Very informational as usual, although I would've expected you going into a little more detail of the effects that damage has on units, since that is by far the largest and most common factor on leadership, considering the video is called "everything you need to know". For anyone interested in that, Understanding LEADERSHIP! by Zerkovich is the video where I first learned about it. It's much much longer, so harder to digest (I guess that's why you cut it short Enticity). The part of the video about health is from 1:40 to 6:40. I'm definitely looking forward to you covering the rest of the base unit stats, and maybe some common abilities! Personally, I'd love to understand accuracy a bit better, since that stat is completely hidden from the player, apart from a few mentions here or there, which is mostly the "bad accuracy" or "good accuracy" tags on top of a unit card. I'd also love to hear about how bracing and charge interact, especially with the new charge reflection ability we got in wh3.
As someone who's been playing for just under a year, these breakdowns on stats are invaluable. The fact that they're bite sized also make it much more approachable as someone looking for a broader run down of the mechanic. Hope to see more of these! :D
There's actually much more you need to know. Like how there are 3 different damage sustained leadership penalties: 1 for damage in last 4 seconds, 1 for in the last 60 seconds, and a permanent one. That's why units rout really fast if bursted by a spell.
Also the Faster and Stronger Enemies Nearby penalty is not simply a -3 but is based on combat power nearby. If you ever used Meance Below in the middle of the opponent's army, you probably noticed they routed immediately, above 75% hp sometimes.
Well, dwarfs running away without being broken was quite common in my previous campaign. (not sure why, but full stealth breaks the ai quite hard in tw:wh2)
I've been playing the Total War games since Medieval 2 and I never knew how armour or leadership really worked. Thanks for breaking it down for us man!
Wait terror routing doesn't count as one of the 3? Units routing don't unrout if they're being chased so chase them off the map with some units bad at fighting like furies or dogs.
That rear charge example was great. I didn't realize the difference was that massive. I have just noticed that I tend to win more if I have a few chaos knights with me.
This seemed to be all about ways to reduce leadership, what about ways to increase it? Encouraged by units, a nearby Lord, even temporary buffs to counter leadership bombing (nothing like buffing leadership on spears when an enemy tries to terror bomb them, they eat the enemy alive)
If only Frenzy would deactivate when the unit's leadership is already wavering instead of below 50% leadership like the old Mark of Khorne in TWW1 was then perhaps Frenzy would've definitely felt more like actual Frenzy lol
In the early game, it can really help to keep some units like wolves on the flanks to chase down any fleeing unit since units that are routed and under attack will never rally.
Maybe will be a great idea to create a playlist with all this types of videos so it is easier and quicker for new people and also experienced players that want tips about certain things like u do in some other videos
Don't be afraid to make mechanics video take their time, because the people who even watch the mechanics video are those that seek and enjoy information and detail, those who want a mechanic video to be as short as possible aren't even here. Great video!
Unless they changed it since warhammer 2, there is also a leadership debuff for being shot by artillery. this can be very hand to break of wavering ranged units if you mobile units are either tied up or dead.
This is good to know since as Kairos in IE my life has been hell because making lizards run almost seemed impossible unless I killed almost every single one of them. This gives me new appreciation for cavalry but also makes me realize that maybe I just need more terror units in my armies to more appropriately deal with the endless order tide arriving to make my life hell on the beaches of my lands. In fact in my opinion its soo bad down there for Kairos that you literally have to do specific things at specific times in order to survive, since if you expand too quickly you will most certainly just kill yourself as the order tide is unrelenting and almost more unending than the ork wagh tide....kinda wish there were more walkthroughs on Kairos on IE so I could get a general idea of what to do vs what not to do. Thusfar I have a pretty good idea of what not to do but that only gets me so far before I run into the same issue.
by putting the units in a control group and locking their formation (Which I believe is done with CTRL+G by default, or by grouping them and then clicking the padlock icon above their portraits). It's very handy for maneuvering large groups of units in general.
Oh Enticity, you needed to add the most important one: Damage recently taken. Its a huge modifier that is the glue that makes all other leadership breaking effects work, and giving its numbers would have been great for players to know. You can get groups of tier 1 infantry and a 30% hp monster to break a fresh tier 5 if you use the mechanic correctly.
