Total War Warhammer 2 Best Race
Total War: WARHAMMER II. All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos Workshop News Guides Reviews. What do people find as the best unit for each race? And for campaign wise as well not just end tier units so what unit have you found most successful before end tier units. Total War: WARHAMMER II - Meet the races battling for the Great Vortex. By Sam Jones - 7th Dec 2018Games. What do these races.
Whether you know them as Druchii, Nagarrothi, or Dark Ones, there’s no mistaking the savagery and cruelty of Warhammer’s Dark Elves. Their leadership, army roster, and campaign mechanics reflect their twisted nature, so if you’re not a murderous slaver yourself, you’ll want a rundown of how they work. You’ll want this handy Total War: Warhammer II Dark Elves guide.
- Prefer rats? Sneak-scheme your way to domination with our Total War: Warhammer 2 Skaven race guide.
- Agent of the Old Ones? Enact the Great Plan with our Total War: Warhammer 2 Lizardmen guide.
- Superiority complex? Put the Asur back on top with our Total War: Warhammer 2 High Elves guide.
- You can read our full review of Total War: Warhammer 2 here.
After something specific? We’ve broken our Dark Elf guide down into the following sections to make it easier for you to find your way around:
Dark Elves Legendary Lords
Malekith, Witch King of Naggaroth
Malekith is the son of Aenarion the Defender, the High Elves’ first Phoenix King. Accordingly, he felt he should inherit the throne of Ulthuan, their island paradise, but its princes passed him over to elect Bel Shanaar, the Explorer. Malekith served Bel Shanaar loyally for a while, but eventually tired of it, had him poisoned, and tried to seize the throne for himself. A bitter civil war followed, in the midst of which Malekith stepped into the sacred flames of Asuryan, which anoint each Phoenix King. Contrary to his expectations, they rejected him, scarring him horribly. Eventually he and his followers were driven from Ulthuan to settle in the bleak and frozen land of Naggaroth, where they indulged their hatred, spite, and vanity, becoming the Dark Elves. Malekith has ruled them as their Witch King ever since.
Malekith is skilled in both might and magic, wields a number of powerful magic items, and rides a black dragon named Seraphon into battle. In Total War: Warhammer II, Malekith leads the Naggarond faction. Here are his unique effects:
- Diplomatic relations: +30 with Cult of Pleasure
- Malekith gives a percentage of XP earned to other Lords
- Increased chance of loyalty loss for any Lords who attain higher rank than Malekith
- Starts the game with some Black Guard of Naggarond and a Reaper Bolt Thrower
Morathi, his mum
Aenarion the Defender rescued Morathi, a seemingly innocent elven damsel in distress, from a band of Chaos cultists. Given what happened next, she may have fallen to Chaos shortly thereafter, or may have been their leader all along.
Either way, it was Morathi who founded the Cult of Pleasure, an insidious sect dedicated to the Chaos God Slaanesh who ultimately caused the Sundering of the elven race. The Cult’s influence spread throughout Ulthuan, turning its nobility to indolent hedonism and sparking a civil war. After Morathi’s son by Aenarion, Malekith, was passed over for the throne in favour of Bel Shanaar, Morathi watered the seeds of resentment in his heart until he made an attempt on the throne. She threw her Cult’s weight behind her son, escalating the civil war, but they were ultimately defeated and driven to Naggaroth.
Morathi is now a powerful sorceress. She rides the dark pegasus Sulephet into battle and is protected by the favour of the dark gods, rather than, er, conventional armour. Or clothing. In Total War: Warhammer II, she leads the Cult of Pleasure faction. Here are her unique effects:
- Spreads Chaos corruption
- Diplomatic relations: +20 with Dark Elves
- Hero action cost: -50%
- On turn start, Lords in Morathi’s region have a chance to gain loyalty
- Starts the game with some Harpies and a War Hydra
Dark Elves Slaves
Dark Elves use gold like other races, and they’ll aim to collect Scrolls of Hekarti in order to disrupt Ulthuan’s Vortex (the Elven pantheon is divided into negative and positive aspects, andHekartiis the negative aspect of magic). Tablecurve 2d free download.
But because they’re not very nice people and don’t like to get their own hands dirty, they have a unique third currency: Slaves. Yes, CA went there, so now we have to as well. You have the option to acquire slaves after battles or when sacking enemy settlements, which seems to be the most lucrative ‘source’.
Slaves are distributed around your empire’s provinces. The more a province has, the more gold its settlements will produce, but if you have too many, public order will suffer. Dark Elf settlements have some buildings that raise a province’s slave capacity, increase their slaves’ gold output, and decrease slaves’ rate of decline (nicer dungeons, I guess). You can manage slave populations in a new menu, giving provinces high, low, or normal priority as destinations for new captives.
