Grand Cathay is an absolute great faction for beginners. Unique campaign mechanics and very strong in battle.
If you want to try some bad guys maybe give Dark Elves a try. Since you’re already familiar with High Elves you’ll see some similarities, but still will feel different
Pick whatever faction you think is coolest. You already did the solid beginner play through, now try whatever bizarre outlandish faction strikes your fancy.
One option not mentioned yet in this thread could be Lizardmen, if only because they're another pretty strong/beginner-friendly faction, but they play very differently from the high elves. If you're looking for a change of pace, or a different playstyle (less shooting arrows over a line of spears, more big dinosaurs stomping through enemy lines), a lord like Gor-rok could be a good next step.
Yeah that's a good point. Maybe the recommendation isn't lizardmen in general, but Gor-rok specifically. If I remember right, his early game (with Kroak and a very strong capital settlement) is a lot easier than Mazda, Kroq or the rest.
I'd recommend Archaon, under the Warriors of Chaos. Easy to play, easy to learn and a very fun campaign. It also plays very differently to Elves so you'll learn different things and get a chance to side with the baddies.
Cathay is pretty nice and calm, specifically the iron dragon. northern provinces might be a problem with the amount of threats but its up to you if you are up for the chalange
Lizardmens was my way to go in my noob days, consider them to give it a go too. My advice would be either Go rok or Kroq gar they got a decent faction with no limitations and decent start to go with a bit of challenge. You can try to climb the difficulty one time after the other, like maybe try normal this time to see if you can handle it. Don't pressure yourself, just climb slowly like I have did until legendary, if only you want it.
My favorite factions are the lizardmen and the dwarves. It's probably because they have very strong Frontline units that live forever. The lizards got amazing monsters and the best heros in game due to their mounts IMO. Lizards riding dinosaurs shooting lasers.
The dwarves have a Frontline that never quits, baller artillery, good guns and helicopters.
I find both enjoyable in battle due to them being not too micro intensive and usually I'm able to win against much larger forces which feels satisfying.
Oxyotl is my go-to Lizardmen campaign. Lizardmen already have a great roster and Oxyotl easily has the most fun and engaging campaign mechanics out of all the Lizardmen lords. It's basically the Warhammer version of X-com traveling around the world stomping out chaos with giga-buffed skinks.
Tyrion on Easy/Easy was my first ever campaign in WH2 also. My second one was Settra with Tomb Kings. I really appreciated how different that faction was compared to HE. I'd recommend that.
Granted, Settra's situation in IE is much different that it used to be. Especially with Skarbrand so close to you.
As an aside, if you don't already know: HE were part of the base game Warhammer 2 factions that you can play with in IE if you own WH2. Tomb Kings were a dlc for WH2. You'd need to buy that either from the WH2's dlc list or WH3's. Doesn't matter which but you only do it once.
Bump it up to normal/normal.
Empire, Bretonnia, Lizardmen, Chaos Dwarfs, and Cathay are my favorite factions.
I only wouldnt recommend skaven currently for you, as they have a higher skill requirement than most other races.
To be good at playing Skaven requires you to think like a Skaven, yes-yes!
Seriously tho, Ikit campaign isn't that hard. His start position is very secure, with easy options for initial expansion into Estalia, Bretonnia and Tilea. It only gets a bit hard after the Wood Elves get pissed at you. But that is true for every evil faction near any wood elves. Wood Elves are just a pain to deal with in battle.
But until then, it's pretty chill. And you got the "Oh Shit" button that is the nuke.
Bretonnia is pretty easy. They have the empire to the east and the HE to the west, a few vampire and orcs to deal with. The vikings up north are easy to deal with and you can see them coming from far away if you keep a lookout. Their economy is great, they got few buildings and it is very straight forward. The unit roster is easy to learn too, its all about charging and knights and their bowmen and spearmen are not that bad either for cheap dfending. You dont need to worry about army costs going up and if you get the -3% buildings then the units become progressively cheaper the more you conquer. Plus, Leon is a single army doomstack too.
