Surviving a campaign with ONLY HEROES!

Can one survive the harsh world of Total War: Warhammer with only heroes? Let us find out with the help of local hardman Ghoritch.
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[@sim.frischh9781]

For Skaven, "Bell Polisher" is probably a really prestigious position that would be hard fought about.

[@Haeruna]

but if thats the case then wouldn't it get fought about less because people will come after you because they want that position?

[@EliteSlayer946]

​@Haeruna The skaven always want to be on the top. The thought of being murdered after is something they only realize after the got the title.

[@sim.frischh9781]

@@EliteSlayer946 Yup, only thing on their mind is their goal, the downsides they often cannot even fathom.

[@kamikazebanzai1005]

​@@Haerunano, that's just a Wednesday

[@venombeetle7473]

@@Haeruna No one has yet lived long enough to explain that to the rest.

[@Destroyer7pl]

I think Markus would be better. You get some unique heroes in your campaign and Empire also has a solid selection of heroes. Isabella should also be a solid choice due to buffs she gets.

[@hazypastgamer451]

imo, that would be a nightmare of a campaign to play. Mainly because of the threat system and the 20 stack lizardmen that spawn every now and again

[@ravingbadger]

boogieing down to ghoritch town!!

[@Valivali94]

Idk, Skaven have several heroes that only need tier 2 to increase capacity. Not sure about the Empire but with Isabella it would be only necromancers, the rest is tier 3 and 4 as far as I remember.

[@Real7419]

Then again Markus has to deal with Lizardmen and they have an insane mass advantage that just tramples humie heroes.

[@souleater4242564kodd]

Oh a Vampire stack, how original

[@tankjr84]

Army of Two was a gem that never got it's deserved respect. Would love a remake/sequel.

[@geckomoriafanboy8037]

I thought there was a sequel. Am I remembering wrong?

[@cygnusereve4779]

​@@geckomoriafanboy8037there is. I heard it wasn't that great.

[@kapitankapital6580]

They should call the sequel Army of Three

[@Dusto-qz1hz]

Yea so they can change it to two non-binary lesbians that don’t think you should have guns, while they burst into battle saying incorrect quips like “taste my semi auto” with an AR and “how do you like this 357 magnum” of course shooting a Glock

[@Glowtrey]

My brother and I loved it

[@ianwhelan-miller90]

Skaven standing the line as a group of very "fantasy protagonist" style band of heroes is hilarious, and I love it. Skaven are best-best, yes-yes!

[@dustrockblues7567]

Ironically that "elven" faction was also trying to cleanse the land of the elves.

[@Kristjan0209]

Yeah they should be the best of friends but when he sees the word elves he just goes into a blind frenzy

[@warsmithgalvinc4151]

When the 3rd Ghoritch cut away happened I thought, your overdoing it, you then made laugh out loud by admitting you were overdoing it and then did it some more excellent stuff

[@KeljuIvan]

There was a Monty Python skit with repetition like this. First it was funny, then it started to get boring, but with even more repetition it became really funny again. :)

[@ChrisNihilus]

*Skaven are a faction based on swarming your enemies with endless hordes...* Zerkovich: "Best I can do is 20 rats"

[@andysims24]

You're making some top content at the moment. Loving these challenge campaigns, we wants more!!!!

[@DdiiaabbllooBlanco]

"Army of Two, anyone remember that game?" Core memory UNLOCK sweet jesus. Brings me back.

[@nonyabisness6306]

Surely Isabella would be way easier. Her doomstack is allready just stacking hero's and she get's the building for extra vamps as well.

[@tunafarrell2067]

Vampire Courts probably would work. There's enough regeneration that you could survive through most fights.

[@sjs9698]

till ~midgame vamps can ruin most stacks with only 4-6 heroes (though tbh i've only tried with massive amounts of xp farming cheese, so idk what happens if they're low-level)

[@alfonsocyrusjoshua9551]

@@sjs9698 they're very dependent on corner camping and using the -16 leadership spell from lore of darkness if you didnt xp farm them when you reach mid game. if you go into mid game without exp farming, dont fight dwarfs using this strat

[@brandonlyon730]

Only problem is waiting for Vlad to get into the mix, the stubborn dude refuses to get himself any mount despite his wife having one so she and the Vampire countess with them have to wait his undead ass to run to the battle.

