5 Hidden Mechanics you NEVER knew! - Warhammer 2 Secrets 

It can be particularly dangerous to charge a lord into a crowd head on Proceeds to charge chariot Settra into 3 units of halberdiers and come out of encounter victorious SETTRA DOES NOT SERVE

-talking about getting stabbed from behind -showing manfred the backstabber getting backstabbed by the snikch -Balthasar Gelt approves this

Questing Knights wouldn't tire so much if they didn't make their horses haul all their crap, but then again, grail knight's horses don't tire because they are used to carry all that stuff

12:30 Those 4 elves on the far left are sure professional archers, shooting the tree in front of them with perfect accuracy

So basically if your unit is exhausted and gets rear-charged from uphill by a previously unseen threat, you're screwed.

I've been asking how stalk works on forums for a year now and never got any answers. Thank god for this video!

Watching those Woodelves shooting the tree right in front of them making me cry internally.

I'm always taken aback by How cute demigryphs are, such cuddly killing machines.

I love charging cavalry into routing units. I had no idea it was that damn powerful, but Ive always done it. Makes sense I guess. Ima keep doing it lol

As someone who uses meters, I was quite pleased to hear the usage of those measurements instead of the other imperceptive scales.

Wow, that predatory senses thing with the Lizardmen is VERY cool. I wish they made things like that more clear ingame.

You know that melee defence thing might explain why two dragons fighting with their back to each other seem to be exponentially better than one dragon fighting alone, in a crowd

This is amaziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!! You are the Spirit of Law for Total War Warhammer 2!

i wonder if flying units have a bigger detection range, would make sense

Ah yes the Empire Captain, fine gentlemen and the FINEST OF BEARDS I SAY.

I always wondered whether the high ground helped beyond the morale buff, thanks a lot for your videos, they're always concise and informative!

I wonder whether you actually look for these things or just think “hey, I wonder why that happens!” and look into it. Regardless it’s very impressive to find all of this! Edit: Wow those fatigue penalties are harsh!

Since fatigue isn't all that bad and having the high ground is supreme I say it IS worth running up a small hill at the start to get that battlewinning position.

Knew of them in spirit, but the exact numbers are actually shocking! Fighting uphill used to be considered "non-ideal", but with this stuff in mind it's just straight up "bad".

I always see war doggies outperforming cav when chasing fleeing enemies.

"not a lot but it will matter when you have a lot of trees suddenly appearing, about to smash your skull off" *Saurman and uruk-hai nod in agreement*

No range bonus for missile units on elevated groud? Disappointing.

I wish the units had special formations. Like if the shield units could go into shieldwall for example and get increased range defence. And or spear men to brace spears to increase defence and damage to charging units. Or archers for rapid fire but have lower accuracy long range. Stuff like that would be absolutely amazing I feel.

nice, did not know about the chase bonus, definitely makes having a cheap fast unit around to chase down things way more appealing

This video is so useful. I did not know in details any of them here. Thank you so much and keep it up.

Another important mechanic that many people don't know is that when you apply "causes terror" to a unit, it also makes them immune to terror too. This can be very useful for stopping a unit from terror routing, as applying "causes terror" will, as I said, make them immune to terror in the process! Very handy in both multiplayer and campaign.

16:53 AND THE VAMPIRE KNIGHTS ARRIVED! COMING DOWN THE MOUNTAINSIDE!

Thank you so much for these types of videos, very helpful and enjoyable

These are fantastic! Thanks so much, Zerkovich! I forwarded this video to a few of my TW:W2 friends.

Another mechanism for units hiding in forests. Sometimes what look like a dense forest don’t hide your troops while the same unit standing in what appears to be open ground in chaos wasteland gets the forest hiding effect. That is because vegetation has nothing to do with hiding, but rather the area of map that is marked as “forest”. That’s why some forest don’t give hiding effect, really frustrating somethings when you want to do some sneaky ambush on your enemies.

4:41 Thank you so much for discussing exactly how the charge bonus works in-game. I've been wondering this forever !

Thanks for this. Just started playing this game recently and stuff like this is so helpful.

I always wondered why attacking from behind is so important. If unit has v.high leadership (see U dwarfes) or is unbreakable it doesn't make much difference. Now with the information about MD penalty it makes a lot of sense. Same with routing units. This game is so much deeper then it looks like at the first sight. I love it.

Fun fact. Chasing down people who were already routing was the main role of cavalry in real life. A rout was when the majority of casualties were suffered.