This makes for some interesting choices. Got a province that’s high in public order? Kit it out to support slaves and get raiding, but keep them away from places where the populace is already unhappy. It’s a characterful nudge to stay appropriately violent when playing Dark Elves, as lots of slaves, correctly managed, will result in a supercharged economy.
Slaves are also the currency for the Dark Elves’ rites, which you can see above. New to Warhammer II, each race gets four of these campaign-level power moves. Currencies, cooldowns, and unlock conditions are as varied as their effects, but one obvious note to make about the Dark Elf rites is that these are how you’ll recruit Black Arks.
Dark Elves Black Arks
In the lore, Black Arks are colossal floating fortresses built on the backs of summoned sea monsters. They’re never seen in the tabletop game for obvious reasons, yet it wouldn’t have felt right for them to be absent from Total War – the new context of a grand strategy game presents intreresting challenges like that.
Black Arks are, essentially, mobile settlements; they have their own building trees, ten building slots, and can recruit units to an army of their own. They can also support nearby armies via the Dread Expansion stance, which projects a sphere of influence – all Dark Elf armies within it get +10% replenishment, and can recruit units directly from the Black Ark. The stance renders the Ark immobile, and slows its own replenishment.
Lastly, Black Arks can also provide bombardment support for nearby Dark Elf land battles. The system is exactly the same as it was in Shogun II: Total War, lead writer Andy Hall says – you can see it in action in this battle.
In summary, whenever you fight a battle within range of a Black Ark, you’ll be able to target bombardments much as you would spells. Several types are offered via a menu at the side of the screen, from concentrated fire attacks to wide-ranging splash damage – it’s likely that building upgrades on the Ark will unlock new bombardment types. Each appears to have three charges, and to be on an eight-second cooldown.
Dark Elves Names of Power
Speaking with PCGamesN at Gamescom 2017, Hall also revealed a neat mechanic for Dark Elf characters.
“The way Dark Elves name themselves – it’s not hereditary,” he says. “That’s why they’ve got all these cool names like ‘Soulstealer’ and ‘Knifestabber’. You can name your Dark Elves, and you can give them a Noble Name, or a Warrior Name, or – I think – a Sage Name. You then have to perform. You’ve got to live up to the expectation of that name, and if you do, you get these big buffs.”
Those three Names of Power are mutually exclusive choices in your Lords’ skill trees, and you’ll be able to pick one when the Lord reaches a certain level. Martial names buff your character’s combat skills, Revered names buff their army, and Aristocratic names buff either the local province or the faction as a whole on the campaign map.
One Aristocratic name we see in this Dark Elf campaign gameplay confers +8 local public order, and +5% gold income from settlements in all regions.
And yet, it seems that these Names of Power can go to your characters’ heads; Hall confirms that “Dark Elves have the same loyalty problems” as the Skaven (though a loyalty meter, like we saw on Skaven Lords, isn’t obvious in the Dark Elf gameplay).
Dark Elves Army Roster
The Dark Elves have a lot of similar units to their High kin – whether they want to admit it or not – but most have a nastier, more aggressive twist. For instance, the Black Guard of Naggarond are the harder-hitting counterparts of the Phoenix Guard – though they both share the same role in their respective armies, the Phoenix Guard are more defensive in nature.
But the Dark Elves aren’tsolelyan angrier mirror of the Asur. They have some monsters and iconic units that are all their own, such as quick-healing Hydras, frenzied Witch Elves and seafaring Black Ark Corsairs. For a full run-down, check out theTotal War: Warhammer 2 Dark Elf army roster.
Dark Elves Murderous Prowess
In battle as the Dark Elves, you’ll notice apurple bar at the top of the screen. That represents progress towards the ‘Murderous Prowess’ ability, which triggers when enough enemy units die, representing the Dark Elves’ tendency to lapse into an orgy of killing. When Murderous Prowess pops, it grants +25% melee attack, +15 leadership, +25% charge bonus, +20% armour piercing missile damage (if applicable), and +30% vigour. Some units have a higher tier of this ability, called Murderous Mastery, which means they also cause Fear.
This is obviously massive, especially the bit about vigour – units are significantly less effective when they’re tired. It should be possible to hold back a deadly spell or a high-impact charge until you’re right on the edge of Murderous Prowess, so as to pop it at a crucial time – you can see this in action in this Let’s Play, where a Black Ark bombardment triggers Murderous Prowess just as a unit of Dark Riders smashes into a group of High Elf archers. That’s a whole flank gone.
There are few experiences in the strategy genre that are as satisfying as a Total War game. The ebb and flow of high intensity battles and low key logistical campaigning feed into an ever-evolving world of changing circumstances, creating an exciting adventure that feels completely different every time you load back into a playthrough. However, solo play only goes so far -- “everything's better with friends”, goes the maxim, and Total War proves it.
