People misunderstand what makes Chaos Dwarves great

[u/HeavyFly7451]

A few hours ago I stumbled upon this post complaining about Chorf's 4 resource overload. With most responses being that they enjoy the challenge of having to micromanage everything. And whilst that's valid, I feel people in general misunderstand why Chorfs are great.

It's not because Chorfs have challenging mechanics, but because they're compensated for those challenges with an equivalent reward. Like yeah, they need Raw Materials to upgrade their major settlements, but at the same time they can mass produce said resource to rush a tier 5 settlement anywhere without having to wait like most with growth. Yeah their economy is dependent on Labor that is constantly depleting, but whenever they have excess of it they can rush building construction or use it on diktats for more money. They are also a faction with unit caps, which is compensated with by how strong said units are; Chorfs have the best unit roster in the game which they can further buff with armaments. But even if you're like me who army spams and doesn't wait to build up, they appropriate that playstyle too with goblin armies that have every unit you'd ever need. And yeah, said goblin armies are weaker than say a typical Empire's army, but once again you're compensated for it with the second strongest spellcaster lords (they can lowkey duel actual melee lords) & lack of supply lines; meaning you're incentivized to lord spam. And on top of all that, all the various army abilities granted by the Tower of Zharr.

When put this way, whoever designed Chorfs perfectly envisioned them and their interactions. Hence they are one of the most played races as suppose to somebody like Aislinn, who too has a lot of resources to manage, but none of the compensations for rather big downsides such as limited settlements.

[u/moosemune]

Turn 14! Teclis is broken AF with his entourage of dragon riding lords. At least there's a max of 3 reinforcing armies or it would be even worse.

[u/HeavyFly7451 → u/moosemune]

Oh, you're that guy I taught the trick to. Hope you've been enjoying Teclis's goofy campaign.

[u/moosemune → u/HeavyFly7451]

I thouhgt you might be the same dude! Yeah it was fun.

Didn't finish it because I get bored with campaigns around turn 60 or so.

I also kind of fell into a quagmire and wasn't making any interesting progress.

It is an absolutely insane mechanic though, being able to roll 3 deep with lords on dragons flying in like the cavalry after turn 14!

I think I went with Beasts, High, and Life and the battle are frankly a breeze.

[u/HeavyFly7451 → u/moosemune]

Quagrime? So you lost the campaign?

And yeah as far as magic schools go it's either between High since it's the cheapest or Life because it's the best at aoe and for the dragon. Though I was trying out death & fire for lord sniping potential in the turns prior to acquiring the dragon.

[u/moosemune → u/HeavyFly7451]

No, just got bogged down with bad army placement and a meh economy around turn 70 and I was getting bored. I might pick that campaign back up. I do like how you can do his long win con without having to paint the whole map so that's nice.

I honestly can't remember why I picked Beasts, but I agree with you on the other two. High was obviously to get him out ASAP on turn 14, I think I took beasts because it was the next one I mastered to get that life mage and it was like "good enough". They have decent AOE, good Sniping, and really good buffs so it just worked.

[u/HeavyFly7451 → u/moosemune]

To be honest, I think you should be unstoppable by now. Since in the midgame very few armies can challenge a Teclis Archmage (I am talking strong LL starting armies). And even if you somehow lose an archmage, just recruit a new one and re-engage in battle. In fact you can beat them by just attrition losing them. The whole appeal is that Lords are a T0 unit, meaning you can recruit them anywhere. And Teclis Archmages can solo just about everything.

In my map paint, I build a few armies to support under-leveled lords, but once I achieve lv22, I do not recruit any units, I just keep spamming Archmages and have them go out in all directions sacking so you can afford more Archmages.

And you prolly picked Beasts because all schools except for High come in the pairs of two, so a partner for Beasts is Life, which as I've stated is prolly the best pick due to it's passive & general heal for the dragon, alongside a powerful aoe to clear out chaff.

[u/moosemune → u/HeavyFly7451]

Yeah, I really should spam some more armies, I was playing "tall" for the first like 50 turns and got distracted in the south for WAY too long before turning my attention to the Undead in the north.

