Total Tactics - How To: Advanced Gunpowder Formations | Total War: Warhammer 3 

Yooooo! Ma! I'm on Malleus gaming! Total whiplash from hearing my name lol. Cheers for another great vid!

Skaven players: Collateral damage? You mean happy accidents.

Equipping an item on your Road Block character that gives a temporary damage resistance buff would be a nice addition to that first strategy of yours.

I love gunpowder units but recently I've been wondering what is the best place to put my cannons to use grapeshot without absolutely obliterating my own frontline and not leaving it extremely exposed lol.

The gunpowder wedge looks really nice

Everyone has a plan until a dragon lands in the middle of your formation

Time for more Empire formations as Gelt!

Very useful! Thx for sharing! I always love the gun unit in this game, so many cool formations we can try

"SHORT!?" <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="406">6:46</a>

So much help your videos. I was so frustrated with missle troops but your videos have helped alot.

The Gunpowder Wedge looks beautiful! Makes me want to try it out myself with the Chaos Dwarfs first and foremost, then other factions. Saw this video by accident, but will have a look at your other videos to get some inspirations on formations :)

Love these videos - they give me so much inspiration

I’ve seen your videos quite a bit recently and love them. Your voice is very pleasant and descriptive

I have been practicing a lot with the Dwarfs lately. One of my favorite battles recently was attacking the Sister's tree with Grombrindal. They had 3 armies in there and I had just one. I set up 2 squads of sort of a checkerboard cross of 4 units, with Ironbreakers in front center, Grudgerakers on the sides and Torpedo Irondrakes in the rear center. I had the 2 groups set up one of the forward to the right and the other further back to the left. I had Grombrindal and my Runesmith with those groups to support as well. I had my 2 Grudgesettler Irondrakes in reserve to come in when needed. That group was attacking the left entrace to the grove. On the right side I setup my 2 Flame Cannons, Engineer, Thane, and another Ironbreaker unit. The Flamecannons just fired over a short wall of trees and the Ironbreakers and Thane were there for protection but did not end up being needed. Ended up getting nearly 4000 kills and losing less than 10 Dwarfs. Dirty Knife Ears didn't stand a chance. The 2 squads worked really well moving up while the other squad covered them. I had 2 Brimstone Gyrocopters but they were not safe to be used as the enemy had so many archers. This army was all about fire 🔥.

my fav gunpowder strat is a chevron formation setup similar to your killbox strat. but its artillery, cannons or organ guns usually setup exposed in the centre. it allows them to fire right down the flank of the enemy balling up around the tips of your chevrons which i make quite angular so the enemy balls up around them more

Loved these, and all the vids I've been able to enjoy since discovering your channel. I call the first one 'Hero tanking".

Love this series since it began! I've modified your older tercio formation adding in the Hochland long rifles and Nuln Ironsides and the results were pretty epic.

Hey malleus, love the formation videos. Would be interesting to see more infantry or cav focused formations and tactics. Keep up the great content! :)

Using allied units would be a huge help here. For instance, kislev riflemen behind thunderers would allow both of them to shoot at an oncoming enemy since kislev are tall and dwarfs short.

Great video!

Have you heard of the barcode formation? The idea is while gunners can't shoot through other units but can shoot through their own so you take your units and only give them the narrow area to deploy, making them form into columns 2-3 figures wide. Lets you concentrate massive firepower in one narrow direction

Right on time as I got home

Watching your series on gunpowder tactics has certainly done a bit to update my own from my previous checker-board. I tend to prefer multiple, flexible units acting in support of one another, and mostly field something inbetween your Dutch Reform and Swedish Brigade set-ups(Two units of two melee and three range being my current set-up). I like to field a strong cavalry arm as well, to properly sieze the initiative, and maybe even deal with any enemy artillery before it becomes too much of a nuissance. Flying mages comes in handy for that last part. Cheers.

