Look, I know this isn't the best suggestion but I had the same issue and I got better with micro using the chaos dwarves. You can baby into micro because they're so beefy, hold the front lines and use the bull centaurs to flank and hammer and anvil.
Like I said, not the best cav, but it's very forgiving for turtle addicts like myself
I think you want one of three things.
1. Rush army: Greenskins, Lizardmen, Beastmen, etc. Backline optional, virtually all melee. The goal is to shut down their ability to shoot you, then rush in with with your tankers, flankers, shankers and piggy-bank breakers (AKA giant monsters). Every faction can accomplish this army model on some functional level, but some are more naturally suited for it.
2. Skirmish army: Wood elves, Oxyotl, Snikch, etc. Your goal is to use a near/totally invisible army to pick apart the enemy. Hit and run tactics with missile units, using net spells and such to your advantage. Alternatively, go an all-cavalry army and use your superior mobility to pick and choose your engagements.
3. Chariots: Tomb kings, beastmen, warriors of chaos, high elves, etc. Used to hate ‘em, but Settra taught me the error of my ways. Lots of cycle charging and plowing through enemy foot soldiers.
I would go with either Slaanesh or Bretonnia. Both of them specialize in using fast melee units, and Slaanesh is targeting squishy archers, while Bretonnian cav is durable enough that you can make a few mistakes
100%. I have thought the same as OP and decided to go with Azazel for some cheeky seduced units and have been really enjoying the flanking of the hellstriders and chaos lancers. I need to remember to pull them out and ram then in again and again as any true Slaaneshian should 😉
Off the top of my head, I would say Tzeentch is a great faction for this. Definitely a lot to micromanage with Tzeentch, and there are solid cavalry options.
The Tzeentch magic barrier that every unit has is also excellent for cavalry and flanking.
Enemies have to break through the barrier before they can do any damage to your flanking cavalry units, and the barrier regenerates whenever these units aren’t taking damage.
One tip, use the pause and slow-mo buttons. Makes it way easier to micro in the beginning of your learning journey
I would say empire, not the best cav but you can play your main style and begin to manage their cav or ranged cav (maybe kite some of them, needs micro too)
Cathay's not that bad as far as cavalry goes because jade lancers with technology become very powerful, but most people are probably going to tell you Bretonnia. My main suggestion is that if you just splash a few units into cavalry, you do not really have a cavalry army: you have an infantry army with some screening cavalry units.
If you want a cavalry army that focuses on flanking, you really have to build around it to increase the opportunities for it. You have two options: go melee heavy to have a slow moving anvil that your cavalry can hammer against (as in fewer ranged and probably no artillery) or you can have all fast units and play "hammer and hammer" in which you bang two hammers together and outrun everything.
With the Cathay DLC units you can use lancers plus crowmen and/or jade lions to maintain harmony buffs as your fast hammer-hammer type army. Use whatever lord you want that has a fast mount and maybe throw in an alchemist. Then your general battle plan is to kill off all their fast units (Plague of Rust can help you win any hard cavalry engagement), kill their ranged units, and then kill everything else.
Alternatively you can go infantry heavy with jade warriors with halberds and normal swords, any heroes you want, and then just close in with the enemy and cycle charge with the cavalry.
Generally speaking, you want to pick between whether you use faster melee units to kill things OR ranged to kill things. The two do not mix all that well. Fast units with a mostly ranged army are there to screen against other fast/large units more than they are to actually kill things. This also makes micro a lot easier because your main decision is just how to arrange your infantry and then you micro your cavalry without fussing over whether or not your ranged units have clear shots.
My vote is Slaanesh.
It’s so rewarding to get a flank charge with Exalted Daemonettes and Heartseekers.
Get some Chosen with whips to be your anvil and flank with your Daemons. Toss in a chariot or two if you really want to micro. Using spells in the right time and place can really help.
Although I do agree with that second part. I can never seem to utilize my heart seekers. And if I turn away for a second, they are already despawning. I thought I was getting better, but did something happen to chariots? At first, they threw everyone everywhere but did no dmg, now they seem to mosey up to the targets and dont attempt to pass through and get swarmed and killed.
Heaetseekers are best when everything else is tied up, or they are fighting something that won’t fight back well; like a ranged unit.
Chariots really have to be microed with their movement. Make sure they’re hitting something with smaller mass, high speed and as they charge in, ask them to move out of the unit and through.
Try doing smaller battles, less units to manage makes it easier to micro. And I cannot stress this part enough, manually fight every single battle even if you have to rematch a couple times.
