Chaos Dwarfs Secrets to Success - Best Tips and Tricks (Total War: Warhammer 3)

Hey everyone! It's me HawkeyeG with another video for you. This video is a series of universal tips and tricks for the Chaos Dwarfs in Total War: Warhammer III. The idea is to nail down what I think are the most important things for every player to know regardless of what faction or difficulty they are playing on.
These ideas come from my own campaign experiences as well as some very important things I've learned from others who play and stream as well. Some of these tips are more obvious with a little experience, but others are harder to recognize until multiple playthroughs and experimentation.. My hope is that by taking the time to go through some of the more niche and unknown aspects of the race that it saves other people the time and trouble of having to search far and wide to find out for themselves!
As always thanks for watching, have a great day, and we'll see you on the next one!
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:16 - Always build Towers
1:45 - Factories give Raw Materials for free (no labor)
5:31 - Tower of Zharr seat stealing
7:16 - Global Recruitment advantages
8:43 - Early game convoys
10:50 - Review and Outro
Please note this is an unofficial video and is not endorsed by SEGA or the Creative Assembly in any way. For more information on Total War, please visit www.totalwar.com.

[@jasoncoe944]

Loving the videos dude! Would love to see some tier list videos on Chorfs, Dwarfs, etc so we can hear your take on units!

[@Tangomango1720]

Hell yeah dude love your vids

[@Whatever100500]

Convoys are 100% worth it right away for unique magic items. At least in IE, pretty much everybody is busy with their local wars. And even if a faraway faction declares war - so what? Convoys move too fast for factions to effectively intercept, and they won't send armies to your main territory. In fact, I declare war on and then make peace with irrelevant factions all over the world (minor factions that are designated food for LLs) just for money.

[@Chris-ty7fw]

Had zero issues with early convoys very few people seem keen on fighting me , powering up your convoys early seems better. Actually had more issues late game with other factions coming in and finding my convoys in my territory but by then I had powered them up

[@Nodjia]

Informative and interesting content, though I have to say I disagree with the advice of just "not sending" caravans early game. While it is true that the faction gets some research and bonuses that make caravans more powerful in the mid-game, there are too many valuable items you can get for the first trip to each location with minimal investment (at least in immortal empires). Most trips are fairly safe, aside from going near grimgor, and some of the ancillary bonuses like +raid income or -1 build time are extremely valuable early game because raiding nagasshizar is basically free 300 slaves and 600 gold per turn and reducing your build times also reduces rush costs if you want to speed build. Aside from that, getting the hunger from the skull crown, or getting barrier from the mirror shield is amazing on certain heroes or lords and both of those combat items are right next door from the starting point. In addition to the item benefits, it is very likely that scoring recruitment events early on will snowball into the caravan being more survivable or even being unassailable by early game armies. I managed to get 2 black dragons on my first convoy and it arrived at drakenhof with zero supplies, so I didn't get some return on the cargo, but I did get a stronger convoy and the reward item. In the future that same convoy survived 3 attacks because it had the dragons and the vargulf from its prior success. Sleeping on convoys is functionally the same as having them fail for the same period of time, yes you are paying resources to get them started, but not having them means you are stunting your own growth in other ways.

[@dunderbutt2510]

This is very good advice. In my immortal empires campaign, I was able to send multiple caravans to Haunted Forest, one to Castle Drakenhof, and one to Black Crag without getting war declared on me so maybe it's different in Realms of Chaos. Those unique magic items are just too good to pass up. Even if the caravan gets wiped out, it's only 750 gold to hire a new master, so the risk is pretty low IMO

[@gharn2594]

Totally agree. Get those convoys moving ASAP. Even if they get attacked this can often be a boon, because you will usually win the battle and weaken your enemies with little to no casualties. Levelling up your convoys early for better convoy rewards alone make this worthwhile. Plus items, plus the convoy's usual money/labour/raw materials making, plus extra convoy units is just great.

[@itsmehawkeyeg]

It could just be the issue is I've been playing almost exclusively Realm of Chaos then. You have far fewer safe Caravan locations on that map and far more people willing to attack you on sight. Especially in the first 10-20 turns when you haven't had time to increase unit caps by much or have enough income for a proper second army. I imagine getting 2 black dragons on the first trip is more the exception than the rule however. I've never had that happen for any of the many cavarans I've sent over my campaigns. So I personally wouldn't be adjusting my decision-making based on that possibility.

