Total War: WARHAMMER II – Definitive Warriors of Chaos Guide

This guide is specifically for TW:WH2. TW:WH3 had a major update to the Warriors of Chaos faction and I have not had a chance yet to play WoC in TW:WH3. The intent of this guide is tell you how to beat the WoC campaign as easily and quickly as possible.

Ultimate Guide to Warriors of Chaos

Сrеdit gоеs to MinMaxRex!

Basics

First, Warriors of Chaos are only available in Mortal Empires, they do not have a Vortex Campaign.

Archaon the Everchosen is probably your best starting lord because of his armywide 5% Ward Save and 50% bonus to income from razing settlements. Also because Archaon is much better once he is leveled up, while Kholek and Sigvald are quite strong right out the gate. But you can pick whichever one you fancy to start with, the others can be unlocked during your campaign.

• To Unlock Archaon: Sacrifice 10 sets of captives after a battle.
• To Unlock Kholek: Construct a Dragon Ogre Gathering
• To Unlock Sigvald: Awaken 4 Norscan Tribes (see Awakening the Tribes section)

Let’s assume you choose Archaon.

Techs

Immediately start researching The Path to Ruination. Once you finish that start on Rituals of Corruption. You also want to get Erection of Ruinous Monuments to maximize your Razing income. The goal is, as soon as you have the money to research the top line technologies (assuming you aren’t in a dangerous income deficit that demands you hold onto funds until you can raze some more settlements), you research the top row of techs so that you get the max growth you can get from techs asap.

The top row techs are ADDITIVE, meaning, once you have researched Daemonic Pact, you will be getting +15 Growth constantly for ALL armies. After the top row techs and the Razing Income techs, and Infernal March , the rest is up to you, once you have the armies I recommend you will be overwhelmingly powerful so it doesn’t matter too much.

Growth

On each Lord, you want to max out the Campaign (Blue) Line skill “Tribes of Chaos” for the +5 Growth. In addition, your first order of business using Growth is to get your Encampment (Main Horde building) building to Tier 5, “Ruinous Host”, which gives +5 Growth.

Once you max out everything that gives +Growth, if you hover over the word Growth in the “Horde Growth” panel that sits above the lord potrait in the lower left of your screen, you should see:

• Technologies 15
• Core 5
• Characters 5

“Core” is the growth from your Encampment building, Characters is the growth of the “Tribes of Chaos” skill, and Technologies is obviously from Tech. So your goal is to get a new lord to Rank 5 for Tribes of Chaos and then level up your Encampment building to “Ruinous Host” so that combined with the +15 Growth from Daemonic Pact being researched means your lord will have +25 Growth every turn so a Population Surplus every turn and an extra Population Surplus on top of that every 4 turns. At max growth Sigvald will have +28 Growth due to his trait.

You want as much growth as possible to get as much Population Surplus as possible because every building costs Population Surplus that increases in cost (within a specific horde) with each horde building you build, and every new horde created increases the cost of a new horde by 4 Population Surplus.

Awakening the Tribes

• Aesling: Win a battle against a settlement in the Mountains of Hel province
• Baersonling: Win a battle against a settlement in the Goromandy Mountains province
• Graeling: Win a battle against a settlement in the Helspire Mountains province
• Sarl: Win a battle against a settlement in the Trollheim Mountains province
• Skaeling: Win a battle against a settlement in the Ice Tooth Mountains or Vanaheim Mountains provinces
• Varg: Win a battle against a settlement in the Mountains of Naglfari province
• Mung: Win a battle against a settlement in the Ironfrost Glacier province
• Aghol: Win a battle against a settlement in the Aghol Wastelands province

Note that the province belonging to the Kraka Drak dwarf faction does not have any tribes to awaken.

Walkthrough – 12 Turns to Raze Kislev

Turn 1: Research The Path to Ruination. Move toward Baersonling’s Camp but make sure you keep 25% movement left, then Encamp. Recruit 2 Marauder Horsemen. End Turn.

Turn 2: Research Rituals of Corruption. Move up next to Baersonling’s Camp with 25% movement remaining, Encamp. Recruit 2 Marauder Horsemen. End Turn.

Turn 3: Declare War on Goromadny Tribe. Attack Baersonling’s Camp and win. Awaken the Tribe to awaken the Baersonling Tribe who will be your vassals. Move toward Frozen Landing but keep 25% movement and Encamp. Recruit 2 Marauder Horsemen. End Turn.

Turn 4: Attack Frozen Landing. You can fight manually to save units, or you can auto-resolve which should kill off your 2 Marauder and 2 Chaos Warhounds units and damage the rest of your units. As long as you don’t lose your Chaos Spawn or Chosen or Chaos Warrior units, this is acceptable because you will replace them with Marauder Horsemen. Your Marauder Horsemen probably won’t take any losses if you auto-resolve. Loot & Raze. Research The Lure of Dark Promises. You won’t be able to do anything else this turn. End Turn.

