don't forget that most daemons can be just shot with pistols and bows as they have little to no armour, while chosen and other mortal units will survive a lot of low-quality shooting
Don't think daemons are overpowered. They trade armor for physical resistance, which makes them really cost effective against units whose damage is mostly armor piercing. The trade off is they're less cost effective against fodder like archers or empire swordsmen.
My thoughts as well. While units like the Black Orcs will lose against the Exalted daemons in melee, they will take less damage from most ranged attacks, and wont suffer as much "fodder damage" in general.
Going to agree with you, and from a aesthetic view i like that deamons are strong in melee since for me they are dangerous monster from the warp, (deamons with range is weird to me i like they are melee monsters).
100% and I don’t really understand how someone with a channel and a big understanding of the game doesn’t have the same thoughts. It seems reasonably straight forward. Even if exalted Bloodletters were more cost effective you would expect it as that’s almost all Khorne has, melee
@@tssb7 I think he knows (at least i think he does) but still need to be a fun commentator to try to surprise the fights, and i dont mind i like his style of talking.
the rules they've set out in past matches like this involve no unit abilities at all (they excused the WAAAGH due to it being an army ability) so no units that rely on abilities are able to show their full potential
@@Eclipsed_Embers That's a bit unfair, Whirlind Death is an ability you can turn on at the beginning and forget about it. It's very much part of the Bladesingers identity.
@@manpersal I fully agree, no player skill (which is what the no abilities rule is trying to elimitate) involved. and the fact that he then goes on to complain that they aren't beating cheaper units when he isn't using them to their full potential is just idiotic.
@@Eclipsed_Embers that makes this a dumb test, they're a different kind of unit entirely without that setting. No reason to test them here when they're set for wildly different conditions
I did kind of hope that the khorne bois would win, even against more expensive infantry. Considering the roster that the exalted bloodletters are found in, they'll always lack a lot of the support that other elite melee infantry can expect to have. They wont have missile or magic backup in a big battle. Even chaos chosen can expect axe throwing marauder support, or to have enemy threats deleted by a friendly chaos sorcerer. The swordmasters of hoeth have no real excuse, they're definitely punching above their weight. Reminder that they're also considered shielded so they can't be picked off as easily by gunpowder or arrows. The high elves are the real winners of this tournament, just remember to let your spellcasters pick off any exalted bloodletters you find.
@Grayble's Gringus Chosen have a lot of unit variety backing them that Korne do not. Korne should be simply the best dollar for dollar in melee infantry in the game, this makes up for their lack of ranged options and lack of magic options.
Swordmasters have anti-infantry bonus while Chosen w Great Weapons do not, so it is aproprate that Swormasters can punch above their weight against infantry. Chosen in turn will fare better against larger targets. Also even without deflect arrows Chosen are still more resilient to magic and missles thanks to more armor and WAY more HP.
Chosen have high stats, but they don't have bonuses like magical attacks or bonus vs infantry. So it shouldn't be suprising that they lost to demonetts (they have physical res. and charmed attacks) and bloodletters (physical res. and bonus vs infantry), as for the swordmasters, I think it has more to do with bonus vs infantry than martial prowess.
Bonus vs infantry is just more melee attack and weapon strength. So having higher stats is the same as having bonus vs infantry except it applies against all enemies.
@@ruukinen I can see what you mean, but it's not the same. Bloodletters and swordmasters have similar melee attack to chosen, but that bonus vs infantry, from my view, really gave them an edge which is impressive since chosen have more health.
I think the main thing about chosen is that they pay extra for their kit, since its a generalist anti-armor profile vs the hoemaster and exalt bloodleters more specialized anti-armored-inf. Chosen also pay a lot for their huge armor, wich is almost completelly negates when fighting units designed to kill armored infantry.
Did you turn off AP damage for bladesingers so they deal more non-AP? Damage would go from 10 nonAP, 26AP, 8 anti-infarty to 35 nonAP, 16AP. 8 anti-infarty. Roughly more than 10dmg per hit, even considering demonic armor.