[@gharn2594]

@@itsmehawkeyeg I have only played immortal empires with the chaos dwarfs so far. It did sound like a bit of a different experience in realms of chaos. Still not sure on this one though, the benefit seem too good to ignore. Will have to test it myself. Otherwise, great video.

[@itsmehawkeyeg]

@@gharn2594 I'm happy to see the comments and discussion about it. I had a series of bad experiences with it but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good rule that I've made as a result! It seems like the kind of thing people out to try on their own and see what the results are. If anything it's prompted me to be more willing to try earlier caravans again and see if I can get different results.

[@sol155]

This is neat! Army comps next?

[@itsmehawkeyeg]

It's definitely on the list! I'd personally like to get a little more experience with the Chaos Dwarfs, especially in late game, before I put out a proper composition guide. I have some pretty decent fundamentals with them but I still want to spend a little more time exploring different matchups and getting a little further in late-game scenarios.

[@joshuablade6974]

@@itsmehawkeyegOr you could just spam laser rifles and blunderbusses as both units are versatile!

[@zeroinfinity9189]

Tip #1: Kill GRIMGOR!!! Tip #2: Grimgor still alive? Kill Grimgor! Tip #3: Send Grimgor to the shadow realm! Tip #4: Did I said "KIll Grimgor?" Tip #5:... Grimgor Bad! Kill Grimgor!

[@klaiken989]

Lmao😂

[@klaiken989]

Hahaha

[@Shedovv]

I see a lot of people disagreeing about Early game convoys. Personally I think a Middle-ground is best here. Just like everyone is saying, longterm benefit of running Convoys is too good to postpone them a lot. But I also think it is worth holding off on them, just long enough, to get the Research that gives all overseers +3 Ranks. That way your very first Convoy is going to either be stronger or more profitable (depending on which skills you pick) right out of the gate!

[@chrism822]

i like making a couple proviences into pure factory/outpost locations. Killed all of nurgle, and turned everything into a factory settlement, which allowed me to make 2-3k weapons for the hell forge.

[@itsmehawkeyeg]

I don't think there's enough good reason to do this. The obvious exception is when there's a trade resource or a port that boosts one type of income like I mentioned. The thing is that a pure-Factory province doesn't have any additional benefit or value than a mixed province. Sure you don't have to send labor there. But that's not really a benefit. The reason is because Control for the Chaos Dwarfs is managed in part through adjacency bonuses. Not wanting to build the Control building because you have a pure-Factory province just means that your Control in pure-Outpost provinces is even worse than it already will be. pure-Outpost provinces don't have any inherent benefit either. I'd actually argue it's detrimental. Stacking all the Labor in one province means your Control problems will be heavily concentrated, and you don't have the tools to overcome that kind of centralized Control problem. The worse your Control is, the faster you lose Labor. The Control building in an Outpost still leaves you at -2 when you have the appropriate Labor. So for every 1 pure Outpost province you'd need another province with the max level tower AND Control building - per Outpost in that province. Instead it's better to have mixed provinces. One, or maybe two sources of Raw Materials. Early game this isn't quite true because your Labor requirements are lower overall and you need Raw Materials more. But as you get further you really want the extra efficiency from the Factory bonus building to Raw Materials. Because you then get them for free, with no extra Labor cost. You don't need as many max level Tower + Control buildings that way either - if your Control problems are spread out then they're much easier to manage as Chaos Dwarfs. Meaning your Labor decay will be reduced. This is especially important for playing on Very Hard or Legendary campaign due to the Control maluses. Otherwise you're just bleeding out lots of Labor in pure-Outpost provinces for no good reason. You're also getting much worse efficiency out of your Labor because you have no boosts to it from buildings. You're not getting any real benefit from either pure province - maybe one single building slot option in the Tower and that's it. The real question is "what are the benefits to the pure provinces" and when there is no trade resource or port to boost a certain type of income then I genuinely don't see any benefit to them.

