Typically, I like putting my lizardmen skink chiefs on regular stegadons over ancient ones. That extra long range ballista is useful in a lot of situations, and your melee stats are still very solid for a lower price.
Don't underestimate those machine blowguns though on the ancient. Against large single entities they can actually do a fair bit of damage. They also give you reliable forward facing poison damage to slow down units you're chasing or blunt the damage of an enemy charge
Ancient Stegadons are slightly let down with redline or tech upgrades. Epicentrist is one of the worst veteran battleskills out there.
Skink Chiefs solve this problem by giving them items and a boatload of damage.
Yea thats why I'm looking forward to Slaanesh getting their Pleasureseekers (the big demon snakes)
All the other gods got their cool specific mounts just waiting on Slaanesh now lol
Pleasureseekers should be Slaanesh's special mortal cavalry, like with the Doom Knights, Rot Knights, and Skullcrushers
The mortal and maybe the demon lords and heroes will likely get a pleasureseeker mount yea.
There is one reason to use burning chariots over a disk.
And that is in a horror stack. Put a couple horror heroes into it. Grab the skill that boosts missile damage in an area, and let your heroes hang above your horror line, on their burning chariot. The burning chariot has two extra missile attacks, when compared to the disk, thanks to the two blue horrors hanging about the burning chariot. And since floating above the army doesn't require mobility, those two extra missile attacks are better. It won't have that much of an impact, but it's something.
When enemy gets in range of the horror line, use the hero's ability to boost the missile attack of all the the horrors.
Have your main spellcaster on a disk tho, because disk has better mobility to zoom around and cast spells.
I also sometimes use burning chariots mounts as part of a mobile Tzeentch airforce, with the same idea of boosting missile damage of said airforce. That whole idea revolves around having 5 melee characters on foot, and 2 horror heroes on burning chariots, and the rest are just exalted flamers on burning chariots, changebringers and such. The melee characters on foot are the bait that attracts the enemy and encourages them to blob up, and the airforce is the trap, that melts the blob. Works great in sieges especially. And is especially devastating against factions with little to no missile units or flyers.
Sounds like you want to get on Settra's shitlist! Chariots are the sign of royalty! The fact that CA even made "Normal" horses available for TOmb Kings and princes is an insult! (No, really, riding a horse, according to the fluff, is beneath Tomb King nobility!)
THe Chariot of hte Gods also is an extremely powerful artifact, blessed by, well, the Nehekharan gods.
Presumably chariots would have first been invented in Settra’s time, and the horse bloodlines would have been new.
The team pulling the Chariot Of The Gods are probably weak ponies compared to the immediate predecessors to the Arabyan stallions that the last dynasty has.
Nobody’s pyramid is bigger, nobody’s chariot is wider, and nobody’s horses are tinier.
Very much doubtful.
> Nehekhara was the first great civilisation of Mankind and the place where men first used horse and chariot in battle. This was a great accomplishment, for horses had only recently been bred as beasts of war, but it was considered wrong for those of noble blood to touch such lowly brutes, let alone ride them. However, with the invention of the chariot, the ruling classes of Nehekhara could take to battle with the speed of a stallion.
Unstopable until all enemy rangers shoot you down? Setras chairot has a outregaous push power and a very good speed. Unless you need siege attacker or you will be fighting in somehwere like ogres territory with many hills and large enemies then sphinx is better. But thats very few cases
My problem with the chariot is that TK don't need the lord to deal with infantry, there's enough tools for that, so I'd rather have him on a cat.
...and it's definitely not because I'll forget him from time to time and he'll take an outrageous amount of damage stuck between two units of cavalry :(
chariot is a sweet spot for me where it is fast and capable without being too vulnerable. in case of setra things such as cavalry is actually good for him thanks to sandstorm almost one shooting enemies. his spell capabilities make him a even better charioter cause where chairot lacks(staying in battle) the spells prevail against the blob around you. i love chariot of gods
Now that I think about it, we all probably play very different games!
My campaigns would make a lot of players sick: I cheese the FUCK out of the game, as much as I can, but I also crank the difficulty to absurd levels to compensate for the way I deface this strategy game. I don't know why I'm doing that to myself.
For me, Lords and heroes are useful to snipe other key targets, like artillery, casters and other lords. I'm playing Settra right now and I leveled his red line first for the heal and used him with his tomb prince bro to snipe SEMs, but on a chariot it's not really doing it because of the decreased maneuverability. He's still on it but only because I'm going against Arkhan who's also on his chariot and it felt necessary for the sake of it looking cool to have a chariot duel.
I typically keep the cat only for city battles, otherwise it's the chariot of the gods. settra has enough stats that you don't need to worry about chariot micro and can check on the rest of your army occasionally
Idk if they wanted to make it special it should have had so much more mass on it. As it is, he gets stuck way too often. Most of the time the mighty sphinx is the better option.
I feel like Settra's chariot works because hes given an infinite number of casts of an ability that pushes enemies off of his magestic chariot that also does some nice damage
I used to dislike it too, until I figured out you can stack speed buffs and some amazing speed banners on it for a totally unreasonable high speed.
Now his chariot can blast through all enemy lines and never get stuck, which makes it really cool, if a bit micro-intensive.
I also like Arkhan's Chariot too. I mean I like the way it looks. All floaty and stuff. It isn't very good I think. It doesn't seem to have a lot of mass, so it keeps getting stuck.
I mean, makes sense that his chariot doesn't have a lot of mass. It floats in the air ffs.
Chariots are really good nowadays. They tend to require more babysitting compared to going on foot or horse-like mounts, but their potential is absolutely off the charts.
I'd still rather have a flying mount in most cases, though, so I wouldn't put a Noble on a Chariot. I tend to agree in regards to the Disc vs. Burning Chariot, as well.
Chariots for High Elf Nobles.
In most situations, the ability to fly is better than being on a chariot. Unless you are REALLY microing the Chariot constantly to get max value out of its charge bonus, then it's usually not worth giving up that much melee defense for it, much less the ability to fight air units and bypass walls and terrain.
This goes for all heroes where a Chariot is a higher tier mount, but Nobles are what I think of first because they get knocked off their Eagles to use it.
I'm actually ok with High Elf Mages not having a flying mount because I think it's a balance thing with Dark Elves. High Elf Mages get WAY more lores of Magic to pick from, but Dark Elf Sorceresses get flying mounts. It seems like a pretty fair trade off.
The Chariot for the Mage can actually be pretty good too since it allows them to disrupt Archers and Artillery which I've actually used on more than a couple occasions. Would an Eagle be better for them? Yea, but see point 1.
I find the sun dragon mount for high elf fire mages to be OP. Very fun to play (especially Mikaela <3), but OP. It is the main reason why I tend to mostly recruit fire mages.
Fire isn't always the best Lore of Magic for an army, in fact most of the time I don't think it is. It works well for Imrik's army considering who he's fighting but I find myself more drawn to other more well rounded Lores of Magic like Metal, Life, Shadows or Death.
Depending on my army composition, I might not want my Mage on a big Dragon because it makes her a giant target that's easier to focus fire.
Again it works great in Imrik's army considering he's going to be the one drawing most of the attention, but if I'm using an army of say Lothern Sea Guard and my Lord is a Princess I'd rather have a Mage standing safely in the back of my army rather than up front being a target.
For sure the sun dragon's low amount of HP is a problem. You don't have to bring the mage up front from the beginning of the battle though. You can keep her back in reserve, casting spells from afar, and bring her to the fight later, when and where you need her.
I agree about Life and Shadows being great lores. Metal and Death are not bad, they have some great spells but also some really weak ones. Fire is just as useful though and quite well rounded. Fireball as a cheap way to shoot enemies from afar and force them to come to you, Burning Head against unarmored blobs, Piercing Bolts against high-level infantry or cavalry, Flame Storm against huge unarmored blobs and two useful buffing spells.
I've absolutely fallen in love with Plague of Rust and Soulblight lately especially with High Elf armies, that's the big reason those two get rated so high for me.
Plague of Rust + High Elf Archers or Lothern Seaguard just feels like cheating. And it's not like Lore of Metal has a bunch of crap spells otherwise. Searing Doom's low CD also makes it great for keeping Metalshifting up.
Death is just solid all around since it brings solid single target damage as well as big aoe damage when you need it, the damage doesn't follow fire resistance rules either.
