They're gonna get pot shotted and be involved in minor fights, but your main army rushing up freaks out AI sometimes and can keep them from running back.
Did this with Skarbrand the other day. He was hidden in some trees while the rest of the army was on the opposite side of the fortress. The AI just let me play angry, angry Pac-Man as he sprinted to the end point, then I ended up bringing the rest of my army in after they abandoned the walls.
@@gotmilk5899 it was more to use the trees as cover from archer/tower projectiles as he was close to the gate and got to it without being shot. He got to the gate pretty quick after that, then just bypassed the two slow infantry units that were on that side of the base to run to the victory point and killed the enemy lord on the way.
@@jakeholmannf ah gotcha, I was thinking you must have gotten him stalk after defeating deathmaster sniktch or something and mistook the icon for the hide ability
This tactic is especially effective with Slaanesh armies. N'Kari is unbelievably fast, and anything that engages him in combat is probably not gonna last long...unless that thing is Skarbrand, of course. Of course, using N'Kari to cheese the game in that way is not something I do often, but the dreadfully slow replenishment has forced my hand on more than one occasion.
I've only done one campaign so far, skarbrand legendary, but my strat for all minor and major settlement battles was to blob up in a giant ball of death and roll straight to the victory point. Worked every time.
I love doing this with Nurgle. Yes, even the slowest army can give the AI the runaround. Put 2 cultists on horses and your Soul Grinders in the "special forces," using cultist summons to bog down any enemies trying to prevent you from getting into the city or recap the points. Your main army is tanky enough that you don't have to keep them on the sidelines, you can assault the walls and make sure the main enemy forces remain occupied.
@@ZeriocTheTank I can't recommend them enough! Solid fighters, have regeneration, get a horse at level 4, and summon Plaguebearers and eventually a Great Unclean One starting from level 13. In field battles they're great for running ahead to summon while your slow infantry gets into place. I like to have 2 in my armies when I can, just means you gotta target resource settlements for conquest to get capacity.
@@PeopleAcct707 I usually use them to hunt characters and flank the enemy (in field battles that is). Summoning Plaguebearers into their rear line or a Great Unclean one into the Back of the frontline works rather well. Add an an overcast Doom and Darkness (via flying plagueridden) and their frontline disintegrates.
I love how CA got serious with siege maps. No more simple straight lines of walls and repetitive models. Now the maps are huge and have appropriate themes.
This is something I have been doing for many years Sieges are fast and easy enough to win with full melee armies but ranged either have a long protracted siege using all their ammo or you can do this Dark Elf Shades do well as do Dwarf Rangers.
Ogres are made for this strategy. Gnoblar trappers are a trash tier 1 that come with stalk, and the Siegebreaker ability lets you open a path quickly, both to get past the walls and any barricades put up.
Personally I really really like a new sieges in Warhammer 3 and I am little sad (looking at the comment section) that not many people enjoy it. Anyway thank you for sharing this tactics.
I haven't touched WH3 yet [not sure if I will], but in WH2 I do this all the time as Welfs or Belegar or somesuch. Sneak your stalking [sniping] units in, cap the square and done. For other factions, I try to get Snikch's defeat trait for exactly this purpose.
Fun fact: Alexander the great once faced a mountain fortress the defenders thought impossible to breach. They deployed all their soldiers to the front and all other fronts were surrounded by mountains with steep cliffs. The leader said Alexander would need "flying soldiers" to take it. So he took all his expert mountain climbers in the middle of the night and had them climb the mountain behind the fort. The next day they appeared behind the fort and Alexander sent a message, "I guess I have flying soldiers now lol." Or something like that. He took the impassible fortress without a fight when the defenders realized he was surrounding them from all directions. This is literally a valid historical battle tactic and one of the oldest in the book.
honestly ive watched a lot of videos now on historical sieges and this doesnt even feel that cheeky (it is), a lot of stuff in history went down similarly to this. A guard on a tower here, a silly unguarded passage here, one smaller unit backdooring and scaring off an entire garrison essentially. this is cool! plus if the designers want us to engage more with whatever their visions of siegery otherwise would be they could always go back and tweak it
This is a tactic I use if there is a forest outside a settlement, I'll hide everything I can on one side. And then usually my DOOMWHEEL characters are the distraction carnifex
if you have Varghiest you can swing around the wall with them and knock them out to the field from the inside, i am really glad they brought back full mapped sieges instead of the dumb one wall. basically you got stuck with a frontal attack every time attack option A only really existed
What I usually do is to keep two pieces of artillery in the army and some missile infranty, preferably gunpowder. If yo just make three holes on a longer wall, and keep a few missile infranties ouside it, the ai will patrol the area, but its units wont come out. You only need to kill their towers (but their walls often block the tower's sight as well), and keep an eye for bombardments, and speed up the game. Eventually, they just bleed out. It is even rare to run out of ammo on these units, when they don't fire over walls.
