I'm convinced Jade Warriors may just be the best bang for your buck unit in the game. Cheap, tough, easy to get to, tech tree buffs them big time. They're perfect
Either them or queeks clanrats after capturing eight peaks, so easy to get buy them high rank and with frenzy(immune to psychology) they overperformed like crazy in my campaign😄
Depends as who you play. If you with the jade dragon and have to play with the lizard and they Dinos they is a timing you got completely dunked ( right before you get to have lots of level 12 guardian of the gates hero). Its The moment you want something big like the celestial lion. It's a subtle difference but since Cathay is so big you want your jade warriors not only doing good but winning, and they will struggle Vs anything good other races send.
Honestly, the best units out of Cathay roster are their lords. I've won so much battles with just one celestial general with right items or burned full stacks of rats with one yang shugengan lord with wall of fire spell. New respec option allows you to return them into recruitment pool quickly, and they could save so much emergency situations or even take undefended (and even defended sometimes) settlements
Every Cathayan Lord excels in one place. Celestial Generals are massive beatsticks that definitely sit in the upper ranks of melee lords, Shugengans have access to two fairly powerful lores of magic, and Lord Magistrates can buff an army far better than basically any other lord option for any faction. I know Lord Magistrates are technically the worst of Cathay’s generic lords, but I still think universal vanguard deployment is one of the funniest things you can do as Cathay.
@@noahandrulis9077Magistrates are probably the biggest silent achiever out there. Sure, I don't use them in a clutch campaign and will take the Yin and Yang ladies any day, but they are still a good lord choice and can still form part of a strategic army.
@@noahandrulis9077 Celestial general are easily among the S+ tier melee generic lords. The other two examples that are about equal in strength are chaos lord of khorne on juggernaut and bretonnian lord on hippogryph with blessing of the lady. Maybe saurus old-blood as well. They have worse animations than fr*nch and bigger than celestial general and chaos lord, but you can use their collision charge to wreck infantry. The rest of lords in terms of melee combat are probably worse in stats or utility. Or both
@@tyoshi5590 my most agonizing choice when setting up a Cathayan army is who the Lord is, because all three lord options are so good in different ways. I typically end up recruiting Celestial Generals early-game, because a melee beatstick can wipe most early-game armies, Shugengans in the midgame, when they get enough bonus recruit ranks to have a couple spells to use, and Lord Magistrates late-game, when I can beeline Art of War and do silly things with army-wide Vanguard Deployment.
As a pretty new player to total war games and a remarkably new player to Warhammer III in particular I learnt some helpful things about how the Cathay faction works as well as enjoying your content. Hope you keep up the helpful tier list series :)
Also the building you recruit them from gives you an additional recruitment slot and extra campaign line of sight, so they’re my go to building for minor settlements if I need to build something useful without sending my harmony out of wack.
Thank you so much for all this content ! It's really changed my game play and has made a huge difference in my games and also the enjoyment in the game. Please keep the content coming 🙏
Jade Lancers can make a pretty beastly doomstack but it's hard to set up. Their charges go insane with the celestial general + techs + erengrad lance. Add some gatemasters (best if trained) for the extra MD and an alchemist for the lore passive and some spell shenanigans (plague of rust overcast to help with low armor piercing) and they can wreck stuff.
I love the yin yang system on the battlefield. I dont think Ive ever played a faction with more diverse armies than the way I played cathay. Can only think of one unit I really didnt like and thats the sky lantern
I think, the Compass belongs in the trash. Since the Astomancer gets them as a mount. It's horrendous in battle and it's spells get outclassed, since you bring at least 1 Spellcaster with you anyway. Also: Lore info: only people with dragonblood can ride Longmas.
You make good argument for the Compass being banished. Without the bound spells it'd be a non-contest and assuming you have the capacity, you're correct the an extra astromancer is the way to get this unit to work. I actually didn't know only Dragonblooded can ride Longmas. That'll likely make it into the Mastery Guide when it comes. Cheers mate, hope you're well!
@@darthnihilus6211their bound spell also gets the spell boost from their mastery of elemental winds trait. There for, their comets and lighting is about 80% of the same spell from lore of heaven.
@@darthnihilus6211 the true sell point of the compass is the mastery of elemental wind trait which give 15% boost to all your spell, although all spell casters from cathey has the same trait, they either are lords or hero bound by limits. As a normal unit, wuxin war compass does not have limit, so you can spawn them to have 200% spell boost.
Cathay armies really are lots of fun especially when you get all the synergies working together. I mean 190-200 range AP crossbows are so disgusting to watch tear through armored frontlines.
Very in depth analysis, Cathay feels great to play due to their strong and cost efficient jade infantry, and the new patch added tons of good specialist units to help them out for various difficult scenarios. My biggest difficulty early on when playing as Miao or Zhao is facing against Lokhir and his DE scums. Normally when he declared war against my allies i have only reached tier 2, which DE counters me really hard. All their core units have silver shields which nullifies most of my dmg source. Jade frontline can hold but eventually they will lose to DE heros and corsairs. Darkshards with silver shield will just tank my peasant arrows and melt my 80 armor jades. If Miao or Zhao isn’t present, none of my lord/hero can handle their DE counterparts. Celestial General needs higher level to be truly formidable. At lvl 6-7 he had no chance against Lokhir. However if I managed to holdout till Tier 3, DE won’t be a big hurdle with the help of canons, lions and Jade lancers.
