Gelt's Cataclysmic Wizards 

Tzeench have been real quiet since this dropped.

That empire captain set up a muskoka chair, cracked a cask of bugmans brew, and had the best day of his career

They love casting spells

It's kind of terrifying what Gelt can do when he takes the Altdorf College of Wizards on a field trip.

Tzeentch: i'm the best magic faction oriented. Gelt: hold my golden 🍺🗿

I AM SUPREME - Gelt the gigachad.

Great to see this video. I was the one to submit this and wanted to explain my thoughts on this. Something Legend didn´t explain is the op magic items that the golden order gets now. These allow for some 1 WoM cost spells like spirit leech, overcasted regrowth and overcasted Penumbral Pendulum and overcasted Comet of Cassandora this is also why their cost wasn´t the same for everyone. The army-wide barrier comes form the campain ability for light wizards and isn´t permanent just like the cataclysm spells. You don´t really need to fly around and do complicated stuff with this army you can just land somewhere and then kill them with the magic. The 5 live wizards are also there because each of them gives +10% healing cap fort he army (there is also the magic item for them that increases it by further 20%), while the celestial wizards give campaign movement. Them killing the empire captain also isn´t really a problem since you can just blob up all your wizards and heal a ton so he just won´t die. The empire captain is also there to give 15% physical resistance to every nearby hero or lord thats why he was in there. It is also possible to get about 1000+ WoM capacity (on campaign) if you max this army out. Thanks for making a video on this, Legend!

That empire captain… best job ever in the entire empire ! can do some botanical studies in the woods while the others are slaughtering everything, if I must be reincarnated into warhammer, I want to be this captain lol 😂 GG nice one, I love spellcaster doomstacks, specially with Gelt, even better these days.

FYI this stack does not need to fly around and keep Captain hidden. Spell intensity also affects buffs/debuffs parameters so you can just throw them into melee get some aoe debuffs from beast and heaven lore going and basically never take damage while everything is blobbed around you. Curse of midnight wind is AoE -48 melee attack, you can also use beastlore debuffs and overcast final transmutation on top of a blob around you and all the other aoe spells. Also that puts to work items like helm of discord and other trickster shard

They need to give the Slann, or at least Mazda, access to the giga spells. Purley bc it would fit the lore and also it would be very funny

Teclis: The student has truly become the teach... Wait, what...Where did you get that? *Pointing at unlimited magic and cataclysm spells* Gelt: Oh, the dev gave them to me in patch 5.0 Teclis: ah... Of course they did Gelt: I think I completely dominate with Magic now. Teclis: Ah.... Of course you did.... Can you teach me?

The celestial Wizards are really good, because you can use them to move get movement back, allowing you just tear through multiple settlements and armies in a single turn. Life wizards can heal your entire army to full. Light wizards give barrier, metal gives money, shadow gives 100% ambush. Fire allows you to destroy walls before battle. Death damages all enemy armies in the same region. Beast gives an army ability.

Golden Wizard, Money Gang!!

That one empire captain must feel pretty uselessly 😂

It's actually a 125% healing cap, because every life wizard gives +10% to healing capacity to his army

15:25 the wood elf cavalry charging in the very inconspicuous purple cloud of death and decay is pretty funny ngl

Behold! The Shadow-Wizard Money-Gang!

Maybe it's too much graphically for the game, but I would like to see Final Transmutation actually turn units into Golden statues when they die from it, or become frozen solid from certain Ice Magic, burnt and charred from Fire etc...as apposed to the regular death animations we get now. It would be much more immersive.

the 1 wom spirit leech is probably from the unique item from death magic school EDIT I guess celestrial wizard are for ambush defence chance since ambush might be gg for this doomstack as the captain won't survive long enough.