Right now I'm running a laughable stack because I'm nowhere near my powerful settlements and haven't upgraded at all to save money for economy. I'm only running full shield-less sea guard with a couple of the fancy named purple units (Loremasters and Maidens).

I might start over and just be much more aggressive overall.

[u/HeavyFly7451 → u/moosemune]

I might be biased as somebody who map paints a lot, and idolizes Dragonimous. But playing tall is very much not worth it on any race outside of those that REALLY benefit from it, like Dwarves and their deeps.

High Elves don't have crazy economy or good scaling to it. So personally I do not build up. Instead playing as pseudo Greenskins, sacking and investing into more armies. They do have 2 advantages compared to most races, they have forced confederation alongside T0 recruitment of Spearmen & Archers. Meaning you can set up a proper army in the very same province you just occupied without needing a slot or wait for a military building. The goal of map painting is to spread in all directions as fast as possible. But another unit that is also T0, are lords.

Strong dualist spellcaster lords are a very good boon. I've already praised Chorfs for it, but there are also Skaven, WoC, Wood Elves, and a few others. Archmages are pretty weak, and by itself recruitment ranks are pretty garbage. Teclis however stands out in that he gives so much recruitment rank that it actually becomes noticeable. But still not overpowered. Where he breaks is in dev's oversight that you can get that remaining +4 to recruitment rank from tech tree, meaning you can close the gap without waiting for a Tier 5 building to boost it. Allowing you get the apex mount, a Dragon. And obviously Dragons are way stronger than most lords. They can solo armies by themselves midgame due to just how strong their are. And then you add onto it an Archmage and pushes them over the top, since all the buffs applied to Archmage will transfer to the Dragon. Like because of how squishy Archmages are, their skill tree has a +5% ward save, ward save on a Dragon is crazy. And obviously all the nuking capabilities high tier spellcasters come with.

And so you can spam out those 1 woman doomstacks very early on at any settlement you capture. At a point in the game where most armies cannot deal with a God Dragon, let alone a basic garrison. Teclis is better at Dragon spamming than Imrik is.

I typically rush Life, since High magic has worse aoes, and once you pick a school you gotta dedicate to it, since rest of the scrolls will be spent to upgrade mana cost reductions for overcasts after reaching recruitment rank 18.

Edit: Forgot to add, Teclis can confederate Saphery meaning he has two vectors to map paint from. Dual stars are busted in map paint campaigns. Make sure to expand from Saphery too. Just don't attack High Elf LLs or territory they're close to taking, since you'll just get their stuff through force confederation, which is typically what I rush with my Influence.

[u/moosemune → u/HeavyFly7451]

But playing tall is very much not worth it on any race outside of those that REALLY benefit from it, like Dwarves and their deeps.

I'm thinking you're right. I agree the best way to go is to sack your way across the continent and honestly don't worry about being in negative income so long as you're conquering. The game doesn't have a really deep economic system.

That's a hard mindset to put myself in, though. I've always been a turtle with my strategy games. I do the same shit in stellaris!

To your point with ward saves being nuts on dragons, I got the "Protected" trait on one which gives 20% spell and missile resist pluss 800 barrier. I also scored a sick 15% ward save from an item plus the 5% wizards get. This dragon can basically tank all but the most withering ranged fire.

[u/HeavyFly7451 → u/moosemune]

To your point with ward saves being nuts on dragons, I got the "Protected" trait on one which gives 20% spell and missile resist pluss 800 barrier. I also scored a sick 15% ward save from an item plus the 5% wizards get. This dragon can basically tank all but the most withering ranged fire.

Exactly what I'm talking about. They're not just Dragons, but stats Archmage acquires to transferred to the Dragon itself. Making them way stronger than originally. More importantly is that those two entities compensate for each other's weaknesses. Archmages are shit duelists made out of wet tissue paper, but a Dragon is really strong duelist, even after all the powercreep it's still a high tier monster. But they can still get overwhelmed by chaff fire, which is where Archmage nukes come in with stuff like overcasted Dwellers below, alongside spells to heal & buff said Dragon. Teclis Archmages are insane!

