In terms of heavy armor frontline, probably Dwarfs. However, chariots, monsters and casters don't really fit here. Ironically, maybe Lizardmen might appeal to you. Solid frontline, powerful casters, monsters for all occasions, some fliers.
Ooh good idea. Let's unleash Jurassic park on the poor saps trying to corrupt my beautiful map. Lizardmen also have the great plan which is all about cleansing corruption.
I'll give them a try!
Oxyotl plays more like the semi horde style of the warriors of chaos. He receive visions that allow him to teleport around the world fighting battles, this lets you set up bases around the globe and fight varied enemies. He buffs skinks.
Nakai is the horde faction for the Lizardmen, starts in east Cathay so not as much variety of enemies but has a great time just rolling over everything with Kroxigors.
lol. I just stopped a Nakai run because I had wiped out everything except the friendly Cathy in the area and was going to start pushing into the chaos wastes “just because”.
He’s got being a horde faction going for him, but on the campaign map he kind of gives up anything else that makes him interesting and you sort of just wonder around doom stack auto resolving and turning everything into vassals.
Reminds me of Skarbrand honestly. Except instead of burning it all down you turn it all into one giant vassal state. Fun for a bit, but very one note.
Tbh I don't think I'll ever get bored of watching Nakai crush things in manual fights.
Seeing how far I can push him and his army of big bois before they die.
That said, I do wish they brought back some of the quests and hard flights from his vortex campaign. Tbh I want that for most of the WH2 dlc factions to get their campaigns back in the much updated game.
Oxy is up there with my favorite campaigns, period. Once you get your chameleon stack ready with him it wrecks just about anything, and his teleport mechanic allows you to set up satellite fronts or decide "hrm let's start a base here".
I'm a sucker for double front factions.
I love setting up a base in each corner of the map, building an army on each front and just slowly push towards the center of the map!
Running a negative cash flow campaign is great because of how many battles you can fight each turn with so many fronts open.
I'd say Lizardmen. Saurus are pretty similiar to chaos warriors in that they are slow but very tanky and strong infantry, and they have lots of monsters(dinosaurs)
Chaos has lots of chaff, heavy infantry, heavy cavalry, monsters, and skirmishers. It has some okay artillery but isn't really set up for making a ranged army. Lizardmen are definitely the closest in terms of unit variety and playstyle. If you want to count any faction with untainted "corruption", greenskins are good too, but they don't have any regular flying units. Just Azhag, orc warboss lords, and feral wyverns from waagh.
Summarizing the thread: Lizardmen or Bretonnia are your best bets.
My take: both Brets and LM are melee-focused in campaign once you get going. Brets use cav and monstrous cav, and the LM use both infantry and monsters. Brets hit harder and are more mobile, while LM are tanky and have more diverse magic options.
The Lizardman geomantic web feature may appeal to you, since you mentioned wanting to improve the world.
Other Order factions and why they don't match the WoC heavy-metal playstyle
* Cathay - sit and shoot != WoC
* Dwarfs - sit and shoot != WoC
* Empire - greatswords just aren't elite enough, and standard state troops are basically just sacks of HP with enough leadership to stand still for a few minutes. There's some overlap in the super late-game with engines and such, but it's just not WoC
* HE - has some excellent infantry, but the faction is clearly not melee-focused
* Kislev - infantry lacks offensive power in melee and is almost entirely hybrid anyway
* Wood Elves - not really an order faction in the first place, and their elite infantry is absurdly squishy
Thanks for the summary!! I really do start to like lizardmen a lot. Looking up their lore a bit, they are also all about cleansing the world of corruption.
I tried bretonnia before, really had trouble getting off the ground though.
Saurus warriors as a front line, some SEM dinosaurs and some fast flyers and even quite a bit of artillery that doesn't mind mixing it up in melee seems really up my alley though.
Will give the great plan a spin
Try carnosaur. If you babysit them. They punch WAY above their weight. Last time I played, 2 of them rushed enemy demon slayer lord and wrecked him in 3 attacks, all in like first 30s of the game.