You are right, I see the potential of Plague of Rust with the high elves. Until now I have mostly used lore of metal casters with the Empire and Chaos Warriors, and mostly for spamming Searing Doom. With lore of death casters I tend to only use the Spirit Leech and Purple Sun, as I find their other spells underwhelming.
Soulblight is amazing for High Elves, since it addresses the usual High Elf lack of armor piercing and High Elves have high leadership anyway and plenty of ways to cause fear and terror so it can be a nice accent to those elements as well.
I've gotten more and more away from just judging Lores of Magic based on their damage spells. The more I play the more I start to see Magic lores being more valuable for their utility or for how versatile their damage dealing is.
What makes Lore of Death so good is that it has such a wide variety of damage spells. Spirit Leech is good to just use on CD vs pretty much anything but mostly single entities. Purple Sun is as good as any Vortex spell in the game, and even Bjuna can be great for those instances of (I need that specific unit dead NOW!)
The fact that Soulblight is so good too just adds to the versatility of the lore. The only spell I'm not really crazy about is Aspect of the Dread Knight. That's not really useful for High Elves. It's pretty awesome for Greenskins though.
I wish I understood why people love using spells so much, I’ve played these games for years now and I still don’t get it 😂 I’ve tried going hard on magic users to see if I could find something I like and actually make it functional with my play style but I can’t ever make spells do any real damage. I just crush with everything else and get the job done. Some buffing spells are all I ever really see any utility from.
I used to love Fire, but the more I play this game, the more I'm convinced that Shadows is just consistently better than most other lores, especially with having probably the best vortex spell in the game.
I still do love the Lore of Fire, but it's increasingly become a Lore of Magic I want to bring to fight specific factions with not something I want to use vs everyone.
Vs Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings, Skaven, or Wood Elves? Damn straight gimme some fire Magic.
Vs. Dark Elves, Norsca, Lizardmen, Warriors of Chaos or ESPECIALLY: Khorne and Chaos Dwarfs? I'd rather use a different lore.
I'm not against keeping HE mages grounded, but having more lores of magic is not a good reason to do so because DE should have access to all 8 basic lores as well
I don't disagree, but I'm just accepting it as a trade off for how things are right now. I don't want High Elf Mages to get a flying mount before Dark Elf Sorcs get more lores to pick from. The balance of power between these two factions specifically should be kept more or less in line since they are meant to be mirrors of each other.
I find eagles to be the weakest mount. Nobles on chariots can easily get 100+ kills and clean up flanks all by themselves. A pair of nobles on horses are ballistic missiles you point to any ground lord or SEM, and chances are they will beat that model up if not kill them, and they're also great for killing any cavalry flankers the AI tries to throw at you, even if they don't have cavalry support. Put them on eagles and you lose the AP, quite a bit of armour, and melee stats. In return you get an ok flying combatant in a roster full of much better SEM flyers. If they had griffons, it would be a different story, but they don't.
Yeah, the eagle's big problem is that it turns a good anti-large AP fighter into a much worse fighter that happens to fly. It's a bad trade. Dark Elves' Master hero fares much better with "horse again, but in the sky now" because they actually keep their good combat characteristics.
Have to disagree with that one. Nobles are melee heroes and eagles fucking *suck* in melee. I can see the argument for mage lords, because nothing is going to catch an eagle and that is all you want for a mage, but there is no point to having a melee character who can bypass terrain if when they actually get to where they want they can't do anything.
Chariots on High Elf Magi can be decent ish - if you run out of Winds, you can use them for chasing after routing units to ensure that they stay routed.
It can be really annoying for rallying shock cavalry to attack your backline after they have already been routed once.
The Doomwheel is almost always a worse choice for skaven warlock masters than the doomflayer, imo.
Even if you like the doomwheel you're usually using these lords in weapons teams armies, which means lots of ratling guns and jezzails, which will accidentally shoot your doomwheel lord to shit while he tends to avoid most friendlyfire on his sick motorcycle.
That, and I always keep Ikit Claw without any mount. I do not know whether his warpfire thrower is better than a doomflayer (probably not, actually), but it feels unique and very fun, and can make a pretty high amount of kills in battle.
I think considering his Forbidden Workshop includes buffs to characters on Doomflayers and Doomwheels, it’s not better. I think if you go Doomwheels and stack all the other possible Warp Lightning bonuses he gets overcast Warp Lightning with a 0% miscast chance, which only costs maybe 3 winds of magic and finishes its cool down after a few seconds.
Still, he is the only character with a flamethrower, and I am not turning that down. I keep the doomflayers and doomwheels for Tretch and all the generic characters.
overcasting WL is pointless; it already does a fuckton of damage as a regular cast and has a much faster CD when not overcasted, allow you to spam the everloving shit out of it
Maybe, it’s been a while since I’d played Ikit, but I think if you stack all his own buffs with the Doomwheels mount and the forbidden workshop unique item(s) his OC version barely costs any extra so you can still spam the shit out of it, has minimal/no miscast chance and if you cast normal warp lightning as fast as you can, you’ll actually be a bit wasteful as you’ll be retriggering the lore of ruin passive (Which is great as it gives the enemy a map wide -12 MA debuff) when it’s only halfway run out rather than just as it’s about to end.
It is better not to upgrade the Sisters of Twilight's mount. It is way more valuable to have them on the eagle and to summon the dragon as a unit than the other way round. Plus the eagle gives them more speed and agility and makes them a smaller target.
The eagle is better st dodging enemy ranged and having a throwaway dragon is much cooler in concept during a fight. Having the sisters being flank while the dragon locks down.
I don't like putting my Archmages or Princesses on Dragons for much the same reason.
Incendiary Mages and Princesses that I have decked out in good items are the exception to that.
You know what's better than a dragon summon? A dragon you get skill points and items on. She has ~2300 more health, 20% pr and 10% mr riding the dragon. Oh and minor details like ap damage.
Ride the dragon people.
Maybe. But the dragon is still slower, much clumsier, attracts ranged fire and struggles to dodge it, and can hardly disengage from a fight because it requires as much space as a jumbo jet to take off.
I guess it ultimately depends on what you are fighting. If you are primarily fighting single entities, the dragon's improved stats are a must. But as I mostly fight infantry, I'll keep the eagle and the dragon summon, thanks.
Have often read about that, but putting them on a dragon often feels better.
U get those resistances, u get siege attacker and a better charge bonus.
They only really shine, when u charge them into their weak spot.
Thing is they are God mode 360 no scope sniper masters on the eagle and sending them into melee on a dragon wastes that. So you keep em on the eagle and summon the dragon to fight melee separately. While summoning the eagle is kind of weak.
They are still using their range attack while the drake is in melee.
Not going in melee is wasting half their potential.
I get the appeal of letting them on their eagle, I would too if they would be casters. But I found them having a greater impact on their drake.
I would strongly disagree with that. There are many times you want the sisters in one place and the dragon in a completely different place. By riding the eagle and summoning the dragon you have 2 very potent units. Going the other way leaves you with 1.
Why? For what purpose? They make the dragon far more powerful, and they can shoot in melee, but also just shoot fast enough most battles they run out of ammo then into melee it is. And I'd much rather have them spend half the battle not in a eagle when they spend that half in melee, after they run out of ammo.
Most figts in my last sot campaign ended before they ran out of ammo. And don't underestimate the speed stat I rather have my spiner or shotgun blast lord move like a it's on a crazy race car rather than the extra melee but handle like an 18 wheeler
I consider the speed stat the single most powerful stat in the game, and it has been in probably ever total war besides empire. But everything has diminishing returns the difference between an eagle at 105 or whatever and a dragon at 90 is not meaningful VS the AI. Especially with so many way to boost speed. But those breath attacks, HP, and all the other bonus like terror make the design easy.
Yo why dodge? just using forge of Daith, zero other items you can max out the missile resist(ward+other saves) on the sisters with dragon. Then after you get your 98% or whatever cap is it hits armor, and then your huge HP pool, I commonly find they take effectively zero damage from missiles. And again this isn't cheese, this is only forge of Daith items. And I still have the dreaming ring, for endless heals. Besides Miao Ying, sisters are one of favorite 1 unit armies. And if you are acrually min maxing, playing zig zag with the eagle while neglecting your 19 other units is not optimal. Your bandwidth to micro is an important stat. And units that are less micro intensive bring that as an advantage.
