Welcome to our blog. This article will be a general overview of the game as I have already written in-depth guides to specific parts that I will be linking to. This article will be a Total War Warhammer 3 Guide for Beginners.

1. Managing Income
2. Recruiting Units
3. Battle Tips and Advanced Controls
4. Unit Types and Matchups
5. Loot and Winning Settlements
6. Magic
7. Diplomacy
8. Army Stances
9. Heroes

Also, the affiliate link to purchase Total War Warhammer 3 from Steam is here: https://sovrn.co/vouhli4

Also before we start, don’t forget to check out our merch store if you’re in the US. We sell dnd dice sets, gamer t-shirts as well as gamer room decoration.

Total Warhammer 3 Guide: Managing Income

Managing your income is the first part of understanding Total War Warhammer 3 (TWW3). When you start a game, you have a certain amount of base income plus the income from your capital.

It would be best if you did this because the units in your army have a certain amount of upkeep per turn, so your army size and quality are limited by the amount of income you have to spend. So keep this in the green, or your units will leave.

Now income in this game is quite simple in that you get income from the following places:

1. Settlement buildings
2. Trade
3. Loot
4. Raiding

Settlement Buildings

The first is settlement buildings, so your main settlement building will generate a certain amount of income, but you can also build more buildings that boost your income.

Also, as you level up settlements, you can upgrade these income-producing buildings to get more income. Settlement buildings will be your steady income suppliers, so keep these defended at all costs.

Trading

Trading is another form of income building that can be a great supplement to your primary income, and you should attempt to do it as early on in the game as possible. Just make sure when you do this, you don’t enter into any agreements that could get you into a war you don’t want.

Loot  

When you beat an enemy army or settlement, you get loot based on the quality of the military you defeated, which can net you a large amount of income in a single turn but is not something you will be getting every turn.

Raiding

So raiding is the last primary source of income which you do by going into the raiding army stance in enemy territory. It’s not a good source of income, but I just mentioned it for the sake of completion

Summary of Total War Warhammer 3 Guide to Income

In short, you need to ensure that you have enough income to maintain your armies, and as your income grows, you can field more armies or better quality ones or both.

Link to in-depth guide: Managing Income

Total War Warhammer 3 Guide: Recruiting Units

So now we will talk about the next thing you will need to understand: recruiting units. Now units have two costs associated with them based on the unit card: the recruitment cost at the top of the unit card and the upkeep costs at the bottom.

The recruitment cost is the upfront cost to start recruiting the unit, and the upkeep cost is the cost every turn to have the unit in your army. Now there are two types of recruitment which are local and global.

Local recruitment allows you to recruit unit types based on the buildings you have in the province. At the same time, global will enable you to recruit units available at any of your facilities in your entire faction.

So basically, there are buildings that you can create that unlock access to certain unit types for recruitment. So that’s how you get access to better quality units by building structures that allow you to recruit specific units and upgrade those buildings for better ones.

Now global recruitment is the same as local recruitment, except the recruitment (upfront cost) to recruit is double, and so is the recruitment time.

Total War Warhammer 3 Guide: Battle Tips

So in Total War Warhammer 3, when you move your army on the map onto an enemy army or settlement, you will be able to attack them (unless you’re in a march stance). When this happens, you will have the option to battle the enemy.

Now the way TWW3 works is that your turns on the campaign map are turn-based, but the battles are real-time. As a result, you will have to use some tips to help you move your units around.

Usually, in the game, you want a front line of infantry backed up by about 4 to 5 missile units and some fast-moving units.

Now moving in this game is pretty standard. You left-click on where you want your units to move, and they move there, but if you left-click without holding ctrl, they will go into a march which can tire them out if they move across the map.

As a result, when you move your armies to get them into position to attack the enemy you want to hold down ctrl, you have them walk into the place and keep your units fresh.

Now like in other games, you can bind a group of units to a key by selecting multiple units cards by holding down ctrl and then pressing ctrl and a number to attach them to that number.

Also, when your front line is attacking at the beginning, you want to hit the lock icon next to that group (which I usually group to key number one) so they stay in formation when charging. So when they charge, instead of attacking one unit, they remain in a line so your front line doesn’t get surrounded.

Lastly, if you hold down the alt key after selecting the army, it will allow you to move your units in the same formation they are now and hold down ctrl and let go, and they will stay in the same shape they are in when they move.