This tactic is even more hilarious if your special forces squad all has stalk due to natural traits or bonus's from lord effects. Used setra with stalk and 4 stalked scorpions behind to the point and the enemy only finally noticed after I was halfway in the base due to getting too close to a tower.
Every faction with stalking units can do this super easily. Assassin&Deathrunners&Gutterrunners. Mournghuls and either crypt ghouls or Mournghul haunter. Bugman's rangers&stalking heroes. Dual weapon shades+Assassin. Even Nurgle can do this with nurgle cav and chariots (chariots are honestly so good for sieges since they can bully their way past enemy units and then charge them in the back to break them quickly) supported by Plagueridden or even a daemon prince of Nurgle.
I once had a bug where my reinforcements entered INSIDE the settlement straight onto the victory objective. My reinforcements were a full stack army they had nothing to defend the victory location. My units literally just appeared inside the settlement on the victory location.
@Zerkovich I love your multiplayer videos and faction guides they are what got me over the sense of being overwhelmed and helped me dive into 1 and 2! I just rewatched the one about the noob line of death and you mentioned how the gaps in your front line dont matter because so many things can punch through your lines anyway. Could you make a guide about protecting you missiles? Reiterate what it means to take too many missile units and then the tactics for defending them? I have been struggling defending my back line especially in 3 with so many chaos factions with furies and large monsters so i feel it would be a good time for this video too?
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 Well that one was more about the composition of your army and how much to spend on range not really the tactics around them. Like Im talking about effective micro with range. Like if you brought the correct amount of range, tactics around keeping them online and shooting like i only brought two streltsi and I cant keep them online so like what are the tactics for getting value with gunnpowder vs bows? How does one effectively place them so that they can get their value and still be protected? I often find that my streltsi lose line of sight a lot in the middle but they are tough to protect out on the edges so like the tactics around where to place them in the army as well. And like maybe Im shooting the wrong targets like should I not be targeting infantry with streltsi and thats where Im going wrong?? idk. Finally like what are the best tactics and units for protecting the ranged units like are cav best for the mass or is just making sure you have multiple ranged units so they can protect each other? A guide of that sort
@@totalwarfreak9628 thought he had one about what targets to pick too, and I get your point. I played one Lizardmen campaign, currently playing a vampire campaign, so no experience with gunpowder. I think they might be best used to break one or two units with concentrated fire at the start, before the enemy reaches you, and after that, use them like javelin troops in RTW: go to the enemy rear and shoot troops that are engaged in combat. I play normal/normal, so I can pause, and do so often. More pauses do tend to lead to more cheese, but if you are not afraid of Gouda, go for it. If you play multiplayer, you might want to check his series 'why you lost' or sumfin like that. Not protecting ranged units can be part of that. He also points out alternatives as a battle plays out
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 ya trust me ive watched that whole series lolol his content is great! and ya I was thinking solely from a multiplayer perspective cause other players are just so good at targeting and missiles and stopping them from firing
@@totalwarfreak9628 In that case the answer is clear: change your tactic. Get some ranged units that look dangerous, and use them either as bait, or to keep the enemy busy with thoughts on how he can reach them instead of your melee units. Having none at all could get them to kite you, but if you have a few and just protect them while using your heavy forces to destroy the enemy might be a good idea: they might focus so much on the weapon they fear the most, that you can rip much of their other forces to shreds with their attention on your ranged units and how they can reach them. Also remember: while you are struggling to keep them useful, the other guy is struggling to keep them useless. He has to keep winning that small battle, while you can keep loosing that 'fight' without problems. Any time he looses it, your unit gets a good salvo into the enemy, any time you loose that battle there will come a new one... That is of course, if they don't rush you and kill them before you had much time to use them.
I'm playing Khorne, the fastest strategy for me is to attack everywhere at once with small groups and kill the leader with big demons. It makes the enemy break quickly enough.
Tip for fighting larger army’s turning off control panther army only allows 20 units on the battlefield so when outnumbered it would work better in siege battles
On top of the back rush, if the army on the main gate gets pulled out, I'll rush the front when it's almost empty with my main army to further crush morale and kill off a few units.
Another cheese exploit are, you can put your reinforcement army behind the enemy walls, with stalk, you can easily capture the points without the enemy even noticing
Using stalk infantry is even cheesier. Just walk in and if you are doing it right, you will have the point captured before they even realise something is up, at which point it will be too late. Hybrid units like Shades work best as they are able to deal with any lone unit or lord that might be guarding the zone and hold it.
