Total Tactics - How To: The Checkerboard Formation | Total War: Warhammer 3 

omg default formation. I never knew that was a thing. This video has greatly increased my gaming pleasure.

This formation should be great for Empire after Thrones of Decay release, where Empire part of DLC is Nuln focused, so new juicy gunpowder units.

This kind of detailed video makes me feel like you would literally be a king's ace advisor in war times

I I've been playing for years and I was always aware that I should be doing the checkerboard or at least trying it but I couldn't figure out how to implement it without a lot of clicking around. Thank you for the concise explanation

Thanks for the checkerboard tutorials. It really elevated my gaming experience using gun units in TW.

He's back! its been a while. I'm excited to see the return!

Love this series, man! Thanks

A grand display of tactics, M'lord.

Enjoyed this video very much! I think I’ll enjoy a deep dive on the other formations too if you get around doing those :)

Knowing that default formation is a setting is gonna change things drastically for me, thanks! Also I've seen a video about the checkerboard with two lines of melee but guns are in the gaps in the second line so they can shoot unhindered diagonally.

I really like your videos about formations !

Keep up with the keybinds and small explanations. I've dumped so much time into this game with very little research and I'm learning alot on top of the checkerboard itself.

Very informative and very interesting! Thank you so much 🙂

Nice video. Thanks for sharing. Can't wait to give this a try.

Very nice video mate. Hope the algorithm buffs you up. Liked and subbed

Thank you! I needed this

Nice video. I would add, that in a campaign with very hard battles, you will probably end up using many more shooters then you've shown. One of the ways to stop the enemy and shoot them to bits, is to use heroes and your lord to engage the enemy units and then shoot those units. Single characters are small, so friendly fire will be minimal. You can also use summoned units this way, if you have access to them. The checkerboard formation works great if you have archers (especially those that can shoot in all directions). The thing is you use only archers. The mass of arrows kills most armies before they get you, but fast armies (mostly cavalry or fast monsters) will make it. That's ok - just don't move your troops. A unit that engages one of yours will get shoot by a few of yours. If you have normal archers, you can order manually those that don't have the attacking unit in their cone of fire. The main advantage with archers is that in this formation, no more then one of your units will be engaged in melee at once, by one of the enemy ones. In a line, 2 can be hit at once by one enemy, preventing shooting.

Very helpful tutorial

Amazing vid so helpful

Loving the Tactics videos! I would love to see a skirmish playstyle, such as skaven or wood elves. I never know how to correctly use them

Thanks a lot for this video, as a new player this was really informative!

Holy SHIAT, you just blew my mind. I did not know that units are placed in the order the unit cards are clicked. Thank you!

Excellent video

Bro i didnt know control grouping ordered your units from when you added them to the group. Thats like such a small thing that will help me big time. Youre a legend!

You discovered an ancient battle formation that's about 2-3000 yrs old. ....great job

Need to try it!

Omg this is amazing info. Yotube has taught me so much. I just started and thought the huge battles looked fun, but I'm so bad that the game says I'll overpower the enemy and then I barely win. 😂 So I've been using auto resolve for anything where I don't have full yellow prediction.

Much better than your last video (which was still good). I've thousands of hours in Total War games since the original Medieval Total war and this has really helped me in terms of easy setup.

amazing ty

Thank you ❤

From my experience checkerboard is terrible for gun units as they can only shoot straight forward (unless on high ground) I have been placing them in a straight line spaced out, so they don't clip into eachother when rotating. I keep my infantry in tall lines (vertical if looking from the front or back of army) so enemies spill around the sides in an attempt to surround, but get annihilated by my blackpowder units.

Thanks!

I had an interesting battle just this night before watching this video. As Kislev I was fighting Clan Moulder. I brought many ranged units and set up on a hill but in case the emeny wasn't going to charge me I had prepared two light sleds, a Hag, two forest beast units to hide in the woods and I had two Calvelry units and a snow leopard. One Calv would be waiting for a chance to take out Moulder's only Warpfire Catapult. The enemy was in defense mostly. I charged the Hag and the war sleds to attack and lure the entire Skaven horde, dividing their forces, luring some to the woods to be slain by my beasts, the rest to my army of archers, Katarina's spells, and one Winged Husser unit. My Snow Leopard VS Throt alone near end game.

I think checkerboard is the best for dwarves.I would only strengthen the flanks,and placed strong artillery in the rear.What do you think?