Link to in-depth guide: Total War Warhammer 3 Tips for Battle

Total War Warhammer 3 Guide: Unit Types and Matchups

So now we are going to discuss unit types and matchups. So in this game, for the sake of simplicity, we are going to say that there are three main types of units which are:

1. Infantry
2. Ranged
3. Cavalry, Chariots and Flyers

Infantry will be the central front line of your army that will hold the line and will be the anvil in the hammer and anvil tactic (basically, the anvil keeps the enemy in place while the hammer hits them from behind).

The infantry’s job is to hold the line as they are generally nowhere near as fast as the cavalry. Still, they can be good at getting stuck in and staying there because infantry units typically have large numbers especially compared to the other types of units in the game.

Ranged units want to shoot the enemy, including ranged units like crossbowmen, archers, and artillery.

Now be aware that the tendency for newbs is to take as many ranged units as they can, and this might seem like a great idea, but even at the lower tier, the game is full of fast units that can quickly engage ranged units and beat them.

As a result, I would say in a 20-unit army, take no more than around four ranged units and two artillery.

The reason that artillery gets a bit of an exception is their massive range, which means they can start pounding the enemy from turn one but don’t go overboard as you need a front line of infantry and fast-moving units of your own to protect your own ranged units.

And what a segway into Cavalry, Chariots and Flyers. The fast-moving units are about cycle charging (charging into and out of combat) into the enemy constantly in the case of cavalry or the subject of chariots charging through units.

For flyers, It depends on the flyers, as the weaker ones are good for hitting missile units and artillery and for rear-charging the enemy once engaged with the front lines. But if they take out ranged units, especially artillery, even the weaker flying units have done their job.

If you’re playing defensively, you will use your fast-moving units to defend your flanks and ranged units from attack. Control of the sides is just as important as control of the centre.

Link to in-depth guide: Total War Warhammer Units

Total War Warhammer 3 Guide: Loot and Winning Settlements

After you win a battle against an army, you usually have three options. You can get income, an extra casualty replenishment rate or a leadership bonus (depending on the faction, those options will change.

I would advise picking casualty replenishment most of the time, but I would choose the one best suited for you right now. The tricky bit is what happens when you win after attacking a settlement.

So after winning a settlement, you have three options generally (changes on the faction you are using) which are:

1. Occupy
2. Sack
3. Raze

To occupy is where you get to take over the settlement, and I believe it retains its settlement level, which is helpful if you want to add this settlement to your collection. Sack nets you a lot of income at the expense of damaging the building and lowering its level.

If you don’t want the settlement, you should sack it and then raze it next turn instead of just razing it, which ultimately destroys the settlement, so sacking it first is good to get the riches out of it before you destroy the settlement.

I would only raze a settlement without sacking if you have an army behind enemy lines and are trying to do as much damage to the enemy without engaging their main army.

Also, the affiliate link to purchase Total War Warhammer 3 from Steam is here: https://sovrn.co/vouhli4

Total War Warhammer 3 Guide: Magic

Next, we will cover magic in a general overview but remember I did an in-depth guide to the magic that I will be linking to at the end of the article.

So magic in this game works as so. Each magician has access to magic lore, and in campaign mode, they can pick their spells from that lore. There are five types of spells:

1. Buffs
2. Debuffs
3. Healing
4. Attack
5. Summons

Buff spells are those that either buff one unit or multiple. Buffing means giving that unit/s a positive effect, so for beginners, I would recommend buff spells as they are easy to use, especially the ones that buff multiple units.

Just wait for your front line to be engaged in a melee with multiple units and try to cast a buff spell to cover as much of your army as possible, which is effective if you combine it with various buffs, buffs, and debuffs.

Debuffs are like buffs, except they negatively affect one or more enemy units. Healing spells heal one or more of your units and summon spells to summon a unit or monster for a specific time. Great for getting in a rear charge by summoning units behind the enemy for a rear charge.

Attack spells do just that, but there are so many types in the game, but I would suggest you read my guide to magic to learn more about those.

Now magic is different in this game in that irrespective of how many mages you have in the same battle on your side, you all have the same number of magic points, known as the Winds of Magic.

Link to magic guide: Total War Warhammer 3 Magic

Total War Warhammer 3 Guide: Diplomacy

I have written an in-depth guide to this, but I will give the basics of diplomacy. If you are not careful, you can end up with multiple factions declaring war on you which can end a run.

The good thing about this game is that the AI in the campaign is quite transparent. You can see your relations with them, such as if it’s improving or deteriorating and influence them by giving gifts, giving settlements and entering into non-aggression pacts and trade agreements.