Overall, its fun to play and not hard.
Cathay is probably your best choice.
If you want to try something else, Itza for the lizardmen is pretty beginner friendly. Gor Rok can become an almost unkillable tank, and Lord Kroak can eventually kill stacks of infantry single-handedly. Lizardmen mechanics are basic, but powerful. Their roster is great, leaning heavily on good melee, decent skirmishing, magic and dinosaurs.
Just remember the 3 keys to Lizarding 101: Upkeep reduction, Star Chambers, and Lord Kroak. These three together will take you far.
Depending on how confident you are I'd say lizards/Cathay next for an easier time, or green skins/chaos warriors for something a bit more difficult and to get used to some evil faction play.
I can't help but plug in the Chaos Dwarves every chance i get. But you definitely want to work your way up to them as they might require the most micro managing in the campaign map of any other race.
That said, Cathay has some engaging mechanics without being too punishing and their legendary lords are awesome.
Honorable mentions to Malus Darkblade from darke elves and Grom for greenskins, albeit the latter's roster might be a little overwhelming coming from high elves.
I'm gonna recommend a different kind of experience. Beastmen. I would personally recommend either Khazrak the One Eye, Malagor the Dark Omen, or everyone's favourite, Taurox the Brass Bull.
With Beastmen, when choosing your starting lord, you are only essentially choosing faction mechanics, because confederating other beastmen LLs is easy, due to their shared dread mechanic.
Taurox has the strongest personal mechanics, but I feel like he outshines the other LLs after confederating the others into his faction, due to his faction mechanics applying only to him. This is why I would recommend the others over him, for a more balanced and normal Beastmen experience.
I would say Khazrak is your best, and most fun, option.
Also, bump the game up to normal/normal.
Or you could just go full on Taurox, bump up the difficulty to Very Hard Campaign and normal battles, and absolutely massacre everyone with Taurox alone! Very hard campaign actually makes his campaign easier, because as Taurox, you want as many battles as you can get, and the more armies the AI fields, the more battles you get, and the easier your campaign will be! You just need to fight battles manually.
I’d give Yuan Bo a try. He has a dual start in Lustria and Cathay so you get to see a lot of the map early (good for a new player). He’s a very strong Legendary Lord in a very strong faction so it’s not a difficult campaign. Balanced armies work well for Grand Cathay which I think is new-player friendly. Overall, fun campaign with a fun roster and not too difficult. He is an Order faction (same as High Elves) so you may not want to do two Order campaigns back-to-back, but if you don’t mind doing so, that would be my recommendation.
Edit: He is a DLC campaign though. Unless you already own the DLC you may not want to purchase that particular one on the off chance you enjoy his campaign.
I actually ended up picking Yuan Bo, I’m about 100 turns in and really enjoy him, I now realize I wasn’t a massive fan of High Elves, Cathayans are a lot of fun, especially those Iron Hail and Crane Gunner units. Thanks for the suggestion!
Definitely try normal. It's pretty easy, but it will offer you more of an understanding of the game.
Also I would turn Battle AI up to Very Hard straight away, and turn off all AI battle cheats. This way the AI will act rather strategically, and actually make some pretty interesting moves as opposed to just standing at one place.
So, I really suck at this game, and have the wondrous ability to turn all AR Decisive Victories into Pyrrhic victories, should I still go Very Hard? I’ll try it when I get on, but I’m not sure on how to get better, anyway.
Grand Cathay is an absolute great faction for beginners. Unique campaign mechanics and very strong in battle. If you want to try some bad guys maybe give Dark Elves a try. Since you’re already familiar with High Elves you’ll see some similarities, but still will feel different
I agree. But to elaborate the Dark elves will be a faster more aggressive playstyle. Let us know what you end up deciding on!
Pick whatever faction you think is coolest. You already did the solid beginner play through, now try whatever bizarre outlandish faction strikes your fancy.