[@Nodjia]

@@itsmehawkeyeg I feel it is worth pointing out that Nurgle's territory is literally 4 ports in one province (I am assuming the original comment is playing immortal empires because why would you torture yourself in ROC). It's very hard to do anything meaningful there except spam factories to get the port bonuses. Otherwise, the ports are completely worthless and end up diminishing rather than boosting your overall efficiency, losing 4 slots to ports without making use of their benefit is kind of sad.

[@itsmehawkeyeg]

@@Nodjia Yeah that makes sense to me! I actually haven't really played Immortal Empires as Chorfs yet, I'm still grinding them out in Realms of Chaos for a more condensed experience (and the limited "narrative") Ports are an exception I've mentioned however. As you say they're something that mainly benefits you when it's a Factory settlement. So it makes sense to unify production types in a province like that.

[@4dealliance598]

Hey, how do you get lots of labor? I always end up running low

[@Packy88dc]

All good tips but I don't agree on the caravans. From my experience I rarely get declared upon just because a random faction saw my caravan passing by and even if they did they usually don't have armies that can kill my caravan and they are too far away to be an actual threat to my provinces. Also, the benefits that some of the legendary items you get from trading are so good that getting them ASAP is a priority to me for every chaos dwarf campaign.

[@itsmehawkeyeg]

well maybe I've had a unique experience then. In at least 5 different Legendary campaigns I've had the AI declare war on me when sending out any caravans before turn 20. They always bring two full size armies and obliterate the Caravan - and then inevitably march across three other provinces to attack me directly. I've found it's generally not worth it for the sake of a single unique item when I'm having to entirely stop my expansion or lose multiple cities as a result.

[@Tenhys]

@@itsmehawkeyeg I feel you. Playing Cathay on Very Hard/Very Hard, i've come to despise the anti-player biais and even more the Caravan system in it's current form precisely because, once you've managed to get your army to 20 units and it gets wiped out due to happenstances like yours, you simply can't afford another one because it will be litteraly less than half-size ; downright suicide. Honestly : who thought that it was a good idea to make Caravan armies increase their unit count through random events ? Like, litteraly, the whole point of a Caravan is _"planning a route through dangerous territory to make lots of money"_ and the best to increase your forces to secure it ? Roll of a dice. Like, seriously ?

[@fakename7847]

Am I the only that likes his Caravans to be attacked so that I can slay energy armies? The earlier to send the Caravans the merrier as you can make sure by mid-late game your caravans have more units so they don't get slapped/clapped easily. I also, keep making caravans if others are on hold so the caravan monay flows...

[@benjaminshtark5977]

i think, also sending caravans into same general direction where your main army is, is actually beneficial as you can provide extra protection to caravan and intercept anyone who wants to kill you caravan

[@itsmehawkeyeg]

It's fine when it's just the random event armies that attack you. Or ones you can avoid and then hopefully get a unit at the end of the ride. It's awful when it triggers the nearby Ogres or Grimgor in IE to attack you early while you're busy with something else. Or for some random Greenskins or Ogres in RoC to do the same. When these routes are unsecured and you only have one army out the AI isn't afraid to declare war on you for no reason - and then pile on two full stacks + a garrison onto your Convoy. In my experience those aren't winnable and just create problems for you in the long run. More wars on you = lower balance of power in global assessments. Leading to more early war declarations. Leading to you having to pull back and play defensive for a bit. Much better to focus on your own expansion for the first 20-30 turns without unnecessary obstacles instead.

[@Chris-ty7fw]

Don't seem to be declared war on at all relative to other races .. sent loads of caravans out.

[@t0p31r4]

The timestamps for global recruitment and tower of zhar are inverted. Good advices tho!

[@itsmehawkeyeg]

Nice catch! Thanks for letting me know

[@emrysmyridden]

i disagree about the early game convoys. I think its better to send convoys right away. first reason is that your economy is weakest early game i take every advantage i can. second the convoy gets more units as it goes out on missions, making it stronger, the more time you have to build strength the better since missions take time. third the battles you fight with them give you more money which is helpful fourth reason is that everyone is at war with someone else in the early game and their armies have weak troops, its the late game with much fewer factions but with 5 armies each that your caravans wont be going places outside your control