I love sieges in moderation. This a good thing to try if I don't have the power to force my way to the objective tho. I will definitely be trying this when immortal empires comes out.
I wish the game had an option for a tactical victory. Like be able to bombard an area during battle and then leave the battle to encircle again. Like defending in a ambush battle. The ability to casue casualties with artillery, leave battle, come back and bombard again without having to make be a defeat
I did something similar. Isabella+19 wargheists. Flew over walls and armies, landed in victory location, summoned pack of zombies and killed whatever came close. Although it was in TW2. And against empire faction. Dont remember which one exactly.
Totally cool idea! TW III has been solidly improving since launch. I've had some of my favorite TW campaigns to date in this third iteration. However, this video reminded me that I do wish they would cut the size of the sieges and town battles by 25% (or even more) - still too much dead space IMO.
I just play as VC and bombard with with 5 mortars and Bess with a gunnery weight topping them up. The AI has zero counter to artillery units that can one-shot squads and siege down towers in 10 seconds. After that it's just a case of mopping up the remaining units.
Imho, the AI just has to be tweaked to account for that. The easiest way to do it is just having a few units in reserve at central locations, from where they can get everywhere (or at least many places) quickly. That's as long as there are unengaged or unaacounted for (aka hiding, stalking or coming in as reinforcements) units.
Would making your bait units attack the walls, when the AI is moving to reclaim the victory point, offer an advantage as it would confuse the AI even more? Or would you take too much damage from the towers to make it worthwhile?
I love this tactic! It reminds me of how a matador waves the cape in front of the bull, so as to anger it. Then, each time the bull charges, the matador moves to the side to keep up the process, with some moments of stabbing the bull with his sword so as to weaken the beast. With the bull weakened and exhausted from its previous exertions, the finishing blow is delivered. Such a tactic would be perfect in other Total War games like Empire or Medieval 2.
Did they change this? I see momentum but no victory points. I always end up capping all their points and holding for ages, but it doesn't end until I route them all.
They made actually sieges harder for defenders. It should be the attacker that needs to hold both main capture points at the same time. Also, if CA just spreads out AI units around the map and make them to prioritise to hold the main capture points, then it would make these battles more fun. The maps are good so at least something.
This is a perfect example of why re-spawnable pop-up towers exist in WH3. Because the AI is still terrible at responding to the player's strategy, CA had to add something "simple" to make sieges more interesting and/or challenging. Honestly, they should just make "buildables" a pre-battle thing, and then make defensive garrisons larger for AI-controlled settlements. They could add AI spawnable reinforcement garrison units (from guard houses and the like) that come in just after the battle has started and reassess the player's approach, filling in gaps where needed. That would be hell of a lot more interesting (and less immersion-breaking) than relying on Fortnite towers to add artificial "difficulty". Eshin stealth armies were already absurd for sieges in WH2; they're going to be straight up broken in WH3.
It's a great tactical move I do think tho in the future they will update so one or two units stay back. However if unit loses weren't an issue I'd use the main force as a sacrifice with the elite unit still breaking the backdoor.
Actually, there is a path AI units can and do take across the tops of the walls that can effectively block this approach. I got blocked when I tried this exact maneuver (maybe with slower forces as I think I was khorne?)
yeah I won with a half dead bloodhost army this way. You actually don't need two armies , one can be enough. Split your stacks so that the units with high cap power who are also fast can open gates. This way I took a dwarf fortes with 5:1 numbers against me with 0 numbers lost. Bloodshrine units are key! Your main force ofc needs to be big enough that the enemy is going for them.
Bannerlord: i cant wait to siege that town. WH3: no...not another siege... the endless rebuilding of towers and walls.. i recall alot of sieges irl were the aggressors run out of cannonballs because the defenders kept rebuilding to the same quality def over and overxD Change it plz.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the auto resolve has a serious bug or two. I had one army pull up and it says it will be a "Close Defeat". So I get two armies of cheap units in range to support and it changes to "Crushing Defeat"...??????🤨
Funny how in WH2 before all these defense options for the defender, the AI always had at least one unit at the capture point, while here they completely forget about it.
Memories of the vampire bat swarms disintigrating with their vampire lord in the town sqaure as i inflict army losses at the walls
@@heybro4000 Good alod times...
They never bothered testing this thats why it it so easy to cap them out every time.
@@user-ly5oo2hd7p or they don't really know how to make sieges more engaging
honestly I feel like this is a bit better, I'd rather that the AI try to stop you from reaching the capture point in the first place than have their troops just waiting there. also other people have mentioned the times that army losses will kill those units before you ever reach them, I'd much rather that those units die fighting (or at least running after a unit) than simply collapse without having ever moved.