And that’d be the fightmaker too, I was thinking they’re getting stomped because of AP focus, but I was surprised that they got dumpstered by the daemonettes though
Yeah the bladesingers deserves a redo, would be much closer with whirling death on. Why does the plaguebearers get to chuck missiles and poor WE doesn't get to use their abilites? :(
So, the issue here seems to be AP. You're running light armor AP units with high offense and physical resistance vs heavy armor AP units, which means the points spent for AP on the traditional infantry are being wasted against the daemon units. Also, while the WH:II units may indeed need repriced, I'm not convinced that having a higher cost should automatically win against a lower cost one. Chosen, for example, should be a lot more missile resistant than exalted bloodletters or daemonettes. That's an asymmetry not being accounted for here.
they really didn't seem to think some of this through. the only game 2 unit in this video that had any buisness fighting Daemons were the Bladesingers (where he didn't even activate their ability which is part of what you're paying for in their cost). at least there both sides had low armour, physical resist and magical attacks. there's also the fact that none of these units exist in a vacuum. Bladesingers, Swordmasters and Black Orcs all exist in factions that have easy access to ranged units (very good ranged units in the case of the elves) and even the Chosen can have some ranged and magical backup. the Slannesh units don't have a single bit of ranged (well they'll get some low tier ranged mortals in the form of Marauder Horsemen the upcoming DLC but they don't have any yet) and Khorne is completely lacking magic
@@Aradim90 I don't think that's true; Zerkovich does a lot of quality tactics and mechanics videos, which indicates he's got a pretty good grasp of how the game works. I just think that in this particular case he's experiencing tunnel vision. He has a very set idea on how MP pricing should work and set expectations of performance based on his previous testing.
It seems to me that you did not use the bladesinger's ability were they trade some ap for quite a substantial addition of weapon damage. The demons have low armor so the ability would be very useful against them. You pay for the ability so you should use it.
Tbf, the mortal factions are paying for armor. Chosen, blorcs, and hoemasters are much more resilient against ranged fire, while the daemons lack armor. Things seem about right to me cost wise
@@jayfarrell932 I think the hight elfs are the ones that come on top in this, the martial prowes buff realy changed them, maybe they should put it at 30% just to see how they do.
1. Many times mentioned switch from ap to more no ap dmg on bladesingers. 2. Regular chosen would beat both demonettes and bloodletters due to same dmg profile and quite a bit better stats. All that Ap was wasted against demons
yeah, they picked the best units from a game where armour and AP was king and put them against a bunch of low armour, physical resist, high AP units. at least a bunch of old units are getting magical attacks to help counter Daemons.
This was a good test but I do think everyone needs to keep in mind that high AP units are not what you should be using to fight daemons anyway. There are chosen variants with weapons that would be more suited to fighting Daemons than the great weapon type. Shielded Chosen have much higher melee defense and most of their damage is non-AP and attack slightly faster. Similarly for the Bladesingers, they should've been in non-AP stance. Also we're not sure what this will do to their cost yet but there is also going to be marked Chosen for every god so that will be interesting how that changes things.
I think a major factor is, that the 'best' units from WH2 generally have to have a decent amount of armour-piercing because in the WH2 version they had to go up agaisnt such heavily armored units. Here the power of the demons is distributed away from armor, so anti-infatry units (dual weapons units etc.) would probably perform better than the armor-piercing units that were the best agaisnt WH2 infantry.
Not to mention slanessh is all melee,no ranged and not as diverse as wh2 factions,Khrone doesn't even have magic, On top of that Daemons are suspectible to magic damage
@@tommasopisapia7464 my worry is that most wh2 front lines will buckle to quickly. It took the strongest stuff in the game to even buy much time. I get chaos is a bit inflexible so they need a powerful melee, but will archers and cav still have time to do their thing?
When you buy a GW chosen/black orcs you pay for armor and AP, which are both almost useless against the hoes and the bloodletters. Which are both designed yo be great against heavy infantry, and worse against everything else. So yeah the prices do make sense imo, and i bet regular chosen could do better against some of those matchups
I would think that the Chosen with shields would have a better chance of winning against bloodletters and daemonettes. Their great weapons are wasted on such light armor where they could have a better melee defense and more staying power against them. Bringing the wrong tool for the job.
Probably a bit better but they'd still lose I suspect. When you consider the Chosen start with an extra 1200-2700 health the damage difference between the units becomes pretty stark.
For the daemonettes and bloodletters, I think they are vastly superior because their factions lacks any ranged infantry. In a real fight the greenskin ranged infantry can dmg them pretty badly (since they got lower armor) while the elves has some of the best ranged infantry before they come in contact with the demons. Its just a balancing choice i believe.
people should keep in mind Khornes superior stats are to make up for his lack of spells. Its a fair exchange if you don't want to make Khorne bottom tier.
@@leadpaintchips9461 and he has basically the worst soulgrinder imo and quite a few other things that make his armies voulnerable if you fight them the right way. just that "charge him with melee infantry" is the one thing that never works. ever.
@@StabbyTheSkaven Ya, "charge them with melee infantry" is kindof his wheelhouse. It's like expecting to beat Welves in the woods with ranged, or Helves in the open with ranged.