Hey i love your content, i think ive seen all your formation videos and it makes me want to play every time. Could you possibly do a video on archer formations for factions like the wood elves who rely on skirmishing, cav, and specialist infantry?

I love vampire coasts, so I'll try this and more :) thanks

Through your adive and my own trial and error I've come from hating and never using gunpowder units to primarily fielding them with great results (on highest difficulty)! :D

I'm very famliar with the road block strat. Helps out so much for my skaven runs. Trying out the dwarfs again and its goin very well now. But his vid has helped to clarify where my early formations went wrong. I got Thorgrim up to 6 Thanes now all with tankards and they just get stuck in. Gyrocoptors which I was never a fan of in the past are great now. And in quite the turn around have replaced my go to thunderers in some cases.

I use a version of killbox with Kislev, where it's two shallow "niches" filled with Streltsi, staggered so one in a bit in front of the other, and surrounded by a wall of armored kossars. Instead of aiming straight, the Streltsi aim diagonally, so that right flank streltsi cover left flank kossars, and left flank streltsi cover right flink kossars. kossars with spears cover the back so they can shoot their bows, and if cav comes calling they go melee stance with spears. I suppose one could use the "kislev warriors" for that too, but I can't even look at them. I have 2 units of heavy cav at the ready, and horse archers or light sleds lead the enemy into the niches. Once the enemy is close, use a hag with and an ice witch to stack slow spells to pretty much get the enemy army stuck in firing range or armored kossars and streltsy crossfirre. from up close, streltsi bullets just go through enemy line instead of hitting the "one dude on the right" as missiles usually do, causing an absolute massacre. Meanwhile, winged hussars counter enemy cav, and hunt down stragglers. If the enemy ranged gets away from the infantry I use my skirmishers to melee them. Once the line is joined, my hussars immediately go for side charges, usually ending the battle in one or two cycles. Very effective tactics, the two shallow niches instead of one big one like you did splits enemy army in two once the lines are joined, so your missile units aren't so vulnerable.. Also, Kislev.

Love the video, for the roadblock you can use mointed heroes or lords to cover fast units attacking from the flanks.

Thank you ❤

Nice! Have you thought about doing a video on siege formations/tactics?

I like a roadblock formation with my artillery far off to my left or right flank depending on terrain. I keep a cavalry formation that can intercept any that head towards my artillery. As battle progresses I move my main army forward within gun range. The artillery causes some units to aggro towards them. This exposes flanks to my gun powder units. Cavalry can intercept any that get too close. Flying units the only issue with this formation so if enemy army has some fliers I usually leave a unit of spears or swordsman behind my artillery. Been working great so far.

My favourite roadblock is using skaven armies, A combination of packmasters on brood horrors (fear and regen with wolfrat summons) supported by weapons teams. Works a treat 👌

The only "gunpowder" factions I play are Dwarfs and Skaven. however, I'd imagine this also works with the others. I've started using what I call the funnel formation. I setup in the underway or using the corner of the map chokepoints or between impassable terrain to protect the flanks. I set up 4 to 6 melee infantry In a V shape, but I leave a large gap in the middle. Heroes and lords stand in the wide area at the top of the V. Thunderers or ratlings in that open gap at the bottom. They can shoot along both sides of the V, hitting any units that engage the line, and anything foolish enough to come straight down the middle gets stuck on the heroes and gets deleted. This also allows for canons to be behind the guns and still get line of sight to fire. If you want to mix in units that fire on an arc, quarellers and grudge throwers or globadeers and mortars and plagueclaws in the case of the skaven. The can easily be set up behind the melee units on either side of the V and not obstruct anything. If on the off chance anything manages to go all the way around the tip of the V and try to come at the guns, you will have plenty of time to react even with fast units it is as simple as turning and firing. Or run through the gap to the other side of the V if it's an overwhelming amount of Cav, for instance.