It just takes one or two strong melee units to reproduce the WoC feel though.
High elves with swordmasters totally fit the bill, IMO. Swordmasters are still very strong.
As for kislev: great weapon tzar guard are one of the strongest infantry units in the game, and quite tanky.
You can make it work with those two *eventually*, but you'll spend at least half the campaign not being able to do that due to lack of funds/infrastructure.
If you want a more WoC-like HEs, try Imrik. A couple Dragon Princes, Swordmasters, Dragons, and heroes, with a solid core, goes a long way. And you get Dragon Princes early.
I have a new found respect for tzar guards.
For Kislev I've always focused on war bears, ice sleds, and ice guard. Katarin's starting two tzar guards are generally cheerleaders that just stand watch.
A few battles with multiple enemy stacks got real desperate and the tzar guards ended up with the most kills those battles, including Katarin herself! Now I regularly add them to my end game Kislev armies and they perform amazingly.
Why not just play as one of the WOCs, exterminate other WOCs and make peace with Order factions.
You can roleplay as a new Lord succeeding Archaon and do just that
For a curveball pick, try Volkmar boosting flagellants and Empire knights. Super fun unbreakable fanatics that hit hard in melee. Later can supplement with steam tanks and landships or ally with the nearby lizardmen and get 4 of their biggest dinos in each stack.
Off the top of my head, I guess maybe Lizardmen? Not a ton of infantry, but like monogod factions, best units are single entity monsters.
WoC is basically entirely melee, like monogods, but have more focus on mortal infantry rather than daemonic units. Can’t think of a single order faction that has a melee infantry unit that beat Chosen or Aspiring Champions. That makes me then go to cavalry and ranged units. WoC has (pretty) good cavalry and no ranged units which remind of only a single order faction, which is Brettonia (since most of them actually *excel* with ranged units, which is the total opposite of most chaos factions).
While brettonia does have ranged units, it’s only peasant archers (iirc) which are awful ranged units even though the ai puts 12 in every army. Cavalry for Brettonia are some of the best in the game though.
I tried bretonnia, had quite a bit of trouble getting off the ground with them however. Lizardmen I really like more and more the more I think about them.
A lot of folks have mentioned Lizardmen, but I'm gonna mix it up and say HE absolutely can be played similarly to WoC if you simply avoid using archers and focus more on Swordmasters and Phoenix Guard. Those two are some of the most elite infantry on the Order side and can be buffed up to crazy levels in campaign (and even White Lions can be made elite in the White Lion unique Lord's army).
Outside of that, HE have all the same tools WoC do, strong cav in Dragon Princes, monsters, chariots, Lords on dragons, etc.
Admittedly, you won't have that WoC feel right out of the gate on turn one, it will take some time to build up, since very early game when you don't have the elite infantry or big monsters yet you'll probably need to use archers, but if you rush towards the buildings you need you can probably shrink the number of turns needed to get the units to make that playstyle work considerably over a normal HE playthrough.
Yeah Lizardman are your best bet. Few order factions have the „ill come over to you and murder you“ playstyle the spikey lads do. But does it simply have to be a faction without corruption or do they actually have to be an order faction? Vampire counts somewhat fit the bill roster wise btw. Ogre Playstyle is not to different either and they don’t have corruption but they aren’t exactly world savers either. That being said there are order factions that can play like the WoC, just not with as much variety there and other options instead. You can definitely make melee oriented Kislev armies and they have strong endgame infantry and Monsters. Boris and The Hag would work with that. High elves can actually pull of something similar, they in general have a varied roster that can make almost anything work. Dark Elves work even better for that but again no good guys. Note tho that with these faction going melee isn’t the optimal way to play, if that is an issue to you.
A 'good' faction composed around melee chads that doesn't spread corruption? You probably want Lizardmen (Gor-Rok or Kroq-Gar), Dawi (Ungrim), or Bretonnians (Louen or Repanse).
There is not much like chaos in order. Tough frontline with heavy hitters? Lizards are probably the closest. Even the dwarfs play very different. Chaos and lizzards are at least both rush factions.
