Who's the BEST Cavalry? - Cavalry Units Showdown Warhammer 2

REINFORCE this channel here: / zerkovich
Let's find out who the best units in Warhammer 2 really are! In this one, we'll be smashing Cavalry into each other until one unit comes out victorious!
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[@Zerkovich]

Think Companions are the best? Let's see. kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWawpKiLa9ugbJI

[@rain89skarlet80]

Damn...Iam not gay but i love hear Zerks voice :)

[@Soulcatcher30]

Buff cold one delf cav. It's silly that they are so bad.

[@datuputi777]

@@Soulcatcher30 no elven horse can match my ass.

[@Soulcatcher30]

@@datuputi777 It's not a horse...

[@manofculture4938]

has the video where you compare tww2 cav to tww3 cav come out yet? i cant find it

[@barkspawn]

Title should be: "Who's the BEST Anti-Cavalry Cavalry"

[@JoshSweetvale]

As opposed to what, exactly? Anti-infantry cavalry? You'll find that most if not all the cav on this list can trample archers and rear-charge... Once the Cav v Cav fight is won. Anti-large? That's a tactical problem, not a strategic one. Also, most anti-cav cav has Anti-large.

[@kint87]

Well the horned ones and dark elves unit ( aka dino boys both) are freaking anti infantry, jus to put this to colorised their result another way than in an anti cav pure fight Same for blade of chaos and some other..

[@Nognamogo]

Haven't watched it yet I'm guessing blood knights.

[@MagicHjalti]

Skinwolfs

[@SallinKari]

@@JoshSweetvale Damage the charge. As shock calvary that's the biggest factor for them. As you are trying to cycle charge them against anything but missile troops, how powerful is that charge you are cycling?

[@RoulicisThe]

Knowing Blood Knights armor-piercing damage isn't that high, the amount of damage they can dish out against all these heavily armored cavs is pretty insane

[@MultiEpicnezz]

That and the fact they can get resurrected makes em real nasty.

[@spellbound1875]

Frenzy is a really powerful ability.

[@SleepyFen]

More than Frenzy, the fact that Blood Knights have 22 bonus vs large on top of having a high model count is helping them win a ton of these fights.

[@The_Murder_Party]

it's almost like they're the best cav in the game for a reason XD (invocation is da best.)

[@knell18897]

that is because bonus vs large/infantry is consider armor piercing damage

[@jamestaylor9977]

Now this is a series, can’t wait for monsters/constructs!!

[@aidanwilson8609]

@@AwesomeJedi182 lol

[@trevorflanagan4873]

James Taylor i love this series too!

[@maxpinto4934]

I want to see Best Artillery #TeamQueenBess

[@psyko2666]

I can't wait for artillery

[@l0kk016]

@@maxpinto4934 stegodons, bastodonts and ancient stegodons will win, they are a full cheat artillery but they are one...

[@boyanpenev9822]

"Fireborn are a blood knight reskin." Heh, ironically Dragon Princes were a very common blood knight proxy on the tabletop and GW had to specifically state in their tournament rules that repainting a model and painting vampire flags is not sufficient to count as conversion. Dragon Prince models costing about half of what blood knights did probably played a role.

[@samarkand1585]

And this is why I never got into it before TW, and even after I'll never put money into the actual tabletop

[@Stickyrolls123]

@@samarkand1585 Same. Well that and it's too damn expensive for what you are buying. They are a greedy company. I think the business model is shit. If they lowered the price a decent amount I bet the volume would make up for it. I for sure would get into it if the cost was less.

[@Dante3214]

@@Stickyrolls123 You know I've also wondered why they don't lower prices and get more lower-middle to poor class people (like myself) into it? Their universe sells itself, but the plastic minis sure don't.

[@Sigmagnat650]

@@Stickyrolls123 I knew a guy that worked for the US side of GW- it was his dream job. Until he got into it for about a year or so. Some of the things I heard weren't shocking, but they did confirm a lot of suspicions held by the community. For instance, he conveyed that GW, will admit behind closed doors, to leaning toward writing new rules to sell new models. It makes sense (e.g. they're a company and need to turn a profit) but the consensus seems to be that the decision-makers don't substantially worry about how unbalanced new models/rules may be. One of the shocking things for me was GW's attitude toward its Intellectual Property. They are pretty jealous with it and will pursue people/companies pretty aggressively over any perceived wrongdoing. Apparently, part of this has to do with British copyright laws that allow for I.P. to fall into the "wrong hands" if measures aren't routinely taken to legally challenge people over said copyrighted material (just look up the silly "Space Marine = GW property" lawsuit). Then part of it is the fact that, as one GW insider (different guy) put it- "it's a cadre of neckbeards who are overly protective of the Pinocchio they fashioned long ago." That would certainly explain some things such as some of the video games where GW got into various spats with development teams (e.g. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning) only for the end product to be lack-luster. Or, a more infamous and subtle example- Starcraft and Warcraft. As one reddit user, feor1300 put it: "...denied by all parties involved for legal reasons, but there's long been rumors that Warcraft started as a pitch for a WH Fantasy game that GW shot down after rejecting multiple elements of their story. But Blizzard had been overconfident and already started work, so they just changed enough to avoid lawsuits and plowed ahead with it as their own IP."