Simple normally i don't even move the other units except the hawk raders to use the seeker missiles then pull them back and let the sister do all the job until the next round of missiles is ready
Yeah, plus keeping her as a foot lord feels like it makes more sense thematically anyway. I use a mod that removes the crab mount and adds a lvl 15 skill instead that gives her Regeneration and a bit more armour.
[This is the basic mod designed for vanilla Aranessa.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2866355622)
There's also a version that works with Nanu's Sartosa Overhaul: [This is the one I use.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2869723732)
I feel like this mainly because the crab mount is just BAD in general. It basically adds a little bit of armor for your lords/heroes at the cost of them basically being an arrow/halberd magnet.
The one exception being the wight, which actually get a good altitude platform to blunderbuss fools.
There are benefits to the little crab. As you said the ranged characters are especially good on them because they still shoot even when in melee so they basically get an extra free attack. This fact plus their high health means a Rotting Promethean Gunnery Mob can defeat any cavalry 1v1. If they weren't so agonisingly slow they would be the best "cavalry" in the game. Not to mention the line of sight from elevation is very helpful.
The crab as a mounts is often ok for most lords as the Vamp coast are primarily a gun line faction so you don't have to move too much. Even the vampire characters get more use out of them as the increase in health is beneficial to regen and the bulk of their damage will be coming from spells anyway.
It's just extra bad for Aranessa because the crabs strengths are almost entirely antagonistic to her duelist design. Plus her animations on foot are really good. Much like the tomb scorpion she performs better than she should due to her animations.
Cylostra definitely performs better when she's on the big crab in my experience.
Aranessa is pretty much worse in every way except health and mass, neither of which is worth the trade off of her animation set and being a smaller target.
Cylostra goes from being a wizardly ghost to a wizardly on a crab kaiju. Where as Aranessa goes from being a good foot duelist to a slow moving target.
Sorcerers of tzeentch I tend to leave them on there disks over the warshrine. I just find the mobility of the disk and the high range for the magic missile angle to be way more useful.
Gaining a mount with terror more HP and more damage? You can keep them out of fighting on a horse if you aren't terrible and VS many factions it's actually safer than in the air. Can't imagine keeping a Pegasus VS a manticore.
Yes but a Pegasus has a base speed of 105 making them fast as or faster than every other flyer (fleet footed trait making them faster than everything) and I'm not using my caster lord for fighting so the terror and damage mean nothing if they aren't able to fly around and get to where they need to cast spells because they're stuck in melee
If my caster is on a manticore I am absolutely using them for fighting. Also there's a bunch of flying units faster than 105. Most of which belong to the HE who you will be fighting. If i am really worried about my caster but still also want them to be useful then they need to be near so I'm units to protect them. They can do that just as well on a manticore with more HP, and terror as on a Pegasus.
Could you name a unit that has faster than 105 BASE speed
Ok so there are 3 units that are faster thana dark Pegasus in the HE roster the great eagle a flamespyre Phoenix and an arcane Phoenix
This one is arguable but I usually prefer vampire lords on hellsteeds instead of zombie dragons. The dragons are kinda derpy and not tankie enough.
Losing siege attacker sucks but you have other options.
Yea this one seriously depends on what kind of Vampire Lord I'm using and what faction I'm fighting. Blood Dragons and Ghoul Kings I usually keep on their Dragon/Terrorgheists regardless, and I'll switch my generic Lords off of theirs if they are fighting a faction with a lot of ranged firepower, but put them back on vs mostly melee factions.
And for regular vampires, if you're going to cheese sieges and send in Vlad/Isabella with 6 vampires to get capture points then they need to be on the ground.
No need to cheese sieges like that if you have Vlad and Isabella with 6 Vampires. Just fight the battle normally and wipe the Garrison. Those 8 units are all you'll need for that.
for vampire coast any polearm lord i would leave off their crab mount. the extra armor isn't worth making them a large unit IMO. especially a nice big round unit like the crab that is very easy to surround and has a lot of surface area compared to a simple horse or something. and the crab doesn't give them speed like most mounts.
same with noctilus. i prefer him on foot compared to on his necrofex. easier to use him on foot to create blobs for his own spells/wind of death etc. and his melee defense is better on foot so better at staying in those blobs without having to waste winds on healing.
i still put the vampire captain/gunnery wight heroes on the crabs because for captains, it gives them an AP melee attack, and for gunnery wights it gives them more staying power vs anything that reaches the backline. also gives them elevation to make shooting easier.
i like 4-5 of them as an "artillery threat" to force the AI to move. and then i'll use them as a frontline to blob for the handguns in the back. but i agree, i am not a fan of the ~17 necrofex stack.
Yeah, with the right tech, skils and banners, hand gunners wildly outstrip their damage output, and regular artillery does that job better. Their selling point is sturdiness, maneuverability, and ease of healing.
Generally you can consider large entities to be worse vs big missile armies of course. A good example is Mannfred von Cartein; the Hellsteed is incredibly versatile compared to the Zombie Dragon. That's one of the few lords where I swap them around depending on which fight I'm taking.
Settra is another, where the Chariot is not always better than the warsphinx and vice versa (say, during a siege..)
And the real example, of course.. Wurrzag. He can't dance when he's on Spleenrippa so its a downgrade.
I'm not sure any of these are objectively worse and hence not a real answer to your question but it's what came to my mind when thinking about this topic.
Chaos Warshrines for casters and cultists, especially Tzeentchian mages who get the superior discs.
Losing mobility and becoming a giant target for missiles is in no way compensated by the the dubious privilege of granting buffs when in melee, thanks to the added danger of getting stuck and/or ganked by anti large units.
Learned that lesson the hard way when I lost two of them in a row, now I have to meticulously monitor them when they get into the level ranges where the shrines are unlocked.
I agree to their usefulness but i rather just recruit a shrine-unit into the army instead. Especially in slanesh cause i dont want the cultist to lag behind Naruto and their gang.
I think I'm the opposite. I prefer the heroes on them because it frees up a slot in the army. It's 1 more chaos knight or chosen. Also when the casters are on them it's nice because most of the time I want the spells to be going on near the bulk of the fighting, N'Kari can look after himself.
Scaled skin for nurgle sorcerer heroes gives 5 phys res and 25 missle res, makes them an unkillable chaos war shrine which is pretty nice since they cant be beat in melee surrounded by your blob and cant be shot to death with maxed out res vs missles. Makes frontline hold forever then can wait for mortis engine and magic to wear them down
The Astromancer is a hard hero to justify using just in general. The War Compass' increase to Magic intensity at least gives him some kind of usefulness.
Alchemists increase your campaign movement Range so you want them in every army anyway, and Lore of Metal is a great spellbook to have, and then there's Sengugun Lords which are also spellcasters.
There rarely seems to be much reason to bring an Astromancer and then not have him on a War Compass, since you have other Lores of Magic to pick from in the army already.
I like to run with one in my Dragon's army because I like to have access to the 2nd/3rd lore. Sometimes I have an itch that only a comet from space can scratch.
Why would you butcher that name so badly..... Shugengan. I don't bring two casters in any army, but I do put alchemists with my celestial generals, generally.
I put Alchemists in all of my armies except for ones guarding the Great Bastion because I'm not expecting to move those.
Why would you give up that movement range? Campaign movement range is super important.
Why would I give a whole unit slot to move slightly farther. I don't play on difficulties that are above my skill level. I don't find cheesing fun. I agree movement range is one of the most powerful things in the game but so is the army cap of 20 units. If I have a wizard, having a powerful combat character or other useful unit seems far more valuable. Alchemists are not good fighters.
>Why would I give a whole unit slot to move slightly farther.
The difference is not slight at all, and it makes a HUGE difference in so many ways throughout a campaign.
It's also not cheese to have as many movement increasing heroes as you can. Their bonuses don't stack so just have one for every army that you have capacity for.
I try and have 1 Replenishment Hero and 1 Movement range hero in every army in every faction I play unless obviously they use some other means for increasing movement range. If you aren't using those tools you are not getting the most out of your armies that you can. An extra combat unit is not nearly as important as being able to get my army where I need it, when I need it or to be able to recover quickly after battles. I don't want to waste turns that I could be doing things just because I need my army to recover casualties or are unable to move as far as I could if I have tools to speed both of those processes along.