[@Itchy__]

Wight kings are also pretty decent for just blobbing up enemies, and they let your vampires be on flying mounts for hero doomstacks

[@caret_shell]

I saw the first reversal coming but the "remix" got me. Well played.

[@jobvermuyen5382]

Im voting for Belakor or archaon because they both can get 3 LHs I think and like every marked hero. My other vote would be Isabella von Carstein because she buffs heroes a crap ton.

[@sassyviking6003]

Oh yea, an Isabella hero stack is super strong. I've always enjoyed that one.

[@ASpaceOstrich]

@@sassyviking6003 From what little I remember from trying to play vampires, isn't that the faction as a whole's entire schtick? I remember infinite skeletons being required to simply keep up with other factions but the heroes being good. But I'm also terrible at this game.

[@mathiasrryba]

​@@ASpaceOstrichyeah that's true. Vampire court has very very good lords and heroes. Even if it's the AI controlling it. Remember going up against vlad. Haha lil skellies. Then vlad fuckin deleted my heroes like a bunch of twigs

[@victoriencharnot555]

Luthor Harkon ( extra melee defense and the possibility to go range heavy with gunnery wight or monster heavy with mourngul haunters) or Kroq-Gar ( 1% extra weapon damage per level on Saurus lords or Heroes, not hard to have some high level ones with buildings alone, and that sweet Carnausaur mount) could be quite silly too I think

[@jobvermuyen5382]

@@victoriencharnot555 yeah but with kroqy the problem is that it is only 9% WS, and if they dont specify what WS, its non AP, so thats a bit sad but he could be a fun choice

[@xristosdago]

My favorite part is went he says GHORITCH

[@nicklindberg90]

Love your challenge playthroughs! Thank you good sir!

[@moleman3708]

This could definitely be a series of its own utilizing the heroes of certain hero focused factions like Markus, Repans, or Isabella.

[@LazyLizard2]

6:04 IMO most significant benefit of heroes. I remember way back in the first game as beastmen, you could use minotaur hero to solo siege battles easily while rest of the army stayed back.

[@shadowofhawk55]

One of the few ways to get me and my younger brother to not literally be at the other's throat is get us in Army of Of Two, so yes I remember that game.

[@alirezarezaei2976]

For playing hero spams clan Eshin is the right call They can unlock much more assassins and shadowy dealings are perfect for leveling them up fast outside the battles

[@torontokid2727]

I had a Kroq-Gar campaign where I stacked the Saurus building for the rank +1 factionwide for saurus warrior heroes. I had a stack of brand new level 49 heroes with Kroq-Gar. It was glorious.

[@Son_of_Mandalore]

Man I love your videos, always entertaining and this one was hilarious... The Ghorich meme was epic. Nicely done Z

[@stenanderson1695]

Truly elves are the most bell polishing bell polishers.

[@demonhunter2282]

Army of 2 was great. loved the coop mechanics

[@andrewhoward5975]

Spent many hours of my childhood playing with one of my brothers! Great game!

[@nuke3094]

As Isabella you would just stomp everyone over. Vlad right from the start as a hero, giving vanguard deployment to everyone, 4 vampire heroes from turn 1, most heroes are essentially battle mages with healing and lots of dps, buffs for all heroes factionwide and on top of that literally every hero and lord are beasts in melee combat with great mounts. Honestly, this idea sounds even more powerful than the regular campaign. But ez is not what we're here for, is it? :)

[@docmercy3660]

The ghoritch montage was about 5 minutes short. What a bell polisher move from you

[@Anvilarm07]

Interesting idea. I played your all-ghost campaign with Heinreich Kemmler, and it was a ball. I had 3 full ghost armies, but after that I had to use regular undead armies to win the long campaign because my opponents were growing too rapidly. I got attack by 8 big dwarf armies instead of Archeon which was very cool. I've never seen that before. Apparently they mustered all their strength in secret.