[@Dante3214]

@@Sigmagnat650 Thanks for the insight into GW I've always wondered. Makes a great deal of sense, I once met a GW employee at a card shop in ATL that seemed he really didn't care for the company at all (despite wearing their shirt). I'm very confident that warcraft essentially is warhammer cept GW missed the boat there

[@thund3rdragon452]

I think the Grail Knights are only stomping the wild riders and nearly winning against the fireborn because their magic damage ignores their physical resistance, which denies the others a lot of their tankiness.

[@SuperThest]

I don’t know about that, I think the big thing is armor.

[@thecoolanon]

really disappointed that the Companions weren't in the match up, They only lose to grail knights because of the magic damage grail knight have canceling out their physical resist. Companions would be top tier otherwise.

[@thecoolanon]

@@SuperThest also why the companions would do better than grail knights in most of the match ups since they have Anti-large and Armor piercing.

[@lich109]

@@thecoolanon Exactly, if the Companions had been used Zerkovich would've learned they would've beaten everything besides the Grail Knights.

[@Person01234]

The test itself inherently ignores many of the advantages that make up the cost of many units. For example, sure the wild riders perform towards the bottom of their price bracket, but that's because you aren't supposed to charge them headfirst into heavy cavalry. They're much more mobile than any of the other cavalry on the list I think, being more akin to light cavalry than anything and their charge bonus and fear-causing are incredible for breaking enemy troops in hammer and anvil charges at a relatively reasonable price point. They can defeat pretty much any other cavalry unit that would actually be able to catch them in a real fight. That's why they cost a little more than their headfirst charge test might indicate.

[@jaywalker9916]

Teacher: Who is the best Calvary unit? Grimgor:* raises hand. Teacher: Grimgor, we've been over this, you are not a cavalry unit.

[@ianduarte1992]

Grimgor: But i iz da best

[@mrgabest]

Lore-wise, the Grail Knights, the Blood Knights, and the Chaos Knights are on another level from the others, being blessed and mutated and just supernatural in every way. Ordinary elves and humans really don't stand any chance against them, even if they're riding monsters.

[@ouchiegiverjr]

Even grail knights?

[@gustavomartins72]

​@@ouchiegiverjr in-lore, grail knights are the strongest humans in the world, i think even their horses are super blessed

[@thatdiavologuy3568]

@@ouchiegiverjrespecially grail knights. Note that in the lore these are the guys that solo dragons no sweat and can go toe to toe with chaos champions or vampire blood dragons and win.

[@thatdiavologuy3568]

@@gustavomartins72yeah, grail reliquaries are literally the dead bodies of grail knights and their aura is still so powerful it blesses the pilgrims with power

[@hansblix4083]

One important aspect of grail knights is their perfect vigor. Exhaustion is basically a MA & MD debuff. Obviously comes only into play in the grand scheme of things. Max level exhaustion is around a 30% debuff on MA and -10% on MD iirc.

[@Srab23]

Thank you for listening about the regiments of renown feedback!

[@JackPhoenixCz]

"It looks like the Blood Knights are getting pretty hammered here" during the Fireborn fight Funnily enough, Warhammer vampires apparently do get 'drunk' when sucking elven blood.

[@TheOrphansmasher]

Thanks for going the extra mile to include the non RoR units, i didn't complain, but i was curious for single player purposes.

[@alexs_toy_barn]

the companions of quenelles are the questing knights with an anti large bonus, i saw in a milkandcookiestw video where they beat the demigryph knights with halberds edit: i just ran the test myself, they beat the royal altdorf gryphites. so zerkovich forgot about the actual best cav in the game edit2: the companions ARE in the video, zerk didn't forget(sorry) but somehow despite being able to beat the gryphites and the fireborn, they lose to regular grail knights and their magical attacks

[@HadesWTF]

I just tested and they wrecked the fireborn too.

[@alexs_toy_barn]

Aidyn Altanessi i just assumed that he either forgot about them or assumed that the grail knights would beat the companions. i find it extraordinarily hard to believe that regular grail knights would beat companions, tho i can't test it as of right now

[@Zerkovich]

1:37 You can watch them lose to Grail Knights.

[@alexs_toy_barn]

Zerkovich oh that's crazy that they can beat everything but grail knights. i just stupidly didn't hear you mention the companions my apologies

[@AdamSchadow]

@@Zerkovich There is 1 cav on your list that beats them that should not mean they are not on top if they beat all the others.

[@sigilofgremory9671]

It is amazing how attached you become to your favorite fraction's cavalary.

[@kharneater778]

Thank you very much for listening to our criticism and thoughts. I personally found it a more complete and informative version and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[@sevsquad]

I can't wait for the Artillery round of this series so we can prove once and for all the Dawi stand above all. Probably not condusive to a head to head though, I think you could do a timed comparison, get a tanky unit to stand at max range and then time how long it takes each unit to destroy/route the unit.