Honestly I’d pick Warriors of Chaos. Have that super heavy front line of Chosen will allow you to be able to focus more on the micro of Calvary and monster flanks until you get the hang of it
I find myself recommending Vampire Counts to half the faction questions on this subreddit. Well, guess it's the answer again. Just go the skeleton/zombie spam armies (12-15 units, rest heroes and strong/tech units), it will naturally lead you to just throw the meatshield in and try to get as much value from characters and special units (Black Coach, Hexwraiths, dead horsies, red horsies, big nomsters, etc.) that you can get early and replace easily with raise dead.
Anyway, chariots are well-known micro hogs, you can try to play factions with those. Flying units (not just single monsters) like pegasi or furies are also micro heavy.
In general, it's quite hard to micro just one unit, the real power of micro is defeat in detail, breaking the enemies and moving on. Few examples:
Sometimes one cavalry charge isn't enough to route missile unit, however if you charge that disorganised remnants from other side with another cav, they'll 100% collapse. Sure you're not tying 2 missiles down but they're also not tying 2 cavalry units in their rear down.
Pulling unit out of combat is dangerous and lengthy as the enemy will chase it. Use another unit to substitute the one you're trying to pull out to make it smooth.
One missile unit won't do much, however several missile units firing at the same target will likely route it before it will do any damage. Crossfire is a bitch. The faster any unit takes dmg, the harsher the leadership penalties and less time to "hide" in enemy blob.
Yes I agree with Vampire counts. Constantly spamming behind the lines with raise zombie spell. It is a decent front line but definitely
Not the best with grave guard. And the knights and bats are good for flanking , and the bats are great at taking out arty and other bowmen units. I don’t make their corpse carts since they’re so damn slow but if you want to practice a slowing moving march with massive regeneration behind your lines this is an option, since you still turtle and can use a couple blood knights to practice flanking. With vampire counts you always have to micro to some extent since without magic they will just be destroyed. Ghorst is my favorite since he can buff zombies to crazy extremes , however I like to
Play as manfred since he was the last one in the books still Alive and I like him to get his revenge. For this very reason i also try to leave Tyrion and the empire alive at end game. Which is not an easy feat with the empire generally getting rolled over
Beastmen. Even if you lose your army, it's very very easy to recruit a full stack. All of their units are responsive and fast. Truly, this is the choice.
You could go slaanesh as they are micro heavy and basicly required to focus on constant movement. The French are also good. The high elves are not focused on mobility yet have decent options.
Personally, I would focus on a micro practice routine instead of factions. Beings you want to get good with cav. Practice divide and conquer with them. Have 4 cav vs 8 or more. Goal: learn how to simply your thinking process while baiting slow and fast units into divide and conquer.
Personally I have seen 3 slaanesh units take out 20 mid tire inf. 1 evolved lord 1 mid cav and the monster unit with 12 models. It took about 1 hour and took low casualties. That's a extreme though.
just get a unit of 360 shooting riding archers and micro with that.
once you can do that easy.
micro with a mage and a hero.
then get a unit of cav and train on chain charging enemy's to keep the bonus up.
now you need to learn how to use short range deavastation units like hailstorm gunners or grudge rakers or blunderbuses.
how to wait unit enrmy us rngsge thrn break out snd shoot enemy in back.
once done test playing with warlocks from darkelfs. as tghe spelks need micro.
Slaanesh and Bretonnia, but for different reasons.
Slaanesh will give you some instant feedback on how well you did. If you pull off your flanking attacks just right then you murder the enemy so fast that it doesn't matter how squishy your units are, they won't take much damage. If you do a bad job, then you take a ton of casualties. Slaanesh has a ton of options for flankers including fast infantry, cavalry, chariots, and monsters. If you have the Champions of Chaos DLC then they also have a pretty good anvil to ram your hammer into.
Bretonnia has some of the best cavalry in the game, and the rest of their roster is pretty trash. Their cavalry is so tough that you can make a few mistakes with them and survive. They also have both shock cavalry that really needs to cycle charge and melee cavalry that can sit in combat for a while.
High elves or Cathay would be my recommendation. You're already familiar with them which will help. Cavalry engagements definitely take alot of practice, I still end up forgetting one somewhere and having it shredded and I've got hundreds of hours. To start try setting up a more fluid formation and letting the enemy advance on you, than react to the way they advance. Typically not how any veteran player would suggest doing it, but it worked well for me, especially for the cavalry engagements. Once you have that reaction to attack down, try kiting the enemies advance with 1-2 units (lord and wizards are best to start). Than gradually add more kiting units like horse archers, stalk units, certain SEMs. Final step is moving your formation towards the enemy and using all these principles.
