So which faction has the easiest Normal campaign?

[Elithian]

To all the people saying "the Dwarfs are/were easy," have you completed an entire campaign with them?

Empire, Vampire Counts, Greenskins and Dwarves on Hard.
Empire on Very Hard.
Currently doing dwarves on very hard.

Had a game of Greenskins on very hard where I was dominating. But then post-Chaos being eliminated, somehow my Waaagh armies declared war on me and start attacking me. They siege and raze my cities, attack my armies. But I can't attack them back. It was terrible and frustrating. Rage quit at about turn 180.

[Påsan]

Yeah I was done taking settlements by turn 150 or so. Then I got involved with a cluster three way war between Mussilion, Bret factions and Estralia which gave me grudges so I had to kill everything there so that dragged the campaign out to around 200 turns.

Dwarves are probably the hardest faction to finish because you have to clear out the grudges while actually holding lands in Norsca.

[Elithian]

Agreed on dwarves taking long, and for me, it has always been some random grudge about leveling up an engineer to level 10 or something that I have had to grind out. I've learned to do the Norsca holds last- Kraka Drak etc. That way you can clear all your grudges, move three armies up and take all the settlements in a turn.

[jahjeremy]

I'm not having a lot of trouble with my current Dwarf campaign on Normal. I'm at around turn 90 or so, and I think it is going well. (I've actually had the most issues on Normal/Hard with Empire but that's a whole different saga!)

You can steamroll south pretty early on with a few armies to roll-up the Orcs there. Then once you have that mostly cleaned up, you can go north and take the remaining Greenskin settlements. It is likely that Vampire Counts will have raised most of the Dwarf holds that border their areas, so these you can just colonize. I only have a few Orc settlements now to take in the north and south and I have about 30 settlements total. Grimgor I have beaten down and wounded in maybe 3 or 4 major battles. Just make sure you go after him aggressively before he can build up a full stack or get a WAAGH. Avoid getting pulled into war with Vampire Counts. You will want to just leave them alone until you have built up defenses in the provinces that border them, or they will continue to sack/raze your settlements without you being able to do much about it.

You need to go aggressively after the Orcs right away and keep beating Grimgor into the ground or they will quickly overwhelm you. I initially did not pay much attention to the northern World's Edge mountains, as it is a bit of a mess up there with several dwarf factions, Greenskins, and the Vampire Counts raiding. So you can go for it later.

Your main infantry units have a lot of armor so you will want to take advantage of this by pinning the enemy using your heavy infantry who will typically have some staying power, and then hit the units they are fighting from the flanks with missile infantry and artillery. You can also have your ranged concentrate on beating/routing his backline units and then help your front line (it depends on how strong is the enemy frontline and if you need to deal with them right away or not). Most armies will break quickly from this tactic, especially Orcs who have quite low armor. Your artillery is going to work very good for taking out any annoying/fast units like shock cavalry and missile cavalry before they get to your lines and cause problems.

My mid game army composition is typically my lord, an appropriate hero, 8-10 Longbeard or dwarf infantry, 4-6 missile infantry and the rest artillery. I also quite like a gyro or two as they have the best mobility of any dwarf unit and function similarly to missile cavalry including being able to chase down routers. I'll replace the infantry with Ironbreakers, though I just haven't gotten around to it yet (my tech on that is a bit late but it doesn't seem to be a big deal). I have found it useful to have a small auxiliary army along with each full stack. This lets me include some cheap reinforcements plus an extra lord, and I use it also as a garrison for the main army. It is nice too if you're facing more than one full stack.

I have like 6 lords going (yes I know, it is too many!) but I am feeling that into late game this is going to serve me well. Dwarfs will end up with a big sprawl of different holds so you will need lots of small to mid sized armies to win those annoying engagements from Orc and Chaos raiders.

[Naked Emperor]

I actually found the VC easiest followed by the Empire. Haven't finsihed the Dwarves yet but can't compare as I'm playing them on hard. Mannfred is a beast of a lord and the Vampire lords are very strong because of regen. This means you can overcast all spells and heal up, also Mannfred can just snipe enemy lords with his death siphon.

I used Vargheist a lot as they do more damage than Terrorgheists and kill ranged units easily and with upgraded skeletons become your bread and butter and then you summon more with overcasting raise dead, or summon zombies to use as pincushions while you advance your army, cheap and effective. Wind of death is very powerful if you manage to maintain a straight battleline, often I manage to hit 4-5 units from the side.