[@treemover7259]

i used to think that but then boom boom undead sea boys the queen bess is so op as is the mobile artilery peice

[@todalio9238]

Artillery would probably be the hardest to test in a "fair" way, as the previous comment mentionned. I thought of it, and you would probably need a "TEST CRASH" unit to evalutate the real efficiency of the artillery instead of a arty VS arty. But yes, Dawi would probably shine. The idea of Hellcannon or Queen Bess in a straight arty is a big game changer though. If they respect the idea of "Best Cav" though, a unit would have to stay in place like the cavs after charge, mobile arty (Like the Empire) would not be able to move.

[@him4real262]

What about queen bess?

[@marsneedstowels]

Someone going to sneak a Cygor into the arty party?

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

That would be good. I'd run two tests, one against an infantry target and then one against another artillery unit. It's tricky, because direct-fire artillery would devastate in the piece-on-piece fight since it can actually destroy artillery pieces. Artillery more than anything else is hard to test, because direct and indirect fire have completely different merits; high-damage-small-blast cannon type has completely different goals from high-arc-large-blast mortar type. The range differential is also enormous, especially since moving pieces is too slow for evasion. Queen Bess will win at killing units if that's the competition. If it's killing each other, the Black Lions are supreme because helblasters shread artillery in direct fire and can evade slow projectiles. Hellcannon is extremely effective at killing artillery due to range, semi-homing and unbreakable, but worse at killing regulars due to one model. And then there's Monstrous Artillery to mess it up for everyone.

[@cosmixedsociety]

I was on the edge of my seat, this could be a serous sport i would watch.

[@lukasosterloher9105]

Id say the Wild Hunters of Kurnous did pretty well considering they're closer to light cav than heavy cav, having 7-23 (mostly 10 to 15 tho) more speed than the other units. And if they fight in the forest they might actually beat everyone.

[@sydorovich2532]

They are one of the best units in WE roster, on par with waywatchers and Forest Dragons. If not the stupid siege mechanics i would add them in my every army.

[@vladdmytruk2955]

@@sydorovich2532 what's wrong with siege mech? I often see ppl say that, but dunno what's the actual thing with it. (I am new to the game)

[@590dami]

@@vladdmytruk2955 unless you cheese the siege, wood elves are pretty bad at siegies, they rock open field battles, it's enterely duable in campaign but you tend to jsut cheese instead of storm in. an early stack of woodelves (like at least 8 t1 archers) has a lot of trouble sieging, not impossible, jsut taxing and kinda booring.

[@Person01234]

Plus they cause fear unlike most of the other cavalry at their price range so in their intended role of fast striking behind enemy lines and rear charge routing they're fantastic.

[@marknum545]

Even when considering that the blood knights are less cost effective it makes sense in the grand scheme of things, because they are in a faction with vampire lore (invocation of nehek), which makes them kinda the best cavalary in the game, all things considered.

[@DarkKreig]

Thats what I was thinking, they're the only top cavalry that can regain models. That's part of the cost, yet they still managed to beat regiments of renown.

[@fountainchristain]

It is also quite scary to me they beat or just barely lose a lot of these matchups when they can also heal so crush all the cav heal the bloodknights back to max and then hey remember that unit you couldn't stop it's back 🤣

[@dan7564]

Yeah, although it's not guaranteed that invoc will be used on them. Perhaps the general figures it will get more value out of an over cast, and do a unit that's in a group of 3 whist the blood knights are way out the back with artillery or off on the side or something. But yes, grave guard and tombs guard are weaker than say great swords because those armies come in mind with healing and are balanced as such. This goes doubly for necropolis knights. as they are get guaranteed arm wide heals which doesn't get used in this test. Also the blood knights are not just anti large, they are pretty good at doing just about all roles cavalry can do. lastly, I thought the new questing knights RoR was bretonias best cav.

[@fountainchristain]

@@dan7564 I mean they are good but for anti-cav Grail are a bit better I think

[@OniGanon]

@@dan7564 Graveguards are actually better than Greatswords. IIRC they cost more, so this is expected.

[@euromanijak]

"lets find out who's the best?" Its grimgor But he is not cavalry Doesnt matter he's da best

[@TheAsaoirc]

GREEN IS BEST

[@Gulaschiltis]

WAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!

[@rain89skarlet80]

Grimgor...The power fantasy of an 8year old boy ^^

[@davidhenriksson285]

@@rain89skarlet80 Everyone except 8 yearolds! They prefeer shadowninjademonkillermurderers

[@hannibalfloyd]

He is da best meme lord for sure

[@DonEnriqueGG]

I feel this will have the opposite problem from the previous, anti-infantry will lose to anti-large

[@Lynch2507]

I mean, the easy answer is really just "the best cav is the one most suited to X task"

[@dan7564]

yeah this is hardly a comprehensive test. Especially as the necropolis knights didn't have enough units to trigger their army heal abilities.