Yeah, the “best” WH2 infantry were all armor piercing because in WH2 that’s what you needed to be da best. But against demons, that AP is not as useful. So you are paying for a stat that doesn’t get its full value
@@thegoondockswarcouncil9543 at least magical attacks are now indirectly buffed (due to magic resist becoming spell resist) so now all of the magical attackers will do better. it from what CA have said it seems like quite a few old units have been given magical attacks in order to help them counter Daemons
@@thegoondockswarcouncil9543 I think most WH2 factions have decent range units. [Especial the High/Dark elves which extremely broken basic range units] Even they don't deal piercing but still have number to wreak deamons.
I disagree that AP-Armored chosen GW should win against Exalted Daemonettes or Bloodletters. Both their advantages are negated by both the daemons also having high AP and no armor. Would regular chosen, or chosen dual-weapons if that existed, do better against daemons? Swordmasters also have an anti-infantry advantage on the chosen, no? Chosen-GW are armored, AP generalists, whereas swordmasters are anti-infantry specialists. If you put them both against anything large, the chosen should get more work done. Finally, Daemons are priced as part of factions without ranged units and without magic for khorne, so they don't have those big "balance of power pushers" as Legend puts it, so they need their regular units, especially infantry, to be better valued.
tbf, this raises the question why chosen don't have anti-infantry. if you want to deal with large, you don't use regular chosen, you use those with halberds. chosen gw beeing better against large and not so great against infantry compared to similar units is just weird, and this video shows how bad that choice is. and armor is not that much of a buff. there is simply too much AP damage in this game for armor having a big value.
@@Dr.AvenVon Anti-infantry is just +MA, +Dmg only against infantry. There is a state where chosen gw already have enough MA and Dmg, that they are nearly as good as halberds against large _and_ great against armored infantry as well, thus great against everything. They might not be the best at either, but it could be sufficient. They don't need to be the best anti-infantry. They could also be the infantry that beats the most units overall, for example.
@@arthanor9631 considering that chosen gw will be max, half health once they reach melee, aditional anti infantry should be something they have, for they are way to expensive for what they bring. yes, they deal a ton of damage to most units. but they will rarely beat those, because in most matches they will simply be crippled by missles and magic, for they are slow as fuck. considering what you pay for, they don't deal as much damage as they should.
@@Dr.AvenVon but as I said, the answer doesn't need to be more anti-infantry. They are built as all-comers and in theory nothing should want to fight them. Maybe they need more stats, but I'd rather get them raw stats than anti-infantry. In the chaos roster, that's usually for dual-axes. So raw stats and maybe a price discount since, like daemons, they don't have much missile support.
Bloodletters and daemonettes both want to fight against high armor infantry that deals physical damage, wh2 units almost all have high armor and deal ap physical damage, the ap is a complete waste on the low armor daemons. I feel like this is said everytime there is one of these videos but why does hs still sound so surprised about it?
@@Quentor33 As a lot of people have commented here he didn't use their special ability which would have given them was more ap and probably the victory
Yeah, as others have said, this was just a really poor test, and illustrates one of the failings of this format. On the mortal side, you're paying for qualities that have very little utility in this match-up (Armor, against high AP units, and Armor piercing, against units that have almost no armor), and on the Demon side, you're using everything you're paying for. AP, Magick damage, physical resist...very useful against heavily armored units without magick attacks. The one exception is the Blade singers, and there you again failed to use an ability you paid for, to massivly increase their base melee damage against low armored infantry. There's just not much that can really be gained from these tests, other than some base entertainment. Which is perfectly fine, but we shouldn't be making balance decisions based off of it.
and we really should not talk about "underperforming" and so on. its just strange because i would expect the guy to know that nothing in these situations is any indication about actual gameplay.
In the end its not a surprise, the daemons are just built different. Chosen are good, but its just stats and armor. Bloodletters have more going for them in passives, abilities and their nature as daemons.
they are unarmored and have low md so they don't do as good vs lower tier infantry and due to low armor are susceptible to anything ,if hte match up between Sowrdmaster and Chosen they were almost 5% health,that is not a good look for Daemons. They should be matched up with Shielded Chosen,since you don't need armor piercing damage
The problem is Zerk isn't considering anything else but how these units perform in "elite melee vs elite melee" matchups. Put 5 Chosen GW against 5 Lothern Seaguard and put 5 Exalted Bloodletters against the same. The Bloodletters are gonna get wrecked because they have no armor. Chosen GW can tank units like Saurus without much issue because of their 120 armor, but I doubt exalted bloods could defeat 2 units of Saurus
I'd say Green Skins went 2 -3 with Nurgle there. Even with the last unit Black Orcs getting shot in the back while fighting their opponent they still managed to wipe their plague bearer unit when they routed.
Chosen have more hps to stay alive from non-melee attacks and are going to get Nurgle healing for WoC and Nurgle so that's something to consider if they plan on buffing them.