Pay attention to who is a war with you because you enter into any agreements with any parties. Also, with any factions you don’t want to conflict with, you should try to get into non-aggression pacts with them for two reasons.

One, they will have to end their non-aggression pact with you before they declare war on you, so you know that if they have withdrawn their non-aggression pact with you, it’s time to give them a gift if you don’t want them to attack.

It’s vital to be proactive about your race relations because once a faction has decided to declare war on your, they won’t stop until they start losing. So it’s better to give them a gift to immediately begin improving your relations than to wait until after they have declared war on you.

Also, don’t trespass onto any factions province you don’t want to end up hating you, as this is a pretty easy way to get a faction to hate you and declare war on you.

Link to diplomacy guide: Total War Warhammer 3 Diplomacy

Total War Warhammer 3 Guide: Army Stances

So now we will cover army stances. We cover stances that an army can get into while moving around the map, so the basic ones are:

• Default
• March
• Ambush
• Encamp
• Raiding
• Channelling

The default stance is the one you will most likely use, and it allows you to move from this stance and attack the army and settlements, so there’s not much to say about this one.

The march stance dramatically boosts your movement speed at the expense of not being able to attack enemy armies in this stance and your units being tired in battle. Still, your armies can reinforce your other armies and settlements in this stance.

You will be using the march stance if you are in a hurry to get somewhere, but be aware that if your army is attacked in this stance, you will not be able to retreat if you have moved your total move distance.

Ambush stance allows you to have a chance to move around the map hidden with a chance of being discovered based on the terrain you are in and other factors for a 25% decrease in movement speed.

The ambush stance has two main advantages: unless the enemy discovers your army, it is hidden and invisible to the enemy faction, and if an enemy passes into the same space as your ambushing army, then you have a chance to ambush the army.

If you successfully ambush an army, you start the battle right next to their military, and you get to pick your matchups. It completely takes artillery out of the picture, as you can assault straight away.

The other advantage is to trick an enemy into attacking a settlement. So let’s say the enemy has a more powerful army than your own, but you have a settlement with a great garrison. You could say go into ambush mode near your settlement, hoping the enemy army attacks your settlement.

If they do, you now significantly outnumber the enemy because of the combined forces of your ambushing army and the settlement garrison. Still, the computer didn’t see that because your ambushing army was invisible to them.

The Encamp stance is for recruiting units and recovering casualties, and you can still move while in this stance, just at a significantly slower pace and are immune to attrition in this stance.

The last stance is the Channelling stance, and for a 10% reduction in speed, you get increased winds of magic, so unless you are ambushing, you always want to be in this stance for the extra magic.

Link to guide to army stances: Total War Warhammer 3 Army Stances

Total War Warhammer 3 Guide: Heroes

So we end our Total War Warhammer 3 Guide, and we cover Heroes. Heroes are fascinating as they can operate in an army like a unit or out of an army.

Out of an army, though, they are unique as they can move around the map and enemy armies cannot attack them, and they can also kill and be killed by enemy heroes outside of an army.

So all heroes can wound or kill enemy heroes, but the other things a hero can do depend on that hero. Some heroes can block armies (slowing them down), damage a settlement’s walls or damage a particular building (great for getting rid of a garrison before attacking an enemy).

But the other thing that’s great about heroes is scouting. They can move into other factions’ provinces without getting the trespass penalty, so you should try to have heroes acting as scouts to give yourself time to react to enemy armies approaching.

Also, some heroes are spell casters, so if you are using a lord that doesn’t cast magic, you should probably have a spellcaster hero in his army so you can use the Winds of Magic.

Link to heroes guide: Total War Warhammer 3 Heroes

Conclusion to Total War Warhammer 3 Guide

Thank you for reading this was our Ultimate Total War Warhammer 3 Guide for Beginners, and please see the links below for the guides to an in-depth discussion about most of the aspects discussed in this article.   

Also, the affiliate link to purchase Total War Warhammer 3 from Steam is here: https://sovrn.co/vouhli4

Links

• Check out my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@gmangamingandreviews
• Link to my store for merch and awesome gaming accessories for US customers: https://gmansemporium.com/
• Follow me on my twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/gman_gaming_and_reviews
• Follow me on Twitter for updates and livestreams: https://twitter.com/gman_reviews
• Follow me on Facebook for updates and livestreams: https://www.facebook.com/GmanGamingandReviews
• Listen to my podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gman-gaming-and-reviews/id1565522411tp