[@knell18897]

​@@dan7564 and undeath knight don't get invocation either, this is a fair fight

[@dan7564]

@@knell18897 I don't know what you're saying.

[@knell18897]

@@dan7564 You said "this is hardly a comprehensive test. Especially as the necropolis knights didn't have enough units to trigger their army heal abilities." which sound like you are implying that Necropolis knights didn't operate at full power due the the lack of army abilities therefore they are at disadvantage. To counter your argument i point out that VC cav don't get their invocation which is one of their greatest strength, be able to heal and replenish their number. So in my conclusion, the lack of armies abilities for the necropolis knight didn't matter as this is a "fair fight" rely on raw stats. Do you understand what I'm trying to say with these comments ?

[@JustinFike]

My only two gripes with this awesome series: 1. If units have special abilities you should absolutely use them in the test. Those abilities are baked into the unit, often compensated by lesser stats. Having built-in abilities make a unit stronger and more effective than its stat card by design, so that should factor into any test of who is the strongest. 2. I'd love to see a version of this test that accounts for cost. Maybe not "who is the strongest" but "who is the most effective"? If five units of one unit costs enough less than five units of their opponent to afford one or more additional units, I'd love to see a contest where that lower cost is reflected by a numbers advantage to see how that balances out the contest. Other than that, I love this series so far! Can't wait to see monstrous units :D

[@theShantai]

Yes, exactly my thought, for example blood knights are damn expensive, but they can regenerate and make use of invocation of nehek

[@dac314]

Thank you for this. It's exhaustive, thorough, and comprehensive-ness is why you're synonymous with high quality and high-brow Total Warhammer content! Really really appreciate the fact that you listened to the community and created separate listings for RoRs, which is important when seeking accurate information on cavalry engagements. Thank you again!

[@lich109]

It's not that exhaustive, a quick test shows that the Companions beat every unit on the list aside from Grail Knights, yet they weren't included in the test.

[@georgemorley1029]

Your gryphites are the end game cav that you can throw at any cav threat in big battles and let them chew their way through them and out the other side. A big relief for micro in massive large army battles.

[@SuperThest]

just don't throw them into questing knights, that is not a cost effective trade.

[@DarkKreig]

Great videos as usual, I'm really enjoying this series. I think the thing with the blood knights is that in practice they can revive models with being healed by pretty much one of the best healing spells in the game. Bringing rank 9 blood knights back to full unit size mid or end game would be dangerous for you or your opponent.

[@Xaphnir]

It's not just 70% damage reduction that the Fireborn had against the Swords of Chaos. The Fireborn also have 20% physical resistance, so adding that and the fire resistance together they had 90% reduced damage taken.

[@GiantShoe]

*puts anti-large monstrous cavalry regiment of renown into roster* "whos the best cavalry in the game?!" gee i wonder.

[@bubeable]

And? Necropolis are anti-large monstrous too

[@TB--sp9wy]

Still cavalry

[@theepictroll5926]

I first discovered that fire damage isn't always beneficial when playing high elves, I was so angry when my sisters of Avalon spam got mauled to death without doing any damage to fire Phoenix

[@llamaalpaca5563]

Fireborn vs normal dragon princes would be a pain to watch too, they are supposed to be best of their peers! However I could see high elves don't enjoy fighting each other too much, unlike their dark kins.

[@albinandersson1154]

Not alone in that regard friend. My favorite right now is Eltharion spaming mistwalker archers with a loremaster a noble two incendary mages (light and fire) two ballistas and two of his griffin knights with a dark elf being interigated so that they get AP ranged damage after a time. This pretty muchh covers all the bases. You can shower the enemies with arrows and keep them of the archers with some really powerfull melee units.

[@Nightmare_52]

easy fix, kill every nation that can have phoenixes, there you go

[@EcchiRevenge]

Phoenixes are at least easy to deal with. Dragon Princes are the worst. (can't kill them at range and gets charged/knocked forever in melee) Or, Dwarven "BOOM"stack.

[@SirMcAwesome]

I was playing Imrik campaign and with his skills and some gear he easily reached like 95% fire res, another 30% magic res and 30% ward save. I went into the dragon encounter battle with the legendary sun dragon. It had a huge hp pool, insane damage and was regenerating health like crazy. It also had like 6 phoenixes with it. Imrik soloed all of them without a scratch.

[@eph9263]

SUMMON THE ELECTOR COUNTS

[@DylanJo123]

THIS COMMENT HAS MY CONSENT

[@Badbentham]

FOR SIGMAR!

[@robbievulcan9564]

FOR ALTDORF!

[@flo1fication]

Kislev.

[@giorga33332]

For The Empire !

[@MellowWater]

I kept picking my phone up to call my bookie. The commentating is top notch!

[@martinwuziwu5520]

I also allways thought, that fire attack is just an additional bonus, not that the whole attack becomes fire-attack.