I think I only knew about the fatigue. A lot of interesting and good to know stuff! I thought strider was absolutely a fluff skill letting you move a bit faster, but it does more than that and that's really cool.

Great content as always Zerk! Been playing the game for years and still learn new things from your videos. Keep it up man

So between the hiding distance and the new Woodsman trait, looks like Wood Elf units are suddenly more deadly than ever when in the forest.

Almost 500 hours into the game and there were definitely some things I didn't know yet. Thanks!

This info is so influential and so hard to find online, TYVM for your guides!

I keep that video registered in my playlist (and the others u made as well). Very useful, and overall CA did a good job, it’s realistic and very sensed. Thx for the infos, keep it up if u have more 👍

Since using Eshin rats i've been wondering what the detection range was. Glad your video let me know. Didn't realise Concealment bombs were that good

Thanks for the tips ! Having the actual numbers helps a lot. Strider and Unspottable are very strong IMO. Yes indeed warhounds are so good to pursue fleeing enemies, I like to use light flying units for that as well like harpies or bats which are somehow the flying equivalent of warhounds.

Great content man! Happy to be a subscriber you helped me learn a lot not just for this game but for all total war games

Impressive! I've got 3000h in game and still learnt so much from this. Awesome job! Tanks

7:55 I agree with all debuffs, but how can fatigue affect armor? Unless the unit specifically dropped some of its armor 😁

Great vid thanks. Never knew the numbers were so brutal for fatigue or charges from the sides / rear.

Nice video, picked up a couple of things. Holding the wall is still worse than holding the city choke points in most, if not all cases.

Also an important thing about stalk that it has an increased detection range on snow/desert maps.

one of the best videos about total war warhammer 2, really. probably the most useful one I have ever seen.

does the elevation bonus for missile also affect flying missile units like Hawk Riders? Do they have a permanent hidden buff to their damage just because they are always above their targets?

This was super helpful, thank you!

Firing from a wall elevation also blocks line of sight for models in the rear, so not the whole unit can fire. Which results in less damage.

I used to only look for choke points, and try and force clumps. This information about elevation advantage and charging broken units has really changed how i approach combat. And i honestly thought exhaustion only affected movement speed and attack speed. This was so illuminating.

Stalk mechanics are the greatest 'guide part' for me. Thank you man!

Good stuff!! Thanks for this series

This was amazingly helpful! Thank you so much

Clear and concise, good job. Thank you.

I have to say Thank you very much for sharing your TWW-Knowledge and Experience! I searched nearly the whole Internet for the answer to the question of when sneaking units are discovered, i found nothing. Thank you so much you answered it :)

Very useful, thanks for the tips mr. Zerkovich

Another stat you missed is the "on high ground" leadership bonus of 10

Great video. It would be interesting to see which is better, walking under fire or running under fire

Dude, your videos are so wonderful! I love them and download and keep them as a collection! Btw how do you know all these deep stats? Just curious

Thank you. This kind of videos helps a lot.

As usual, Zerkovich brings real quality stuff on youtube so I can continue my slaughter of Ulthuan from a different perspective. Today is the turn for Sisters of Twilight to recover the forest from them. Tomorrow, some skaven tunnels will poop thousends of rat-things on their rainbow-colored island. Yesterday, Big Daddy Grom did... well. You can imagine what he did there.

Thanks again for this, Zerko!

Literally the best warhammer youtube channel! I love your videos!! Super helpful

Thanks zerk. Didnt know about mele def from behind.

Great video mate!

Learned so many things, thanks a bunch!

these tips are really helpful thanks:)

I did know that you have less MD in back and side but didnt knew the real modifier ! -70 is so huge haha ! Very good video anyways :)

zerk thank you for the tactical info, also loved the obi wan reference!

200hrs in TWW2.. and I didn't know most of these. Good informative stuff!

a very educative video I didn't know that high ground can boost so much. I'm going to pay more attention to the terrain then

Exactly why hammer and anvil is so devastating. Just started my first Bretonia campaign. So much fun. I love charging my peasant front line directly into the enemy's face and not caring because it almost always tangles them up and then my Knights come in and destroy.

Tyvm, I have been looking for spotting range data forever.

Very informative!

16:10 Vermintide 2 tought me otherwise. Fighting downhill on stairs is a deathsentance. Attacks are comming from POV of enemies and yours, so standing and fighting downhill means you have less range while enemies can smash your toes. Same is with darktide which is funny. They never got around fixing this

you are the scientist behind warhammer stats and mechanics. I love you.

