LONG RANGE ARTILLERY! - Total War Tactics: Warhammer

One thing you forgot to mention. Yeah,your artillery might not do that much damage if the enemy rushes you. But forcing them to rush you is also a function of the artillery.

"General Kenobi!"

I'd also like to point out that artillery will remain effective even after the lines meet if the enemy feature range units. The melee units may be too close to your own forces to fire at, but the enemy ranged unit will generally stay behind, and can therefore be targeted by your artillery without fear of friendly fire. Ranged units also tend to be stationary when firing, which means that it will be easier to hit them in general.

All good, though missing one of the most significant tactical points in my mind. The right arty can give you the power to choose where the battle happens. If one army has no artillery, or only shorter range artillery, and the other army has a long range cannon such as an Empire great cannon or Chaos Hell Cannon, one gets the freedom to pick their spot and force the other to come to them at speed or suffer a sustained barrage. This gives every other unit in the army an advantage far more valuable than merely the arty kills during the approach, and prevents the enemy sitting up their own hill with their archers waiting. To give an insight to the relevance of stamina... At zero stamina a unit suffers a 35% penalty to armour and reload speed, 30% penalty to defence, 20% to charge bonus, 15% to attack and speed. If you can make the enemy go for a run, and hit these penalties before your guys do, it's well worth it. This can be done with even a single artillery, if they lack their own.

"Let's check back with the Grave Guard... I just hit them again so they're going to be even more dead..." I see what you did there ;)

Almost all my Empire armies have a mortar. It is perfect in nearly all situations. When my line is engaged, I just alt click target the ground behind the enemy's backs which wrecks their formation and leadership.

Artillery is important because of the massive range usually gives you the initiative. The enemy with inferior artillery or no artillery can't stay still and defend, and not only they have attack your forces, but they also have to come at your running and winded to minimize the casualties. As long as those nasty artillery pieces keep firing, they are under constant pressure and the clock is ticking as more and more of their units get blown to smithereens. This rush and hurry can open them up to a lot of unoptimal or broken formations, bad match ups and make them vulnerable to ambushes. Attacking artillery units in the heart of the enemy army is usually a suicide mission and even worse if the attackers fail to even properly disrupt or destroy the artillery units, since the attackers can be seen coming a mile away and countered.

I like watching these instruction videos of Yours, makes me feel like a cadet in an Imperial military academy 🙂

Against AI I let my artillery keep firing at skirmishers once the lines clash. They always get around 100 kills each

In siege battles, when I have artillery units that fire in an arc, I often like to choose densely populated spots on the enemy walls and fire at them using the alt+left click command (this makes artillery fire at the clicked on location rather than on a unit). More often than not, artillery seemed to become more precise that way.

'' your artillery is useless when enemy are engage '' laugh in lizardman charging artillery

Ah yes, the ol' suicide mission to hold the enemy army in artillery range. The Empire has the best unit for this, if also one of the more expensive, in flagellants. The sheer fact that they won't break and will fight to the last man means they can stall an enemy army for a LONG time while they blob up and you rain hellstorm rockets and mortars on their heads. Best of all, since they will fight to the last, you won't be dealing with them routing back toward your line and causing morale shock. If you're going arty heavy on Empire bring at least 2, maybe 3 units of flagellants to move to the middle ground and give them time to do their work.

Everyone seems to miss the god tier artillery - hellstorm rockets. Those things are beasts, a good hit (and vetting them up is quite cheap compared to their cost, but makes them horrifyingly accurate) will completely annihilate a chaos warrior unit. Boom. Dead. As some of the toughest basic infantry in the game, that's a hell of a lot of bang for your buck. They will blow unbelievably huge holes in your enemy while you laugh manaically. 70 kills? Try 300. Each. The only time they get less is when they've run out of targets because the OTHER hellstorms have killed everything already.