So some of the things that was missed: 1. You actually have unlimited magic without spamming spirit leach. Every college of magic has a super item that can only be equipped on their respective wizard. The death wizard one give you 160% WoM regeneration and 0.1 winds per second FOREVER as long as you kill a certain number of units with that wizard. It is also the same reason one wizard was casting spells cheaper. A couple of purple suns would have given legend the same result as casting a hundred spirit leaches, which sadly didn't happen. 2. The celestial wizard can be targeted by a faction ability that resets your movement within a turn. Nuff said! 😂 3. You can actually have more barrier than this by another faction ability. 4. The reason every spell was so cheap was because every college has another single use but permanent ability to reduce all required WoM by 20%. Add it to all the other reduction effects and you get what you see. I don't think it's actually oversight. It is clearly intended. 5. You are basically immune to ambush and can ambush with 100% success with this stack. Not that it needs it! 😂 6. The super item for the celestial wizard gives you a 55 range aura that reflects all projectiles back to the attacker. You don't need to get away from archers and cannons AND THUNDERBARGES. You need to get close! 😂 7. Clump enemy units, combined with the 45 second map-wide freeze of a cataclysm spell and every bombardment spell you have, best being flaming bolts of burning at 200 percent intensity for fun and profits and barbecue time. EVERYTHING MELTS! 😂 Yeah this stack is insane! 😂

Crime rates have gone up since the Wizards took over.

This is much easier to get than a Thunderbarge doomstack. You get arcane essays thrown at you in Gelt's campaign, getting a 20 stack of wizards before turn 20 is trivial. It's bonkers how powerful this is. It's a lot of fun, but it really makes the campaign easy.

the amethyst wizard has 1 winds for spirit leech from the item you get from the campaign mechanic for death wizards, it gives up to 80% recharge rate and up to .10 reserves per second scaling with kills, for infinite winds.

This is why I lvoe this game so much. The idea of 20 hardcore wizards wreckign shit is not that exiting UNTIL YOU SEE IT IN ACTION.

Gelt just casually taking out the colleges of magic professorate for a roadside picnic and some field studies.

It's so good they're finally getting those cataclysm spells and applying them to immortal empires, instead of the obnoxious chaos realms.

LORE OF EVERYTHING!!! (c) Gelt, probably

Tbh, i find it weird that Gelt is the only one with cataclysmic spells. What's about Teclis or Kairos.

You can refill your army action points with a celestial wizard. The college mechanic also boons unique mechanics based on the wizards you have. He used like 5000 books to boon all those cataclysm spells and stuff that last for 5-7 turns. To be fair, I'm not sure what your late game booking income is

"Is there a lore of magic we don't have?!" Rune Magic, Legend. Rune magic.

that empire captain is getting paid a fief's worth of cash just for birdwatching

The way they all jumped that wizard at 7:00 got me weak 😅

Chaos before seeing this: "The Empire is a land of weaklings, they stand no chance" Chaos after seeing this: "Flee, flee to Norsca and may the Gods save us"

Hell yeah, I've been waiting for a Gelt doomstack

What a fun army. You've got a spell for any situation

That thunb nail is fucking metal. Pun somewhat intended.

End Times lore accurate Gelt

Teclis wish he was this Supreme

legend of total war here... armies quake at his battle cry

“A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to”

I think theres a wizards apprentice that gives even more wizards when attached to hero’s ancillary.

The items and buffs you can buy from the school are also insane. You only need one death wizard and a single cast of purple sun for infinite winds.

Empire captain: What is my purpose? Gelt: To report back to franz and that geriatric on his wheelchair and scare the living sh*t out of them.

Isabella has really changed a lot huh, even rolling with mere humans.

Teclis deserves a mechanic like this

Playing Gelt right now, its SO much fun. What a great patch/DLC! Empire became awesome!

Pretty sure you can replenish your movement with the celestial wizard, so they kinda important

The biggest winner of Gelt's mechanics is actually Elspeth, she can cast purple sun for 2 winds of magic (And she gets 2.5 back from life leeching). This is without Yuan Bo's defeat trait also

tanya the evil and her squad of mages

if you don't want to risk (and i use that term lightly) your wizards you also have the great beast incarnate as a summon to blob up the army

The death wizard can get a unique item that gives him reserves per second based on amount of kills, so with just a couple purple suns you have passive infinite winds. I think this stack would be better with 1 of each wizard, 2 grey wizards (1 that hides in a corner, one that flies with the group for overcasting pendulum/pit), and the rest beast wizards for Melee Potential (which lets enemies blob up on the ground as well). You can add in a couple extra death/life for a bit more winds/regen but honestly its not needed.