TLDR; Pick a faction you already know, pick a formation, entice enemy to attack, learn to kite with specialized units (lord/wizard/flyers/cav), take all these and you do the attacking.
Little long but should be a decent starting point for you!
Bretonnia, Slaanesh or High Elves. The former two are reliant on charging/hit-and-run tactics. The latter requires your forces to *only* take favourable matches, or they'll crumble like paper.
Soo, what helped me was a campaign with karl franz, after I got familiar with the game.
His starting army has a reiksguard shook cavalary. Perfect for hammer and anvil, or hunting ranged.
They also have good stats to survive a bit in a prolonged fight.
Aaand karl can upgrade them quiete nicely. So yeah.. the empire helped me learn to micro.
Another thing is, I started slowing down the time, instead of pausing the game to check for my cavalary. Helped me not lose control and made the flow of the battles more enjoyable for me.
Slannesh and bretonnia by far , but for both of them, late game is a bit retarded ( right click with chosen and grail unit), prepare to be smashed if it's the first time with them
I think Khorne is kind of in a good middle of the road spot in terms of micro. Your units are beefy enough that they'll be okay even when mismicroed and they have a lot of mobility tools. They also have excellent chariot play, which is the true test of micro if you want to push yourself. You won't get punished for having a Wizard you forget to cast spells with, or ranged units you forget to protect, you can just focus on battlefield control and flanking.
I would say if you're new to that playstyle, Slaanesh is going to be overwhelming to play.
Slaanesh if you just want to jump into the fire, very brittle units, forces you to micro, no food frontline option until chaos warriors with whips
I say go with Vampire counts, no artillery or ranged so it narrows down what you have to play with. Chaff infantry, strong cavalry and monsters, very strong magic. Their campaigns are largely forgiving, and they I find them to be especially strong early game.
I enjoy Slaanesh as a good rushdown faction to micro with. Definitely better with the WoC dlc, since it opens up some other Slaanesh lords but probably not a requirement
Start with whatever faction you are most comfortable with (sounds like HE or Cathay), and then just try to micro more. Starting with a new faction will have the opposite effect because you'll be focused more on just figuring out what does what.
HE in particular has plenty of micro opportunities, between skirmishing units, light cav, chariots, mages, etc. just don't doomstack lothern seaguard.
Imo Skarsnik or Greenskins in general can be a nice option to micro because of the variety of units they have and their expendability (their strength comes in numbers so you should be fine losing a unit here and there). They have a lot of different cavalry types you can train with, including fast melee cavalry and ranged cavalry you can switch into skirmish mode; besides, you can also deploy all wolf riders in vanguard so you have better manoeuvrability. They also have sneaky melee units you can deploy in vanguard and sneak to flank the enemy which adds up to your tactics. And they still have abundance of melee units and monsters to hold the line, as well as decent artillery options and magic
A couple of weird options here:
Play as Ghorst. Build your armies half with beefed zombies, half with micro units. That way you can ignore he front line units and spend all your time experimenting with micro.
Play as Setra. Build your army only of chariots and mounted units. Turn all the archers on skirmish and let them go nuts (they all have 360 range, so you can typically ignore them after they get attack orders). Then practice microing your chariots and learn8ng how to charge them through the lines without them getting stuck.
Both of these factions also tend to have cheap recruitment and throw away units, which means you aren’t really penalised that hard if you mess up the micro.
Bretonnia or Slaanesh
If you master Bretonnia, you pretty much become a micro god since their frontline is made of cardboard.
Slaanesh is easier because their frontline is much tougher (Chaos Warriors and Chosen), but their cavalry is more fragile.
Play Arkhan the Black. He has hexwraiths (ethereal cav) in his starter army, and you can build chariots quite early, which require micro. But if you mess up and lose a chariot unit, you're Tomb Kings so you just build it again for free.
Bretonnia? A lot of thier units later are cav and a lot of the units they are gonna to use is cav .
Factions with chariots are another good choice as I heard chariots have to be macroed a lot too .
Im doin an army comp of frontline melee, a few missile infantry then cavalry or fast monsters too help me learn how too micro and have a decent army at the same time and of course slow-mo or pausing
The OG Karl Franz...
Now listen, he gets devastating flanker relatively early for reiksguard. My tip: keep the 2 handgunners and only recruit melee infantry and 3-5 melee cav (+ heroes)
It's actually pretty forgiving to learn cav with this.
Also try to get your cav through your own melee line after charging into the enemy, I tend to get better results regarding the whole getting stuck with a few models problem.
The one with decent skirmish units, light and heavy cav and chariots
I’d say go for either high or dark elves
Avoid artillery factions like vampirates or dwarves - the lizardmen are one trick pony with their monsters as well
I think High Elves.