I declared wars on enemies of the Empire and the Dwarves and managed to ally with the Empire while taking a big chunk of it because the empire factions were at war. Kislev left me alone because they had their own problems. While I was consolidating I went on a war of extermination against the Orcs and sacked and razed their settlement after I conquered the Border Princes. By then Kislev was in ruins and the empire fighting an Chaos invasion and I my coffers were full so I blitzed them while they were too occupied to defend. Then I mopped up the Chaos Invasion. Almost too easy.

[Caelifer_1991]

Played Chaos, VC, Empire and Dwarves (VH on all, tried Legendary but the battle bonuses on Legendary are just... you can still win but it makes it so that you don't want to bother playing at all...). Dwarves have been the easiest so far: the first two campaigns were a disaster, as I had tried to play them like the Empire, then I accepted that they are a turtle race, and must be played as turtles accordingly, and from then on it was just a matter of chugging along until the end of the game. Technically I didn't finish any of these campaigns, merely took them to the point, about 200-250 turns in, where final victory was inevitable, as I don't find finishing off enemies that are no longer a threat to be entertaining, but for all practical purposes, you might as well call them finished campaigns other than the Chaos one which is 100 turns in.

[M2TWRocks]

Yeah I was done taking settlements by turn 150 or so. Then I got involved with a cluster three way war between Mussilion, Bret factions and Estralia which gave me grudges so I had to kill everything there so that dragged the campaign out to around 200 turns.

Dwarves are probably the hardest faction to finish because you have to clear out the grudges while actually holding lands in Norsca.

Yes, the grudges. Sigh. They have the only faction specific trait that is actually detrimental to you as a faction. So irritating. My Dwarf campaign just lasted so damn long. I fought, and continued, out of pure spite.

[Sulfurion Blackfyre]

To me the Dwarfs were the easiest. I've completed campaigns as Dwarfs, Empire and Chaos, and played a lot of the others as well. The Dwarfs remind me of Portugal in Medieval 2. If you were not careful, you would be screwed pretty early in the game, but if you played your cards right, you'd end up with not only one of the easiest games, but also one of the most powerful factions in the mid to late game. Chaos was pretty easy and fun as well, just moving around destroying and killing stuff, almost felt like a different game entirely.

[Erëanér Sílesteloia]

I think one of the things the Warhammer campaign really gets right is the variety of scenarios you have to face even when playing the same factions. For example, I played two Empire campaigns past 150 turns and the start was vastly different depending on my own decisions and what happened around me.

So in general, I think it is a question hard to answer. Just by looking at the answers in this thread you can tell how different peoples' opinions are.

Overall, it seems no matter what race you are playing (I started campaigns for all of them except Greenskins), you need to be decisive with your first couple of wars. Choose your allies wisely (find common enemies and focus on them), win your first wars and then you should be fine. In my Dwarfen campaign, I secured the province north of the Silver Road (forgot the name) quite quickly while barely defending the Silver Road provinces. Note that I teched pretty quickly towards Cannons so long sieges were never a problem for me. Instead, I was able to strike and raze several Greenskin settlements before reinforcements arrived.

Similar situation for Empire: If you can unify the Reikland quickly enough and then strike towards Marienburg, you will have quite an easy start.

I think in general it is good advise not to confederate too early! It might be tempting but with the additional land usually come new enemies that might be hard to tackle.

I think Zeion has it. I have heard stories of Dwarf players being attacked early and heavily by the Orcs, with the Greenskins absorbing other Orc factions and hitting the Dwarfs like an avalanche.

And then there are stories of Orc infighting, even of the Greenskins being destroyed by another Orc faction or Dwarf faction leading to a much easier campaign.

[Scythion]

Vampire Counts are the easiest to me because you can have an almost full stack at the start of the second turn and then all you have to do is auto resolve.

[ostendadler]

I always find it very entertaining to read these posts from one Total War Game to the other ;-).

I got the overwhelming impression that the "random" nature of this edition is the strongest I've seen since Empire total war. I've yet to see the same events unfolding on a regular basis as it use to happen in Rome II. (Carthage going to bed early, The Celts overpowering Greece etc etc ....)

I've only played one campaign with the dwarves and I've been caught up in a annoying cat and mouse grind with the savage orcs and the greenskins. I capture one settlement from them and they capture or raze another one.

I've played several campaigns as the empire and they've also played very differently.

I had one campaign where the norscans constantly harassed my different settlements almost proving to be a bigger threat than the Chaos invasion. Faced a hefty threat from Chaos who razed most of the nothern and central elector counts.

I had one campaign where I got dragged into some Bretonnian war siding with what I though would be the winning side. (it didn't). The VC of bretonnia ended up overpowering the region and I had to keep the dead at bay while the rest of the elector counts got wiped out by Kislev (??). Chaos never really broke out and the VC where too busy fighting the dwarves. Moussillion was my biggest nemesis (they just don't die !)