"The enemy are using magic"

Just so people who haven't tried this understand, this isn't a constant doomstack. This particular doomstack has all of those cataclysm spells activated for this fight (as well as some of the special buffs like the barrier on all units), and they'll last on this army for 2 turns, but then there's a 7 turn cooldown before you can use them again. And you can only have that on one army at a time, and it's based on which wizards are available in that army. So if you don't want the big spells or buffs available for any other army, the player could be this OP for 2 turns every once in a while. That said, you don't really need the cataclysm spells or buffs like barrier for this to still be a strong stack, it's just not quite as OP all the time as this video indicates.

Unless I'm missing late game unlocks, it should be noted that some of the effects are sourced by faction abilities that only last 2-3 turns with a cooldown of roughly 8 turns iirc. Examples include all the cataclysm spells and army-wide barrier (Gelt and 1 light wizard can get permanent barrier for themselves). I think it remains powerful, but partial reliance on temporary buffs with a cooldown would rank it a bit lower compared to more consistent doomstacks imo. Also, those buffs can only be cast on an army that contains the appropriate type of wizard (need light wizard for barrier for example), so that explains the "need" to have at least one of each.

Lmfao the no micro doom stack was hilarious 😂

Gotta love the line "on foot!" when the caster is flying on his fucking pegasus. :D

When Legend realized the life wizard increased battle healing cap, it sounded like he was creaming himself. Understandable.

3:33 to 3:44 ahahaha 😂😂 hilarious interaction from Legend as a commentator.

That legally fighting jet with unlimited rocket there !

That single empire knight and his grey beard can't fool me

Here we see that Gelt is part of the shadow wizard money gang

Witch Hunters get stalk, but they're relatively slow... Does Ulrika get stalk? Apart from that, Elspeth casting Purple Sun for 2 winds is also kinda insane. Some of the big casters should also get access to their respective cataclysm spells. Not all of them (since you're not playing as the Colleges of Magic - which should be the faction name now). Mazdamundi, Teclis, Kairos, Wurrzag, Morathi and maybe the Dragons.

I wish the wizards got unique mounts as well. Beast Wizards out here pimped out with drip and Griffins and everyone else on their street legal Pegasus mount provided by the college driving school. There's gotta be good options out there.

I think in a human vs human match I might give the edge to a thunderbarge doomstack. Those thunderbarge harpoons can focus down a solid amount of wizards at a distance and then the barges can focus fire on particular mages from there. Both sides would want to hunt down whatever heroes are on the ground. There's also a lot more micro needed with all the wizards to cast all their spells. Malakai in the army also gives the potential to have one more super barge in the fight. If the strategy boiled down to "find the ground hero" as a win condition, I think the barges have enough health to track down the ground unit and harpoon it to kill it quickly. Immobilizing the barges and using specifically anti-flying spells on them might be the only real way for the wizards to come out on top. Sending them all into melee with lots of spell buffs on their damage and debuffs on the enemy could also be quite helpful for them. I still give the edge to the barges though since they can take out something like 5-8 wizards before the fight even properly begins and they each have a lot of hp to grind through (+ emergency repairs to boost them up after that). And if even 10 barges are left standing 2 minutes after the first harpoon waves, that's likely another 3-4 guaranteed dead wizards at that point (possibly many more if the harpoons are sent after various low health wizards. I'd be interested in seeing these two types of armies go head to head in pvp if all purchase limits on the army you can field were removed. I think either type of doomstack controlled by a human could beat the opposite type controlled by the AI without too much difficulty, if it were possible for the AI to come up with either type of army on its own in a standard game, though the wizards would have to put in much more work to do so (although immediately gunning for Malakai and any other heroes in the thunderbarge doomstack and killing them with strong single-character spells seems like a good win condition). Getting Malakai stalk somehow so he can be hiding just about anywhere seems like it'd be helpful in that scenario.