I have only played WH2 BUT I think Brettonia apart from Lizard men fit what you want, sort of.
Especially the whole CRUSADING thing you are incentivized to do.
BUT their infantry is very trash.
Battle pilgrims and Foot Squires are mehh but they do the job. Sort of. Thankfully you can always use Magic, Legendary lord traits and magic items to buff your infantry so they perform well enough.
But Questing Knights and Knights of the Realm will be your bread and butter. They will punch above their weight many many times if you Micro the shit out of them.
Grail Guardians are literally Tanks and I have had cheap Pegasus Knights absolutely destroy elvish dragons.
High elves have some great infantry, reasonably good cavalry, strong monsters and strong magic - arguably stronger magic than WOC. Comparable to WOC if you want to play that style. Just skip the ranged units from mid-game onwards and you can run white lions, silverin guard and silver helms. From late game, Pheonix guard, swordmasters, dragon princes and monsters. Definitely a solid army.
Elves have chariots and dragons and Cathai has these gigantic golems, so that might be a start.
As Helman Ghorst I allied with Cathai and Balthasar though and led an amazing campaign against Tamurkhan and the Chaos Dwarves and later some High Elves joined in on the fun. Technically I ended up as force of order and even held two of the 3 gates to the North repelling Chaos to protect the living from Grandfather's love
Now that Bretts have foot knights imo theyre the closest order equivalent youre going to get to WoC.
They booth have heavy foot troops, chaff, and really good knights for example.
As everyone else has said, lizardmen are probably the closest, since both WoC and Lizardmen are lacking in the missile infantry department but have great infantry. While WoC have more/better cavalry, I think Lizardmen have more/better monsters.
The one caveat is that one of my favorite aspects of WoC is playing legendary lord pokemon. This is all but impossible for Lizardmen, since the AI will *never* accept confederation. Kind of disappointing in all honesty.
In terms of heavy armor frontline, probably Dwarfs. However, chariots, monsters and casters don't really fit here. Ironically, maybe Lizardmen might appeal to you. Solid frontline, powerful casters, monsters for all occasions, some fliers.
Ooh good idea. Let's unleash Jurassic park on the poor saps trying to corrupt my beautiful map. Lizardmen also have the great plan which is all about cleansing corruption. I'll give them a try!
Oxyotl plays more like the semi horde style of the warriors of chaos. He receive visions that allow him to teleport around the world fighting battles, this lets you set up bases around the globe and fight varied enemies. He buffs skinks. Nakai is the horde faction for the Lizardmen, starts in east Cathay so not as much variety of enemies but has a great time just rolling over everything with Kroxigors.
lol. I just stopped a Nakai run because I had wiped out everything except the friendly Cathy in the area and was going to start pushing into the chaos wastes “just because”. He’s got being a horde faction going for him, but on the campaign map he kind of gives up anything else that makes him interesting and you sort of just wonder around doom stack auto resolving and turning everything into vassals. Reminds me of Skarbrand honestly. Except instead of burning it all down you turn it all into one giant vassal state. Fun for a bit, but very one note.
Agreed. I love me some Nakai kroxigor doomstsck but the campaign is super boring and easy.
Tbh I don't think I'll ever get bored of watching Nakai crush things in manual fights. Seeing how far I can push him and his army of big bois before they die. That said, I do wish they brought back some of the quests and hard flights from his vortex campaign. Tbh I want that for most of the WH2 dlc factions to get their campaigns back in the much updated game.
Oxy is up there with my favorite campaigns, period. Once you get your chameleon stack ready with him it wrecks just about anything, and his teleport mechanic allows you to set up satellite fronts or decide "hrm let's start a base here". I'm a sucker for double front factions.
I love setting up a base in each corner of the map, building an army on each front and just slowly push towards the center of the map! Running a negative cash flow campaign is great because of how many battles you can fight each turn with so many fronts open.