Here's a fun thing I discovered in my Skarbrand campaign: Using Eternal War to draw out city garrisons of enemy chaos factions! Encircle a city and then call it down on your army. The garrison will join the battle as reinforcements, directly behind your starting position for you to easily intercept! Completely shuts down ranged enemies and prevents them from maneuvering. The army you summon will be so small as to be a worthwhile tradeoff. Be careful not to kill the Khorne army before reinforcements arrive, or they won't come. Once you return your attentions to the city itself, you'll face a depleted enemy garrison with no demons and heavily damaged mortals.
This only works with factions that don't automatically declare war on daemon factions: All the Chaos factions, Skaven, and Ogres.
From what I know, even if you kill the army you are fighting, you can still wait for the reinforcements to appear.
I’ve only seen the timer stop after wiping out the sacrificial army when I tried this. I’m not sure what the issue would be if other people saw the timer continue. Maybe it’s different if the reinforcing by army is from a different faction than the main defender?
Eternal War can also be used to catch an army fleeing you that's always barely out of reach
I've been using this strategy since the beginning with WH3. I've found It's actually pretty iffy. It works just fine for weakly held cities, but If your faction lacks any decent mobility, both in terms of speed and killing power, it becomes very difficult to actually hold the main capture point.
That's why I usually have the rest of my army attack the other side of the fortress. Since the mobile force threatens the main objective, the AI is forced to pull more and more forces off their front line to protect it. This makes it easier for your main force to break through. That way, if your mobile force fails, your main force has a much easier time reaching the objective themselves.
Yeah, I guess you can forget about it as Nurgle. But there a big grind around the gate actually works to your advantage or just hitting them with the right plagues before starting the siege. I guess it will be a weakness for Chaos Dwarfs too, as they probably won't get anything that's fast AND strong.
This isn't even cheese, just straight good tactics. Send a fast and agile contingent through a weakly or undefended point to threaten the enemy backline, while a normal force threatens them from the front. This is literally the entire reason why you want cavalry on the flanks. I love how games like this make people rediscover such tried and true tactics.
@@PwnEveryBody What makes this cheese is the ease with which the AI is outmaneuvered.
@@scelonferdi the Chaos Dwarves probably wont need it, tbh. they'll just turn the fort to rubble.
Works wonders on my bretonnia campaign. Two separate commando groups of knights go to two less defended gates, and just storm through everything until they get to the capture point. Meanwhile I use my flying lord as a road block until the timer runs out. It actually made me better at the game, because I suck at battlefield control, but this taught me how to manouvre in other situations as well.
I did something nearly identical with the Hattori in Shogun 2 to take the capital city. Tons of crap infantry sent to die in front, ninja units climbing up the back. By the time they got to them I had already won.
Bit of an odd thing, isn't it? Your army is actually beaten, your mainline is defeated and all you had was infiltrators, but an arbitrary flag change meant you won against the enemy now. But a good use of tactics.
I think is meant to symbolise capturing the lord of the castle in shogun 2 atleast
@@l0rf If you look at it from the perspective of a random yari ashigaru not really.
You fight, don't know wtf is going on and suddenly the enemy banners are behind you on top of the castle. Reasonably speaking that means you probably lost and there could be god knows how many enemies there. Maybe even traitors. Further, you probably don't wanna fight in the first place since so that is a good excuse to give up.
You know. Or something.
Wow any unit with inate stalk just got really useful to have 1.
*happy skink assain noises*
Thanks, LegendOfTotalWar, for another good cheese! Oh, wait....
As a loyal son of Dorn, I love sieges. Especially the setting-up and anticipation of changing tactics while I'm laying artillery on my surprise guests.
I wish the AI in total war was at least halfway proficient in them. Then I might share your opinion.
Also what helps with this is when you do get a victory objective and you see a lot of their army coming back and you're unsure if you'll be able to hold them off, start sending your main army up as well. They're gonna get pot shotted and be involved in minor fights, but your main army rushing up freaks out AI sometimes and can keep them from running back.
Did this with Skarbrand the other day. He was hidden in some trees while the rest of the army was on the opposite side of the fortress. The AI just let me play angry, angry Pac-Man as he sprinted to the end point, then I ended up bringing the rest of my army in after they abandoned the walls.
Skarbrand can’t hide in trees
@@gotmilk5899 it was more to use the trees as cover from archer/tower projectiles as he was close to the gate and got to it without being shot. He got to the gate pretty quick after that, then just bypassed the two slow infantry units that were on that side of the base to run to the victory point and killed the enemy lord on the way.