Really good, nuanced take on that stage of the campaign. The biggest challenge is you have a great counter vs heroes: ironhail gunners. Just 2 units will shred those scrawny knife-ears... problem is ironhails have a very short range so you need to keep them in reserve for the start of the battle as their AP bolts will target and shred them. Establish that frontline of Jade warriors, but yes, you're on borrowed time as they're only blocking 33% and their armour is hampered by the AP. Elves have about ~10% less HP and fight in close formations so AOE absolutely smashes them. So... first kill the Corsair's with your archers if they're infront as they are unshielded. Then wipe out unshielded darkshards as your #1 priority. Without their bows and magic, elves can maneuver but struggle to land damage so tie up their front line, fire bolts to wipe their archers and use AoE to wipe their frontlines so you don't need to shoot into shielded units. move your ironhail's out and stretcch them out toward the back of an engaged enemy hero and watch them vanish. As mentioned, you have some great T3 options as mentioned, so holding back is a solid option too thanks to that additional mobility, plus shielded Jade Crossbows shut darkelves down hard.
@@ElvenPlotArmour your analysis on iron hails is spot on for this stage of the game. I had to macro them very carefully, keeping them out of darkshard range while trying to kite DE characters into their line of fire. After spending an eternity macroing them and finally finished off one character, my entire frontline had already collapsed! I used to be able to distract darkshards with 2 units of crowman but now they just disintegrate while I’m looking the other way. I also find peasant arrows deal very little dmg to corsairs’ 80 armor. I probably need to spend more cash and add more Jade crossbow since they do significantly more dmg to corsairs from my experience. Magic wise I think Zhao definitely has the edge since not only he got dragon breath, but also an alchemist. Both got great cost effective early game horde clearing magic. I find them invaluable at this stage of the game. I will give a try again tonight and see if I can manage to beat Lokhir! Thank you very much!
I use the ancestors for rear flanking right after contact. I know that point will be weak later for a fold... if I don't get distracted over watching/directing the rain of fire.😊
@ElvenPlotArmour if they add the Monkey king, he should be a fast melee master, so he could do the same thing, but instead of ghosting in, he's just fast as shit... so you have to watch him walk into your line and fold it like a news paper... Give him a Moon flare( warhammer kamehameha) any body between me and this guy gets lizard magic to the jaw. Balance would make him weaker then most melee lords in a straight up duel, But can wipe army morale with an instant shock potential. Here's to hoping. 🍻 Geat Channel. Historical Transfer. Very helpful knowing how I'm getting melted instantly by well set ai armies thinking I'm ready.🤦🏾♂️🤣. 🤙🏾🐵✌🏾
wery nice look at unit rank; i like revil of tier at the start of the unit and than say why; is nice to divate units on tiers and talk them video by type very greate format clear and undertending
You've inspired me to go into the generic lord options for the formations video (likely next video) so cheers for that! I'll give it the proper analysis and give it there. Cheers mate.
Bruh, the halberds are way better than the normal jade warriors, they get plenty of buffs from tech, and +6 melee defence per gate master. you can get give those bad boys over 80 melee defence. The shields are not much of a loss, since you can give them a ton of armour, and you'll need the armor piercing, since your ranged doesn't do much ap. You should never worry about the upkeep of jade units, a magistrate and 3 gate masters give extremely cheap armies that are quite strong due to their comically high melee defence (even the shielded archers can get over 60 no prob). The real damage dealers are the astromancer on big bird tho, so just throw one in as well. The jade spam army comp i go with is: Magistrate in balloon, 3 gate masters, 1 astromancer on bird, 1 drum, 6 jade halberds, 5-6 jade shielded crossbows, 2-3 arties (either cannon+rocket or a couple skyjunks). These armies are dirt cheap, magistrate cuts upkeep of all and heroes, gm's cut upkeep of jade units...
Fun fact, I was trying to make a top 10 list of defensive infantry, and while finding out stuff I discovered that Celestial Dragon Guard can kill a whole unit of Dragon Ogres with mere 2 casualties suffered, even without the harmony buff!
Would love to see your list as I intend to cover those lists in the future 😂 Discord in the description if you'd like to share, everyone there is cool.
Noticed you didn’t bring up how the terra-cotta Sentinel is really not used for killing infantry but more for killing other monsters. In a 1v1 it will beat most monsters but I’ve seen it lose to infantry before.
Just put 4 cannons in each army and focus fire all the shielded Darkshards. Shields don't protect against large projectiles. Peasant archer spam can kill everything else.
is this 10 building reducing global recruitment a new feature or has it always been present? Is it for all factions as well? First time hearing it mentioned
It's something I composed and released as a cheapass way to have background music without paying royalties haha. You reckon it'd be better to remove the music or just add more tracks to spread the rotation?
The longma riders are not better than Pegasus knights. Couple of reasons but just look you'll see had to say it. Great vid though had to say it as a bretonnia fan boy..
Cathay Formations video is coming next, but to answer your question: depends on the lord and opponent. Dragon Guard and Crossbows should form near-half your army with 2-4 artillery (cannon, rockets or sky junk are all good) and then your pick of flanking units. 2 Astromancers can be used, one on Compass and the other on a Moon Bird. Failing that, mid-upper power armies can be made by boosting Jade units with Saytang and Gate Masters but they'll suffer against heavy armies. Cathay are just excellent with so many possibilities.
The don't suck per se. They're just large models so they will take hits, meaning cav is best with armour or with some solid AP damage (so they kill what they hit before pulling away). Light cav archers are great, but as pure melee they will struggle against higher tier threats. Remember shock cav is designed to break the enemy more than kill them, but they need to survive getting out so they can charge again!
On first glance they're pretty close, but you're right, the little strengths add up to make it much stronger unit. Empire Cannon was B or C Tier if I recall.