Turn 5: Go back to researching Rituals of Corruption. If you move toward Sjoktraken you should discover that Throt the Unclean is right next to it and will probably take it upon End Turn.

Instead move south, Encamp and recruit 2 Marauder Horsemen. Order the Baersonlings to attack Sjoktraken. End Turn.

Turn 6: Move toward Volksgrad and recruit 2 Marauder Horsemen. Cancel the order you gave the Baersonlings to attack Sjoktraken. End Turn.

Turn 7: The Baersonlings settled Frozen Landing making them a much better vassal going forward. You should have 19 units in your army now, Archaon, Chosen GW, 4 Chaos Warriors, 1 Chaos Spawn, and 12 Marauder Horsemen. Attack Volksgrad. You probably want to fight the battle manually to avoid casualties, but I was able to auto-resolve without losing any units but my army was quite damaged. Loot & Raze, which means there will be nothing else you can do after. End Turn.

Turn 8: Research Erection of Ruinous Monuments. Move toward Praag and Encamp. Recruit a final unit of Marauder Horsemen. Build the Tier 2 Encampment “Tribal Gathering”. End Turn.

Turn 9: In my case the army defending Praag moved away, probably because Fort Ostrosk was being attacked. Attack Praag, fight manually. Put your Chaos Spawn off to the left, keep your Marauder Horsemen behind Archaon, then start the battle and run Archaon and your Chaos Warriors to attack the gate. Have your Marauder Horsemen and Chaos Spawn run to the left where they won’t get shot by the towers. Archaon and the Chaos Warriors beat down the gate and then attack the forces that gang up on them. Have Archaon and the Chaos Warriors focus on the spearmen.

Have Archaon use Cascading Fire-Clock on the Chosen and Chaos Warriors as much as possible to help them survive. If you just let Archaon and the Chaos Warriors fight the fight and never support them, they would be destroyed, but once you have done enough damage to the spearmen, have your Marauder Horsmen rush in and attack the swordsmen and crossbowmen while Archaon and the Chaos Warriors finish off the spearmen and then take on the Empire Knights. If you do it right, you should be able to win the battle without losing any units. Loot & Raze Praag. Nothing else you can do. End Turn.

Turn 10: I did a test and moved toward Fort Ostrosk and found that it was being besieged by a Beastmen faction and another separate Beastmen faction was nearby as well. So instead I moved toward Kislev. But whatever direction you decide to go, Encamp and build the Tier 3 Encampment Warband of Chaos. End Turn.

Turn 11: I moved toward Kislev and found it undefended. I got right up next to it and Encamped. My marauders were quite damaged so I combined some and then recruited a couple more Marauder Horsemen. End Turn.

Turn 12: Kislev is still undefended and Tier 2 and I have a full 20 stack. Some units are still slightly damaged but my army is in good shape. I decided to heal up and hit End Turn to go to Turn 13, but discovered that meant that Kislev was able to finish upgrading to Tier 3 which added many units to the garrison. So instead, we must attack now. Kislev had an L shaped wall allowing me to game the AI. Put Archaon and the Chaos Warrios and Spawn at the corner of the L and the Marauder Horsemen along one length of the wall.

Start the battle. Rush Arachaon and the Chaos Warriors toward the closest gate. The AI should have put their forces facing the Marauder Horsemen. Have the Marauder Horsemen run to their side of the wall. Archaon and gang bash down the gates and fight the enemy. There are no spearmen so you can send in the Marauder Horsemen to help Archaon and gang overwhelm the defenders. You should be able to win if you bring your numbers to bear and overwhelm the enemy. Loot & Raze. You should now have enough money for Unholy Communion so research it. End Turn.

Turn 13: Research Erection of Ruinous Monuments again. You should move south below Kislev because Ostland is incoming and will want to attack you if you are in the way and then colonize Kislev, so if you move south below Kislev hopefully they will colonize Kislev putting them in a vulnerable state. Recruit replacement forces as needed. End Turn.

Turn 14: Ostland did colonize Kislev. I attacked and destroyed them. Regular Razed for the +10 Growth. End Turn.

Turn 15: Move south, Encamp. Recruit Reinforcements. End Turn.

Turn 16: Loot & Raze Fort Jakova. End Turn.