I had one campaign where Marienburg cleverly allied itself with Bretonnia preventing me from taking it without huge penalties. Von Carstein broke out early, unifying the other vampires and expanded towards me. I tried to help the elector counts at war with the VC but since they already had their own feuds with other elector counts I ended up having a relentless war against the VC which allied itself with my enemies. Chaos swept south in a central manner. Once Chaos arrived the remaining elector counts got their together and ceased fire with us but got wiped out. Most of the empire is razed. I should probably go on in this campaign. Carstein was my biggest nemesis in that campaign.

I had one campaign where I played a "UN" role trying to help my neighbors against evil foes (VC, GS and Chaos). Perhaps the least action heavy of my campaigns but the most intense in terms of diplomacy. I sent forces to fight the VC both in moussillion and sylvania gaining good rep with the elector counts. When norscans raid showed up I was patrolling the coasts with KF and gained easy experience points and reps for when the Chaos arrived I had a unified front to battle the different waves. I confederated one by one with the counts keeping the Chaos at bay but not destroying them in order to keep the goodwill of the war. the Dwarves ended up obliterating the VC. Didn't really face a long term nemesis here.

My current campaign as the Empire (post beastmen update) has seen some interesting developments. all greenskins and beastmen armies surrounding Reikland decided to go after me almost from the get go preventing me for a long period to secure Reikland and Marienburg (which allied itself to Middleheim this time??). Suffering from this all my neighboring elector counts offered assistance and I have a very secure border in all directions. Strangely enough the Dwarves and the Border princes have allied themselves and have given the VC a pounding. The Border princes are now the 5th biggest faction in game with most of Sylvannia and the Moot under their firm control. I'm currently caught up in a very surprising conflict of mountain dwarves/Bretonnia vs other barons and dwarves. Norscans have done jack for the last 80 turns and up north the elector counts are fighting one another. Down south the border princes and the dwarves are having a balanced war with the savage orcs and Greenskins. my biggest nemesis is Artois and Karak Hirin.

As you can see very different campaigns. I just feel like there's more things happening than in past total war titles.

[Chewie]

Now that beastmen is out dwarfs campaign is truly easy as advertised. With the beastmen razing their settlements in the south they can barely manage to send any armies north and most of these are absorbed by barak varr.

[datalink7]

I've beat the game with Empire, Dwarfs and Vamps. I only play on Very Hard.

Dwarf campaign is by far the easiest IMO. They make insane amounts of money and have excellent ranged, so the lack of cavalry isn't that much of a drawback. I found Vamps fairly easy too. Strangely, Empire is the hardest for me though not hard.

I will play Greenskins and Chaos at some point but neither race interests me that much which is why I haven't gotten around to it (I've beaten Dwarfs 3 times actually and still haven't started Greenskins ).

[Chlodwig I.]

Just from my perspection pre Beastmen

Dwarfs I finished the long campaign in 150 Turns

The Vampires didn't attack me that often because they had to fight against empire and later chaos,
so I had all the time to unite the southern dwarfs and destroy the greenlings
than turn north and the Chaos was already killed by empire and undead... so i joined the empire killng the remaining undead and took all other dwarven Cities in the North.

As Undead it took me 300 Turns to finish the short campaign.
Always in War with Empire, Dwarfves and sometime Greenskins, and Chaos was Invading me
I was running from one corner of my empire to the other and fighting of the attackers, rebuilding what they destroyed and than hadn't the time to crush them because the other side of the empire was attacked....

With empire I got similar problems. dwarves, undead from the east, orks from the south, bretonian factions from the west, the other empire staates and now the fu.... beastmen always come....
Its just .....

[Gwayn]

Dwarves (VH). Two easy confederations, shortening my favorite faction to knee height and the Badlands were mine. 10k+ income and maintaining three armies? Never had so few issues with public order and income.

[annguyen1988]

Dwarves in both Normal and VH. I finish Normal in a few hours. Zhubar, Karak Kadrin and VC fights to a stalemate, I just clear the south-east corner and turtle. Chaos kills everything and I kill Chaos, regain the ruins to finish the campaign. Hell, I play less than 5 battles on battlefield (besides the quest), the rest is auto-resolve. I just hate the Dwarves by the way, I love flanking with cavalry.

I'm currently stuck on a VC campaign. Somehow the Dwarves defeated Greenskins early and built a huge empire. I defeated everything, sans Dwarves and Norsca. I need to destroy Dwarves to get long victory. VC doesn't have encampment and after a few battles in the south-east corner, I have to withdraw to replenish units and the Dwarves regain those ruins. My process is very slow.

Does putting vampires into armies help me replenish units automically while on enemies' territories?