Great info, amazing work, amazing game it is!

The exception to high ground unless it's sieges is if you have gunners that will perform better shooting uphill than downhill where they easily get no line of sight because of their own units blocking them.and uphill usually have los on more units.

Charging downhill workls best when a unit is already at half strength or will likely rout, otherwise to turn around and withdraw for a 2nd cycle charge is even more difficult and tires the unit that charged quite a bit. The thing with ranged units on walls makes sense but in most of the tests I've done does not seem to match the -30% damage, I think something in the LoS or perhaps the way distance calibration is applied to units on walls makes them take more damage than they give. Test two identical units and the one on the walls definitely takes a bit less damage but it appears closer to -10% in all the tests I did. When you add in the accuracy bonus from XP and the unit shooting up is only 50% of max range from the walls it actually does more damage than the unit on the walls, maybe arcs are interefering?

Really helpful, thank you.

5:00: Oh really. Wow that changes a lot. Two points based on that: 1. Light cavalry with a high charge bonus is way more useful than I thought. 2. Those lord skills that increase charge bonus are way more useful than I thought.

@ Zerkovich Great video, I knew there was stats like those but didn't knew the exact numbers. Overall some of those stats are designed really good but a few just seem unclear as to why they exist - why does 25% of armour is being lost when exhausted ? reload rate or charge or accuracy should be lost but armour ? 30% attack but only 10% defense , no wonder high MD was always a favorite ;) especially with all the units getting super fast during a fight.

so the flanking occurs at an entity level, does the height bonus work at an entity level or does it go by unit instead?

I never knew about the melee hill damage bonus! I've always been intentionally fighting enemies from the lower ground in order to give my missile troops an easier time hitting the enemy. xD

i'd previously assumed that the only benefits to charging an enemy unit in the flank/rear was the morale hit and the fact that you now have more of your units in the fight… so thanks for clearing that up! i'll now be much more careful about leaving my heroes/lords in melee with enemies who have high weapon damage (regardless of their attack bonus) Similarly, i used to think that units pursuing fleeing enemies simply got free hits (but at normal, base damage). now i won't neglect those charge bonus upgrade skills for my assassins!

You didn't mention the sneaky penalty large units (cavalry etc.) get in the forest. Best way to get rid of Bretonnia? Lure them into the woods :) They get 20% less attack and defense and the trees will break their charge (unless they have strider). While we are talking about forests, the trees can block a lot of missiles if you put your archers let's say just along the treeline they can shoot out just fine but way less projectiles will reach them. Most of these (flanking bonuses, charge/pursue mechanics, elevation bonuses, even the hiding, missile penalty and cavalry penalty in forests) have been in the game in some form since Shogun I or Medieval I at the latest :) And they are really intuitive too, so if you know at least something about tactics, you'll do just fine :)

That pursuit bonus... It's all well and good but my experience with lords/heros pursuing enemy lords/heroes is that the pursuer only pushes the pursued in front of them not triggering the hit animation (mostly applies if the pursuer is on small ground mount and enemy is on foot). Thus no damage done... It's just annoying.

Thank you for your consistently posting quality content 👌🏻

Maybe they could use that flank/rear malus for even more depth in future games by making certain unis (spear n' shield) more vulnerable against it than others (dual wielding handweapons). This would make certain units better for the loose melee that occurs in later stages of combat.

man now that was informative!

Thank you for the video

Fatigue might convert into taking some more damage later or it might not, and your unit can recover energy. Damage happening is always damage and can only be recovered by regeneration or life magic (and lost units broadly speaking can’t be recovered, unless you’re talking about VC). I say, spend energy to avoid damage. Run up a hill if you’re taking fire.

Comment for the algorithm, great videos pal!

Great video! Plz make an army guide for Warden and the Pounch dlc.

Another thing people might now know is if you can disrupt a units formation they suffer heavy combat and leadership penalties as well. That's what makes bretonnian cav a lot better than any other cav because their special formation makes it super easy to disrupt enemy unit formation. But it can also be done with spells and large monsters as well.

Hey Zerkovich! Does turning your back to your enemies affect spotting range? Also, does water affect spotting range too? (Might hear the splash) I feel like water and the mechanics might be an interesting topic to talk about too

On the melee defense reduction, I wonder if when you have a unit engaged, if you see you are going to be attacked from the rear, if it would be better to give that unit the order to get into a column formation. That way, less models hit on their rear, more on flank, giving it a better chance.