[@memitim171]

Was unsure about this myself, good to know I made the right choice by unequipping all my banners of eternal flame when my VCs descended on Lotheron. :D

[@hannibalfloyd]

Which is how it should be, the current system is preposterous. If I hit you with a sword, just because it's on fire and you happen to be immune to that doesn't mean you're not still going to get skewered.

[@albericdecarrere8436]

@Hannibal Floyd well if it's an armor that is designed to repel fire, it makes sense. And that's what we could expect from the Helves and dragon princes

[@fordprefect8406]

Not entirely convinced this wasn’t just an excuse to say how sexy the grifphites are

[@RHINO_Mk_II]

I mean... they are though

[@dinosdaniel3508]

That awkward moment in a world full of fantasy creatures where Human Cavalry ploughs through em all.

[@berthold64]

grail knights is fucking medieval spess marine

[@dinoblacklane1640]

"Fireborn are a bloodnight reskin" Thats hilarious because I used dragon princes as my bloodknights on the tabletop

[@Macruelmorticody]

Zerkovich : 15:30 "i did not know fire works like this" Me : DAMN ZERKOVICH, KNOW YOUR UNITS !

[@bleflar9183]

Its really sad that the faction which is focused entirely on cavalery doesn't even have one of the best cavaleries in the game.

[@uriel005]

this.... really isn't a good representation. Cavalry and counter cav has a lot of mobility to consider, cycle charging, the vigour of the units these videos are really only accounting for the initial charge which you don't generally do with cav you cycle charge them.... then it just meat grinds.

[@anirbanbhattacharya9185]

It actually does though in the form of the Companions of Quenelles. Test it out if you like. Against Royal Gryphites. Frankly speaking they wreck.

[@NBeaver-bx4yl]

Actually ROR Questing knights Beat Royal Altdorf Gryphites, beat the fireborn and Blood knights, they are actually the best, they loose to Grail knights due to magic damage but dumpster all of the rest

[@sydorovich2532]

Yeah, AP dmg on cavalry is strong as fuck.

[@joeb1955]

@@sydorovich2532 And the companions have a massive bonus vs large. They destroy almost every cav very easily.

[@thecoolanon]

The Companions only lose to grail knights because grail knights have magical attacks that get through their physical resist. I would think that the Companions would fair much better against most other heavy cavalry in this match up because most of the other cav lack magical attacks and are armored. Really disappointed that they weren't in this test.

[@dan7564]

This

[@lich109]

Absolutely this, and it's a prime example of why testing a faction's units against themselves won't always return the best candidate for the test.

[@brucewayne9471]

Strongest cav unit are the The Companions of Quenelles, but you have them not tested ;-) They can beat everyone, also the blood knights

[@Ashannon888]

The Grail Knights beat the Champions. He shows that really early on in the video.

[@aduboo29]

@@Ashannon888 Sort of the problem with the one-rep nature of the test; Grail Knights beat the Companions - but the companions would outperform them against a lot of the competition since it's only the magic damage bypassing physical resist that allows Grail Knights to win that fight, which the rest of the contest lacks.

[@dinoblacklane1640]

@@aduboo29 he even mentions it later with the swords of chaos vs fireborn too

[@brucewayne9471]

@@Ashannon888 Thats true, but i will takes this video as preference kzbin.info/www/bejne/o4fPdauoa82qrbc , here win the companions against the royal altdorf ;-) and many many others. I hope it's no problem for Zerkovich when I post a video from an other KZbinr.

[@lich109]

@@Ashannon888 And the companions beat the Gryphites, so why weren't they included?

[@colbert6624]

RE: Fire damage; I remember in WH1 when Glade Guard with Starfire Shafts did Fire and Magic (I think) as well as AP, I brought Irondrakes against them. They had something like 70% Fire resistance, and the innate 25% Magic resistance of Dawi may have helped as well, because I waltzed right through 2 or 3 volleys to get into range of a Glade Guard unit, took zero losses, and flamed them all to death in 1 volley.

[@BrotherSantodes]

You should do a "Best Buffs/Debuffs" video where you pit identical melee units against each other and test spells like Curse of Midnight Wind and Doom and Darkness and other similar spells.

[@joecolman1968]

Just watched this. got to 22.30 mins and Zerk says 'now the moment a lot of you have been waiting for,' and the video cut to an ad for Warhammer 3. Why yes, this is the moment i'm waiting for...

[@DIEGhostfish]

Glad you're doing level 9 vs RoR, since that's what RoR are supposed to compare with.

[@SerLoinSteak]

Yeah damage tags are weird. You run into some unexpected interactions when you have something with magic fire attacks like Imrik or Hexwraiths because if something has a 25% weakness to fire and a 50% magic resistance, then they take 25% less damage because the magic resistance is compensating for the fire weakness. So sometimes it's better to just have fire or magic or sometimes just normal physical resistance. The Sisters of Avelorn are particularly interesting because they fire magical flaming arrows which means fire resistance, magic resistance, missile resistance, and ward save all reduce the damage they deal. That being said, the most common resistance is physical resistance so that's why they still crush other units since that's the one damage type they don't deal

[@ashina2146]

"Best Anti Cavalry Cavalry" "Best Anti Cavalry Infantry"

[@revenvrake7412]

Chariots are gonna be interesting to look at.