@@jakeholmannf ah gotcha, I was thinking you must have gotten him stalk after defeating deathmaster sniktch or something and mistook the icon for the hide ability
Thank you so much for this, the constant siege battles are really obnoxious and having a way to just bypass them is a lifesaver
This tactic is especially effective with Slaanesh armies. N'Kari is unbelievably fast, and anything that engages him in combat is probably not gonna last long...unless that thing is Skarbrand, of course.
Of course, using N'Kari to cheese the game in that way is not something I do often, but the dreadfully slow replenishment has forced my hand on more than one occasion.
I've only done one campaign so far, skarbrand legendary, but my strat for all minor and major settlement battles was to blob up in a giant ball of death and roll straight to the victory point. Worked every time.
Lord Kroak would like to know your location....
Although Khorne and Chaos are fun factions they aren't exactly meant to play otherwise.
I love doing this with Nurgle. Yes, even the slowest army can give the AI the runaround. Put 2 cultists on horses and your Soul Grinders in the "special forces," using cultist summons to bog down any enemies trying to prevent you from getting into the city or recap the points. Your main army is tanky enough that you don't have to keep them on the sidelines, you can assault the walls and make sure the main enemy forces remain occupied.
I've been spoiled by the speed of Slaaneshi units that it never crossed my mind to use cultists with Nurgle.
@@ZeriocTheTank I can't recommend them enough! Solid fighters, have regeneration, get a horse at level 4, and summon Plaguebearers and eventually a Great Unclean One starting from level 13. In field battles they're great for running ahead to summon while your slow infantry gets into place. I like to have 2 in my armies when I can, just means you gotta target resource settlements for conquest to get capacity.
@@PeopleAcct707 I usually use them to hunt characters and flank the enemy (in field battles that is). Summoning Plaguebearers into their rear line or a Great Unclean one into the Back of the frontline works rather well. Add an an overcast Doom and Darkness (via flying plagueridden) and their frontline disintegrates.
Cultists slap. The caster heroes are also so beefy you can just use them as bruisers too
Looking forward to trying this in Immortal Empires, my Dwarfs will be able to use their cavalry to great effe- ... ...
Oh.
It's not cheesy at all! A well made video with good tactics. I learned something new.
Zerko yesterday: "I hate cheez"
Zerko: "this isn't cheez, it's deception!"
Zerko in future: "whuhahaha cheez!" 🐁🤪🧀🧀🧀
I love how CA got serious with siege maps. No more simple straight lines of walls and repetitive models. Now the maps are huge and have appropriate themes.
Yeah excpet the AI is not ready for this kind of sieges. Obviously.
@@fourcgames7568 god damn it. But still cool to play in PVP.
This isn't even cheezy, this is just actual historical tactics. Deploy your army to intimidate and have the Sappers undercut the defences and slip in
This is something I have been doing for many years Sieges are fast and easy enough to win with full melee armies but ranged either have a long protracted siege using all their ammo or you can do this Dark Elf Shades do well as do Dwarf Rangers.
There is something uniquely satisfying about pulling off an infiltration like this
Ogres are made for this strategy. Gnoblar trappers are a trash tier 1 that come with stalk, and the Siegebreaker ability lets you open a path quickly, both to get past the walls and any barricades put up.
Personally I really really like a new sieges in Warhammer 3 and I am little sad (looking at the comment section) that not many people enjoy it. Anyway thank you for sharing this tactics.
Not enough walls in minor settlements.
I haven't touched WH3 yet [not sure if I will], but in WH2 I do this all the time as Welfs or Belegar or somesuch. Sneak your stalking [sniping] units in, cap the square and done. For other factions, I try to get Snikch's defeat trait for exactly this purpose.
Fun fact: Alexander the great once faced a mountain fortress the defenders thought impossible to breach. They deployed all their soldiers to the front and all other fronts were surrounded by mountains with steep cliffs. The leader said Alexander would need "flying soldiers" to take it. So he took all his expert mountain climbers in the middle of the night and had them climb the mountain behind the fort. The next day they appeared behind the fort and Alexander sent a message, "I guess I have flying soldiers now lol." Or something like that. He took the impassible fortress without a fight when the defenders realized he was surrounding them from all directions. This is literally a valid historical battle tactic and one of the oldest in the book.
Nice read. Thank you for your time.
Yep! It was the siege of the Sogdian Rock.
The only casualties were around 30 of the 300+ climbers, who died during the dangerous climb.
When that under army spawned in the middle of his main force made me panic... damn cracklebombs have gotten me so many times
Don't blame autoresolve, blame the rebuildable towers!