[@simoncodrington]

Another great one son, loving this random series of campaigns

[@tuomas8426]

Love your editing in these vids. Keep up the awesome work!

[@garrick3727]

When I played as Bretonia (Rapanse) that pretty much ended up being a hero playthrough. Yes, I did use other troops, but many battles ended with only lords and heroes left. The knights of Bretonia are quite tough, but it was mostly the other troops being weak except for peasant archers and the high tier knight units.

[@hartze2345]

So... you guys noticed Goritch was on the video? Quite a subtle detail to add on it, nice job

[@Dayz3O6]

I cant get enough of Ghoritch remix 😂

[@mrbaguette1832]

The remix isn't coming from the edit Its coming from Ghoritch itself and his badassery

[@shadowknightgaming4647]

When I did a throt campaign once so long ago I too decided to watch that nice little opening to the whip quest battle but by the time it was over the enemy army had somehow already routed throt so that was fun

[@kmanalpha453]

Yeah its a poorly laid out fight. You also fight Festus in it....and they forgot to put the Actual Festus lord in it so you just fight a generic chaos lord who happens to be named Festus

[@Naxxiw]

Love doing lord/hero-only runs with Vampire Court - Isabella. Highly recommend =)

[@YouTookMyHandle]

Gorich the one man mosh pit!

[@link670]

Listening to Zerk unknowingly (I assume) call everyone a cock sucker is something I didn't know I needed in my life.

[@Omnicide101]

Choosing to interpret this as you actually trying to build a normal army but Throt kept eating everyone that couldn't fend him off

[@SuperWarhammer40000]

Army of two, damn that brings back memories.

[@redtsun67]

This man autoresolves more times in a single campaign than I've done across all my hundreds of hours of playtime.

[@Brother_O4TS]

You clearly haven't seen me play Total War Warhammer. My PC sucks so I barely manual battle due to how slow the loading screens are

[@cobrazax]

@@Brother_O4TS wooden PC?

[@redtsun67]

@@Brother_O4TS ah hell naw

[@andrewhopkins886]

1:37 (puts ambushing army behind the bait) "oh no, why didn't the ambush work?!" ...

[@Zerkovich]

Red circle cover usually does the job.

[@aureliogz6168]

@@Zerkovich yup but ambush success chance is the chance to trigger the ambush IF they did not spot you beforehand AND walk into your red circle. If they spot you at the start of their turn you exit ambush stance, just like AI armies and they can attack you normally. You would have the message "ambush failed" if they did not spot you beforehand.

[@judahsmyth5398]

as someone who likes to try and reach points in my campaigns where i have a army of just heroes, i love this video, thanks

[@xenthalus]

Isabella is great for this. Turn 1 you start building the unique landmark that gives you vampire hero recruitment and + capacity along with Isabellas +3 capacity for 5 vampires by turn 3 plus Vlad who is already fully geared and can solo armies from turn 1. Summon a second hero (preferably Ghoul King since they are better in melee), stick 2-3 vampire heroes in their army and then once you've got tier 2 for Drakenhof (campaign starts with it upgradable, dismantle skele recruit building and get gold mine going ASAP) you can start building growth building to get to Necromancer recruitment so you can get Raise Dead spam going in the second army. Avoid fight dawi early on and bully Empire till you're stacked on levels and have plenty of Necros from tier 2 settlements to build armies that drown the enemy in zombie summon spam while the Vampire Lord murders priority targets.

[@Maurodax]

This video was amazing, as someone who can't play Skaven for the life of me, this was amazing. But it needs more Ghoritch!

[@mvschynd1]

This inspired me to give it a try and I went with Isabella and honestly I’m steam rolling. Izzy + Vlad and the vamp were enough for me to wipe out the first Vamp enemy. Now I have an army with 7 vamps and I am wiping out 2 empire stacks with ease. I have a second army that has all the other misc heroes, a bunch of Necros Wight King and banshee and a few of the special vamp lords and it can auto a single stack no problem.