They're well rounded - versatile too - can use formations that have high output with ranged but then start mixing in cavalry - start harassing archers and using them for charge bonus, start using magic. Start mixing in Hammer & Anvil.
Learn formations for Frontline micro.
It's a relatively safe sandbox to learn from and you can take pieces for other factions and specialize
Probably brettonia. You cant rely on your frontline to tank since their infantry suck and your backline isnt that hard hitting. You HAVE to use magick and cavalry or youre gonna loose every battle
Ironically the faction that helped me best to learn Micro was Nurgle.
Since the rest of the army was super tanky and slow it gave me time to focus on the chariots and rot knight charges
Bretonnia, Vampire Counts and Wood Elves in that order would be a good place to start. For Bretonnia specifically making use of calvary is critical for them on battles but theirs are also relatively tanky so you can afford to make mistakes.
I would say the best way to learn is to focus on different factions that FORCE you to use certain mechanics better.
For example - play Ikkit Claw/Vampire Counts for a campaign, and you'll use gunpowder units better forever. Play Slaanesh, and you'll obsessively flank with cavalry by the end. Play HE/DE, you'll be thinking about your archers obsessively. Play a melee-foicused only faction (chaos, ogres, orcs, etc.) and you'll learn more about flanking and cavalry and matching up types of infantry.
And, if you want to do it all at once - play empire ... balancing artillery, cav, infantry ...
But I wouldn't try to rush yourself, do a faction with less variables (like a melee only, or dwarf \[no cav\])), then add in range, then try cavalry/chariots. So, for example, do a khorne campaign (learning melee, flanking, and double-laying your guys), then do a high elf campaign or ikkit claw to focus on range and checkerboard formation ... then do an empire or cathay to bring it together.
Vampire counts have slow battles to give you time to optimize. Great way to learn optimal use of spells and make sure to tar pit all their ranged to stop them from firing. Then you can move on to something like slaneesh with a faster play style but similar concepts (stop their ranged from firing then aoe down big clumps with spells )
Lizardmen are great for this because they have some really durable infantry and their lords and heroes can win the fight for you. So you can spend a good portion of the battle micro'ing the large single entity dinosaurs. Which is fun but also let's you get the hang of who to charge into and when. And if you have a life mage It's pretty forgiving because you can just heal them up.
Crooked Moon might offer that with their squigs or Brettonia with their cav. Charriots are also a lot of fun to use so any chaos faction, High Elves or Tomb Kings do the trick. If you go for High Elves try to confederate Tiranoc, their faction leader has a chariot skill. For skirmishing armies wood and high elves, Skaven or empire come to mind. They have either hybrid infantry or mounted ranged units. Baiting enemies with Skaven Gutter Runners while warpfire or ratlings guns blast the hell out of those pesky dwarves is so satisfying. Norsca maybe to some extend as well with good enough skirmisher cav and if you are aggressive enough towards your chaos neighbors you can become allies with some forces of order to get access to stuff like Ice Guards or shock cav and Throgg also has his skinwolves which are hella fun to cycle charge while Ice Guards pin enemy ranged units (I allied myself with Kislev and Empire in the last campaign)
I learned off of playing Repanse. Just look up a video explaining her campaign if you need to. Other than that she specializes in destroying every faction near her and you get strong cavalry that will last even if you mess up the micro. Lot of people say strong Frontline but I think Brettonia is a good learner since it forces you to use cavalry (and it's so good that if you make a mistake it won't matter as much, especially with Reponse)
Look, I know this isn't the best suggestion but I had the same issue and I got better with micro using the chaos dwarves. You can baby into micro because they're so beefy, hold the front lines and use the bull centaurs to flank and hammer and anvil. Like I said, not the best cav, but it's very forgiving for turtle addicts like myself
Honestly I hadn’t ever played anything that ran like chaos dwarves did and had to learn a lot about doing less lol. Haven’t even played dwarves yet.
I think you want one of three things. 1. Rush army: Greenskins, Lizardmen, Beastmen, etc. Backline optional, virtually all melee. The goal is to shut down their ability to shoot you, then rush in with with your tankers, flankers, shankers and piggy-bank breakers (AKA giant monsters). Every faction can accomplish this army model on some functional level, but some are more naturally suited for it. 2. Skirmish army: Wood elves, Oxyotl, Snikch, etc. Your goal is to use a near/totally invisible army to pick apart the enemy. Hit and run tactics with missile units, using net spells and such to your advantage. Alternatively, go an all-cavalry army and use your superior mobility to pick and choose your engagements. 3. Chariots: Tomb kings, beastmen, warriors of chaos, high elves, etc. Used to hate ‘em, but Settra taught me the error of my ways. Lots of cycle charging and plowing through enemy foot soldiers.