Easy Mode for Short Campaign Victory

Short campaign victory

• Raze or Sack 50 settlements
• Destroy the Reikland and Couronne factions

The goal is to get all 3 Legendary Lords unlocked and recruited, build their hordes up to Tier 5, get Lightning Grounds built, fill their armies with Dragon Ogres or Dragon Ogre Shaggoths, and then go destroy the world, starting with Couronne. If Couronne discovers Repanse or the other Bretonnian factions in The Southlands and confederates with them, you are going to have to spend a lot more time on this campaign in order to destroy Couronne to win, so try your best to eliminate Couronne before that happens. Each of your Lords should beeline to get the Lightning Strike skill and then proceed as you desire from there.

Do not go down Sigvald’s Unique line of skills unless you plan to only use the Legendary Lords for your whole campaign because his first Unique skill increases the cost of normal lords by 25%. Besides, Sigvald is powerful enough without those skills anyway.

Archaon should have an army of Dragon Ogre Shaggoths, with a Lightning Grounds, Pillar of Skulls and Reliquary of Chaos buildings built. Archaon can get Burning Head so only maybe need 1 more Lore of Fire Chaos Sorcerer to help clear blobs.

Kholek should have an army of Dragon Ogres (because he can make them have free upkeep) with a Lightning Grounds (this with Kholek = Free Dragon Ogres) and Pillar of Skulls built (the 300 income will counteract the cost of Kholek so that this whole army is basically free). You can put a Lore of Fire Chaos Sorceror or 2 in this army if you want to have Burning Head spell available as a counter to massed halberdiers or temple guard or whatever, basically a way to punish blobs so your dragon ogres can more quickly and easily finish the enemy off.

Sigvald should have an army of Dragon Ogre Shaggoths and maybe 1-2 Lore of Fire Chaos Sorcerors for Burning Head to wipe out blobs.

You can put heroes in armies as you desire.

Honestly, I would advise against recruiting heroes other than the one you get from the event in the first 20 turns of the campaign who you can camp in Baersonling’s Camp to complete the quests. Heroes take so much time to choose their skills when they level, it gets very tiresome especially if you have many of them, honestly you can beat this campaign quickly without them, or just use them to scout and assassinate.

Legendary Lord Quests

Note: Basically for every single one of these quests to unlock the battle, the previous step is to “Move any character to Baersonling’s Camp region” or “Move any character to Goromadny Mountains province”. So basically, you’ll want to recruit a hero and have then chill near that area if doing these quests is important to you.

Archaon the Everchosen

Recruitment: Choose Archaon as your Starting Legendary Lord, or Sacrifice 10 sets of captives after battles.

1. The Slayer of Kings (Available at rank 8)

• I. Have a Chaos Warshrine built in one of your Hordes. (doesn’t have to be in Archaon’s)
• II. Research the Unholy Communion technology.
• III. Move any character (Lord or Hero) to the Baersonling’s Camp region.
• IV. Win the battle: The Slayer of Kings.

2. The Armour of Morkar (Available at rank 13)

• I. Have 1 Chaos Knights (Lancer) unit in Archaon’s army.
• II. Have 15,000 Favor at the start of your turn.
• III. Deploy any Hero in the Baersonling’s Camp region.
• IV. Win the battle: The Armour of Morkar.

3. The Eye of Sheerian (Available at rank 18)

• I. Have 10,000 Favor at the start of your turn.
• II. Deploy a Chaos Sorcerer in the Goromadny Mountains province.
• III. Win the battle: The Eye of Sheerian.

4. The Crown of Domination (Available at rank 23)

• I. Sack or Raze 3 (different) settlements.
• II. Move any character (Lord or Hero) to the Baersonling’s Camp region.
• III. Win the battle: The Crown of Domination.

Kholek Suneater

Recruitment: Choose Kholek as your starting Legendary Lord, or construct the Dragon Ogre Gathering building.

1. Starcrusher (Available at rank 8)

• I. Have a Chaos Sorcerer embedded in Kholek’s Horde.
• II. Deploy a Chaos Sorcerer in the Goromandy Mountains province.
• III. Win the battle: Starcrusher.

Prince Sigvald the Magnificent

Recruitment: Choose Sigvald as your starting Legendary Lord, or Awaken 4 different Norscan Tribes throughout the Campaign.

1. Sliverslash (Available at rank 8)

• I. Using Sigvald’s army, defeat 3 enemy armies or garrisons.
• II. Successfully Assassinate any Lord of a Norscan faction.
• III. Have a Chaos Warshrine built in one of your Hordes. (Doesn’t have to be Sigvald’s)
• IV. Deploy any hero in the Baersonling’s Camp region.
• V. Win the battle: Sliverslash.

2. Auric Armour (Available at rank 13)

• I. Have 2 Chosen (Great Weapons) in Sigvald’s army.
• II. Embed a Chaos Sorcerer in Sigvald’s army.
• III. Deploy a Chaos Sorcerer in the Goromadny Mountains province.
• IV. Win the battle: Auric Armour.