I’ve seen this unit combo of Ice guard and Strelsi for kisliv in a tournament. The unit combo, worked wonderful VS the other players. For example dwarves.

I always love watching videos like this from clearly SP players. These tactics will definitely prepare you for an enemy that walks at you directly in a straight line.

Man thats crazy, and here i am always just putting my guns to the left/right of my frontline and using them to flank. I had no idea people did stuff like this, Like make a formation and leave it in gods hands.

Your formation is not as rigid as my tactical mind. Thank you for expanding it :-D

Speaking of combined arms units, I’m curious if you have any advice for armies that combine gunpowder and monster units, both monstrous infantry and single-entity, like vampire coast and clan moulder. Do you have any insights as to how to properly leverage the unique strengths of both.

You have seriously helped me take my Empire Games to a whole new level, I was a Skaven main until recently so the idea of complex formations to allow unobstructed firing mid-combat was kinda a non-idea... I had right at the end of my Skavenship stumbled upon a poorly optimised checkerboard pattern where I'd use Ratling-Gunners and Storm Vermin side by side and skaven slaves as a roadblock to gun down along with whatever they were attacking but that was as far as it had gone.

I reckon a good addition to the roadblock is cavalry that attacks the charging enemy from the flanks. Cavalry should be better at bogging down the enemy than single entity units because cavalry obviously contains a lot more units and also the enemy can't disengage and continue the charge towards ranged units without getting overrun by the cavalry. Due to their mobility, the cavalry will also be able to disengage without too much hassle when they start taking too many losses.

I've found that very tight formations like your last one tend to be vulnerable to fast moving SEMs (particularly flying ones). It's not a big deal if there's only 1 or 2 of them, but the AI tends to have more of them toward the late game, and they can quickly and easily fly in and disrupt the entire formation by tying up multiple ranged units when charging through them. This then leaves the front line unsupported, and your ranged units in the middle have no space to maneuver away from the SEMs in their midst. It's also vulnerable to enemy artillery fire, since iirc Dwarf artillery has no range advantage over most other races, and is in fact outranged by both Empire and Cathay, while being roughly on par with Skaven and slightly ahead of Greenskin artillery. Having the dwarf cannons at the rear means enemy artillery can hit your front line and you will not be able to return fire, unless you have fast movers like gyrobombers to take them out, but that is difficult if the enemy has ranged units near their artillery. Not saying it's a bad idea though, but definitely situational.

him: "advanced gunpowder formations" also him: "ROADBLOCK"

My favorite tactic now right now is using a Dwarf Thane with the 75% fire resist skill standing right in front of some Iron Drakes. Super easy combo and very effective.

I find it really hard to micromanage everything thats going on so recently I made my armies just have Sootson Mortar, War Wagons and a whole mass of Spearmen with Shields. The spearmen with Shield are there to bait aggro and tie up opponents, my Mortars target enemy Missiles and the War Wagons are the actual DPS because they can shoot over the Spearmen and they deal armor piercing damage. Once I have budget I get a landship and thats what I micromanage primarily since it can run over infantry.

Interestingly, I've been experimenting this week with gunpowder formations for my Karl Franz campaign. The roadblock tactic with 4 steam tanks in front of a gunnery line works really well against Chaos (that is not N'Kari) and greenskins. The defensive wedge style don't work that well with the Empire faction though, as they lack a sturdy enough frontline. Pikemen can only do so much when they get charged by chaos warriors and forsaken.

Just in time for my Nuln run

The kill box is a beautiful thing

Could you make more specific army videos? I really liked the Belegar one. Maybe one for Tyrion fighting Malekith or a White Lions based army for Alastar?

Most gunpowder formations have a huge blind spot when it comes to range heavy enemy armies such as Wood Elves.

I've used the roadbloak a lot in my games

I keep seeing the use of heroes to roadblock units but when I try it my heroes/melee units just get ran by and mostly ignored.