One option not mentioned yet in this thread could be Lizardmen, if only because they're another pretty strong/beginner-friendly faction, but they play very differently from the high elves. If you're looking for a change of pace, or a different playstyle (less shooting arrows over a line of spears, more big dinosaurs stomping through enemy lines), a lord like Gor-rok could be a good next step.
I don't think Lizardmen are beginner-friendly, their early game kinda rough which isn't something that a newbie can easily know how to solve.
Not with Gorok, that's for sure.
Yeah that's a good point. Maybe the recommendation isn't lizardmen in general, but Gor-rok specifically. If I remember right, his early game (with Kroak and a very strong capital settlement) is a lot easier than Mazda, Kroq or the rest.
I'd recommend Archaon, under the Warriors of Chaos. Easy to play, easy to learn and a very fun campaign. It also plays very differently to Elves so you'll learn different things and get a chance to side with the baddies.
Cathay is pretty nice and calm, specifically the iron dragon. northern provinces might be a problem with the amount of threats but its up to you if you are up for the chalange
Lizardmens was my way to go in my noob days, consider them to give it a go too. My advice would be either Go rok or Kroq gar they got a decent faction with no limitations and decent start to go with a bit of challenge. You can try to climb the difficulty one time after the other, like maybe try normal this time to see if you can handle it. Don't pressure yourself, just climb slowly like I have did until legendary, if only you want it.
My favorite factions are the lizardmen and the dwarves. It's probably because they have very strong Frontline units that live forever. The lizards got amazing monsters and the best heros in game due to their mounts IMO. Lizards riding dinosaurs shooting lasers. The dwarves have a Frontline that never quits, baller artillery, good guns and helicopters. I find both enjoyable in battle due to them being not too micro intensive and usually I'm able to win against much larger forces which feels satisfying.
Oxyotl is my go-to Lizardmen campaign. Lizardmen already have a great roster and Oxyotl easily has the most fun and engaging campaign mechanics out of all the Lizardmen lords. It's basically the Warhammer version of X-com traveling around the world stomping out chaos with giga-buffed skinks.
Tyrion on Easy/Easy was my first ever campaign in WH2 also. My second one was Settra with Tomb Kings. I really appreciated how different that faction was compared to HE. I'd recommend that. Granted, Settra's situation in IE is much different that it used to be. Especially with Skarbrand so close to you. As an aside, if you don't already know: HE were part of the base game Warhammer 2 factions that you can play with in IE if you own WH2. Tomb Kings were a dlc for WH2. You'd need to buy that either from the WH2's dlc list or WH3's. Doesn't matter which but you only do it once.
Arkhan probably has the easiest tomb kings start now in IE, a nice change from having 1 of the hardest starts of all factions in WH2!
That's very true. Arkhan is safe in his little corner and I'm assuming Mannfred can be an ally. If he survives the Southlands-bowl.
Starting with an extra army is the real bonus though!
Bump it up to normal/normal. Empire, Bretonnia, Lizardmen, Chaos Dwarfs, and Cathay are my favorite factions. I only wouldnt recommend skaven currently for you, as they have a higher skill requirement than most other races.
To be good at playing Skaven requires you to think like a Skaven, yes-yes! Seriously tho, Ikit campaign isn't that hard. His start position is very secure, with easy options for initial expansion into Estalia, Bretonnia and Tilea. It only gets a bit hard after the Wood Elves get pissed at you. But that is true for every evil faction near any wood elves. Wood Elves are just a pain to deal with in battle. But until then, it's pretty chill. And you got the "Oh Shit" button that is the nuke.
Bretonnia is pretty easy. They have the empire to the east and the HE to the west, a few vampire and orcs to deal with. The vikings up north are easy to deal with and you can see them coming from far away if you keep a lookout. Their economy is great, they got few buildings and it is very straight forward. The unit roster is easy to learn too, its all about charging and knights and their bowmen and spearmen are not that bad either for cheap dfending. You dont need to worry about army costs going up and if you get the -3% buildings then the units become progressively cheaper the more you conquer. Plus, Leon is a single army doomstack too. Overall, its fun to play and not hard.