I would go with either Slaanesh or Bretonnia. Both of them specialize in using fast melee units, and Slaanesh is targeting squishy archers, while Bretonnian cav is durable enough that you can make a few mistakes
"Hey I'd like to get into hiking :)" "No worries bro you can come with us on our through hike of the Appalachian Trail"
My first faction was slaanesh and I didn’t find battles hard
I think Bretonnia is an ok suggestion but slaanesh is hard to use well, too brittle
100%. I have thought the same as OP and decided to go with Azazel for some cheeky seduced units and have been really enjoying the flanking of the hellstriders and chaos lancers. I need to remember to pull them out and ram then in again and again as any true Slaaneshian should 😉
+1 for Slaanesh. Your autoresolve is dogshit, as is replenishment, so you literally HAVE TO micro to advance your campaign.
Slaanesh forces you to micro, so they are a good option. Or pick any race and make a ror stack whenever a sneak army appears. Those need super microd
Off the top of my head, I would say Tzeentch is a great faction for this. Definitely a lot to micromanage with Tzeentch, and there are solid cavalry options. The Tzeentch magic barrier that every unit has is also excellent for cavalry and flanking. Enemies have to break through the barrier before they can do any damage to your flanking cavalry units, and the barrier regenerates whenever these units aren’t taking damage.
Also slanesh. I've tried to play them but you have to focus so much on flanking and chariots that I just give up 10turns in lol
One tip, use the pause and slow-mo buttons. Makes it way easier to micro in the beginning of your learning journey I would say empire, not the best cav but you can play your main style and begin to manage their cav or ranged cav (maybe kite some of them, needs micro too)
Shit I've played since Shogun I and I still pause often. Slo no is also very nice.
Cathay's not that bad as far as cavalry goes because jade lancers with technology become very powerful, but most people are probably going to tell you Bretonnia. My main suggestion is that if you just splash a few units into cavalry, you do not really have a cavalry army: you have an infantry army with some screening cavalry units. If you want a cavalry army that focuses on flanking, you really have to build around it to increase the opportunities for it. You have two options: go melee heavy to have a slow moving anvil that your cavalry can hammer against (as in fewer ranged and probably no artillery) or you can have all fast units and play "hammer and hammer" in which you bang two hammers together and outrun everything. With the Cathay DLC units you can use lancers plus crowmen and/or jade lions to maintain harmony buffs as your fast hammer-hammer type army. Use whatever lord you want that has a fast mount and maybe throw in an alchemist. Then your general battle plan is to kill off all their fast units (Plague of Rust can help you win any hard cavalry engagement), kill their ranged units, and then kill everything else. Alternatively you can go infantry heavy with jade warriors with halberds and normal swords, any heroes you want, and then just close in with the enemy and cycle charge with the cavalry. Generally speaking, you want to pick between whether you use faster melee units to kill things OR ranged to kill things. The two do not mix all that well. Fast units with a mostly ranged army are there to screen against other fast/large units more than they are to actually kill things. This also makes micro a lot easier because your main decision is just how to arrange your infantry and then you micro your cavalry without fussing over whether or not your ranged units have clear shots.
My vote is Slaanesh. It’s so rewarding to get a flank charge with Exalted Daemonettes and Heartseekers. Get some Chosen with whips to be your anvil and flank with your Daemons. Toss in a chariot or two if you really want to micro. Using spells in the right time and place can really help.
Although I do agree with that second part. I can never seem to utilize my heart seekers. And if I turn away for a second, they are already despawning. I thought I was getting better, but did something happen to chariots? At first, they threw everyone everywhere but did no dmg, now they seem to mosey up to the targets and dont attempt to pass through and get swarmed and killed.
Heaetseekers are best when everything else is tied up, or they are fighting something that won’t fight back well; like a ranged unit. Chariots really have to be microed with their movement. Make sure they’re hitting something with smaller mass, high speed and as they charge in, ask them to move out of the unit and through.
Try doing smaller battles, less units to manage makes it easier to micro. And I cannot stress this part enough, manually fight every single battle even if you have to rematch a couple times.