[@jakobschoning7355]

Yeah, but Chariot vs. Chariot fighing is disgusting

[@Damo2690]

@@jakobschoning7355 Have you seen that tournament match where two Vampire Counts each brought 6 Corpse carts and had them fight each other 1v1....it's fucking funny, the casters wanted to ban them haha

[@Suns497]

This is my sports now.

[@corkus]

The top expendable units next!

[@davidmurvai40]

Conclusion: Bretonnian cav needs considerable buffs. Their faction relies exclusively on cavalry while the Empire has strong arty and varied magic as well.

[@martintieber7756]

their cav is really cost effective for the most part.

[@secondaryfront]

That doesn't work like that. Human armies relies on combined arms and so their performance against counterparts from other factions aren't the best indication of combat performance. F.e. they have powerfull anty-infantry cav both in melee and charge that excels in different situations. The problem with Bretonnia is that their frontline brokes pretty fast so they require better-than-average coordination and support from their heroes, infantry, archers and cavalery to have any chance to win.

[@SuperThest]

pokezee king-wolf Bretonnia was a strong faction in the lore...they had super humans running around their region defeating entire armies single handedly, they could charge into cannons and be fine thanks to magic, and between them and the Empire, they were the only ones who usually projected their strength outside of their borders

[@lich109]

Bretonnia does have the best cav, Zerkovich didn't include the Companions despite them stomping every opponent on this list besides Grail Knights. Here's a video on them: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o4fPdauoa82qrbc

[@RoulicisThe]

Are you going to make a cavalry ranking for anti-infantry performances as well ?

[@dan7564]

This, there's more ways to run these tests

[@derrikl12]

Fun to watch.... would love to see a 10 zombie unit wipe timed event with the anti inf cav.

[@Inferno912]

The looks and options of all units in this game is just super cool.

[@sootcoot8712]

Blood KNights having been through all three games so far make me really happy they stood up for the newer challenge.

[@booradley6832]

Good work, this is a MUCH more fair series of tests. As for practical battle application, I agree with rank 9 here because it makes it fair but if this inspires anyone to take them into custom or quick matches at max rank your units up to rank 7, 5-6 is more practical for a unit you expect to do a lot of heavy lifting because they will gain chevrons in the battle. So they'll have the same late-game advantage as carrying in a rank 9 while still allowing you more funds to buy or rank up the rest of your army. rank 5 brettonian men at arms are a significant upgrade in battle scenarios. As are upgraded goblins, TK Carrion, fel bats and every piece of artillery. Rule of thumb for melee is the cheaper the unit is, and the lower leadership, the more you're actually getting from a chevron. Although certain higher tier infantry gains significant benefits from chevrons- grave guard, tomb guard , longbeards rank 6 become psuedo ironbreakers. Despite what you may have said in your videos, ranged units benefit heavily from chevrons. They increase their rate of fire, which is really important for getting more of those shots off in the limited amount of time you have to fire. Routing with ammunition in hand is a wasted percentage of the funds spent on that unit, as are missed shots. it also increases the range at which they will fire with 100% accuracy(meaning they will hit what they're aiming for within their calibration area) and the variance within (Calibration area, so roughly 5-20 yard spread of shots, decreasing in size with chevrons.) 150g in chevrons can make those cheap archers go from hitting 45% of their shots to 65%. WIth 90 archers in a formation, 22 ammunition, 20 damage per shot thats an addition of 7,920 damage before armor- which is almost exactly the health pool of a unit. For artillery, rank 3 minimum if you can afford it- it increases their accuracy by roughly 20% and reload speed around 10%(accuracy determined by both accuracy stat and calibration distance/area improvements). If you want proof of how effective this can be, take out 4 units of mortars-rank 0, 3, 6 and 9- and have them fire at 4 stationary infantry units. See the results. Then have them fire at 4 moving infantry units. Then 4 faster units. The applications to realistic battle scenarios will quickly become apparent. This can be done with any artillery in the game but I feel mortars show the discrepancy the easiest.

[@stephenbrizie5082]

Grail knights aren't the best Bretonian Cav, gotta get yourself the Companions of Quenelles.

[@Zerkovich]

1:37 You can see them lose to Grail Knights.

[@MrJimmibambo]

@@Zerkovich only becasue Grail Knights can bypass their PR with their magic attacks, but Qk ror kills both BK and Roayal Altdorf G.

[@lich109]

@@Zerkovich And if you test the Companions you'll see them crush every other cav in the game.

[@nathangranthall4450]

Definitely enjoy this series can't wait for more... As a total Lizardmen fanboy... What happened to the Pop-Hopak Cohort Zerk?

[@JasperLane]

Starting to notice a pattern with the Beastmen, guess we will have to see if history repeats itself next episode

[@Zerkovich]

I mean Monsters is their thing so, that's where they should shine.