I'd always chase the enemy lord down even when they're just about to leave the map, clearly in those situations I should let them run off for that 4× longer debuff
Killing them also gives the permanent -10 debuff which running them off the field doesn't, though I'm not 100% sure if that stacks with the recently died debuff or if the one only kicks in after the other wears off.
also good vs leadership: artillery fire (it doesn't even have to hit to inflict leadership dmg) ranged fire so sometimes those can also lead to a good rout
Every. Time. Every single time I see a dwarf slayer like that in the thumbnail. All I can think about. Is Bobby Hill. That's my purse, I don't know you!
This is also why it's a really bad idea to make solid battle lines instead of staggered lines with gaps. While solid lines can partially prevent flanking you can't get flanks of opportunity (unit A pulls from it's fight to flank the unit fighting unit C) without going around your opponents entire formation, easy for cav not for anything else. Without opportunity flanks you're stuck in what I like to call Grinder match ups that result in high damage to both parties going to the side with higher stats.
Really unfortunate that this mechanic is essentially completely removed on very hard difficulty. Almost every npc unit will just fight to the death. But any other difficulty setting and the battles get trivial. I really wish the AI was smarter :(
Yup, only way to fix that is games in the future with actual Ai, way way better coding or playing multi-player versus games. Or even the shogun 2 drop in mechanic for single player campaign when battles happen.
TBH it mostly drops off in campaign not just on VH because there's a lot of leadership bonuses going around. Less than there were in WH2 because the AI doesn't get unit chevrons free in its breakfast cereal any more, but there's still more characters, techs, and character levels that add to it.
The only thing missing is the leadership debuff due to low health. By testing with grimgor "Da immortalz banner" you can get up to -60 -70 leadership on health alone. What is the exact value again? I used to have several big bosses surrounding them. Since they wouldnt die even with 0 health, I used to make them tank all of the enemies arrows.
great video, it's really good to have a straight number breakdown on all the generic leadership modifiers. quick question, if fear and terror apply together, does that result in -13 (terror overwriting fear), or -21 (terror stacks with fear) leadership?
One thing I found recently is that wind spells bounce. This may be something that has been in the game since WH1 and I just never noticed, but I cast Wind of Death in a street during a minor siege battle and the spell bounced back and forth across the street and hit every unit like 6 times, which completley wiped them. Not sure if this is a common knowledge thing or something that only happens rarely.
As far as i know its a new thing for WH3 - it makes casters in sieges far more dangerous than field battles, and a flying unit to snipe them almost essential.
Hey there, been watching for a while now. I just wanted to say that your content, to be succinct, is great. I'm not into MP for Warhammer games (seriously, havent even played a single 1v1 MP battle) but your skill, knowledge, and personality keeps me coming back. The Warhammer titles have so much depth , and it doesn't help their accessibility when half of the skills and mechanics aren't fully elaborated in tooltip/description menus, bugged, or both. You help to shine a light on this stuff, and I feel as if this type of content is useful for just about any skill level. Thank you for the time and effort you take into pumping out these videos. It doesn't go unnoticed. Also, if you have a free moment to respond, do you play any single player campaigns? I was curious as to how you'd conclude the end game for Vilitch (Normal/Normal). I'm on turn 140 and nearing the promised land.
I didnt' play Total war for long time but weren't Skaven desing in mind that they rout often and get back as quickly? I remember rotating their units all the time they certainly must rount more then 3 times.
Can you do a video on control scheme? I noticed there was a moment where you highlighted a bunch of units and had them all attack in a straight line as opposed to focus one unit
It feels like the only way to beat a unit using morale is after dealing DAMAGE to it. Or if you have a unit that causes terror passively and u send it on a low tier unit in the flank. There's literally no other way. Leadership debuffs per factor are very very small, to defeat a medium tier unit with full hp using only morale shock/debuffs, you would need to stack an unbelievable number of morale debuffs/factors/sources from flanking, unit passive, under fire, etc, just to get half of their morale down. Or you kill half of their unit models/hp and you can break it with a cav charge to the rear. It's really sad how little morale has to do with anything other than damage unless ur a low tier expendable unit. For example: getting attacked in the rear -14 vs loosing loosing 15 models in a short amount of time -20. If you stack the morale penalties from taking damage and loosing models vs how many external factors that give you morale penalties you would still have a lot less morale penalties from damage that would apply around the same amount number then from the external factors. Which to me makes it near impossible to win battles against large armies when the objective is to deal as much damage as possible and not use the best strategy to break the enemy as fast as possible.