Cathay is probably your best choice. If you want to try something else, Itza for the lizardmen is pretty beginner friendly. Gor Rok can become an almost unkillable tank, and Lord Kroak can eventually kill stacks of infantry single-handedly. Lizardmen mechanics are basic, but powerful. Their roster is great, leaning heavily on good melee, decent skirmishing, magic and dinosaurs. Just remember the 3 keys to Lizarding 101: Upkeep reduction, Star Chambers, and Lord Kroak. These three together will take you far.
Depending on how confident you are I'd say lizards/Cathay next for an easier time, or green skins/chaos warriors for something a bit more difficult and to get used to some evil faction play.
play someone with guns bro. vampire coast, skaven, and dwarves are so much fun to play you just blast people the fuck away
Cult of Sigmar. It is basically empire (one of the most popular race) but a lot easier than Karl Franz.
Nurgle, very hard/very hard just to see how the other side lives.
I can't help but plug in the Chaos Dwarves every chance i get. But you definitely want to work your way up to them as they might require the most micro managing in the campaign map of any other race. That said, Cathay has some engaging mechanics without being too punishing and their legendary lords are awesome. Honorable mentions to Malus Darkblade from darke elves and Grom for greenskins, albeit the latter's roster might be a little overwhelming coming from high elves.
Chaos dwarves are very very very fun, but definitely something you work up to. One of the male complex factions in the game.
I'm gonna recommend a different kind of experience. Beastmen. I would personally recommend either Khazrak the One Eye, Malagor the Dark Omen, or everyone's favourite, Taurox the Brass Bull. With Beastmen, when choosing your starting lord, you are only essentially choosing faction mechanics, because confederating other beastmen LLs is easy, due to their shared dread mechanic. Taurox has the strongest personal mechanics, but I feel like he outshines the other LLs after confederating the others into his faction, due to his faction mechanics applying only to him. This is why I would recommend the others over him, for a more balanced and normal Beastmen experience. I would say Khazrak is your best, and most fun, option. Also, bump the game up to normal/normal. Or you could just go full on Taurox, bump up the difficulty to Very Hard Campaign and normal battles, and absolutely massacre everyone with Taurox alone! Very hard campaign actually makes his campaign easier, because as Taurox, you want as many battles as you can get, and the more armies the AI fields, the more battles you get, and the easier your campaign will be! You just need to fight battles manually.
Warriors of chaos is pretty easy and really fun
I’d give Yuan Bo a try. He has a dual start in Lustria and Cathay so you get to see a lot of the map early (good for a new player). He’s a very strong Legendary Lord in a very strong faction so it’s not a difficult campaign. Balanced armies work well for Grand Cathay which I think is new-player friendly. Overall, fun campaign with a fun roster and not too difficult. He is an Order faction (same as High Elves) so you may not want to do two Order campaigns back-to-back, but if you don’t mind doing so, that would be my recommendation. Edit: He is a DLC campaign though. Unless you already own the DLC you may not want to purchase that particular one on the off chance you enjoy his campaign.
I actually ended up picking Yuan Bo, I’m about 100 turns in and really enjoy him, I now realize I wasn’t a massive fan of High Elves, Cathayans are a lot of fun, especially those Iron Hail and Crane Gunner units. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hellman ghorst is a really fun campaign
Empire is always good if you have WH1
Definitely try normal. It's pretty easy, but it will offer you more of an understanding of the game. Also I would turn Battle AI up to Very Hard straight away, and turn off all AI battle cheats. This way the AI will act rather strategically, and actually make some pretty interesting moves as opposed to just standing at one place.
So, I really suck at this game, and have the wondrous ability to turn all AR Decisive Victories into Pyrrhic victories, should I still go Very Hard? I’ll try it when I get on, but I’m not sure on how to get better, anyway.