[@chemicalman53]

For the Grail Knights if upgraded: They possess the highest melee attack and leadership by a significant amount. Their blessing of the lady gives them largest effective HP pool (you can multiply their HP by 1.2 to get the effective HP). Their magical attack lets them bypass enemy armor while their own armor still works. So the only area they lag is their own weapon damage which does pail to the higher echelons. Not surprised about the charge formation causing problems. As you observed it makes the charge hit harder but makes them more likely to be surrounded if they then stick in the fight. They puncture enemy formations harder due to their bonus charge speed and damage. More powerful penetration is not a free lunch.Either you treat them like a chariot in that you aim to do careful charges to not get "stuck" and/or do it while the enemy is tied to your anvil so the enemy division cannot focus on enveloping the cav.

[@stefan1360]

Magical attacks don't "bypass" enemy armour they ignore physical resistances, armour piercing damage ignores armour.

[@SuperThest]

You're getting a few things mixed up. Stefan already mentioned the magic attacks thing, but also 20 percent physical resistance would be 25% more effective health not 20%. That still doesn't give them the most effective health though because by that logic, hex wraiths actually have the highest effective health and Grail Guardians have more real health than Grail Knights. They also Don't have the highest MA. Horned ones, Wild riders, Blood Knights, Dragon Princes, Dread Knights, Chaos Knights, and Questing Knights all have better MA and there are a few cav who also have 5 more leadership than them.

[@jozan1313]

yeah i came across this resistance thing when i played Imirik, during the fight with the sun dragon i messed up an imirik was fighting the sun dragon and 2 arcane phoenix and was panicking he would die... until he took no damage since he had 105% fire res and all three opponents do fire damage... neat

[@emilefortier1688]

Glad to see you're doing this as a series and not just the infantry video!

[@keeganpogue1856]

This is an excellent series, please make more!

[@jf9866]

Grail Knights need a slight buff. in lore they are super strong!

[@KorsAir1987]

Yeah, I also agree that they should have a lower unit size but borderline op stats.

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

It seems like the Grail Knights stacked advantages make them outplay; having the magic damage does very well when some of the best cav units have some physical resistance and the perfect vigour means they don't get worse in long battles.

[@CallioNyx]

Blood knight has one big advantage: Invocation of Nehek. I was surprised by how well the Horned Ones did though. I must have been underestimating those brutal sods.

[@Estoph11]

2 requests for future videos. Who is the best at infantry killing of these cav? Send them against an unarmoured, lightly armoured and heavily armoured infantry unit for 10 seconds and figure out their average damage. And essentially the same for ranged units.

[@l3on13r]

When an undead unit's banner is blinking it does not mean that it is crumbling, only that it is close to starting to crumble. At 18:58 you say that they are crumbling (when they are not) and when they DO start to crumble you describe this as them stabilizing. Maybe you just got mixed up there, but it felt like that you referred to undead units who were merely wavering as crumbling at multiple points in these two "Best Unit" videos. Good video.

[@dakotadean1057]

It should of couse be made known that while this competition highights the strongest in a fair fight, many factions could easiy sway the battlefield depending on their ability to support the cavalry through ranged and magic, though I will say that even in that event the beastmen cav would stil get shit on unless you dedicate everything to killing the enemy cav.

[@duel424]

The terror of the Altdorf Gryphites caused terror-routing on the Fireborn.

[@arturo_cruz]

I remember seeing another youtubers test videos and the best cavalry where companion questing knights. apparently they're better than grail knights and probably should have taken their spot in the test.

[@dinoblacklane1640]

Its just a matter of damage vs damage resitance, like in the fireborn vs sons of choas The companions have Physical resistance, but grail knights bypass that with magical attacks, so the grail knight beat the companions, but the companions beat every other cav unit in the game

[@lich109]

@@dinoblacklane1640 Which is why they should've been included.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

It's strange how the results of these competitions are transitive. You'd expect at least a couple loops, but no, it's a straight line.

[@dan7564]

What do you mean?

[@thehaggardhawk9419]

@@dan7564 He means it's more of a big fish eats little fish trend. As opposed to a rock paper scissors type of trend

[@Yourantsally]

That's not how a tiered competition works...

[@AdamSchadow]

They are actually not transitive he simply did not test many units like summoners or rage or companions of quenell.

[@spartnmarcen5110]

Thank you for taking the feedback into account. I love the way you decided to do both of them.

[@retro3564]

So nice that you bother to do this man! seen all of them...thanks!

[@borgCube100]

Even the normal Dragon Princes units beat the swords of Chaos, again they have the 70% fire resistance. It really sums up how they are better V infantry as almost no Cav have fire damage, but a lot of infantry and ranged units have it.

[@philosophyfrog2653]

Quick explantation of stats; Undead units take extra damage from fire and magical attacks. All units with regeneration takes extra damage from fire attacks, Fire and magical attacks change all your damage output which is why units with magical damage will perform better against high armoured targets and worse against magic resistant targets. Anti stats gives a melee and attack defence boost against certain target. Charge bonus gives a temporary damage boost in addition to melee attack boost and melee defence boost. This boost lasts for 15 seconds.