[@inductivegrunt94]

Yes-Yes! Throt and Goritch with their army of heroes-lords is awesome!

[@Cryten0]

I imagine tree only elves would be pretty easy.

[@hohenzollern6025]

There is currently a mod that allows you to change any hero to a lord, or visa-versa. I tried Drycha for a bit, giving her 6 branch wraiths, and made another stack of Trees! Treeman lord and 2 of each caster turned into a hero... Pretty OP, as all caster heroes are in hero only stacks because Blobs. High elves are the absolute best, most powerful hero stack faction in the game. One word, just one word... Incindiary. Chariots are OP. Casters are OP. Casters on a chariot? Yeh.... High elves are broken good. One incindiary life lord with 4 nobles... unstoppable and the fights are faster than a real army.

[@zilrocker6345]

I loved the remix of such a refined rodent, made my day

[@squashiejoshie200000]

Noticed that when using menace belows, you summon them behind a unit then charge them in. If you summon them inside chaff units, you get like 3x the damage.

[@Blasharga]

i once did this with Repanse de Lyoness, just 19 knights on flying mounts with perfect vigor and more armor / ward save than anything can really chew through

[@Tachii31]

8:20 I love that they didn't update the quest battle with the actual Festus. Also yeah, I remember doing a normal Moulder campaign and losing a few units and half my brood horrors' HP to that cutscene. Going for multiple full stacks of heroes might not be viable (at least...it would be very slow as you get more bell polishers) but you don't really need full stacks either? If every stack has a caster of some kind, you can probably make do with half stacks.

[@brendenallen3939]

love the army of 2 reference, used to love playing that game with my dad.

[@ChiefGingy]

Ghoritch really do be a fleshpound, good music choice

[@mikabakker1]

Army of 2 was such a great game when I was younger, what a throwback

[@jfgresham]

I suspect that N'kari could do this pretty well. A Chaos Lord of Slaanesh plus one cultist, one alluress, and one sorceror is already sufficient to deal with an absolute ton of stuff once leveled a bit and have good answers to massed infantry (slicing shards, pit of shades, pendulum of doom or just grinding them down with the chaos lord) and single entities (locus of beguilement, acquiescence, and enfeebling foe for nullifying melee defense). Probably best to keep them all on their regular horse/seeker mounts rather than chariots just because magic already takes care of the massed infantry so well. Using just my chaos lord (or 2) and heroes is already how I typically take on the high tier walled settlement battles anyway, so you could easily be on the attack. Eschewing devoted marauder of slaanesh spam at the start might slow down campaign progress a little bit, but it might actually be possible for N'Kari and one cultist to deal with everything normally on turn 1, then adding a chaos lord in preparation for turn 2, a second one for turn 3, and so on... which is already how I approach Ulthuan, just without the spam of devoted marauders of Slaanesh which seem like the least important part of that army composition.

[@blastermaster5039]

I sometimes wish Creative Assembly release a Hero mode campaign where you don't pick a faction, instead you start out as a hero of your choosing. You then roam the old overworld with your lone hero, accepting contracts from lords, taking request from settlements and even accepting quests from taverns. Hell it'll be fun to roam settlements with your lone hero where you can either get additional heroes to join your party and grow it out and even increasing each others bond through gameplay or interactions. Of course you can still join wars, but you'll have no control of the armies you're on, just the heroes. Perhaps a chaos army is about to invade a settlement or the settlement you're in is about to attacked by Beastmen. Hell the settlement you visited migth put up a bounty for a dragon etc etc. I dunno. 😁 PS: Also Wuxia bros/gals would've a lot of fun if they allow Cathay heroes to have a lot of mobility without armor - or even allow dragon heroes.

[@DRFESTERPUS69]

I loved army of two. Played it with my friend all the time years ago. The gun customization was the best back then.

[@ericmerrill9808]

Taurox would be a good way to do this. When you can his rampage, you can decrease the cost to increase your hero cap by 25%. Not to mention you’d be able to spend all the dread you’d increase unit caps on more heroes and summon them at up to leve 21 to start. And you can give all your heroes a magic item to summon cygores with.