I'm curious what would happen if Skaven, expendable units, and feral units could only rout 2 times rather than 3. Since, you know, they don't feel all that valued in their army. Even though i would love if they, and especially Skaven who benefit from routing, would break after routing twice i think they would become too weak.
Tell me about this leader.... oh yes I'm asking about it like honestly I know nothing about the custom characters would you mind doing a video on them please.
I wonder, does the “if a unit routs three times” rule apply to the undead and demonic units? Like, if they start to crumble 3 times, but recover each time, will they just disintegrate next?
Huh. I don't think so-I don't think crumbling counts the same as routing technically under the hood- but I never payed close enough attention. It's also kinda hard to get a crumbling unit to recover and go back to crumbling three times during normal gameplay, so harder to just randomly stumble on.
Stronger faster enemy penalty is less impactful? Are you sure? This is the main strength of cavalry and one of the most powerful debuffs. Separate unit, surround it, charge - instant death in many many cases
If I can read the configs right then the max penalty for stronger faster enemies is 32 while the max penalty for very recent damage (5 seconds or something) is 80. Legend is very knowledgeable but he isn't 100% technically right about everything he says.
@@ruukinen i am not mentioning him in that regard, i'm speaking for myself. Yes, you are right, this penalty technically is not the strongest one in terms of numbers, but. We talking about completely surrounded unit, it takes a lot of damage and this penalty combines with 'faster-stronger' penalty and it can instantly break and shatter unit. And again: I'm not an expert by any means, just speaking for myself, and at this specific topic i asked for opinion, not arguing at all. Just random guy in internet
@@Ax_Dj0 I mean it's not wrong if you take it as the best way to rout enemy units is to separate them and surround them. But it's more a culmination of different modifiers than one specific modifier doing all the work.
How does the stabilising of leadership work? Ive seen units on the very verge of routing suddenly recover, where in that same situation I have seen them rout
There are going to be many factors involved, such as nearby (enemy or friendly) units, how fatigued your unit is, if there are any other effects on the unit (such as lord/hero leadership abilities) and so on.
Some leadership penalties are temporary (e.g. Lord recently died, unit took X% HP damage suddenly) rather than conditional (flanks unguarded, terror causing entity nearby). If the timer on a temporary penalty runs out without the unit breaking, their leadership will climb back up (although not quite to full, most temporary penalties will have a smaller ongoing penalty caused by the same condition).
From my experience unbreakable units still lose leadership in the background. I saw my gorger units losing their Frenzy buff after bad fights. Unless there is some other way to lose frenzy Edit: cant recreate it so nvm
That's either a visual or actual bug, can't you replicate it? Unbreakable means the units suffers no leadership damage whatsoever, so it shouldn't lose frenzy under any circumstance.
Does frenzy work on percentage HP at the start of battle or overall? If I have a unit under half from an initial battle, and they take a second battle after; does frenzy become active until the unit drops below half in the second battle?
Frenzy is based on leadership, not HP. It is active whilst you're above 50%. If you go under 50% it drops off and comes back when you go back above 50%. Now it's quite possible that it's above 50% *base* leadership (Grimgor's "Da Immortulz" banner works like that), which means that Encourage units being nearby provide a bigger buffer than otherwise. Units that started a battle at part strength may have a leadership penalty for that if they're low enough, which will affect Frenzy and make it easier for it to drop off in the battle.
Put the units you want to attack with in one control group (cntrl + 1 for example) then lock the formation with cntrl + G, or click on the 'lock' icon right next to the number of your control group in the lower middle of your screen. Then issue an attack order for the control group. It's not ideal and typically more useful versus the more predictable AI. If your enemy shifts his formation, your units can attack sub-optimally, resulting in them walking into enemy units rather than charging. It's only really useful if you really need to micro other important units, otherwise I highly recommend learning to issue orders individually quickly.
@@sandercohen9712 It also gives you some AI in what the unit will target next if you don't give it any orders after the initial order. Very nice for Khorne where you want to just send your meatgrinders in and micro heroes/skarbrand around.
tbh the leadership mechanics are one of the worst things in combat. i hate the bullshit rout system just for instant rout again after rally. thats why undead , demons are so hard to deal. maybe a 1 min immunity to psychology after rally would be good. has nothing to do with my comment but fck dwarfs... :P