One thing to consider with the cost effectiveness is that the chosen for example are paying more for the armour that the daemons don’t have. So the daemons are cheaper because they can be easily killed by cheap ranges units while the armoured units can’t.
armoured units still take alot of damage from ranged. way too many units in this game have ap damage, and even regular missle units can deal a good amount of damage to armoured units
@@Dr.AvenVon alright so a chosens armor blocks 80% of non-ap damage, so let's say they're shot by like... crossbowmen. that's a total of 9.6 damager per shot, 6 ap and 3.6 remaining non-ap, assuming all shots hit thats 864 damage per volley, chosen have 10480 health, aproximately meanin they can take 12 full volleys or one unit of crossbowmen with 0 innacuracy against chosen with no buffs or sheilds can kill 1.8 chosen if they are allowed to use all of their ammo. exalted bloodletters 40 armor gives them roughly 30% negation on non-ap. so again with crossbowmen that's 6 AP and 12.6 remaining non-ap that's 18.6 total damage, factor in 20% physical resist (18.6 x .8) and we get 14.88, for a total of 1339.2 per volley. exalted blood letters have 9200 health, meaning it takes 6.8 full volleys to kill them, meaning 1 crossbowmen can kill 3.2 exalted blood letters assuming 0 innacuracy and no buffs. these calculations only get worse with units with less AP which are even more cheap and common... for a particularly aggregious example it would take 3 and a half units of blue horrors full ammo to kill 1 chosen, but 1 blue horror with no innacuracy could take an exalted bloodletter to 1/5th Hp, the damage difference quite litterally being more than 1000 per volley
@@Dr.AvenVon a couple other examples cause the math here is really funny and shows that, despite the fact ranged is op in many way's, armor does impact quite a bit. goblin archers can kill 2 exalted blood letters per unit, 1 unit of goblin archers cannot kill a unit of chosen skaven slave slingers can kill 1.4 exalted bloodletters, 2 units of skaven slave slingers cannot kill a unit of chosen. glade guard can kill 3 exalted blood letters per unit, 1 unit can kill 1.2 chosen pink horrors can kill 2.7 exalted blood letters per unit, 1 unit can kill 1.2 chosen
@@oneringtorulethemagicarp7199 yeah, lets just ignore how you can use multiple ranged units against chosen, because chosen are so fucking expenisve. for one chosen unit you can use 3 crossbowmen units. or that the empire has handgunners who will heavily damage chosen. or how the empire has artilery which will outright kill chosen, because a snail is faster than they are. or, simply use magic, the caster will allways be faster than the chosen and simply kill them with spells. using crossbows against chosen is the same mistake that was made in this video, using the wrong unit to attack the enemy. again, handgunners will damage chosen noticably, while beeing very cheap in comparison. if chosne would just be slightly faster than they are, they'd be maybe worth their money (maybe)
@@Dr.AvenVon oh your right, let's add that to the calculations! peasent bowmen are 400 gold, exalted bloodletters are 1200, 3 units of peasent bowmen are 1200. 3 units of peasent bowmen can kill 7.3 units of exalted bloodletters chosen are 1450, peasent bowmen are 400, 3.6 units of peasent bowmen are 1450. 3.6 units of peasent bowmen can kill 4.2 chosen. wait, thats odd, it seems as thoug armor is still saving 3 full units... also your arguement that armor is bad because it can be killed by using armor peircing damage and thus bringing up that they survive the thing they're supposed to survive better is irrelevent is... uh... dumb
These videos are good, but the statements about the costs they should be, and the statement that wh2 units aren't ready to deal with demons are not sound. These units work in a greater context of their faction. Just like the nurgle units shoot poison missles before engaging, if you find yourself against bladesingers you will likewise be shot first because you're fighting wood elfs. These vids provide great information but it is very limited contextually and cannot be extrapolated out to determine what their costs should be. If they did balance the costs the way that you suggest then certain factions would be buffed to an insane level being able to afford OTHER pieces that swing the game. The cost of a unit should be determined by the cost of OTHER units in the same faction and the over all balance of power that they can bring vs other factions.
since these test are always in a vacuum, to get the full picture you need look at what roles the specific units play. ie Black Orcs are just a high value part of a large army, while swordmasters are essentially special forces
Should take in consideration that there is alot more than raw stats to the balancing of the units, the sinergies and race capabilities for example, so we do not need all the 1400 units to draw against eachother, that would be then pointless to have more than 2 factions, but interesting as always.
I'm not terribly concerned about the bloodletters and daemonettes being more cost effective since I figure it counterbalances their lack of missile infantry.
Pretty amazing you can go through an entire video like this while willfully ignoring the concept of armour and armour piercing that completely distorts all your conclusions. Entertaining nevertheless.