Honestly I’d pick Warriors of Chaos. Have that super heavy front line of Chosen will allow you to be able to focus more on the micro of Calvary and monster flanks until you get the hang of it
I find myself recommending Vampire Counts to half the faction questions on this subreddit. Well, guess it's the answer again. Just go the skeleton/zombie spam armies (12-15 units, rest heroes and strong/tech units), it will naturally lead you to just throw the meatshield in and try to get as much value from characters and special units (Black Coach, Hexwraiths, dead horsies, red horsies, big nomsters, etc.) that you can get early and replace easily with raise dead. Anyway, chariots are well-known micro hogs, you can try to play factions with those. Flying units (not just single monsters) like pegasi or furies are also micro heavy. In general, it's quite hard to micro just one unit, the real power of micro is defeat in detail, breaking the enemies and moving on. Few examples: Sometimes one cavalry charge isn't enough to route missile unit, however if you charge that disorganised remnants from other side with another cav, they'll 100% collapse. Sure you're not tying 2 missiles down but they're also not tying 2 cavalry units in their rear down. Pulling unit out of combat is dangerous and lengthy as the enemy will chase it. Use another unit to substitute the one you're trying to pull out to make it smooth. One missile unit won't do much, however several missile units firing at the same target will likely route it before it will do any damage. Crossfire is a bitch. The faster any unit takes dmg, the harsher the leadership penalties and less time to "hide" in enemy blob.
Yes I agree with Vampire counts. Constantly spamming behind the lines with raise zombie spell. It is a decent front line but definitely Not the best with grave guard. And the knights and bats are good for flanking , and the bats are great at taking out arty and other bowmen units. I don’t make their corpse carts since they’re so damn slow but if you want to practice a slowing moving march with massive regeneration behind your lines this is an option, since you still turtle and can use a couple blood knights to practice flanking. With vampire counts you always have to micro to some extent since without magic they will just be destroyed. Ghorst is my favorite since he can buff zombies to crazy extremes , however I like to Play as manfred since he was the last one in the books still Alive and I like him to get his revenge. For this very reason i also try to leave Tyrion and the empire alive at end game. Which is not an easy feat with the empire generally getting rolled over
Beastmen. Even if you lose your army, it's very very easy to recruit a full stack. All of their units are responsive and fast. Truly, this is the choice.
Honestly bretonnia. On normal it’s pretty easy to learn how to cycle charge without getting your units destroyed.
You could go slaanesh as they are micro heavy and basicly required to focus on constant movement. The French are also good. The high elves are not focused on mobility yet have decent options. Personally, I would focus on a micro practice routine instead of factions. Beings you want to get good with cav. Practice divide and conquer with them. Have 4 cav vs 8 or more. Goal: learn how to simply your thinking process while baiting slow and fast units into divide and conquer. Personally I have seen 3 slaanesh units take out 20 mid tire inf. 1 evolved lord 1 mid cav and the monster unit with 12 models. It took about 1 hour and took low casualties. That's a extreme though.
This is gling to sound dumb but good old dawi. Turtle up and micro practice with your gyrocopters
just get a unit of 360 shooting riding archers and micro with that. once you can do that easy. micro with a mage and a hero. then get a unit of cav and train on chain charging enemy's to keep the bonus up. now you need to learn how to use short range deavastation units like hailstorm gunners or grudge rakers or blunderbuses. how to wait unit enrmy us rngsge thrn break out snd shoot enemy in back. once done test playing with warlocks from darkelfs. as tghe spelks need micro.
Heheehh HEHEHE dwarfs…. 🤏
Slaanesh and Bretonnia, but for different reasons. Slaanesh will give you some instant feedback on how well you did. If you pull off your flanking attacks just right then you murder the enemy so fast that it doesn't matter how squishy your units are, they won't take much damage. If you do a bad job, then you take a ton of casualties. Slaanesh has a ton of options for flankers including fast infantry, cavalry, chariots, and monsters. If you have the Champions of Chaos DLC then they also have a pretty good anvil to ram your hammer into. Bretonnia has some of the best cavalry in the game, and the rest of their roster is pretty trash. Their cavalry is so tough that you can make a few mistakes with them and survive. They also have both shock cavalry that really needs to cycle charge and melee cavalry that can sit in combat for a while.
Doing wood elves at the moment... definitely a lot of macro involved compared to my experience with high elves and empire, and kislev.
Empire is pretty micro intensive as well, really depends, what units you are using
High elves or Cathay would be my recommendation. You're already familiar with them which will help. Cavalry engagements definitely take alot of practice, I still end up forgetting one somewhere and having it shredded and I've got hundreds of hours. To start try setting up a more fluid formation and letting the enemy advance on you, than react to the way they advance. Typically not how any veteran player would suggest doing it, but it worked well for me, especially for the cavalry engagements. Once you have that reaction to attack down, try kiting the enemies advance with 1-2 units (lord and wizards are best to start). Than gradually add more kiting units like horse archers, stalk units, certain SEMs. Final step is moving your formation towards the enemy and using all these principles. TLDR; Pick a faction you already know, pick a formation, entice enemy to attack, learn to kite with specialized units (lord/wizard/flyers/cav), take all these and you do the attacking. Little long but should be a decent starting point for you!