[@flibbernodgets7018]

I like this series. You could also expand it to more than just even fights like this, maybe by exploring the units' roles. You mentioned the Dragon knights and Chaos knights being more focused on anti-infantry, so you could pit all the anti infantry cavalry against various infantry units and see how quickly they are able to kill them.

[@drakeredwing1910]

Nooo!!! not my blood knights! My poor babies.

[@Jak132619]

This is a great video, must have taken a lot of time to test 100+ battles to get all this data, nice work!

[@llamaalpaca5563]

The one Fireborn vs Swords of Chaos is ridiculous!

[@Guillimann]

amazing idea to integrate non ror and ror this time btw

[@thaileinh9877]

I think you failed to mention that Blood Knights' advantage of regeneration ability would also be their disadvantage for the matches against Fireborn and SoC due to its weakness vs fire.

[@hamsters7760]

Bretonnian wedge is really just for situations where you want to punch a hole and pull thru, or at an angle off behind.

[@gaytar1]

Fun Fact about the Fireborn/Blood Knight comparison. There models (Dragon Princes/Blood Knights) look pretty similar on the tabletop, but Blood Knights were so ridcioulously expensive (99$ for 5 models) that a lot of people just bought Dragon Princes and repainted them instead.

[@DaveBuikema]

My dumbass was eagerly waiting for the Dwarven cavalry to join the competition for a while LOL

[@joethesheep4675]

08:50 - That Grail knight seems to be a damned chilled dude. Just watch his "charge". XD That fella isnt gonna rout no matter what. XD

[@sydneycastelfan]

I wouldn't expect them to win, but it would have been nice to see how Hexwraiths could compete in this

[@sanguineaurora8765]

Grail knights and wild hunters would probably annihilate them on contact. It'd make an imbalanced outcome. Also he said that those are the best of their factions so BK's must have beaten hexwraiths. Which is to be expected since hexwraiths are anti infantry.

[@sydneycastelfan]

@@sanguineaurora8765 well sure, in those cases. I would just like to see how their physical resistance stacks up against most of the other cav units

[@lordoblivion812]

Hexwraiths are an interesting unit. They shred demigryphs of any kinds and any other heavy cav, but anything with magic damage will shred them.

[@dan7564]

Same, there are a couple of factions where I'd like a multiple units entered. Such as bretonia and empire.

[@dan7564]

Dragon ogres are another one as they are classed as monstrous cavalry like the gryphites are.

[@ZeSluzzable]

I thought companions of quennelles beat Grail Knights? Anti-large + armour piercing, they're really good anti-cav

[@ederanged7960]

Doesn't surprise me that the Grail Knights "give as good they get" .. They.. Spar.. Amongst themselves quite often.

[@angelusumbra5741]

BKs just barely over DGs, by a very close margin in the non RoR matches, was awesome to watch. Vampires are more powerful than Humans, so it's not surprising, but amazing to watch. The RAGs being the best of ALL though is equally awesome. I wonder how a RoR version of BKs would do if they made one?

[@jorgenblomkvist1790]

Great content man! Best material on Warhammer at the present

[@MrGemHunter]

13:08 the lady is off in the distance laughing manically, just a few more centuries and she'll show them, she'll show them all!

[@Jefrejtor]

Really enjoying this new testing method,nice video!

[@gavinpowell4607]

do you reckon those units will ever find out why they were fighting each other to the death? "ARE YOU NOT ENTURTAYNED??"

[@Person01234]

This is more a test of raw prolonged melee ability than which one is "best" but that's cool.

[@1234kalmar]

Bretonnian knight being basically invulnerable is sucha pain in the ass.

[@yvindlavold5741]

The Empire endures!

[@brokensky2378]

The fire damage ate away pretty badly at those blood knights. The Chaos knights just didn't have the anti large to finish the job.

[@mylesdrake2949]

Don't forget, Blood knights can resurrect models unlike all other cav so with that factored in easily the best cav in the game.

[@LordTheCyril]

Zerkovich, with imrik in campaign you can get dragon princes up to 105% fire resist allowing you to ram them into anything then chuck a fire spell over everything.

[@SuperThest]

resistance caps at 90%. Their 20% physical resistance already makes them as immune to breath attacks as they can get. You only need an extra 15 fire or magic resistance resistance to max them out against magic fire.

[@marionettes7974]

8:50 dude, he is flanking, tactical person.

[@derrickmcbride5922]

"BLOOOOD KNIIIGHTS!!!", said the best cav to the Warhammer audience.

[@gdrad]

Series idea. Best of Tier 1. Anything that can be recruited from tier 1 non-unique buildings. I believe this is only infantry, both ranged and melee, for all factions. Likely have to exclude miners with blasting charges as that requires a tier 3 building to recruit. Going up to tier 2 is also interesting as tier 2 is viable for early game. Usually a major settlement gets "stuck" at tier 2 while it's minor settlements are upgraded. Issue being that a far more diverse roster of units show up at tier 2.