"This tactic can work with any faction" *cries in dwarf*
honestly ive watched a lot of videos now on historical sieges and this doesnt even feel that cheeky (it is), a lot of stuff in history went down similarly to this. A guard on a tower here, a silly unguarded passage here, one smaller unit backdooring and scaring off an entire garrison essentially. this is cool! plus if the designers want us to engage more with whatever their visions of siegery otherwise would be they could always go back and tweak it
Sieges with Khonre.
Step 1: Just send Skarbrand lol
This is a tactic I use if there is a forest outside a settlement, I'll hide everything I can on one side. And then usually my DOOMWHEEL characters are the distraction carnifex
if you have Varghiest you can swing around the wall with them and knock them out to the field from the inside, i am really glad they brought back full mapped sieges instead of the dumb one wall. basically you got stuck with a frontal attack every time attack option A only really existed
I just saw this video today and Im a newbie to Warhammer 3.
but after 10 hours into the game, when I had my first Siege, I did that. And it worked.
What I usually do is to keep two pieces of artillery in the army and some missile infranty, preferably gunpowder. If yo just make three holes on a longer wall, and keep a few missile infranties ouside it, the ai will patrol the area, but its units wont come out. You only need to kill their towers (but their walls often block the tower's sight as well), and keep an eye for bombardments, and speed up the game. Eventually, they just bleed out. It is even rare to run out of ammo on these units, when they don't fire over walls.
I learned from LegendOfTotalWar to do the same thing but using sneak units to climb the wall and then capture the capture point.
This tactic is even more hilarious if your special forces squad all has stalk due to natural traits or bonus's from lord effects. Used setra with stalk and 4 stalked scorpions behind to the point and the enemy only finally noticed after I was halfway in the base due to getting too close to a tower.
This way isn't just efficent, it's a great rush trying to hold back the horde with a handful of units.
This is going to be hilarious using Chameleon Skinks
I love it! I've been trying to get rid of Hell Pit as well. Those catapults are brutal
There are also settlement, allow you to place your reinforcements army, to Enter directly over the victory point.
BUT LEGEND...THAT'S CHEESE!
Sorry, wrong channel.
Every faction with stalking units can do this super easily. Assassin&Deathrunners&Gutterrunners. Mournghuls and either crypt ghouls or Mournghul haunter. Bugman's rangers&stalking heroes. Dual weapon shades+Assassin. Even Nurgle can do this with nurgle cav and chariots (chariots are honestly so good for sieges since they can bully their way past enemy units and then charge them in the back to break them quickly) supported by Plagueridden or even a daemon prince of Nurgle.
I once had a bug where my reinforcements entered INSIDE the settlement straight onto the victory objective. My reinforcements were a full stack army they had nothing to defend the victory location. My units literally just appeared inside the settlement on the victory location.
@Zerkovich I love your multiplayer videos and faction guides they are what got me over the sense of being overwhelmed and helped me dive into 1 and 2! I just rewatched the one about the noob line of death and you mentioned how the gaps in your front line dont matter because so many things can punch through your lines anyway. Could you make a guide about protecting you missiles? Reiterate what it means to take too many missile units and then the tactics for defending them? I have been struggling defending my back line especially in 3 with so many chaos factions with furies and large monsters so i feel it would be a good time for this video too?
Check his vids, I think he did one on ranged units
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 Well that one was more about the composition of your army and how much to spend on range not really the tactics around them. Like Im talking about effective micro with range. Like if you brought the correct amount of range, tactics around keeping them online and shooting like i only brought two streltsi and I cant keep them online so like what are the tactics for getting value with gunnpowder vs bows? How does one effectively place them so that they can get their value and still be protected? I often find that my streltsi lose line of sight a lot in the middle but they are tough to protect out on the edges so like the tactics around where to place them in the army as well. And like maybe Im shooting the wrong targets like should I not be targeting infantry with streltsi and thats where Im going wrong?? idk. Finally like what are the best tactics and units for protecting the ranged units like are cav best for the mass or is just making sure you have multiple ranged units so they can protect each other? A guide of that sort
@@totalwarfreak9628 thought he had one about what targets to pick too, and I get your point. I played one Lizardmen campaign, currently playing a vampire campaign, so no experience with gunpowder.
I think they might be best used to break one or two units with concentrated fire at the start, before the enemy reaches you, and after that, use them like javelin troops in RTW: go to the enemy rear and shoot troops that are engaged in combat.
I play normal/normal, so I can pause, and do so often. More pauses do tend to lead to more cheese, but if you are not afraid of Gouda, go for it.