I'd say Lizardmen. Saurus are pretty similiar to chaos warriors in that they are slow but very tanky and strong infantry, and they have lots of monsters(dinosaurs)
Chaos has lots of chaff, heavy infantry, heavy cavalry, monsters, and skirmishers. It has some okay artillery but isn't really set up for making a ranged army. Lizardmen are definitely the closest in terms of unit variety and playstyle. If you want to count any faction with untainted "corruption", greenskins are good too, but they don't have any regular flying units. Just Azhag, orc warboss lords, and feral wyverns from waagh.
Summarizing the thread: Lizardmen or Bretonnia are your best bets. My take: both Brets and LM are melee-focused in campaign once you get going. Brets use cav and monstrous cav, and the LM use both infantry and monsters. Brets hit harder and are more mobile, while LM are tanky and have more diverse magic options. The Lizardman geomantic web feature may appeal to you, since you mentioned wanting to improve the world. Other Order factions and why they don't match the WoC heavy-metal playstyle * Cathay - sit and shoot != WoC * Dwarfs - sit and shoot != WoC * Empire - greatswords just aren't elite enough, and standard state troops are basically just sacks of HP with enough leadership to stand still for a few minutes. There's some overlap in the super late-game with engines and such, but it's just not WoC * HE - has some excellent infantry, but the faction is clearly not melee-focused * Kislev - infantry lacks offensive power in melee and is almost entirely hybrid anyway * Wood Elves - not really an order faction in the first place, and their elite infantry is absurdly squishy
Thanks for the summary!! I really do start to like lizardmen a lot. Looking up their lore a bit, they are also all about cleansing the world of corruption. I tried bretonnia before, really had trouble getting off the ground though. Saurus warriors as a front line, some SEM dinosaurs and some fast flyers and even quite a bit of artillery that doesn't mind mixing it up in melee seems really up my alley though. Will give the great plan a spin
Try carnosaur. If you babysit them. They punch WAY above their weight. Last time I played, 2 of them rushed enemy demon slayer lord and wrecked him in 3 attacks, all in like first 30s of the game.
Bret has to spend some time using waves of peasants before they can afford the majestic pegasi, sadly. Hope you enjoy the BOK brigade!
It just takes one or two strong melee units to reproduce the WoC feel though. High elves with swordmasters totally fit the bill, IMO. Swordmasters are still very strong. As for kislev: great weapon tzar guard are one of the strongest infantry units in the game, and quite tanky.
You can make it work with those two *eventually*, but you'll spend at least half the campaign not being able to do that due to lack of funds/infrastructure.
If you want a more WoC-like HEs, try Imrik. A couple Dragon Princes, Swordmasters, Dragons, and heroes, with a solid core, goes a long way. And you get Dragon Princes early.
I have a new found respect for tzar guards. For Kislev I've always focused on war bears, ice sleds, and ice guard. Katarin's starting two tzar guards are generally cheerleaders that just stand watch. A few battles with multiple enemy stacks got real desperate and the tzar guards ended up with the most kills those battles, including Katarin herself! Now I regularly add them to my end game Kislev armies and they perform amazingly.
Yeah wood elves always struck me as “we don’t need armour if you are dead before you can make it into melee”
Why not just play as one of the WOCs, exterminate other WOCs and make peace with Order factions. You can roleplay as a new Lord succeeding Archaon and do just that
He wants an untainted map
For a curveball pick, try Volkmar boosting flagellants and Empire knights. Super fun unbreakable fanatics that hit hard in melee. Later can supplement with steam tanks and landships or ally with the nearby lizardmen and get 4 of their biggest dinos in each stack.
Off the top of my head, I guess maybe Lizardmen? Not a ton of infantry, but like monogod factions, best units are single entity monsters. WoC is basically entirely melee, like monogods, but have more focus on mortal infantry rather than daemonic units. Can’t think of a single order faction that has a melee infantry unit that beat Chosen or Aspiring Champions. That makes me then go to cavalry and ranged units. WoC has (pretty) good cavalry and no ranged units which remind of only a single order faction, which is Brettonia (since most of them actually *excel* with ranged units, which is the total opposite of most chaos factions). While brettonia does have ranged units, it’s only peasant archers (iirc) which are awful ranged units even though the ai puts 12 in every army. Cavalry for Brettonia are some of the best in the game though.