Another nice video. This simple formation is one of those old fashioned effective ones. I'm currently curious if you have any ideas for the future involving armies with stalk (primarily because I'm in the middle of an Anith Anar campaign myself before the dlc). I imagine such an army would likely be used either with the lizardmen and their chameleon skinks or the High Elves and their Shadow warriors, possibly the skaven as well with their gutter runners and death runners. Anyways, keep up the good work.

Thank you

Great video! How about a "how to do ambushes" next? Preferably from both sides

You have changed the game for me sir.

A yes the good ol' checkerboard, still work even to this day. I use this a lot back in Warhammer II because I saw Legend use it a lot back then. I like it because it also didn't take much micro management.

Now i understand why I never got it working and why archers always sucked for me😂 settings never even allowed for it. Thanks great vid!

I'd love a chevron formation guide! I know you have an older one

Are there more melee animations when khorne and kislev are fighting? I’ve never seen blocking effects before.

As you say square formation can rotate in less time . As a tips for the players you can rotate pressing ctrl in addition to alt. However if you want the unit tourn around (for example because the enemy is attacking exactly from back or your range unit is returned in combat so point in the wrong direction) you can simply press 'j'. Is really more fast tan turn with the command or select with the mouse and this can make difference. The cons of j is that work one unit at time and is not usable for rotate do left or right

Love the checkboard formation, especially with hybrid gunners like the streltsi or amethyst ironsides. Even if you get outflanked, they'll still be fine lol

2 things: 1) you have to fight a lot. I assume nobody will sped much time on selecting, moving units. and 2) a compact square skirmish unit is also ineffective since only first raw will actually shoot, most of the time.

The Empire!

In regard to "hope everyone gets something out of it" I've got thousands of hours over the total war games and only today found out what order I ctrl select stuff effects it's drag drop position. Here I was shuffling the unit cards around... XD

The only thing that beats the checkerboard formation? The chessboard formation

Those small guard units like tzar guard benefit from the single line formations. In addition, they are not ideal field troops, Heavy armor guards or units like ice guard, are better placed holding valuable possessions and are not best equipped for field warfare. Not to mention they'll be targets. Instead use light cavalry and kossars, armoured and normal, to setup the field and support with light war machines. You can leverage their maneuverability to carry the day. And mobilizing guard units without LLords can be a needless expense.

Shit, I just tried it and it works really well for the dwarves!

Strategery! As George W would no doubt say, if he ever played the game. Thanks for this, my brother in Sigmar, much love.

9:40 I found that as empire, you can use either of the canons to completely fck over any flying units attempting to flank. Especially with Nuln. Upgraded Nuln canons vaporizes anything flying.

How should I group my army up after setting this up? I can get the formation going, but once the battle starts it just becomes chaos trying to manage the groups.

By Sigmar, yes! The chosen formation for those wielding steel, faith, and gunpowder.

From the ashes a great malleus general arise. But what about the chungus faction (Ogres). Is this formation good for them, or is there another for the big ladz? Great video anyways :).

Does this work well in Warhammer 2 as well? I'm waiting for the next steam sale to get WH 3!

What "unit size" setting are you using?

Wish CA would balance more towards these kinds of tactics instead of OP single entity cheese and doomstacks

The most interesting thing is how u made the VFX of the gane look that great, because in mine, idk what it is but the magical glows and all the other stuff looks pixelayed and awful, im guessing its because i play in 1080, but idk

Does this work with canons as a second line?

Thanks for this. Shooting through your own guys is all good fun when they're goblins, but for humans it's kind of a whole big deal.

Why not make checkerboard where ranged units are squares, but mellee units are lines?

more

The flamethrowers are not a good option. Your units get fried and debuffed as well

There's a name for this historically, and it's called a tercio.

Comment for the comment god! Likes for his throne.

P

I personally dislike the checkerboard and don't recommend it when fighting stronger armies or well mixed enemies. Main issues with it is that if you put your units into squares, they become prime targets for enemy artillery and spells, long thin lines take far less damage. Another issue I have with is terrain. Many maps just don't have good flat land or nice big hills to camp on. This is easy to miss from top down view but putting a gun infantry behind a slightly elevated ground is a bad idea and they won't fire at all. Then, when facing enemy army with a lot of long range units, they're gonna just sit there and pummel your front lines, while your ranged squares are out of range.. and finally, flying units and summons. If they land a dragon or something between 2 ranged boxes at the back, they turn to face each other and cause a ton of friendly fire.

why the clickbait lord

i honestly dont like checkerboard at all

Against other players it won't work. Human player will flank this formation or break through using magic and combination of units.