By deploying your artillery right behind your battle line you are potentially making a huge mistake. As you said yourself, your artillery will not be very effective when the fighting starts. Therefore, if you are bringing more artillery than your opponent it is crucial to delay the main engagement for as long as possible! Deploying your artillery right behind your line ensures you do not have the option to delay, because falling back means your artillery will get destroyed. What you can do instead (though circumstances must allow it) is split up your army in either of two ways: - If you are faster than your enemy (foot-speed), hide your artillery and reveal your main body of infantry. Your cavalry (flying/ground/fast creatures) should be in a position where it can support either side, preferably hidden as well. Ensure that in order to engage your main body (either with his main force or his own artillery) he must enter the range of your artillery. If the enemy attempts to engage your main body, use your superior foot-speed to delay combat for as long as possible. Your cavalry should shadow the enemy cavalry, ready to check it if it either attempts to pin your main body or take out your artillery. Similarly your main force should be ready to check the enemy main force if it attempts to rush your cavalry. Ideally you use your cavalry to neutralize your enemy's cavalry, and then use your artillery to batter his battle line and force an engagement at a favourable position like a hill. - If the enemy is faster than you (again, foot-speed), you hide your main body of infantry together with your artillery and reveal your cavalry. The same principles apply. Use your cavalry to lure your enemy into thinking he knows your position, then delay the engagement and exploit your artillery to the fullest. Always make sure your cavalry is capable of reconnecting with the main force if your enemy decides to go for your main force. This is just the general concept, and I haven't covered all the possible scenarios. You will need a map that has some places to hide and preferably some defensible hills. You will also need to deny attempts at reconnaissance by your enemy. Finally, whether this sort of a tactic is viable also depends on what army you are using and what army you are facing. Either way, what this does is force your enemy to make choices, and when your enemy has to make choices he can make mistakes. For example, a lot of people will send a small force to deal with your artillery, only for this force to get crushed by your hidden cavalry element. The loss of such a force is often fatal. Other times they will send too big a force to deal with your artillery (assuming there are defenders there) leaving his main body vulnerable to your main force and cavalry. Others will shift their entire main body towards your artillery and thereby expose it to an attack by your infantry. In such a case a mock charge can force your opponent to stop his movements and have his troops face your main body; a perfect opportunity for your artillery to keep wailing at him. Also keep in mind that timing is crucial. To maximize damage and psychological pressure, wait for your opponent to commit to an action before springing your trap. If you reveal your trap too soon, your enemy may be able to regroup before much damage is done and reassess the situation. If you spring it too late you may do less damage than you need or fail to put psychological pressure on your opponent because he has already committed to the attack. The absolute worst thing that can happen is for the main body and the cavalry and artillery elements to be separated so they no longer support each other. This is why some finesse and skill at moving troops is required for this sort of thing to work. Isolating your main body is a deadly sin and there's no recovery from such a mistake. Isolating your artillery can be just as fatal, but in such cases one should accept the loss of the artillery and try to use it as a gambit to force an engagement that is unfavourable for your opponent. For example, in such a situation can attempt to sandwich the enemy between your main body on one side and your artillery and cavalry on the other.

I'm terrible at this game and a lot of times I'm not sure why I've lost or won a battle, your videos are helping me understand. Thank you!

Playing dwarfs, I found artillery to be pretty effective even after the enemy reached my line. The highlight of this was a losing battle against Archaon himself in the campaign. He was absolutely curb stomping my general until he took 2-3 close-range cannonballs to the face, routing him and turning the battle around completely. Granted, that took more than a bit of luck, but if you're willing to take chances and hope they don't get attacked I'd say artillery is pretty great even in close-range engagements.

Well done on the tutorial! Gets all the important info across while being interesting at the same time

Thankyou for all your videos Zerkovich. This beginner has been binging your collection of guides over the last couple of days and it has helped immensely.

I would like to point out in the Steel Faith Overhaul mod Artillery is amazing. Granted I play Dwarves, and Dwarven artillery is probably among the best in the game.

that ending shot with chaos marching over the hill while under fire was a work of art.