About six years ago, I began my first Total War co-op campaign. I had already tried Napoleon’s multiplayer with friends, but the competitive-only focus put us off and essentially turned an engaging campaign into a hundred-hours long PvP session. After Shogun 2 came out, we decided to give it another try, and never looked back.
Thanks to the unique mix of real time engagements and turn-based strategy, Total War games capture the same enrapturing flow of XCOM and the 'one more turn' temptation of Sid Meier's Civilization without their respective burnout intensity and long stretches of nothingness. It's perfectly balanced for multiple long sessions, and that magic superbly translates into co-op without missing a beat.
The campaign plays pretty much the same in multiplayer as it does in single player, with each faction taking turns one after the other. Co-op players are tied in an unbreakable alliance and get full view of each other’s land and units, allowing them to keep track of happenings in foreign lands. During battles, players can share command of troops, with the owner of the forces gifting units at will to his partner at any point during the engagement. It’s flexible, robust, and frankly, perfect.
During my latest Warhammer II playthrough, I took the role of the High Elf Tyrion, Heir of Aeneris and commander of the forces of Ulthuan. A friend of mine, forced by Warhammer II’s Eye of the Vortex requirement, played as the twin brother Teclis, the High Loremaster of Hoeth looking for ritual way stones on the other side of the globe. When the campaign started, we were literally half a world away from each other, with the Great Ocean and vast expanses of jungle between our two empires -- but still, we were working towards the same goal.
The right distance is key in Total War -- choose empires too close together and you get in each other’s way; choose empires too far apart and you may as well be playing solo. The secret is playing factions that are close enough to meet each other about halfway through the game, where the infrastructure is consolidated, and immediate threats are taken care of. Once you’ve both had enough leeway to do your own thing, is time to start joint operations.
Even before our armies ever met in the field of battle, me and my coop partner were already fighting together -- in early skirmishes, he would control my phoenix and harass the enemy into melee range, where I took direct control of Tyrion and the battle line. My archers took out ranged units who tried to bring down the phoenix, while his Elven Prince helped Tyrion and his Sea Guard to wipe out any foes that crashed into each other.
As both battles and armies grew in size, we diversified the delegation of duties: he took control of half my melee line and all the harassing units, while I took charge of the heavy hitters. My artillery opened fire into the enemy army, thinning out their ranks as they closed into melee range as his phoenix kept fast moving units pinned down. My archers pelted the incoming troops until they reached his melee line, and once they were committed, out came my Dragon Princes heavy cavalry crashing into the flanks and sending foes scrambling. Those that stayed died. Those that ran were cut down.
The way Total War handles tactical battles in co-op is brilliant, allowing players to delegate specific categories or part of a main force just like real generals do. With one less duty or flank to worry about, battles become much more tactical, focused affairs, and require less scrambling or haste to pull off. It’s fun, engaging, and wonderful when it all comes together.
Co-op also helps offset some of Total War: Warhammer’s biggest issue, which is the MOBA-like nature of battles. Gone are the proper tactical affairs of Rome II and Shogun -- units now require a lot of micromanagement and die or rout in seconds, which easily puts off a Total War veteran like myself. During our battles with Teclis, I was able to either take control of whole portions of the army or focus on the finicky dragons, freeing my friend to storm a wall or rain down magic from the sky without panic. His ability to control Teclis’ many powerful abilities was severely facilitated by the lessened burden my command provided.
More interestingly, however, is the bond that it creates. Total War co-op can be an extremely intense experience -- you’re looking at dozens, if not hundreds of hours spent with someone. Most people shy away from such a commitment, but those brave enough to venture into it are rewarded with a close connection that transcends normal gameplay.
Like soldiers forged in the fires of war, players who manage to successfully complete a Total War campaign share a special bond. The endurance, intensity, and chemistry required to see it through the end is enormous and achieves in hours what often takes months. You may enter a game mere strangers on Steam, but you come out the other side as brothers.
Of course, as anything in life, it is not perfect. Creative Assembly clearly dropped the ball by failing to offer some amazing co-op opportunities, like an early quest that sees a player-controlled Tyrion army reinforced by an AI-led Teclis. Instead of giving control of the reinforcing AI army to the coop player -- like Rome II and Shogun did before -- Warhammer II forces your partner to watch the AI control a facsimile of his own character, utterly shattering the immersion the game builds so well.
Even so, Total War’s campaigns still are one of the best game experiences I’ve ever had, and after several co-op campaigns in Shogun 2, Rise of the Samurai, Fall of the Samurai, Rome II, Attila, and Warhammer I and II, I still come back to it time after time. It remains a mainstay on my hobby arsenal to this day, and I recommend you add it to yours, too.