The demons have to be this powerful in melee because of their limited ranged options , all game 2 factions in this instance have access to powerful shooting capabilities .
To be fair, units and their pricepoint don't exist in a vacuum, you have to take into account the rest of the roster's kit. For exmaple iirc Vampire Counts pay a premium for their elite infantry, but they have access to so much healing and mosh pit buffing, that it compensates. the Bladesingers are in a roster with tons of skirmishing power, while the Daemonettes/Bloodletters aren't really. Similarly the Blorcs are in a (surprisingly) well-rounded roster with lots of chaff. The Daemon rosters just don't have those options, so while their top melee infantry is cost efficient, they pay for it by those units by not having too much chaff options (in Khorne's case) or being incredibly fragile against anything ranged. Also, Daemonettes are meant to shred armored units like cabbage, so it makes a lot of sense for them to beat Blorcs and Chosen. You're essentially sending those boys into a unit that is designed to counter them. And yeah, let's be honest, Khorne *should* be the best at pure melee prowess. That's literally all his roster does, with the sole exception of the cannon. It seems pretty fair that if he's a one trick pony, he at least gets a discount on that one trick, or other rosters would just be objectively better as whole. Not saying the balance is in the right place, but it is worth taking into account, since these kind of 1v1 comparisons can strip away that kind of context.
Also worth pointing out that the Daemons trade armor for phys resist. So they naturally perform better against big AP anti-infantry units like Chosen and Swordmasters, because one of the main strengths of those units (AP) does nothing here.. But they will take more damage and perform worse against lower tier units with decent stats but no AP. Not to mention how vulnerable they are to ranged fire.
@@tomatoesofdoom they have one of the highest stats in the game, with high melee defense, armor and physical resistence and high hp and perfect vigour. They should out last ironbreakers even without charge and with breakers getting a voley in.
@@tomatoesofdoom they can both get their charges. It's just grail guardians are way faster so they are more likely to catch the other off guard. But sure it's nonsence test as all one on one tests. I just wanna see the results.
When a demon unit is about to break it hardly matters as opposed to a unit that will route and potentially return. Plus the extra armor of the chosen is negated (meaning they would kill more low tier units before dying)
I wouldn't really draw any conclusions about price from these analyses, or quite frankly anything other than which unit will beat which unit 1v1. Some units are paying for things that aren't relevant in these types of situations, for instance the armour of the chosen and black orcs makes them much more resistant to missile fire than any of the demons and take less chip damage from chaff infantry. In addition you have to view the price of units in the context of their wider rosters; Khorne, Nurgle and Slaanesh have fewer playstyles than say wood elves or high elves or orcs. That will change over time as more units get added and the addition of the mortal units will change things but will still have have deficiencies just by their nature, Khorne isn't really going to be making use of magic, none of the chaos factions with the exception of Tzeentch and the Chaos Dwarfs will be able to do a heavy missile playstyle. I wouldn't make any pronouncements about the cost effectiveness of units based upon tests like these.
Daemons are completely fine. This is the match up Daemonettes and Bloodletters are made for. The real crime here is that broken buff to martial prowess. HE stats are going to be ridiculous for a long time in combat thanks to that buff. In no world should Hoemasters beat Chosen with GW.
Why shouldn't an anti-infantry AP glass cannon unit that is allowed to engage at full HP not perform well against a high-HP, higher-armored generalist AP unit? Chosen GW will perform way better vs any other unit and has higher HP to endure charges and repeated engagements. They also have a lower model count, so 1v1 an individual Chosen is much stronger than a Swordmaster if it's lore reasons you're thinking of.
@@ksvens8658 Ok maybe I was being too harsh on the Swords. My main concern is martial prowess being buffed because that stat increase is really strong and lasting a bit too long now imo.
Daemoninc unis have no armor though and are much more susceptible to magic damage also they faction they are in means they do not get as much support from units
It was not surprising that Bloodletters did well - they should. But exalted daemonettes... they have many other strengths - speed, flanking - AND can get magic support. I was surprised the daemonettes did as well as they did face to face, that's a bit scary.
@@CallioNyx well if you want to go into details Exalted Deamonettes also havery low HP count,so VerySquishy,,Slaneesh has n o raned units,mostly unarmored units and limited magic capabilities
As ever, you can expect unarmoured infantry with AP infantry bonus weapons to trade favourably against armoured infantry with non-anti-infantry AP weapons, whose armour is wasted against the demon's AP, and whose AP is wasted against the demon's lack of armour. Bloodletters are can-openers designd for cracking open high-armoured infantry. If you ran a different test, like, say, 'which unit can kill the most low-tier infantry the quickest before it dies' or 'which unit can surivive the longest' or 'which unit can kill a large single entity the quickest' or 'which unit can survive a cavalry charge the best' then you'll get very different results for units more or less specialised for those kinds of things.