Glorious friendly fire at 7.28 for the DAWI. Must be borrowing Skaven tactics

I would love to see you come up with an army based around Net of Amyntok.

surprised you didnt cover the Stink Box formation

For Dwarfs with grapeshot cannons, I have a modified kill box formation that has never lost. I have the cannons in the center, with irondrakes behind to fire over. Melee infantry are spaced wide in a reverse chevron, with two grudge rakers firing inward toward the chevron. Finally, I’ve found having a goblin heart either side internally to be a great monster stopper. Switch to grapeshot once enemy is within range and watch them get shredded trying to rush the cannons

Amazing video. But how do you change the direction of fire of a square deployed unit? I've seen your gunpowder units in a square formation facing one of the angles rather than one of the sides. Whenever I change direction of fire (usually by giving a new attack order), they often rotate the whole formation, rather than just rotating the single soldiers in place.

I think on your last formation video someone mentioned using dwarf frontline (was playing as nuln). The Ironsides could ussually shoot right over longbeard heads

Love your videos. Could you do one on Vampire Counts formations? I want to feel more like a Dark Lord mastermind, and I am also very tired of constantly blobbing up. Love me some Corpse Carts and Mortis engines, don't get me wrong, I just think there has to be more to the strategy than lumping everything around them. I ask because the Counts don't have any ranged units and feel like they want to be a rush faction, but their frontline is just so slow, meaning very few of the formations displayed so far seem to have any success. I also struggle a bit with larger units and ranged armies, so some counter-play strategies for that would be greatly appreciated as well. Thanks in advance.

I know you've done the chevron but what about 1 big chevron? Splitting your army in 2 with any units approaching each army in the crossfire? Local superiority may mean less when you're getting absolutely showered in missiles.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="120">2:00</a> "Sword and shield", as the old dogma from the bronze age: the phalanx was the shield, cavalry was the sword. superseded by the granddaddy of Combined Arms, "Cohort command" by the Roman legions, where all individual sections of a larger army were both sword and shield at every turn. superseded centuries later by the closest comparison of CA: "Fire and maneuver" warfare is as old as humanity... so, DO look to ancient history when teaching warfare! I won games of Age Of Empires by using trebuchets and archers as a unit of mechanized infantry!

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="132">2:12</a> The simple road block is the best, but to reach its maximum benefit you have to look at and know the terrain: Instead of heroes, place regular melee unit at the exact start base of a hill, and the range units up that hill. If you do it right you can have two lines of gun rifles shooting at blobs of enemies that are not even in combat. It was my basic tactic with the Vampire coast against the Lizardmen. The only available efficient tactic, since Lizardmen are a rush faction and the vampire coast is a defense one.

he hath risen! behold!

Sometimes, I miss when CA did the disastrous patch that allowed stacked units to not friendly fire each other. Didn't have to worry about formation for few days.

The Gunpowder Wedge feels so wonderfully Dwarfy. Inflexible, impenetrable, only to be used by the most experienced of generals due to complexity? Aye, I'll drink to that! ;P

The Road Block is called "tanking" and is like the most gamer strategy ever. Effective in every scenario applicable. The only problem tanking (as it was shown) has in WH is the lack of options to get enemy units aggro on the "tanks".

👍👍👍

Road block works wonders with the Empire. Use tanks as a road block, support them with handgunners/ironsides, have a couple units of crossbows/huntsmen for indirect fire support, use Empire General/Franz/Boris/Elspeth on dragon if needed to close gaps, artillery amount to your taste. Borrow a couple of royal pegasus/hippogryffs from Bretonia ally or dawi gyrocopters to achieve air supperiority.... Profit.

does high grounds allow for gunpowder missile troops to shoot over melee infantry?