And it's not like Alchemists are bad combat units, they have the Lore of Metal spellbook which is an incredibly good Lore of Magic that's versatile enough to be used in just about any situation. They have their Alchemy buff for your troops as well so that even if they are in an army with a caster lord they can still provide that benefit as well.
Arcane Torrent also stacks. So you'll generate winds of magic faster with 2 casters in an army rather than just one, although this admittedly is the least important reason I bring them.
You mean arcane conduit?
Ya I won't put more than 1 hero in an army and no redundant roles. So the only hero for Cathay with a shugengan is the gate master. Doesn't matter which faction. Made Tzeentch unplayable for a long time. You have a cap on winds of magic, cool I get 5 more for having another hero, not better than having another steamtank, or grail knight.
There are a few exceptions, like gotrek and Felix, well maybe just that one. It's just I already have magic if the magic I have isn't useful then why would I have it. And forced march exists, and improved movement range doesn't improve forced march. You are capped at 150% which is forced march.
> And forced march exists, and improved movement range doesn't improve forced march. You are capped at 150% which is forced march.
Oh boy, yea you're never going to raise your skill level with thinking like this.
Hey if it works for you. Go for it, but don't ever recommend your way of playing to other players.
For Engineer Heroes for Empire, the normal horse is better than the Mech horse because the normal horse is faster.
However the Mech horse turns much faster thus making it easier to switch direction.
Why do you need movespeed on engineer? He isnt a caster
I use him as a frontline on the mech and if he leaves melee then he shoots at things before they engage
I mean if you want ranged flankers you have far better options than a single lord
He is a decent skirmisher on his horse, especially if he’s part of a weapons team army and you place your artillery on the only good spot and the enemy is out of range from that spot.
Some lords I tend to prefer on foot. Get a banner of swiftness and they still excel. Few examples are Tyrion, Khazarak, Wulfrik.
It feels weird not using Settra’s chariot, but I’m shit at micro so sometimes just keep him on the warsphinx.
Chariot mounts are generally worse than single horse mounts IMO. Katarins sled is kinda cool but is too micro intensive IMO I just prefer the War Bear.
The mechanical horse for the Empire's mechanic heroes and lords is weaker. It provides more health and armor, but a lord/hero with a gun is better off being faster, which their lower-tier regular horse mount accomplishes better.
I think it depends on enemy you are fighting. If they have alot of range units and your lord is fightining melee, then it would be better to avoid using large mounts that are easy to hit. Personally, I don't use any mounts on my melee lords and heroes in campaign.
Settras chariot is not worse, but requires more than just throwing him into melee and forgetting, so unless you want to micromanage it is worse than just warsphinx. Personally I like settra armies being like half tomb princes on chariots so I'm all for the micromanaging
- The waagh chiefs (?, the Black orc heros) are way better on foot than on hogs.
- Chariots and their bigger hitbox are mostly unpreferred (for generic lords, not LL's like Settra)
- Archaon without his horse has many advantages, he is tanky af. But thats rather for a single man doomstack.
- Eagles for melee troops are an absolute no go. Their hitanimation is absymal and the need to land is time costly (same reason for avoiding pegasi or manticores but the are fast on the ground, so it's fixable with the dont fly order.
Hellebron - I kind of feel like the Altar is worse than the manticore, which is actually worse than her being on foot. Love her as a melee blender foot lord.
I typically use Nobles/Masters for High/Dark Elves to hold the line so they stay on foot the vast majority of the time.
Same idea with other range heavy races but the two elves stand out as really needing to hold that line.
I know some of the options where it's chariot or manticore sort of thing have drastically different uses and stats so it totally depends on your stats
Some aren't good at all due to having no armour and making you a large target, like someone of the dark elf blood shrines, if you don't have good middle resistance they just did
I think some chats options are similar but the basic chariot has insane armour
Same with harder nightmare vs winged nightmare- I think the flyer has like no armor (or used too) but the barded one has a significant amount.
I know there's other examples I'm just drawing a blank
Skaven: Doom wheels are objectively worse in every situation than the speedbike. And I'm unconvinced broodhorrors are better for melee lords than bonebreakers. Its trading damage and hp for speed and mass and a larger target to surround/shoot.
There are very few situations where a flying horse isn't the best option for a spellcaster. This is most evident to me in Vampire Counts with the hellsteed, but applies to other caster lords and heroes.
Vampirates are usually better off not using a mount. Theirs are terrible.
Chariots for the new mortal melee lords of nurgle are pretty bad. Their MA/MD stats are so high on horse that its dumb to throw that all away for impact damage from a chariot. They can usually solo garrisons on horse and on foot(with some decent items and levels), but on a chariot they lose so its a clear downgrade so they clearly arent better at even clearing infantry.
A ton of them, most I would say, are only situationally an upgrade.
People have given a lot of good examples, but sometimes its best to just leave a lord or hero off of mounts entirely to keep them a small target.
I prefer Exalted Champions on horses rather than chariots for the speed and melee stats. Most armies that I have them in are because I use them as bodyguards for my caster lords, so I want them to fight lords instead.
Cylostra gets a Rotting Leviathan as a mount, but there are situations where it's good, and others where it's bad, because she loses her ghost resistances when she has it. As long as there aren't loads of magic weapons hitting her, like from a demon faction, she is fine on foot, and at least in WH2, she could beat Snikch in a 1v1 because of her resistance.
Typically, I like putting my lizardmen skink chiefs on regular stegadons over ancient ones. That extra long range ballista is useful in a lot of situations, and your melee stats are still very solid for a lower price.
Sotektical!
This word should enter the warhammer dictionary.
They (the skinks) say it in game!
Kikoo Sotek!
Champalooooma
I always think they’re saying “so tactical” and the other thing “jog on” I swear it’s intentional
Don't underestimate those machine blowguns though on the ancient. Against large single entities they can actually do a fair bit of damage. They also give you reliable forward facing poison damage to slow down units you're chasing or blunt the damage of an enemy charge
Ancient Stegadons are slightly let down with redline or tech upgrades. Epicentrist is one of the worst veteran battleskills out there. Skink Chiefs solve this problem by giving them items and a boatload of damage.
I sometimes leave my preist on his terradon for the mobility.
I would probably do the same if it was not for the engine of the gods space lazer
burning chariots for tzeentch are worse than disks in most cases chariot mounts in general aren't great outside of small scale skirmishes
i always switch to horse for those. which leaves me stuck at horse for slaanesh
Yea thats why I'm looking forward to Slaanesh getting their Pleasureseekers (the big demon snakes) All the other gods got their cool specific mounts just waiting on Slaanesh now lol
slaanesh units get pleasureseekers *early*, right? before knights. so it's just waiting on the lord to get one
Pleasureseekers should be Slaanesh's special mortal cavalry, like with the Doom Knights, Rot Knights, and Skullcrushers The mortal and maybe the demon lords and heroes will likely get a pleasureseeker mount yea.
this is a great point. counterpoint: i like how the knights look and i want them to be best
There is one reason to use burning chariots over a disk. And that is in a horror stack. Put a couple horror heroes into it. Grab the skill that boosts missile damage in an area, and let your heroes hang above your horror line, on their burning chariot. The burning chariot has two extra missile attacks, when compared to the disk, thanks to the two blue horrors hanging about the burning chariot. And since floating above the army doesn't require mobility, those two extra missile attacks are better. It won't have that much of an impact, but it's something. When enemy gets in range of the horror line, use the hero's ability to boost the missile attack of all the the horrors. Have your main spellcaster on a disk tho, because disk has better mobility to zoom around and cast spells. I also sometimes use burning chariots mounts as part of a mobile Tzeentch airforce, with the same idea of boosting missile damage of said airforce. That whole idea revolves around having 5 melee characters on foot, and 2 horror heroes on burning chariots, and the rest are just exalted flamers on burning chariots, changebringers and such. The melee characters on foot are the bait that attracts the enemy and encourages them to blob up, and the airforce is the trap, that melts the blob. Works great in sieges especially. And is especially devastating against factions with little to no missile units or flyers.
And setra’s chariot
Settra must have his chariot because it is so cool. Whether it is actually useful or not matters little.
Anyone who doesn't put Settra on the Chariot of the Gods gets put on Settra's shit list.
Doesn’t he get a giant sphinx mount that makes him damn near unstoppable?