[@hankl456]

I appreciated quadrupling down on the ghoritch cut bit

[@x0lopossum]

11:06 lol bell polisher.

[@sammartin8746]

Army of Two was so good, I remember playing it with my brother, god those were good times

[@turtl3playz303]

I did this same idea but used the mod where if you kill an enemy hero you can recruit them

[@easymoneeey]

Army you say? *Laughs in Skarbrand*

[@thetrevorthepanda]

I was going to do a hero only and I am happy to see that YOU did it

[@jvd7374]

LMFAO i love the gorich intermezzo

[@grayrook8637]

Also pretty viable for this one is Drycha since she gets Coedil early and eventually Ariel along with a great buff for Malevolent branch wraith with a skill. Also the Gryphon wood buffs them too as soon as you awaken it.

[@РоманСамородов-з3ы]

Nurgle is best choice for this style, because all resource buildings increase heroes capacity

[@Lord-Inquisitor-Davies]

you've earned my sub for that remix

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

Vampire Counts might be the best bet - you get a very strong Lord in Isabella who has excellent healing and strong Vampire buffs, Big Bad Vlad as a legendary hero, lots of summons to support your early army, and three more good hero types. Alternatively, Belakor is a one-unit deathstar who can take three extremely strong legendary heroes and self-heals.

[@hohenzollern6025]

The vamps are indeed good... but they dont have chariots (besides the corpse cart). And chariots are way too good... So you go try the high elves, you'll never use hero stacks with any other faction... Everybody else just kills too slow once you experience Caster + Chariot slaughter. Plus they even have a chariot specific trait... Incindiary. High elves so OP.

[@Dodacus]

Balhazar would be great as he can recruit different mage heroes using book pages.

[@Grauer1510]

Army of Two looked very nice but i never had a PS3 or Xbox but i liked the "sequel" Kane & Lynch very much.

[@orums2606]

Never stop abusing that Goritch cut, never stop 😂😂😂

[@itzatravesty263]

Although I despise your distain for my pointy ear homies, your content never fails to pull a gut busting laugh out of me. "GORITCH!"

[@MrBinkz]

Legit spit my drink everywhere during that remix 😂😂

[@Zuginator]

I like Brettonia for this. Paladins come from a lvl 3 building and get Perfect Vigor, which is REALLY nice for single foot models. Attacking a Siege with 18 Paladins with Perfect Vigor is HILARIOUS! I once had a lord and 2 heroes get ambushed by a Skaven (Slave) army. I ran to the corner , so fleeing troops would regroup and beat the all 2- 3 armies of trash!

[@Voltarez]

1 months later and I still randomly think of GORIDGE grawwwwwrah!

[@ASpaceOstrich]

Hmm. Have I been underutilising heroes in my armies? This was surprisingly effective.

[@hohenzollern6025]

Heroes are OP. Obviously some are better than others. Thanes being tanky, just dont kill fast enough even though the regen they get is great. Rats are far too squishy, and dont have heals or regen. So if you want a top tier faction, you need either heal casters, or a forge for regen items. And you need a way to kill blobs fast... spell casters are great. Chariots are great. And who has spell casters on chariots? High elves. They even get a trait specific to chariots, Incindiary. One incindiary life wizard lord and 4 nobles. That's all you need. Just 5 entities will kill faster than your normal armies. Mainly because the AI will blob every unit into one circle exactly the same size as The Dwellers Below. One cast = 800+ kills. Tomb kings also have chariots, casters, and a forge... but they got nerfed into the dirt years ago. No mass, so they stink.

[@andreashauschild7757]

Should try Chaos, specifically Nurgle. You get the Chaos Champions that are tough and each one of them can add -10 Armor. And they return damage on melee. And they have fast mounts or chariots. Plus you get Chaos sorcerers. Also tough casters. If you have 10 Chaos Champions in the army you pretty much negate any armor any unit has. That is awesome.

[@popecorkyxxiv2363]

I did an Isabel campaign using a stack of nothing but vampires. It was so OP.