If you play multiplayer, you might want to check his series 'why you lost' or sumfin like that. Not protecting ranged units can be part of that. He also points out alternatives as a battle plays out
@@sjonnieplayfull5859 ya trust me ive watched that whole series lolol his content is great! and ya I was thinking solely from a multiplayer perspective cause other players are just so good at targeting and missiles and stopping them from firing
@@totalwarfreak9628 In that case the answer is clear: change your tactic. Get some ranged units that look dangerous, and use them either as bait, or to keep the enemy busy with thoughts on how he can reach them instead of your melee units. Having none at all could get them to kite you, but if you have a few and just protect them while using your heavy forces to destroy the enemy might be a good idea: they might focus so much on the weapon they fear the most, that you can rip much of their other forces to shreds with their attention on your ranged units and how they can reach them.
Also remember: while you are struggling to keep them useful, the other guy is struggling to keep them useless. He has to keep winning that small battle, while you can keep loosing that 'fight' without problems. Any time he looses it, your unit gets a good salvo into the enemy, any time you loose that battle there will come a new one...
That is of course, if they don't rush you and kill them before you had much time to use them.
"this is. a little cheesy which is something normally I do not promote."
LegendOfTotalWar took that personally.
I'm playing Khorne, the fastest strategy for me is to attack everywhere at once with small groups and kill the leader with big demons. It makes the enemy break quickly enough.
Tip for fighting larger army’s turning off control panther army only allows 20 units on the battlefield so when outnumbered it would work better in siege battles
On top of the back rush, if the army on the main gate gets pulled out, I'll rush the front when it's almost empty with my main army to further crush morale and kill off a few units.
Another cheese exploit are, you can put your reinforcement army behind the enemy walls, with stalk, you can easily capture the points without the enemy even noticing
I love sieges. The enemy sits in a stone box while my artillery breaks them down bit by bit
Comet of Cassandora agrees
Using stalk infantry is even cheesier. Just walk in and if you are doing it right, you will have the point captured before they even realise something is up, at which point it will be too late.
Hybrid units like Shades work best as they are able to deal with any lone unit or lord that might be guarding the zone and hold it.
I love sieges in moderation. This a good thing to try if I don't have the power to force my way to the objective tho. I will definitely be trying this when immortal empires comes out.
i never expected to type the following sentence: wh2 siegebattles were actually better/less bad.
I wish the game had an option for a tactical victory. Like be able to bombard an area during battle and then leave the battle to encircle again. Like defending in a ambush battle. The ability to casue casualties with artillery, leave battle, come back and bombard again without having to make be a defeat
One thing I'd like to note is that leaders and heroes seem to capture points quicker than other units
I did something similar. Isabella+19 wargheists. Flew over walls and armies, landed in victory location, summoned pack of zombies and killed whatever came close. Although it was in TW2. And against empire faction. Dont remember which one exactly.
Totally cool idea! TW III has been solidly improving since launch. I've had some of my favorite TW campaigns to date in this third iteration. However, this video reminded me that I do wish they would cut the size of the sieges and town battles by 25% (or even more) - still too much dead space IMO.
110 speed N'Kari with stalk attribute is pretty hilarious to watch in a siege
I don’t mind sieges since the rework. The supply system adds the interest they were missing
I dont think this works anymore or I did something wtong
I just play as VC and bombard with with 5 mortars and Bess with a gunnery weight topping them up. The AI has zero counter to artillery units that can one-shot squads and siege down towers in 10 seconds. After that it's just a case of mopping up the remaining units.
Imho, the AI just has to be tweaked to account for that. The easiest way to do it is just having a few units in reserve at central locations, from where they can get everywhere (or at least many places) quickly. That's as long as there are unengaged or unaacounted for (aka hiding, stalking or coming in as reinforcements) units.
ehh
sieges are already a slog and tedious and frustrating
ca can at least allow us some fun for once
@@grub833 I wouldn't call circumventing a feature having fun with it, just avoiding it. Also purposefully (too) stupid AI always feels like a bandaid.
@@scelonferdi well true
But doing that just avoids the frustration imo
Shame this tactics does not work all the time. Sometimes there is no such option to rich victory point due to small castle map
Would making your bait units attack the walls, when the AI is moving to reclaim the victory point, offer an advantage as it would confuse the AI even more? Or would you take too much damage from the towers to make it worthwhile?
IMHO too much damage. I tried that before.
@@InternetMameluq Thank you. It kinda worked in shogun 2, but there was far less towers at the time.
