I like full stack vs full stack and small skirmishes, but what I really like is full stack versus half stack 
What happens if the opponent simply has fewer soldiers? They make each unit size smaller?
Not sure what you’re asking.
If you’re talking about combat losses then yes, that’s been a staple of the series since #1. Each unit is bought with X individual soldiers in it, and if Y of them die in a given battle they stay dead, so next time that army takes the field it’ll start with one unit of X-Y guys instead. Since it’s typically advantageous to still have them in a 3 or 4 rank-deep formation, it essentially means that this particular unit will be narrower, deal less damage and be able to take less before the panic starts.
To counteract that you can either merge multiple depleted units into a full one, or go home and wait as each turn within friendly territory every unit in an army is slowly re-filled with fresh guys.
The game doesn’t require full sack versus full stack, and doesn’t do any sort of rebalancing if there’s a troop imbalance. You can still have one full stack drop on a single half strength unit and squash them like a bug. But changes to how you raise and move armies make that rarer than it used to be.
The army mechanic introduced in Rome II requires that each and every army be led by a general, and generals are a limited research. Armies are mustered directly by the General (not in a city) and can’t move independently of a general. The practical effects of this is that you tend not to move armies around on the board until you’ve built them up to a full stack. Full versus half stack battles tend to happen mostly because someone’s full stack just got mauled, and they couldn’t retreat to a city before getting attacked a second time.
Thanks. I never played either Rome. I’d probably dislike that mechanic intensely, since it was fairly annoying to have limited generals even when I didn’t need them to move, like when I played the unlocked Papacy in MTW:2, and when you needed generals to get governance bonuses like in MTW:1.
I’ll still probably pick it up if I get around to it but my enthusiasm just decreased somewhat.
At least not all full stacks are createc equal. A stack with mostly infantry and missile cavalry isn’t going to fare well against an army with artillery, demigryph knights, and steam tanks.
I might just be getting close to winning my first campaign. I’ve eliminated the Warriors of Chaos faction (I’m glad to see that doing so gets rid of that damned global Chaos corruption effect). Skaen and Varg are on the ropes. I’ve never had hostilities with the Vampire Counts, but they only control two provinces. My only real concern is that the Greenskins seem to be running rampant in the south; they’ve been winning against the Dwarfs, and I think they’re approaching my territory while most of my forces are up north. I’ve raised a single army and sent it south, to guard a mountain pass along my border.
In my last few battles, my infantry hasn’t been terribly impressive. I’m seriously considering replacing them entirely with demigryphs (at least in one army). Man oh man, are demigryphs fierce. The only real downsides I can think of are a) cost, and b) for some reason, siege tanks don’t count as artillery for the purposes of initiating assaults on walled settlements (even though they can knock down walls just fine). That’d be a strange-looking (field) army, by Total War standards: Very compact; no infantry guarding the siege units, lots of small-even-for-cavalry units.
I just hope they patch that issue with the siege tanks. Or at least I hope the game lets me build a battering ram that nobody in my army can use and then initiate an assault.
I’ve been thinking of trying something with arty actually. Instead of having it on the main hero (which slows the whole army down 25%) have a second hero follow him with all the boomchuckers. Main hero only moves 75% then ambushes, while the visible, weak all-arty unit acts as bait for any would-be comedian.
Kinda wastes the “quick charge while they’re disorganized” part of the ambush as the arty will take forever to get into position but…
So far, this is only armchair generaling though. Vamps don’t have arty. Vamps don’t need arty - the answer is always more Terrorgeists. If the answer is not more Terrorgeists, the question is wrong 
Dwarfs are a lot of fun, but with the unit research upgrades their real killer units are basically tier 1 and 2. Longbeards and Quarrelers have been all I needed for the entire campaign. Irondrakes are fun and having an Ironbreaker unit to shore up any weak spot in the line is a good idea, but not really necessary.
And their artillery is meh. 
Loses ten points from me for that alone.
How’s this game stacking up to other TW games in y’all’s opinions?
I’ve been watching some videos. About graphics: I feel like this game is less graphically cool than Attila. Full settings on Attila seems to be very dark and brooding and realistic looking from a distance, while full settings on Warhammer seem a bit garish and cartoony. Do I have the wrong impression? Watching the wrong videos?
But anyway also, how’s gameplay? The last TW game I played was Shogun 2, which I played the hell out of in both single and multiplayer. They had this really interesting multiplayer mode which played out a little bit like a campaign on each individual’s end but that campaign was really more like kind of a menu of battle instances. Anything like that in Warhammer?
I wish I could answer your questions but this is the first Total War game I’ve played. I can tell you that the only time I haven’t been playing since it came out I have been at work, sleeping or pooping.
Probably not the kind of dragon RandMcnally had in mind but orcs have Dragon Ogre Shaggoth.
The person who posted that said it regularly kills whole stacks by itself and with the various buffs it has it usually ends with more HP than it started.
EDIT: Actually it is Chaos it seems.
That’s what ward save does? This game doesn’t have great tooltips. Also, I wish I could find a page that has a compilation of the various types of hero actions.
Yeah, the game’s in-game “encyclopedia” is worse than useless - “this troop has a special trait called so-and-so”. Hum, ok, what the fuck does it do, game ?! I’m guessing (from the tabletop’s mechanics) that a ward save is a %chance to simply shrug off an attack ; but I dunno for sure. Similarly, I would really like to know the difference between “weapon damage” and “weapon power” on the unit cards. I’m WAGging that final damage = weapon damage - (target armour - weapon power) but…
It’s even worse for agents/heroes, because while all four of the agents can do some of the same actions, they’re *far *from equally good at them. But would it *tell *you what each agent’s general role is ? Like hell it would ! So far I’ve puzzled that the Wight Lords are somewhat better at training troops and passively boosting provinces but rubbish at spreading vampiric corruption ; and Banshees are assassins/protectors but that’s about it.
I expect that there’s some sort of rock-paper-scissors element to heroes assassinating other heroes. I doubt any player knows the particulars.
There is a detailed description of almost everything if you just hover the mouse over it.
I’ve been less than impressed by it too. It doesn’t really tell me anything useful besides “handgunners are a missile unit”. Yes, thanks, I know that - how do they compare to crossbowmen? In previous games, the encylopedia made it very clear that (for example) crossbowmen had a good rate of fire and could defend themselves at close range, while arquebusiers had slow rate of fire and limited defence, but would seriously fuck up any unit hit by one of their volleys.
And what’s the difference between Dwarf Warriors and Dwarf Miners? Their stats seem near enough identical.
This is a good game, but it’s considerably more complex than it appears and the Warhammer universe probably doesn’t have quite the general recognition the designers think it does. I don’t know anything about it beyond “Slightly more steampunky-LOTR” and I’ve never met anyone who plays the tabletop game.
Basically, in previous games they assumed players knew nothing about the Sengoku Jidai or Medieval Europe; this time IMO around there seems to be an underlying assumption you’ve got some sort of familiarity with the game’s universe.
The one main difference I have been able to discern is crossbowmen can arc their fire over intervening troops. Guns shoot in a straight line.
So, if you have a unit in front of your gun units (not cannons) you will hit your own guys in the back. Crossbowmen will shoot over guys in front of them though.
Just an FYI…I am sure there is a lot more I am missing.
Guns are usually armor piercing while arrows or quarrels are not.
That’s sort of my point - this sort of thing should be clearly and prominently in the in-game encylopedia, not left to people to try and work out on messageboards.