I am surprised you haven’t named the dwarfs too! Then We would have had the list of the least micro intensive factions in the game.
Why would someone learning micro.... want micro intensive....?
But he also doesn’t want the 0 micro intensive factions ;)
Both HE and Cathay are ranged heavy factions with decent cavalry. Defending that ranged power and utilizing the cav is micro.
Bretonnia, Slaanesh or High Elves. The former two are reliant on charging/hit-and-run tactics. The latter requires your forces to *only* take favourable matches, or they'll crumble like paper.
Soo, what helped me was a campaign with karl franz, after I got familiar with the game. His starting army has a reiksguard shook cavalary. Perfect for hammer and anvil, or hunting ranged. They also have good stats to survive a bit in a prolonged fight. Aaand karl can upgrade them quiete nicely. So yeah.. the empire helped me learn to micro. Another thing is, I started slowing down the time, instead of pausing the game to check for my cavalary. Helped me not lose control and made the flow of the battles more enjoyable for me.
Slannesh and bretonnia by far , but for both of them, late game is a bit retarded ( right click with chosen and grail unit), prepare to be smashed if it's the first time with them
Wood elves, beastmen? 🤪
I think Khorne is kind of in a good middle of the road spot in terms of micro. Your units are beefy enough that they'll be okay even when mismicroed and they have a lot of mobility tools. They also have excellent chariot play, which is the true test of micro if you want to push yourself. You won't get punished for having a Wizard you forget to cast spells with, or ranged units you forget to protect, you can just focus on battlefield control and flanking. I would say if you're new to that playstyle, Slaanesh is going to be overwhelming to play.
Ngl, but one of the Spanish factions/parthia from rome 2 taught me micro, both less and more forgiving than the sticky yet tanky cav from total war
Slaanesh if you just want to jump into the fire, very brittle units, forces you to micro, no food frontline option until chaos warriors with whips I say go with Vampire counts, no artillery or ranged so it narrows down what you have to play with. Chaff infantry, strong cavalry and monsters, very strong magic. Their campaigns are largely forgiving, and they I find them to be especially strong early game.
Beastmen no doubt
I enjoy Slaanesh as a good rushdown faction to micro with. Definitely better with the WoC dlc, since it opens up some other Slaanesh lords but probably not a requirement
Start with whatever faction you are most comfortable with (sounds like HE or Cathay), and then just try to micro more. Starting with a new faction will have the opposite effect because you'll be focused more on just figuring out what does what. HE in particular has plenty of micro opportunities, between skirmishing units, light cav, chariots, mages, etc. just don't doomstack lothern seaguard.
Imo Skarsnik or Greenskins in general can be a nice option to micro because of the variety of units they have and their expendability (their strength comes in numbers so you should be fine losing a unit here and there). They have a lot of different cavalry types you can train with, including fast melee cavalry and ranged cavalry you can switch into skirmish mode; besides, you can also deploy all wolf riders in vanguard so you have better manoeuvrability. They also have sneaky melee units you can deploy in vanguard and sneak to flank the enemy which adds up to your tactics. And they still have abundance of melee units and monsters to hold the line, as well as decent artillery options and magic
Any faction that is primarily melee. Khorne, beastmen, and vampires really force you to micro
A couple of weird options here: Play as Ghorst. Build your armies half with beefed zombies, half with micro units. That way you can ignore he front line units and spend all your time experimenting with micro. Play as Setra. Build your army only of chariots and mounted units. Turn all the archers on skirmish and let them go nuts (they all have 360 range, so you can typically ignore them after they get attack orders). Then practice microing your chariots and learn8ng how to charge them through the lines without them getting stuck. Both of these factions also tend to have cheap recruitment and throw away units, which means you aren’t really penalised that hard if you mess up the micro.
Slaanesh or greenskins imo
Bretonnia or Slaanesh If you master Bretonnia, you pretty much become a micro god since their frontline is made of cardboard. Slaanesh is easier because their frontline is much tougher (Chaos Warriors and Chosen), but their cavalry is more fragile.
Play Arkhan the Black. He has hexwraiths (ethereal cav) in his starter army, and you can build chariots quite early, which require micro. But if you mess up and lose a chariot unit, you're Tomb Kings so you just build it again for free.
Bretonnia? A lot of thier units later are cav and a lot of the units they are gonna to use is cav . Factions with chariots are another good choice as I heard chariots have to be macroed a lot too .