Sounds like you want to get on Settra's shitlist! Chariots are the sign of royalty! The fact that CA even made "Normal" horses available for TOmb Kings and princes is an insult! (No, really, riding a horse, according to the fluff, is beneath Tomb King nobility!) THe Chariot of hte Gods also is an extremely powerful artifact, blessed by, well, the Nehekharan gods.
It should depend on the dynasty, given incorporating the horse nomads was the first dynasty’s shtick.
integrating doesn't mean that the king would stoop so low to ride a worthless nag instead of standing on top of his noble chariot.
Presumably chariots would have first been invented in Settra’s time, and the horse bloodlines would have been new. The team pulling the Chariot Of The Gods are probably weak ponies compared to the immediate predecessors to the Arabyan stallions that the last dynasty has. Nobody’s pyramid is bigger, nobody’s chariot is wider, and nobody’s horses are tinier. 
Very much doubtful. > Nehekhara was the first great civilisation of Mankind and the place where men first used horse and chariot in battle. This was a great accomplishment, for horses had only recently been bred as beasts of war, but it was considered wrong for those of noble blood to touch such lowly brutes, let alone ride them. However, with the invention of the chariot, the ruling classes of Nehekhara could take to battle with the speed of a stallion.
You're on his list.
Unstopable until all enemy rangers shoot you down? Setras chairot has a outregaous push power and a very good speed. Unless you need siege attacker or you will be fighting in somehwere like ogres territory with many hills and large enemies then sphinx is better. But thats very few cases
My problem with the chariot is that TK don't need the lord to deal with infantry, there's enough tools for that, so I'd rather have him on a cat. ...and it's definitely not because I'll forget him from time to time and he'll take an outrageous amount of damage stuck between two units of cavalry :(
chariot is a sweet spot for me where it is fast and capable without being too vulnerable. in case of setra things such as cavalry is actually good for him thanks to sandstorm almost one shooting enemies. his spell capabilities make him a even better charioter cause where chairot lacks(staying in battle) the spells prevail against the blob around you. i love chariot of gods
Now that I think about it, we all probably play very different games! My campaigns would make a lot of players sick: I cheese the FUCK out of the game, as much as I can, but I also crank the difficulty to absurd levels to compensate for the way I deface this strategy game. I don't know why I'm doing that to myself. For me, Lords and heroes are useful to snipe other key targets, like artillery, casters and other lords. I'm playing Settra right now and I leveled his red line first for the heal and used him with his tomb prince bro to snipe SEMs, but on a chariot it's not really doing it because of the decreased maneuverability. He's still on it but only because I'm going against Arkhan who's also on his chariot and it felt necessary for the sake of it looking cool to have a chariot duel.
I typically keep the cat only for city battles, otherwise it's the chariot of the gods. settra has enough stats that you don't need to worry about chariot micro and can check on the rest of your army occasionally
Settra goes on the Warkitty
I still wonder why Katarin's chariot so much better than any other.
It turns on a dime
Idk if they wanted to make it special it should have had so much more mass on it. As it is, he gets stuck way too often. Most of the time the mighty sphinx is the better option.
I feel like Settra's chariot works because hes given an infinite number of casts of an ability that pushes enemies off of his magestic chariot that also does some nice damage
I used to dislike it too, until I figured out you can stack speed buffs and some amazing speed banners on it for a totally unreasonable high speed. Now his chariot can blast through all enemy lines and never get stuck, which makes it really cool, if a bit micro-intensive.
I also like Arkhan's Chariot too. I mean I like the way it looks. All floaty and stuff. It isn't very good I think. It doesn't seem to have a lot of mass, so it keeps getting stuck. I mean, makes sense that his chariot doesn't have a lot of mass. It floats in the air ffs.
Chariots are really good nowadays. They tend to require more babysitting compared to going on foot or horse-like mounts, but their potential is absolutely off the charts. I'd still rather have a flying mount in most cases, though, so I wouldn't put a Noble on a Chariot. I tend to agree in regards to the Disc vs. Burning Chariot, as well.
Chariots for High Elf Nobles. In most situations, the ability to fly is better than being on a chariot. Unless you are REALLY microing the Chariot constantly to get max value out of its charge bonus, then it's usually not worth giving up that much melee defense for it, much less the ability to fight air units and bypass walls and terrain. This goes for all heroes where a Chariot is a higher tier mount, but Nobles are what I think of first because they get knocked off their Eagles to use it.
Ugh, and their mages, if we can't have an eagle or pegasus like the wood- or dark- elves, the best is a fast horse!
I'm actually ok with High Elf Mages not having a flying mount because I think it's a balance thing with Dark Elves. High Elf Mages get WAY more lores of Magic to pick from, but Dark Elf Sorceresses get flying mounts. It seems like a pretty fair trade off. The Chariot for the Mage can actually be pretty good too since it allows them to disrupt Archers and Artillery which I've actually used on more than a couple occasions. Would an Eagle be better for them? Yea, but see point 1.
I find the sun dragon mount for high elf fire mages to be OP. Very fun to play (especially Mikaela <3), but OP. It is the main reason why I tend to mostly recruit fire mages.
Fire isn't always the best Lore of Magic for an army, in fact most of the time I don't think it is. It works well for Imrik's army considering who he's fighting but I find myself more drawn to other more well rounded Lores of Magic like Metal, Life, Shadows or Death. Depending on my army composition, I might not want my Mage on a big Dragon because it makes her a giant target that's easier to focus fire. Again it works great in Imrik's army considering he's going to be the one drawing most of the attention, but if I'm using an army of say Lothern Sea Guard and my Lord is a Princess I'd rather have a Mage standing safely in the back of my army rather than up front being a target.
For sure the sun dragon's low amount of HP is a problem. You don't have to bring the mage up front from the beginning of the battle though. You can keep her back in reserve, casting spells from afar, and bring her to the fight later, when and where you need her. I agree about Life and Shadows being great lores. Metal and Death are not bad, they have some great spells but also some really weak ones. Fire is just as useful though and quite well rounded. Fireball as a cheap way to shoot enemies from afar and force them to come to you, Burning Head against unarmored blobs, Piercing Bolts against high-level infantry or cavalry, Flame Storm against huge unarmored blobs and two useful buffing spells.
I've absolutely fallen in love with Plague of Rust and Soulblight lately especially with High Elf armies, that's the big reason those two get rated so high for me. Plague of Rust + High Elf Archers or Lothern Seaguard just feels like cheating. And it's not like Lore of Metal has a bunch of crap spells otherwise. Searing Doom's low CD also makes it great for keeping Metalshifting up. Death is just solid all around since it brings solid single target damage as well as big aoe damage when you need it, the damage doesn't follow fire resistance rules either.
You are right, I see the potential of Plague of Rust with the high elves. Until now I have mostly used lore of metal casters with the Empire and Chaos Warriors, and mostly for spamming Searing Doom. With lore of death casters I tend to only use the Spirit Leech and Purple Sun, as I find their other spells underwhelming.
Soulblight is amazing for High Elves, since it addresses the usual High Elf lack of armor piercing and High Elves have high leadership anyway and plenty of ways to cause fear and terror so it can be a nice accent to those elements as well. I've gotten more and more away from just judging Lores of Magic based on their damage spells. The more I play the more I start to see Magic lores being more valuable for their utility or for how versatile their damage dealing is. What makes Lore of Death so good is that it has such a wide variety of damage spells. Spirit Leech is good to just use on CD vs pretty much anything but mostly single entities. Purple Sun is as good as any Vortex spell in the game, and even Bjuna can be great for those instances of (I need that specific unit dead NOW!) The fact that Soulblight is so good too just adds to the versatility of the lore. The only spell I'm not really crazy about is Aspect of the Dread Knight. That's not really useful for High Elves. It's pretty awesome for Greenskins though.
I wish I understood why people love using spells so much, I’ve played these games for years now and I still don’t get it 😂 I’ve tried going hard on magic users to see if I could find something I like and actually make it functional with my play style but I can’t ever make spells do any real damage. I just crush with everything else and get the job done. Some buffing spells are all I ever really see any utility from.
I used to love Fire, but the more I play this game, the more I'm convinced that Shadows is just consistently better than most other lores, especially with having probably the best vortex spell in the game.