Oh ! Was waiting for it long time ago. I bet on Exalted Bloodletters. The question is about DLC units : Chosen of dedicated gods are here or no ?! I will found it very soon ! Edit : Yes they are the best, until Chosen marked come and destroy them ! Chosen (Dual Axes) of Khorne.
@@MrTimeattackerShielded ? Maybe with nurgle mark : poison/more health yes. I think Dual Axes Chosen are going to be really good damage dealer, even more on units who have low armor.
I feel like its only fair that melee only factions like Khorne and Slaanesh have cheaper access to the best melee infantry, since melee is all they've got. If you wanna surprise your opponent with some sort of weird High Elf elite melee infantry build, then it seems only fair that you should have to pay a bit more for a bit less prowess. Still, Chosen seem in need of a cost reduction.
Honestly I'm more fine with Daemon faction infantry being better than most mortals. Maybe Chosen should get some adjustment, but the others is fine to me, mostly cause Daemon factions besides Tzeentch just don't get get many or any range units. Every single Warhammer 2 army has ranged options that can just wittle away a lot of the Daemons health before getting in combat. Tests like these are fun for individual comparisons but honestly don't seem to get the full experience of army vs army that would happen. Heck a lot of the test battles so far seem to go either way for daemons vs Warhammer 2 factions.
You say wh2 units aren't ready but you're mistaken. Chosen have huge armor values that protect them from ranged and non ap, unlike the demons, and they have AP attacks, useless against non armoured demons. You're paying for all of that, it's normal and expected that they'd cost more. Chosen are the ideal target for high tier demons. High tier demons are literally the worst target for Chosen GW. Not to mention, if in the game you made the top tier Khorne melee unit isn't winning every 1v1 engagement, then your game is wrong. Khorne should win that fight, period. If anything, this test showed that the Swordmasters are the overblown ones. They get high armor, missile parry chance, good stats plus martial prowess, and are literally able to beat their hard counter (demonettes) all while costing 1200.
Comments very on point, between AP vs Physical resist, as well as durability to missile play etc obviously not being reflected in their price point in a 1v1 melee. The results seem totally fine.
Don't just ignore your own rules. In WH2 you excluded blasting charges for the dwarfs and now you suddenly include Plaguebearers with a similar ranged ability. As well as a whole bunch of other issues: - not allowing blasting charges - claiming that black orcs should do better against a dedicated amor-piercing, anti-infantry unit. The result is exactly what should happen. - no usage of the bladesinger ability. It would probably swing a few battles. - waiting forever to mention the change to martial prowess - lying about crimson killers being the only one with splash attacks and conveniently ignoring Hammerers. You should seriously take that down and completely rework it. Just a bad and misleading video in the current state.
@@darthplagueis13 Maybe, but he is also an active player and that change, alongside the price increase, got quite a bit of flak, so it is pretty unlikely.
@@Lukashoffmann94 Really? You think it's less likely that Zerkovich doesn't remember a late stage balancing change in a faction he rarely plays (and that generally doesn't have that high of a pickrate) on a unit that rarely gets ever used compared to him deliberately lying about a thing even though he literally does not benefit from spreading misinformation like that whatsoever? The Krimson Killaz have been the only infantry unit to have melee splash attacks for the span of nearly two games, so I don't think it's too unlikely that he just mentally bookmarked them under "that one unit with the splash attacks" and didn't really think about it.
@@darthplagueis13 Probably 50/50 on that one. I just don’t trust him after the strange rules in WH2 to exclude blasting charges, then allowing plaguebearers in WH3 and now all of the „mistakes“ in this video. The hole vid will even be outdated in less than a month, so quite a strange timing.
@@Lukashoffmann94 I think his main reason for excluding blasting charges was not even the damage they deal but the fact that they completely and utterly scatter infantry formations (which makes testing results extremely inconsistent) whereas the deaths heads just deal damage. I reckon he's mostly just being a bit inconsistent and probably did not lay out a well-planned script before recording it, because again: He has literally no reason to spread misinformation. As you pointed out yourself, the video will likely be soon outdated so I'd assume he just rushed the video out before the release of Immortal Empires because he believed that he was going to be getting more viewers this way because Immortal Empires content is currently exclusive to only a few creators and he's one of the only ones to actually do some general testing instead of uploading just footage from matches.
I know you're already aware of the weaknesses of this test, but it would be pretty cool to see some alternate test scenarios. Exalted daemonettes for example don't get to show off how severely they melt troops in a charge from behind, which puts them miles ahead of others' damage output. One test could be time to kill a routing unit. Another could be % damage closing the gap on an archer unit from max range. Getting more involved in these tests could make them interesting.