[@Hehecats]

Im currently doing something similar as gor rok, you can send him into a settlement full of tier 4 war hydras and he wont take an ounce of damage

[@88Spint]

army of two was awesome for the time :D Loved jumping in to a mini party and shooting badguys!

[@jjakariasman2545]

Not sure you were even in range for that ambush at the start

[@Alexrenda]

@Zerkovich, if you ever plan on doing another heroes only campaign I would highly recommend the lizardmen and choosing Gor-Rok. @Anti-Kleaper has done a video like this as well and I'm sure if someone with his "doctorate" in the teachings of Nurgle as a plague doctor, I'm sure you can do it.

[@50RatsinaCoat]

Queek with 19 Chieftains is fun. They all stack their 5% Ward save on Lord bonus on Queek

[@RagonR6]

Aint no way he just said army of two. Holy damn that game was amazin, I got crazy flashbacks from that 😂

[@shmowpow5401]

I found a exploit of sorts where you can get infinite cultists as slaanesh. Step 1: Get a cult. Step 2: Build the building that gives you a cultist. Step 3: Use that new cultist to make a new cult. Step 4: Repeat from step 2. You will eventually get to 15 cultists so you can get 1 cult per turn. Pretty broken if you ask me.

[@sassyviking6003]

I would have thought greenskins would be a better option as they have quite a spread of heroes that are all rather good. Goblin big boss, black orc big boss, orc shaman, night goblin shaman, and a river troll hag. That or warriors of chaos as you get variety from all the marks.

[@DenemeDokio]

It would be interesting to see you do this with the dwarven hero's after the recent dwarf rework.

[@simonnachreiner8380]

This whole video is just a microcosm of the “POV you clicked auto resolve” meme

[@mandu6665]

Kostaltyn Patriarch hero stack is lowkey one of the strongest if not the strongest in the game. Everyone's all Vampire Counts, High Elves, blah blah when Kostaltyn's Partiarchs have 20% Ward Save, more healing abilities than you'll ever need and crazy melee/leadership buffs and bears are a hell of a lot cooler than chariots or flying ponies. The bear ball blob is nigh unkillable.

[@Sherudons]

If you can get the limits removed hero armies can in practice be so much more powerful than tier 5 stacks, depending on the hero and wargear they get, taurox for example was made for this, skaven wolf packs or bound zombies, anything that has a bound summon is technically a second army too. If you want raw hero's then markus is the only one with access to multiple unique hero's, shame you can't "borrow" hero's from hired caravans to make a multi race hero army.

[@ffraky001]

Imagine Vermintide but in reverse: Playing as the forces of Chaos/Destruction/Undead against the forces of Order

[@ZzolllozZ]

I aint no bell polisher,I strongly and confidently deny this foul accusitations!

[@SirCrocodile.TheOneAndOnly]

*Invincible Queek, Or tretch... Get a full stack of Cheiftans. All is good, All is great*

[@rpdmatt]

Hey Zerk, what's the name of the legendary hero you used for this? I think he's a mutant rat ogre?

[@fyiicheckforspies]

Ikit Claw

[@LordDedenova]

Ghoritch

[@oldtoby4062]

Dave

[@DesevPostMortem]

It was Gotrek (metal for a dwarf)

[@andrewstevens1316]

God I loved Army of Two, great call back. Miss the days of good split screen co op games!

[@Dmitrisnikioff]

I think you're underestimating how strong Skaven heroes are and how large they'd have to be. Every full province would be able to get you roughly half an army when fully upgraded and the costs wouldn't be prohibitive, with magic and summons being able to get you all the way.

[@SpaceKnight105]

The okoii campaign

[@sereksusvictar7888]

Heh, I did this with the Lizardmen and hero mounted stegadons. It was quite fun.

[@LuckyAJC]

isabella vamps with lore keeper is legit OP

[@srdjan455]

14:10 where's the elf killing in this battle? Seems to mostly be wood chopping

[@yabbles617]

I’d recommend clan eshin for hero spam. Playing eshin lowers the building tier for assassin buildings allowing you to spam them in minor settlements for a whole bunch of assassins/eshin sorcerers