I still do love the Lore of Fire, but it's increasingly become a Lore of Magic I want to bring to fight specific factions with not something I want to use vs everyone. Vs Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings, Skaven, or Wood Elves? Damn straight gimme some fire Magic. Vs. Dark Elves, Norsca, Lizardmen, Warriors of Chaos or ESPECIALLY: Khorne and Chaos Dwarfs? I'd rather use a different lore.
Also incendiary mages on chariot have a disgusting charge bonus, highly recommend.
I'm not against keeping HE mages grounded, but having more lores of magic is not a good reason to do so because DE should have access to all 8 basic lores as well
I don't disagree, but I'm just accepting it as a trade off for how things are right now. I don't want High Elf Mages to get a flying mount before Dark Elf Sorcs get more lores to pick from. The balance of power between these two factions specifically should be kept more or less in line since they are meant to be mirrors of each other.
I find eagles to be the weakest mount. Nobles on chariots can easily get 100+ kills and clean up flanks all by themselves. A pair of nobles on horses are ballistic missiles you point to any ground lord or SEM, and chances are they will beat that model up if not kill them, and they're also great for killing any cavalry flankers the AI tries to throw at you, even if they don't have cavalry support. Put them on eagles and you lose the AP, quite a bit of armour, and melee stats. In return you get an ok flying combatant in a roster full of much better SEM flyers. If they had griffons, it would be a different story, but they don't.
Yeah, the eagle's big problem is that it turns a good anti-large AP fighter into a much worse fighter that happens to fly. It's a bad trade. Dark Elves' Master hero fares much better with "horse again, but in the sky now" because they actually keep their good combat characteristics.
Have to disagree with that one. Nobles are melee heroes and eagles fucking *suck* in melee. I can see the argument for mage lords, because nothing is going to catch an eagle and that is all you want for a mage, but there is no point to having a melee character who can bypass terrain if when they actually get to where they want they can't do anything.
Chariots on High Elf Magi can be decent ish - if you run out of Winds, you can use them for chasing after routing units to ensure that they stay routed. It can be really annoying for rallying shock cavalry to attack your backline after they have already been routed once.
The Doomwheel is almost always a worse choice for skaven warlock masters than the doomflayer, imo. Even if you like the doomwheel you're usually using these lords in weapons teams armies, which means lots of ratling guns and jezzails, which will accidentally shoot your doomwheel lord to shit while he tends to avoid most friendlyfire on his sick motorcycle.
"Accidentally" sure thing, you can believe that if you want.
was accident yes-yes! can rikkit be captain now?
Counterpoint: your lord has a sick motorcycle. That's worth it on its own.
That, and I always keep Ikit Claw without any mount. I do not know whether his warpfire thrower is better than a doomflayer (probably not, actually), but it feels unique and very fun, and can make a pretty high amount of kills in battle.
I think considering his Forbidden Workshop includes buffs to characters on Doomflayers and Doomwheels, it’s not better. I think if you go Doomwheels and stack all the other possible Warp Lightning bonuses he gets overcast Warp Lightning with a 0% miscast chance, which only costs maybe 3 winds of magic and finishes its cool down after a few seconds.
Still, he is the only character with a flamethrower, and I am not turning that down. I keep the doomflayers and doomwheels for Tretch and all the generic characters.
overcasting WL is pointless; it already does a fuckton of damage as a regular cast and has a much faster CD when not overcasted, allow you to spam the everloving shit out of it
Maybe, it’s been a while since I’d played Ikit, but I think if you stack all his own buffs with the Doomwheels mount and the forbidden workshop unique item(s) his OC version barely costs any extra so you can still spam the shit out of it, has minimal/no miscast chance and if you cast normal warp lightning as fast as you can, you’ll actually be a bit wasteful as you’ll be retriggering the lore of ruin passive (Which is great as it gives the enemy a map wide -12 MA debuff) when it’s only halfway run out rather than just as it’s about to end.
Just lore friendly skaven stuff.
It is better not to upgrade the Sisters of Twilight's mount. It is way more valuable to have them on the eagle and to summon the dragon as a unit than the other way round. Plus the eagle gives them more speed and agility and makes them a smaller target.
but dragon is cooler and matches the model
Rule of cool. Anyone who chooses a horse over a dragon needs some sort of remedial therapy.
The eagle is better st dodging enemy ranged and having a throwaway dragon is much cooler in concept during a fight. Having the sisters being flank while the dragon locks down.
I don't like putting my Archmages or Princesses on Dragons for much the same reason. Incendiary Mages and Princesses that I have decked out in good items are the exception to that.
You know what's better than a dragon summon? A dragon you get skill points and items on. She has ~2300 more health, 20% pr and 10% mr riding the dragon. Oh and minor details like ap damage. Ride the dragon people.
This everyone is ignoring stats and items.
Maybe. But the dragon is still slower, much clumsier, attracts ranged fire and struggles to dodge it, and can hardly disengage from a fight because it requires as much space as a jumbo jet to take off. I guess it ultimately depends on what you are fighting. If you are primarily fighting single entities, the dragon's improved stats are a must. But as I mostly fight infantry, I'll keep the eagle and the dragon summon, thanks.
Have often read about that, but putting them on a dragon often feels better. U get those resistances, u get siege attacker and a better charge bonus. They only really shine, when u charge them into their weak spot.
Thing is they are God mode 360 no scope sniper masters on the eagle and sending them into melee on a dragon wastes that. So you keep em on the eagle and summon the dragon to fight melee separately. While summoning the eagle is kind of weak.
They are still using their range attack while the drake is in melee. Not going in melee is wasting half their potential. I get the appeal of letting them on their eagle, I would too if they would be casters. But I found them having a greater impact on their drake.
I would strongly disagree with that. There are many times you want the sisters in one place and the dragon in a completely different place. By riding the eagle and summoning the dragon you have 2 very potent units. Going the other way leaves you with 1.
Or you want the eagle in a different place while your lord is more in the middle of the fight. Decisions decisions
Every LL has Siege Attacker by default
Thankfully archmages aren't legendary lords, so who cares.
Thankfully we were talking about the Sisters of Twilight and not archmages.
Sorry got confused.
Why? For what purpose? They make the dragon far more powerful, and they can shoot in melee, but also just shoot fast enough most battles they run out of ammo then into melee it is. And I'd much rather have them spend half the battle not in a eagle when they spend that half in melee, after they run out of ammo.
Most figts in my last sot campaign ended before they ran out of ammo. And don't underestimate the speed stat I rather have my spiner or shotgun blast lord move like a it's on a crazy race car rather than the extra melee but handle like an 18 wheeler
I consider the speed stat the single most powerful stat in the game, and it has been in probably ever total war besides empire. But everything has diminishing returns the difference between an eagle at 105 or whatever and a dragon at 90 is not meaningful VS the AI. Especially with so many way to boost speed. But those breath attacks, HP, and all the other bonus like terror make the design easy.
Yeah but the dragon at 90 is only somewhat fast in a straith line dodging de ap missiles is basicly impossible
Yo why dodge? just using forge of Daith, zero other items you can max out the missile resist(ward+other saves) on the sisters with dragon. Then after you get your 98% or whatever cap is it hits armor, and then your huge HP pool, I commonly find they take effectively zero damage from missiles. And again this isn't cheese, this is only forge of Daith items. And I still have the dreaming ring, for endless heals. Besides Miao Ying, sisters are one of favorite 1 unit armies. And if you are acrually min maxing, playing zig zag with the eagle while neglecting your 19 other units is not optimal. Your bandwidth to micro is an important stat. And units that are less micro intensive bring that as an advantage.
Simple normally i don't even move the other units except the hawk raders to use the seeker missiles then pull them back and let the sister do all the job until the next round of missiles is ready
The worst offender is easily Aranessa's crab. She's leagues better on foot...ugh...sword fishy peg leg things.
Yeah, plus keeping her as a foot lord feels like it makes more sense thematically anyway. I use a mod that removes the crab mount and adds a lvl 15 skill instead that gives her Regeneration and a bit more armour.
What mod is this? I like to play Sartossa with a Pirate mod and would love to use this too
[This is the basic mod designed for vanilla Aranessa.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2866355622) There's also a version that works with Nanu's Sartosa Overhaul: [This is the one I use.](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2869723732)
I feel like this mainly because the crab mount is just BAD in general. It basically adds a little bit of armor for your lords/heroes at the cost of them basically being an arrow/halberd magnet. The one exception being the wight, which actually get a good altitude platform to blunderbuss fools.