@@gabrielforgeron5468 skaven firepower would have made it very costly in this example
Me and my 119 horse-man pair friends stood in your town square for a whole minute, now your 1.5 million inhabitants are all dead!
good advice
I love this tactic! It reminds me of how a matador waves the cape in front of the bull, so as to anger it. Then, each time the bull charges, the matador moves to the side to keep up the process, with some moments of stabbing the bull with his sword so as to weaken the beast. With the bull weakened and exhausted from its previous exertions, the finishing blow is delivered. Such a tactic would be perfect in other Total War games like Empire or Medieval 2.
i love sieges they are big improvement over wh and wh2,i hope they add more variety siege maps tho
Legendoftotalwar: *laughs in cheez*
Very thematic for skaven campaigns, especially Eshin.
Did they change this? I see momentum but no victory points. I always end up capping all their points and holding for ages, but it doesn't end until I route them all.
Same for me. I was trying to use it, but no progress bar appearing after I cap the main square...
I like doing sieges a lot. I just hate losing in them lol
Who are you, so wise in the ways of science!?
Works mid game, too. I beat a late game Hell Pit with 3 light war sleds and a tempest witch on a bear
Ha sucks for me I only have Warhammer 2. Most cities are just one front facing gate with no chance of outflanking it.
CA, remember Thrones of Britannia? If you got one thing right in this game, it was siege battles. ;/
Great idea. Huge K/D. Huge K/D's win wars
Thank you for advice, that's very good thing plan save it :D
Pretty much me and my bretonnia campaigns. Every single Siege.
I used to do this but it doesn't work anymore.
So, shall I use Rangers and Gyrocopters with Dwarfs to pull this off?
Either you win a city by brute force or you are not worthy to have it.
They made actually sieges harder for defenders. It should be the attacker that needs to hold both main capture points at the same time.
Also, if CA just spreads out AI units around the map and make them to prioritise to hold the main capture points, then it would make these battles more fun. The maps are good so at least something.
This is a perfect example of why re-spawnable pop-up towers exist in WH3. Because the AI is still terrible at responding to the player's strategy, CA had to add something "simple" to make sieges more interesting and/or challenging. Honestly, they should just make "buildables" a pre-battle thing, and then make defensive garrisons larger for AI-controlled settlements. They could add AI spawnable reinforcement garrison units (from guard houses and the like) that come in just after the battle has started and reassess the player's approach, filling in gaps where needed. That would be hell of a lot more interesting (and less immersion-breaking) than relying on Fortnite towers to add artificial "difficulty". Eshin stealth armies were already absurd for sieges in WH2; they're going to be straight up broken in WH3.
Hey Zerk, may you please tell me the hotkeys or key bind for showing unit formations AFTER you started to move them and as they are moving
Hold space i think.
@@mmorkinism that was in TW2 but no more for TW3
It's a great tactical move I do think tho in the future they will update so one or two units stay back. However if unit loses weren't an issue I'd use the main force as a sacrifice with the elite unit still breaking the backdoor.
After reading my own comment I now see that I am a horrible leader lol.
Actually, there is a path AI units can and do take across the tops of the walls that can effectively block this approach. I got blocked when I tried this exact maneuver (maybe with slower forces as I think I was khorne?)
yeah I won with a half dead bloodhost army this way. You actually don't need two armies , one can be enough. Split your stacks so that the units with high cap power who are also fast can open gates. This way I took a dwarf fortes with 5:1 numbers against me with 0 numbers lost. Bloodshrine units are key!
Your main force ofc needs to be big enough that the enemy is going for them.
I’ve seen a lot of comments and people saying that they hate or dislike sieges
But for me I always loved don’t why people say the opposite
I agree Zerkovich, that's not cheese tactics. You are outmanuering the enemy.
what if they would put an army evenly on the castle, even there were you wanted to go with your special forces?
I wish there was more settings in total war to have the AI just be smarter in battles and more aggressive in the campaign map.
I have a way quicker and way more fun method of winning seiges. Right before the battle, what you do, is... click the auto resolve button
this guy sounds like jango fett from star wars. like the same accent/ style in which he says words
Nice one thx :D
Zerko, how can you paint on the video? what are you using for this?
Without tower defense and victory points, this would be a cool map to sprawl out and fight across. rip Warhammer
How do you draw arrows, shapes, etc. is that a mod?
Bannerlord: i cant wait to siege that town. WH3: no...not another siege... the endless rebuilding of towers and walls.. i recall alot of sieges irl were the aggressors run out of cannonballs because the defenders kept rebuilding to the same quality def over and overxD Change it plz.
nice tactic :o
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the auto resolve has a serious bug or two. I had one army pull up and it says it will be a "Close Defeat". So I get two armies of cheap units in range to support and it changes to "Crushing Defeat"...??????🤨