The change to Martial Prowess is tremendous for HE elite infantry - too often they end up bapped by artillery so hard they've lost it before entering combat, but keeping it all the way to 25% means they keep it almost up to when they're close to breaking anyway.
Also another consideration for this; in warhammer 3 the chosen of chaos were reworked to have a variant for each chaos god, which could be better than just the undivided ones
I'm split about this, I like the idea that the demon factions are specialized to the point where gold for gold they win 'even' matchups, but it doesn't fit the WH tabletop model of cost being an unbiased rating of power. Maybe cost adjustment in MP only? Either way, love the video!
On the other hand, a strategy game like Total War has more nuanced combat than tabletop, which has different phases for combat that all models have to use, so in TT you would charge your melee infantry forwards and likely get to combat before your opponent gets a turn to shoot, so price balancing works, but in TW you can have units running, fighting, shooting, and casting all at the same time, so to balance out factions like khorne who have no casting or shooting, they have to be better for their price than similar units.
Are the units close enough to cause Leadership Penalties? It looks like there's more room that can be used, and that some close fights swung when the unit next to them fled.
I can maybe rationalize how effective the daemons melee units are just since they have no other options as a faction. Their melee core has to bee strong and cost effective because they can never outrange so they'll always probably be losing units to ranged fire without a direct counter.
With all due respect, a lot of what Zerkovich is doing here is misleading. 1. Chosen have armor and armor piercing, which is relatively useless into bloodletters and demonettes, while both of those have a physical resist and the bloodletters have anti infantry, which are useful. So it's not rly that Chosen suck, more so that ability matchup is bad (but chosen do suck and should get buffed lol) 2. Bladesigner needed to switch modes 3. Again, the hoemasters aren't straight up better (although they are for the cost) it's just that they have anti infantry. Put chosen and hoemasters into a monster unit and the chosen will do much better
I'd like to see a test (and you copuld propably make it a double test): Wich anti-Large Infantry is best at taking down anti-infantry Large Units (I think that large groups, like monstrous infantry and cav should be checked speratly from single large entitys, but still, would be interesting)
don't forget that most daemons can be just shot with pistols and bows as they have little to no armour, while chosen and other mortal units will survive a lot of low-quality shooting
The blood letters can get a missile resistance from they’re tech tree
@@nikolaivanov7400 but in multiplayer you do not have a tech tree.
Testing like this really is only useful for multiplayer, in campaign all of these units stats are getting modified from a bunch of different sources.
chosen or daemon, my rockets will welcome all to estalia
@@mightypanda5768 Welcome to estalia gentlemen
Don't think daemons are overpowered. They trade armor for physical resistance, which makes them really cost effective against units whose damage is mostly armor piercing. The trade off is they're less cost effective against fodder like archers or empire swordsmen.
My thoughts as well. While units like the Black Orcs will lose against the Exalted daemons in melee, they will take less damage from most ranged attacks, and wont suffer as much "fodder damage" in general.
Yes and those faction don't have a lot of range unit if at all. I think that should be taken into consideration.
Going to agree with you, and from a aesthetic view i like that deamons are strong in melee since for me they are dangerous monster from the warp, (deamons with range is weird to me i like they are melee monsters).
100% and I don’t really understand how someone with a channel and a big understanding of the game doesn’t have the same thoughts. It seems reasonably straight forward. Even if exalted Bloodletters were more cost effective you would expect it as that’s almost all Khorne has, melee
@@tssb7 I think he knows (at least i think he does) but still need to be a fun commentator to try to surprise the fights, and i dont mind i like his style of talking.
You should have used whirling death on the Bladesingers against the demons, their damage output with be drastically increased.
I was wondering if he used it.
the rules they've set out in past matches like this involve no unit abilities at all (they excused the WAAAGH due to it being an army ability) so no units that rely on abilities are able to show their full potential
@@Eclipsed_Embers That's a bit unfair, Whirlind Death is an ability you can turn on at the beginning and forget about it. It's very much part of the Bladesingers identity.
@@manpersal I fully agree, no player skill (which is what the no abilities rule is trying to elimitate) involved. and the fact that he then goes on to complain that they aren't beating cheaper units when he isn't using them to their full potential is just idiotic.
@@Eclipsed_Embers that makes this a dumb test, they're a different kind of unit entirely without that setting. No reason to test them here when they're set for wildly different conditions
I did kind of hope that the khorne bois would win, even against more expensive infantry. Considering the roster that the exalted bloodletters are found in, they'll always lack a lot of the support that other elite melee infantry can expect to have. They wont have missile or magic backup in a big battle.