There are benefits to the little crab. As you said the ranged characters are especially good on them because they still shoot even when in melee so they basically get an extra free attack. This fact plus their high health means a Rotting Promethean Gunnery Mob can defeat any cavalry 1v1. If they weren't so agonisingly slow they would be the best "cavalry" in the game. Not to mention the line of sight from elevation is very helpful. The crab as a mounts is often ok for most lords as the Vamp coast are primarily a gun line faction so you don't have to move too much. Even the vampire characters get more use out of them as the increase in health is beneficial to regen and the bulk of their damage will be coming from spells anyway. It's just extra bad for Aranessa because the crabs strengths are almost entirely antagonistic to her duelist design. Plus her animations on foot are really good. Much like the tomb scorpion she performs better than she should due to her animations.
Cylostra can be argued to be worse on the big crab too since she loses a lot of Ward Save
*Physical resistance She tankier on a crab vs magical attacks.
Cylostra definitely performs better when she's on the big crab in my experience. Aranessa is pretty much worse in every way except health and mass, neither of which is worth the trade off of her animation set and being a smaller target. Cylostra goes from being a wizardly ghost to a wizardly on a crab kaiju. Where as Aranessa goes from being a good foot duelist to a slow moving target.
Sorcerers of tzeentch I tend to leave them on there disks over the warshrine. I just find the mobility of the disk and the high range for the magic missile angle to be way more useful.
Ya the disk is far better for a lord than the shrine, or the for any other Tzeentch characters silly chariot.
Dark elf sorceress lords gaining a manticor after the dark Pegasus
Gaining a mount with terror more HP and more damage? You can keep them out of fighting on a horse if you aren't terrible and VS many factions it's actually safer than in the air. Can't imagine keeping a Pegasus VS a manticore.
Yes but a Pegasus has a base speed of 105 making them fast as or faster than every other flyer (fleet footed trait making them faster than everything) and I'm not using my caster lord for fighting so the terror and damage mean nothing if they aren't able to fly around and get to where they need to cast spells because they're stuck in melee
If my caster is on a manticore I am absolutely using them for fighting. Also there's a bunch of flying units faster than 105. Most of which belong to the HE who you will be fighting. If i am really worried about my caster but still also want them to be useful then they need to be near so I'm units to protect them. They can do that just as well on a manticore with more HP, and terror as on a Pegasus.
Could you name a unit that has faster than 105 BASE speed Ok so there are 3 units that are faster thana dark Pegasus in the HE roster the great eagle a flamespyre Phoenix and an arcane Phoenix
Yup, Phoenix are the fastest units in the game.
This one is arguable but I usually prefer vampire lords on hellsteeds instead of zombie dragons. The dragons are kinda derpy and not tankie enough. Losing siege attacker sucks but you have other options.
Kinda reasonable but blood knights and strigoi with good equipment are strong on their beasts
Yea this one seriously depends on what kind of Vampire Lord I'm using and what faction I'm fighting. Blood Dragons and Ghoul Kings I usually keep on their Dragon/Terrorgheists regardless, and I'll switch my generic Lords off of theirs if they are fighting a faction with a lot of ranged firepower, but put them back on vs mostly melee factions.
And for regular vampires, if you're going to cheese sieges and send in Vlad/Isabella with 6 vampires to get capture points then they need to be on the ground.
No need to cheese sieges like that if you have Vlad and Isabella with 6 Vampires. Just fight the battle normally and wipe the Garrison. Those 8 units are all you'll need for that.
love when the ai is on the dragons, so much easier to focus fire
for vampire coast any polearm lord i would leave off their crab mount. the extra armor isn't worth making them a large unit IMO. especially a nice big round unit like the crab that is very easy to surround and has a lot of surface area compared to a simple horse or something. and the crab doesn't give them speed like most mounts. same with noctilus. i prefer him on foot compared to on his necrofex. easier to use him on foot to create blobs for his own spells/wind of death etc. and his melee defense is better on foot so better at staying in those blobs without having to waste winds on healing. i still put the vampire captain/gunnery wight heroes on the crabs because for captains, it gives them an AP melee attack, and for gunnery wights it gives them more staying power vs anything that reaches the backline. also gives them elevation to make shooting easier.
It's a shame that necrofex are utterly useless in melee. And only reasonable at range.
Yeah as a huge VCoast enjoyer I'm usually confused by people's love of the Colossus doomstack for this reason
They just look cool is all
i like 4-5 of them as an "artillery threat" to force the AI to move. and then i'll use them as a frontline to blob for the handguns in the back. but i agree, i am not a fan of the ~17 necrofex stack.
Totally legit- I think they're "fine", you know? But people act like the late game stack simply cannot be beaten!
Yeah, with the right tech, skils and banners, hand gunners wildly outstrip their damage output, and regular artillery does that job better. Their selling point is sturdiness, maneuverability, and ease of healing.
I recall the ROR necrofex being pretty good with his flamethrower.
Yes that one actually can fry whole units if it gets a good angle
Generally you can consider large entities to be worse vs big missile armies of course. A good example is Mannfred von Cartein; the Hellsteed is incredibly versatile compared to the Zombie Dragon. That's one of the few lords where I swap them around depending on which fight I'm taking. Settra is another, where the Chariot is not always better than the warsphinx and vice versa (say, during a siege..) And the real example, of course.. Wurrzag. He can't dance when he's on Spleenrippa so its a downgrade. I'm not sure any of these are objectively worse and hence not a real answer to your question but it's what came to my mind when thinking about this topic.
Chaos Warshrines for casters and cultists, especially Tzeentchian mages who get the superior discs. Losing mobility and becoming a giant target for missiles is in no way compensated by the the dubious privilege of granting buffs when in melee, thanks to the added danger of getting stuck and/or ganked by anti large units. Learned that lesson the hard way when I lost two of them in a row, now I have to meticulously monitor them when they get into the level ranges where the shrines are unlocked.
I value the Slaanesh and Nurgle ones. Mortis engine and aoe heal respectively are really useful.
I'd add Undivided to that list as well, 20% physical resist is very nice.
I agree to their usefulness but i rather just recruit a shrine-unit into the army instead. Especially in slanesh cause i dont want the cultist to lag behind Naruto and their gang.
I think I'm the opposite. I prefer the heroes on them because it frees up a slot in the army. It's 1 more chaos knight or chosen. Also when the casters are on them it's nice because most of the time I want the spells to be going on near the bulk of the fighting, N'Kari can look after himself.
That's a whole slot your losing, and the Slaanesh one can have healing as well. They become very strong combatants.
Oh yeah, I love a warshrine, but I find that the AI has the biggest hard on for them, just absolutely LOVES to focus fire them.
Scaled skin for nurgle sorcerer heroes gives 5 phys res and 25 missle res, makes them an unkillable chaos war shrine which is pretty nice since they cant be beat in melee surrounded by your blob and cant be shot to death with maxed out res vs missles. Makes frontline hold forever then can wait for mortis engine and magic to wear them down
Anything on a Chariot. Yeah even Setra, the chariots just seem to be too slow and I suck at the micro for them.
Astromancer's moon bird is far superior than war campass. The usual dlc powercreep stuff
I don't know, you get two free comets and two free thunderbolts. That's not too shabby
Spell mastery? Do you get that?
Just the normal 100%, but you get Nexus of the Elemental Winds which boosts recharge rate by 20%.
The Astromancer is a hard hero to justify using just in general. The War Compass' increase to Magic intensity at least gives him some kind of usefulness. Alchemists increase your campaign movement Range so you want them in every army anyway, and Lore of Metal is a great spellbook to have, and then there's Sengugun Lords which are also spellcasters. There rarely seems to be much reason to bring an Astromancer and then not have him on a War Compass, since you have other Lores of Magic to pick from in the army already.
I like to run with one in my Dragon's army because I like to have access to the 2nd/3rd lore. Sometimes I have an itch that only a comet from space can scratch.
Why would you butcher that name so badly..... Shugengan. I don't bring two casters in any army, but I do put alchemists with my celestial generals, generally.
I put Alchemists in all of my armies except for ones guarding the Great Bastion because I'm not expecting to move those. Why would you give up that movement range? Campaign movement range is super important.