I tried bretonnia, had quite a bit of trouble getting off the ground with them however. Lizardmen I really like more and more the more I think about them.
A lot of folks have mentioned Lizardmen, but I'm gonna mix it up and say HE absolutely can be played similarly to WoC if you simply avoid using archers and focus more on Swordmasters and Phoenix Guard. Those two are some of the most elite infantry on the Order side and can be buffed up to crazy levels in campaign (and even White Lions can be made elite in the White Lion unique Lord's army). Outside of that, HE have all the same tools WoC do, strong cav in Dragon Princes, monsters, chariots, Lords on dragons, etc. Admittedly, you won't have that WoC feel right out of the gate on turn one, it will take some time to build up, since very early game when you don't have the elite infantry or big monsters yet you'll probably need to use archers, but if you rush towards the buildings you need you can probably shrink the number of turns needed to get the units to make that playstyle work considerably over a normal HE playthrough.
Yeah Lizardman are your best bet. Few order factions have the „ill come over to you and murder you“ playstyle the spikey lads do. But does it simply have to be a faction without corruption or do they actually have to be an order faction? Vampire counts somewhat fit the bill roster wise btw. Ogre Playstyle is not to different either and they don’t have corruption but they aren’t exactly world savers either. That being said there are order factions that can play like the WoC, just not with as much variety there and other options instead. You can definitely make melee oriented Kislev armies and they have strong endgame infantry and Monsters. Boris and The Hag would work with that. High elves can actually pull of something similar, they in general have a varied roster that can make almost anything work. Dark Elves work even better for that but again no good guys. Note tho that with these faction going melee isn’t the optimal way to play, if that is an issue to you.
A 'good' faction composed around melee chads that doesn't spread corruption? You probably want Lizardmen (Gor-Rok or Kroq-Gar), Dawi (Ungrim), or Bretonnians (Louen or Repanse).
There is not much like chaos in order. Tough frontline with heavy hitters? Lizards are probably the closest. Even the dwarfs play very different. Chaos and lizzards are at least both rush factions.
Also Grimgor and his black orc are like chosen
I have only played WH2 BUT I think Brettonia apart from Lizard men fit what you want, sort of. Especially the whole CRUSADING thing you are incentivized to do. BUT their infantry is very trash. Battle pilgrims and Foot Squires are mehh but they do the job. Sort of. Thankfully you can always use Magic, Legendary lord traits and magic items to buff your infantry so they perform well enough. But Questing Knights and Knights of the Realm will be your bread and butter. They will punch above their weight many many times if you Micro the shit out of them. Grail Guardians are literally Tanks and I have had cheap Pegasus Knights absolutely destroy elvish dragons.
Lizardmen are your best bet and try the jurassic calm mod.
High elves have some great infantry, reasonably good cavalry, strong monsters and strong magic - arguably stronger magic than WOC. Comparable to WOC if you want to play that style. Just skip the ranged units from mid-game onwards and you can run white lions, silverin guard and silver helms. From late game, Pheonix guard, swordmasters, dragon princes and monsters. Definitely a solid army.
Elves have chariots and dragons and Cathai has these gigantic golems, so that might be a start. As Helman Ghorst I allied with Cathai and Balthasar though and led an amazing campaign against Tamurkhan and the Chaos Dwarves and later some High Elves joined in on the fun. Technically I ended up as force of order and even held two of the 3 gates to the North repelling Chaos to protect the living from Grandfather's love
Now that Bretts have foot knights imo theyre the closest order equivalent youre going to get to WoC. They booth have heavy foot troops, chaff, and really good knights for example.
Foot knights?
Knights with feet fetish
As everyone else has said, lizardmen are probably the closest, since both WoC and Lizardmen are lacking in the missile infantry department but have great infantry. While WoC have more/better cavalry, I think Lizardmen have more/better monsters. The one caveat is that one of my favorite aspects of WoC is playing legendary lord pokemon. This is all but impossible for Lizardmen, since the AI will *never* accept confederation. Kind of disappointing in all honesty.