The way i learned was to send my 3 dwarf lords to the frontline to lure in enemies, each with a unit of whatever infantry to help them retreat if they need. next step is to bombard everything with all the range you have. its pretty fun to watch

How do you make your range units stay and shoot while enemy is nearby? My are running away in every direction and I can't stop them

I like these especially the wedge, but i do worry about factions that have more ranged than you, since we dont have overwhelming firepower with these formations something like tzeentch cathay dwarfs or elves would be a nightmare to fight.

I think my only issue with these is how static they are, when I would rather find ways to be aggressive and maneuver on the enemy. That being said, some interesting stuff I can hopefully adapt to my own purposes, I have a bad habit of just doing straight lines

I'll always use checker formation

It's cheesy but I like to put all my ranged units compact against an edge o fthe map with Melee to the side. Guns slaughter one flank then reposition to shoot the enemies in melee

"Road Block"? I like that name. I've always called it rubber necking, less of the tactic but the phenomena of units getting stuck or fixating on another. "Why is my cav not cycling?" "Rubber Necking" "Three groups of heavy infantry are stacking up there, why?" "Rubber Necking"

So, how do i use this in the normal campaign maps? 90% are full of giant hills and forests. Can't even use any artillery that shoots in a straight line.

Aren't both variants especially vulnerably to spells? You should incorporate them for two reasons: counter enemy ones + disrupt enemy front line. Also fast moving units are needed to bait bots out of their winds of magic (this won't work on human player imho).

Hello, first time i met your videos. I like your ideas, but this ideas don't work against people with certain strenght in multiplayer. 1. In the first video you can simply ignore charachters and give orders to advance. 2. In the second video i can simply avoid the center attacking directly flanks and rears. 3. In the third one the same as 2. Other things that it depends on what faction you've met, like you're against Vampire Counts in the 3rd scenario, they will spawn zombie and engage with bats and vargheist all your range units. Said this, I liked your video and your ideas are originally, I wait one day when I will use one of your tactic to win a tournament. Great video!

or play high elves and get 18 shielded lothern seaguard in a 3x6 rows formation.

The roadblock formation is a picket. Specifically the term for soldiers sent ahead to slow down or warn against an encroaching army

the roadblock has no name, because that probably hasn't been used in real life much...

I’m trying to decide if dwarf rifles, iron drakes, or shotguns would be a better Frontline

Well well, look at that, right when I started a new campaign that wasn't empire... Empire it is then

I think your formations are too static. Utilize cavalry or chariots with "Fire whilst moving" to lure enemies from engaging your front line, giving your ranged units more time to shoot them down.

The Road block seems very effective, and the Killzone seems even doable for the empire with the new Nuln-Ironsides. The last one, the Gunpowder Wedge- I really, really like that one! Of course as Empire, we need dwarfs on the front -so we can shoot over them- because only Dwarfs can hold it long enough! And i think it is crucial for this position to kill enemy mages fast. Wind Magic killing 4 front Units compleetly destroys this formation 🤔 So may better only use it, if the enemy has no damage-mage.

With the modern powercreep tactics are increasingly becoming obsolete. Like you cannot lose a battle with grapeshot in a line. I avoid using them.

gun

Its just too bad that the AI doesnt give a flying F about your formations and can infinitely thread its melee units into any gap while engaged and stop your units from shooting effectively, regardless of how small that gap is. This stuff only works if you make the AI prioritize something other than your ranged units.

So much friendly fire from those shotgun units, watch it and pay attention, they are not good in that formation at all because their shots scatter wide. Better to have Trollhammers in there, they can arc their shots over your own infantry.

No thanks, I'm much happier with my blobs of op heroes, the few units I ever get are just there to be meat shields.

Most of these formations are only viable against the AI, because no human opponent is going walk straight into such traps

Tercio is not a formation.

only good vs meele armyS face one ranged and ur fucked XD

Haven’t watched the video yet, but one thing that annoys me in the wh3 community is how people still talk about checkerboard formations when that formation died with wh2, you have to spread your ranged troops further apart or cav and chariots just push through multiple units

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