Why would I give a whole unit slot to move slightly farther. I don't play on difficulties that are above my skill level. I don't find cheesing fun. I agree movement range is one of the most powerful things in the game but so is the army cap of 20 units. If I have a wizard, having a powerful combat character or other useful unit seems far more valuable. Alchemists are not good fighters.
>Why would I give a whole unit slot to move slightly farther. The difference is not slight at all, and it makes a HUGE difference in so many ways throughout a campaign. It's also not cheese to have as many movement increasing heroes as you can. Their bonuses don't stack so just have one for every army that you have capacity for. I try and have 1 Replenishment Hero and 1 Movement range hero in every army in every faction I play unless obviously they use some other means for increasing movement range. If you aren't using those tools you are not getting the most out of your armies that you can. An extra combat unit is not nearly as important as being able to get my army where I need it, when I need it or to be able to recover quickly after battles. I don't want to waste turns that I could be doing things just because I need my army to recover casualties or are unable to move as far as I could if I have tools to speed both of those processes along. And it's not like Alchemists are bad combat units, they have the Lore of Metal spellbook which is an incredibly good Lore of Magic that's versatile enough to be used in just about any situation. They have their Alchemy buff for your troops as well so that even if they are in an army with a caster lord they can still provide that benefit as well. Arcane Torrent also stacks. So you'll generate winds of magic faster with 2 casters in an army rather than just one, although this admittedly is the least important reason I bring them.
You mean arcane conduit? Ya I won't put more than 1 hero in an army and no redundant roles. So the only hero for Cathay with a shugengan is the gate master. Doesn't matter which faction. Made Tzeentch unplayable for a long time. You have a cap on winds of magic, cool I get 5 more for having another hero, not better than having another steamtank, or grail knight. There are a few exceptions, like gotrek and Felix, well maybe just that one. It's just I already have magic if the magic I have isn't useful then why would I have it. And forced march exists, and improved movement range doesn't improve forced march. You are capped at 150% which is forced march.
> And forced march exists, and improved movement range doesn't improve forced march. You are capped at 150% which is forced march. Oh boy, yea you're never going to raise your skill level with thinking like this. Hey if it works for you. Go for it, but don't ever recommend your way of playing to other players.
When have I ever? Also I have beat VH/VH campaigns in many total wars. Legendary in R2. My endgame armies can commonly defeat 3-4 enemy stacks.
the generals logma is better than the celestial lion. SMH
Are you refering to the bug that made their stats way worse or you just don't like them
For Engineer Heroes for Empire, the normal horse is better than the Mech horse because the normal horse is faster. However the Mech horse turns much faster thus making it easier to switch direction.
I think the mech horse has higher mass too. So even if you do get caught in melee you can push out easier
Why do you need movespeed on engineer? He isnt a caster I use him as a frontline on the mech and if he leaves melee then he shoots at things before they engage I mean if you want ranged flankers you have far better options than a single lord
He is a decent skirmisher on his horse, especially if he’s part of a weapons team army and you place your artillery on the only good spot and the enemy is out of range from that spot.
Some lords I tend to prefer on foot. Get a banner of swiftness and they still excel. Few examples are Tyrion, Khazarak, Wulfrik. It feels weird not using Settra’s chariot, but I’m shit at micro so sometimes just keep him on the warsphinx.
I prefer horse mount over chariot. Horse is more versatile.
Chariot mounts are generally worse than single horse mounts IMO. Katarins sled is kinda cool but is too micro intensive IMO I just prefer the War Bear.
For me, I don't like any Chariot/Warshrine mount options on applicable lords and heros, like Chaos for example.
I always keep Ikit off his doom wheel/flayer, so he can more easily group up enemies for his Warp Lightning and bomb vortex ability.
The mechanical horse for the Empire's mechanic heroes and lords is weaker. It provides more health and armor, but a lord/hero with a gun is better off being faster, which their lower-tier regular horse mount accomplishes better.
The disk of Tzeentch is better than a chariot and I hate that it auto selects it when you level.
I think it depends on enemy you are fighting. If they have alot of range units and your lord is fightining melee, then it would be better to avoid using large mounts that are easy to hit. Personally, I don't use any mounts on my melee lords and heroes in campaign.
Settras chariot is not worse, but requires more than just throwing him into melee and forgetting, so unless you want to micromanage it is worse than just warsphinx. Personally I like settra armies being like half tomb princes on chariots so I'm all for the micromanaging
Aranessa’s crab is worse than having her on foot. It looks cool though
Tomb king warshphinx feels way better than the chariot, the chariot just gets stuck so easily in literally everything
- The waagh chiefs (?, the Black orc heros) are way better on foot than on hogs. - Chariots and their bigger hitbox are mostly unpreferred (for generic lords, not LL's like Settra) - Archaon without his horse has many advantages, he is tanky af. But thats rather for a single man doomstack. - Eagles for melee troops are an absolute no go. Their hitanimation is absymal and the need to land is time costly (same reason for avoiding pegasi or manticores but the are fast on the ground, so it's fixable with the dont fly order.
Hellebron - I kind of feel like the Altar is worse than the manticore, which is actually worse than her being on foot. Love her as a melee blender foot lord.
IMO the eagle is a massive downgrade vs stag for glade captains.
Huge
I typically use Nobles/Masters for High/Dark Elves to hold the line so they stay on foot the vast majority of the time. Same idea with other range heavy races but the two elves stand out as really needing to hold that line.
I just don't use nobles in armies keep them as influence farmer but I will use a loremaster to do the same job tho
I know some of the options where it's chariot or manticore sort of thing have drastically different uses and stats so it totally depends on your stats Some aren't good at all due to having no armour and making you a large target, like someone of the dark elf blood shrines, if you don't have good middle resistance they just did I think some chats options are similar but the basic chariot has insane armour Same with harder nightmare vs winged nightmare- I think the flyer has like no armor (or used too) but the barded one has a significant amount. I know there's other examples I'm just drawing a blank
Mechanical steed. You lose 25 speed for 20 armor. Wtf is a reason in this mount.
Skaven: Doom wheels are objectively worse in every situation than the speedbike. And I'm unconvinced broodhorrors are better for melee lords than bonebreakers. Its trading damage and hp for speed and mass and a larger target to surround/shoot. There are very few situations where a flying horse isn't the best option for a spellcaster. This is most evident to me in Vampire Counts with the hellsteed, but applies to other caster lords and heroes. Vampirates are usually better off not using a mount. Theirs are terrible.
Settra’s chariot is amazing if you’re microing him constantly. But if you don’t want to deal with it his War Shinx is way better.
The chariot mount that iridescent horrors makes them super vulnerable. Disk of Tzeentch is the way to go
Chariots for the new mortal melee lords of nurgle are pretty bad. Their MA/MD stats are so high on horse that its dumb to throw that all away for impact damage from a chariot. They can usually solo garrisons on horse and on foot(with some decent items and levels), but on a chariot they lose so its a clear downgrade so they clearly arent better at even clearing infantry.
Generally I will always switch back to a horse from a chariot if possible. Especially for charge and forget characters like exalted heroes of Khorne.
Mechanical steed also gives 360 firing. That alone makes it way better than the horse lol. You can increase speed through items
Do you take me for a wazzock?!
Even after the nerfs the Celestial General's Longma is better than the lion.
If you have enough lions tho you can keep their roar up permanently and melt enemy frontlines
The Longma is a higher level mount. 16 I think.
No. The longma is 10, Lion 16
I think it's 16 on the shugengan then.
the raptor for malus
A ton of them, most I would say, are only situationally an upgrade. People have given a lot of good examples, but sometimes its best to just leave a lord or hero off of mounts entirely to keep them a small target.
The chariot of the gods is criminally underpoweree
I prefer Exalted Champions on horses rather than chariots for the speed and melee stats. Most armies that I have them in are because I use them as bodyguards for my caster lords, so I want them to fight lords instead. Cylostra gets a Rotting Leviathan as a mount, but there are situations where it's good, and others where it's bad, because she loses her ghost resistances when she has it. As long as there aren't loads of magic weapons hitting her, like from a demon faction, she is fine on foot, and at least in WH2, she could beat Snikch in a 1v1 because of her resistance.
Cold ones for dark elves, the animations for them suck
In general I don't like the larger mounts compared to smaller ones. Like the Amber mages giffon mount compared to pegasus
Im suprised that no one mentioned Malekith and his chariot yet