Empire captain doesn't matter, this army can melee the entire battle just cycle buff/debuff spell and have massive stat diff

Hey Legend, playing a no defeat, hero only campaign with Gelt. You get so much arcane that you can have your full stack in a few turns (put's you in the negative early on with like 6k upkeep, but who cares). No matter what I fight I just land everything in a blob and use comet of cassandora etc to instantly delete the enemy army. It is actually an extremely easy army to use. Select the closest enemy on triple speed, wait for the blob. Select all spells at the same time and vaporize the enemy army. The empire captain gives a nice 15% physical resist to the blob. With the 200% debuff spells nothing is going to harm you while the blob builds. I generally dislike doomstacks..... but wizards are just so satisfying to watch. For shits and giggles I also tried to farm the +2 melee attack, so the beast griffons actually do damage :D

This is a glorious doomstack! Death is pouring from the above and below the ground!

Luther Harkon is gangster until he gets hit with every single debuff in the game and ripped apart by half a dozen imperial griffons ridden by amber wizards.

Devs: we want magic to be less impactful in wh3 then in wh2. Also devs:

Tried out Gelt yesterday, it’s crazy just how fast it ramps out of control, like less than 20 turns and it’s just busted.

This looks like amazing fun, hope CA doesn't change it

This army is more Tzeentch than Kairos can ever get

an alternative to the captain or a grounded shadow wizard is a witch hunter, they also get stalk as an option together with snipe while being a bit more sturdy than a wizard if they are found.

More like Thrones of Doomstack, awesome

I usually find the idea of doomstacks boring and so I formulate my armies with just a few powerful units and I enjoy challenging myself to win without OP stacks but this looks hella fun and I am totally going to play a gelt campaign just to try something like this out.

"On foot" says the flying caster.

gelt and the boys rolling up to arby's at 2 am:

turning life force into magic with spirit leach lol.

28:16 I'm fairly sure the Celestial Wizard is here so that he can use the college of magic effect that allows you to fully refresh the movement range of any army with a Celestial wizard in it.

Spells are fun cos visually they look great. I mean I get thunderbatges shoot but the spellcasting is something else.

Hi legend I had the army set up by turn 20 with altrof tier 5 in my run... You can cheese altdorf of you return home by keeping occupying and abandoning a settlement in the same region to get fast pop. By turn 29 i had short victory, by turn 51 long victory, i had all empire plus Karl Boris and esphlet confederate and all bretonnia estalia tilea and border principles The funny thing Is that you can run this combo in every army since its so Easy to recruit those mages

That one Empire Captain and two Witch Hunters in a wizard doomstack. Dudes only needs to pack chairs and some ale as they watch the wizards level everything with so many powerful spells.

Gelt's League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen

I wish there was wizard lords. This would make fun stacks for gelt

Like Genie said: "Unlimted power - tiny autoresolve capacity"

Not talking over Gelt's speech is true gigachad behavior.

I hope they give cataclysm spells to Teclis Faction as well. The boy literally taught the Empire magic

15:22 This looks like what would happen if an ar.y tried to attack Nagash by himself.

this reminds me of the crimson dragon village in konosuba

Would be interesting to see this going against Thunderbarges. Legend you may consider that as new types of videos!

Just a sparky gang living their best lives.

563 winds of magic, and the bar isn't even full.

Empire captain there just vibing.

while Balthazar Gelt and his wizards destroyed the Asrai with Magic, Simon Warner, Captain of the empire was learning knitting after prepared some tea for the return of the magicians.

Kemmler flying along too and issuing commands😆

Heavens and Shadow Wizards are probably there for campaign map effects. Celestials for extra movement and to get extra turns, and shadow for ambushes and breaking leadership. Still, Gelt's Wizard Doomstack is broken, and doubly so if you use Ulrika as your ground based hero since you can give her stalk and snipe with an item from what I recall 😂

The death mage likely has the item that constantly generated WoM once he gets kills. Pop off a purple sun and you have infinite winds for the rest of the battle.

Welcome to the smoking crater that used to be estalia gentlemen.

feels like the most micro intensive doomstack ever

It takes many, many turns to get these levels...that passive xp gain from the Empire Captain is definitely useful. But when the doomstack is done, he should be switched with a witch hunter or grey wizard.