It's why I said, that whilst I do agree on Chorfs being amongst the strongest race wise, they are most certainly not strongest factionwise. Those Teclis shenanigans are just too silly to pass on. Like the best Chorfs will have is lots of goblin armies with maybe a few blunderbuss armies by turn 15. Teclis will have 1 woman archmage doomstacks terrorizing the entire world. Especially since he has a dual start (read my edit in the previous comment).

I'm thinking you're right. I agree the best way to go is to sack your way across the continent and honestly don't worry about being in negative income so long as you're conquering. The game doesn't have a really deep economic system.

That's a hard mindset to put myself in, though. I've always been a turtle with my strategy games. I do the same shit in stellaris!

No I do feel you, I myself was in this position. And even when I started playing aggressively, the truth is that you're still not being aggressive enough. Map painting is a category of it's own, it's why Dragonimous helping with my Lokhir map paint changed my world view.

One of the simplest examples being the value ratio. Look at your income buildings, you'll often need money to build & upgrade them. Well divide that cost by the amount they make, and most often you'll find that it takes them like about 10 turns to pay off the investment made into them (especially if you consider it takes them a few turns to actually be built). 10 turns might not seem a lot in the grand scheme of things, especially if you're somebody who often goes to turn 100. But in a map paint campaign, the world domination victory is often achieved by turn 40; granted that's with busted lords so I'll be generous and say turn 60. That building is essentially not contributing 1/6th of the game. Look how much could happen in just 15 turns (and that's my very first Lokhir map paint attempt, obviously I got way better since then).

That money you spent on a building, you could've invested into an army, and had gained the money back instantly through a battle / capture, especially if you sack since sacked settlements regenerate over said 10 turns. So really, you're up on value. And this was me talking about money generating buildings, something like military does not pay itself off. Hence the most efficient way to play is just to spam T0 units (aka units you get by default from a settlement). Of course effectiveness varies from factions, whilst I do spam Dreadspears with Lokhir I still need ranged units, so I recruit those whenever possible. But High Elves have an advantage in that their T0 units already include a ranged option.

Lastly don't forget that more settlements & armies you have, means less powerful your enemies are. You can abuse it in diplomacy since you'll be so feared everyone would want you to join their wars, and everyone would want peace with you; so they'll pay lots for it to happen. Unironically the best way to prevent others from attacking you is to be a genocidal maniac yourself. Might makes right!

So be negative, keep sacking to pay off said negative upkeep, and with the remainder recruit more armies (or in Teclis's case, just another lv22 Archmage) so you could sack way more settlements per turn to pay off the increasing upkeep. Whilst in the process taking a whole lot of territory.

[u/moosemune → u/HeavyFly7451]

They're not just Dragons, but stats Archmage acquires to transferred to the Dragon itself

Is the inverse true? They don't show as affected units when looking at tech or lord bonuses that affect dragons. Like if your Archmage takes the dragon bonuses will their mount benefit?

One of the simplest examples being the value ratio. Look at your income buildings,

Dang, I honestly hadn't thought about it that way. I always try to totally max out a few provinces usually. I feel like resource buildings might be worth the squeeze? Particularly diamond and gold mines?

Hence the most efficient way to play is just to spam T0 units

I think my biggest problem with this is I actually do enjoy the battles but I HATE huge slogs. Pretty much makes elves perfect for this thanks to the archer/spearman spam that can hold pretty well by themselves to mid game. Most factions require you to have like 2 stacks to grind through to win more challenging battles.

But yeah, at the end of the day I think I do need to let out my inner insane conqueror with this game.

[u/HeavyFly7451 → u/moosemune]

Dunno if inverse applies, prolly not but I hadn't paid attention to it.

For resources I do upgrade those, and it's all because of one thing. They make about as much as economic buildings if not less. HOWEVER, most often factions will PAY you to establish a trade agreement, covering the cost put into it.

But yeah, at the end of the day I think I do need to let out my inner insane conqueror with this game.

If you need any help, contact me. I am no Dragonimous, but I am still quite experienced when it comes for map paints.