Im doin an army comp of frontline melee, a few missile infantry then cavalry or fast monsters too help me learn how too micro and have a decent army at the same time and of course slow-mo or pausing
Slaanesh. They’re a glass cannon faction.
Slaanesh or bretonnia
Dark elves with the Medusa on the current patch. Medusa are extremely effective and easy to micro
The OG Karl Franz... Now listen, he gets devastating flanker relatively early for reiksguard. My tip: keep the 2 handgunners and only recruit melee infantry and 3-5 melee cav (+ heroes) It's actually pretty forgiving to learn cav with this. Also try to get your cav through your own melee line after charging into the enemy, I tend to get better results regarding the whole getting stuck with a few models problem.
Skaven! Your rats will be running and it will be a 20 stack to micro, but after microing skaven everything else will feel relaxed.
The one with decent skirmish units, light and heavy cav and chariots I’d say go for either high or dark elves Avoid artillery factions like vampirates or dwarves - the lizardmen are one trick pony with their monsters as well
Wood elves
I think High Elves. They're well rounded - versatile too - can use formations that have high output with ranged but then start mixing in cavalry - start harassing archers and using them for charge bonus, start using magic. Start mixing in Hammer & Anvil. Learn formations for Frontline micro. It's a relatively safe sandbox to learn from and you can take pieces for other factions and specialize
Probably brettonia. You cant rely on your frontline to tank since their infantry suck and your backline isnt that hard hitting. You HAVE to use magick and cavalry or youre gonna loose every battle
Ironically the faction that helped me best to learn Micro was Nurgle. Since the rest of the army was super tanky and slow it gave me time to focus on the chariots and rot knight charges
Bretonnia, Vampire Counts and Wood Elves in that order would be a good place to start. For Bretonnia specifically making use of calvary is critical for them on battles but theirs are also relatively tanky so you can afford to make mistakes.
Dawi cos they're small.
I would say the best way to learn is to focus on different factions that FORCE you to use certain mechanics better. For example - play Ikkit Claw/Vampire Counts for a campaign, and you'll use gunpowder units better forever. Play Slaanesh, and you'll obsessively flank with cavalry by the end. Play HE/DE, you'll be thinking about your archers obsessively. Play a melee-foicused only faction (chaos, ogres, orcs, etc.) and you'll learn more about flanking and cavalry and matching up types of infantry. And, if you want to do it all at once - play empire ... balancing artillery, cav, infantry ... But I wouldn't try to rush yourself, do a faction with less variables (like a melee only, or dwarf \[no cav\])), then add in range, then try cavalry/chariots. So, for example, do a khorne campaign (learning melee, flanking, and double-laying your guys), then do a high elf campaign or ikkit claw to focus on range and checkerboard formation ... then do an empire or cathay to bring it together.
Vampire counts have slow battles to give you time to optimize. Great way to learn optimal use of spells and make sure to tar pit all their ranged to stop them from firing. Then you can move on to something like slaneesh with a faster play style but similar concepts (stop their ranged from firing then aoe down big clumps with spells )
Lizardmen are great for this because they have some really durable infantry and their lords and heroes can win the fight for you. So you can spend a good portion of the battle micro'ing the large single entity dinosaurs. Which is fun but also let's you get the hang of who to charge into and when. And if you have a life mage It's pretty forgiving because you can just heal them up.
Crooked Moon might offer that with their squigs or Brettonia with their cav. Charriots are also a lot of fun to use so any chaos faction, High Elves or Tomb Kings do the trick. If you go for High Elves try to confederate Tiranoc, their faction leader has a chariot skill. For skirmishing armies wood and high elves, Skaven or empire come to mind. They have either hybrid infantry or mounted ranged units. Baiting enemies with Skaven Gutter Runners while warpfire or ratlings guns blast the hell out of those pesky dwarves is so satisfying. Norsca maybe to some extend as well with good enough skirmisher cav and if you are aggressive enough towards your chaos neighbors you can become allies with some forces of order to get access to stuff like Ice Guards or shock cav and Throgg also has his skinwolves which are hella fun to cycle charge while Ice Guards pin enemy ranged units (I allied myself with Kislev and Empire in the last campaign)
Same, my cavalry always gets stuck and I can't effectively cycle charge them. Very frustrating
I learned off of playing Repanse. Just look up a video explaining her campaign if you need to. Other than that she specializes in destroying every faction near her and you get strong cavalry that will last even if you mess up the micro. Lot of people say strong Frontline but I think Brettonia is a good learner since it forces you to use cavalry (and it's so good that if you make a mistake it won't matter as much, especially with Reponse)