Even chaos chosen can expect axe throwing marauder support, or to have enemy threats deleted by a friendly chaos sorcerer.
The swordmasters of hoeth have no real excuse, they're definitely punching above their weight. Reminder that they're also considered shielded so they can't be picked off as easily by gunpowder or arrows. The high elves are the real winners of this tournament, just remember to let your spellcasters pick off any exalted bloodletters you find.
If only phoenix guard could take a note fron them horrible unit
@Grayble's Gringus Chosen have a lot of unit variety backing them that Korne do not. Korne should be simply the best dollar for dollar in melee infantry in the game, this makes up for their lack of ranged options and lack of magic options.
High Elves are expensive so it ends up being okay. They can't afford to go too elite or they get outnumbered too badly.
Swordmasters have anti-infantry bonus while Chosen w Great Weapons do not, so it is aproprate that Swormasters can punch above their weight against infantry. Chosen in turn will fare better against larger targets. Also even without deflect arrows Chosen are still more resilient to magic and missles thanks to more armor and WAY more HP.
Just join the best race, the high elves.
Chosen have high stats, but they don't have bonuses like magical attacks or bonus vs infantry. So it shouldn't be suprising that they lost to demonetts (they have physical res. and charmed attacks) and bloodletters (physical res. and bonus vs infantry), as for the swordmasters, I think it has more to do with bonus vs infantry than martial prowess.
On top of that Bloodletters have hellblade and hunger blade, they get a high damage spike for how much they killed.
Chosen beat Swordmasters in game2 so it's definitely the martial prowess buff.
Bonus vs infantry is just more melee attack and weapon strength. So having higher stats is the same as having bonus vs infantry except it applies against all enemies.
@@ruukinen I can see what you mean, but it's not the same. Bloodletters and swordmasters have similar melee attack to chosen, but that bonus vs infantry, from my view, really gave them an edge which is impressive since chosen have more health.
I think the main thing about chosen is that they pay extra for their kit, since its a generalist anti-armor profile vs the hoemaster and exalt bloodleters more specialized anti-armored-inf.
Chosen also pay a lot for their huge armor, wich is almost completelly negates when fighting units designed to kill armored infantry.
Did you turn off AP damage for bladesingers so they deal more non-AP? Damage would go from 10 nonAP, 26AP, 8 anti-infarty to 35 nonAP, 16AP. 8 anti-infarty. Roughly more than 10dmg per hit, even considering demonic armor.
And that’d be the fightmaker too, I was thinking they’re getting stomped because of AP focus, but I was surprised that they got dumpstered by the daemonettes though
Lol… “infarty”
@@skimboardboy infarty? Infrarty? Infantry? Damn this cursed word!
No he did not.
Yeah the bladesingers deserves a redo, would be much closer with whirling death on. Why does the plaguebearers get to chuck missiles and poor WE doesn't get to use their abilites? :(
So, the issue here seems to be AP. You're running light armor AP units with high offense and physical resistance vs heavy armor AP units, which means the points spent for AP on the traditional infantry are being wasted against the daemon units. Also, while the WH:II units may indeed need repriced, I'm not convinced that having a higher cost should automatically win against a lower cost one. Chosen, for example, should be a lot more missile resistant than exalted bloodletters or daemonettes. That's an asymmetry not being accounted for here.
they really didn't seem to think some of this through. the only game 2 unit in this video that had any buisness fighting Daemons were the Bladesingers (where he didn't even activate their ability which is part of what you're paying for in their cost). at least there both sides had low armour, physical resist and magical attacks.
there's also the fact that none of these units exist in a vacuum. Bladesingers, Swordmasters and Black Orcs all exist in factions that have easy access to ranged units (very good ranged units in the case of the elves) and even the Chosen can have some ranged and magical backup. the Slannesh units don't have a single bit of ranged (well they'll get some low tier ranged mortals in the form of Marauder Horsemen the upcoming DLC but they don't have any yet) and Khorne is completely lacking magic
Yeah this test was bad and the tester's understanding of the game is shallow at best
@@Aradim90 I don't think that's true; Zerkovich does a lot of quality tactics and mechanics videos, which indicates he's got a pretty good grasp of how the game works. I just think that in this particular case he's experiencing tunnel vision. He has a very set idea on how MP pricing should work and set expectations of performance based on his previous testing.
Yea would regular chosen do better vs daemonettes or bloodletters?
It seems to me that you did not use the bladesinger's ability were they trade some ap for quite a substantial addition of weapon damage.
The demons have low armor so the ability would be very useful against them.
You pay for the ability so you should use it.
I was going to say the same thing. I would expect Bladesingers to be highly effective vs. the demons when their ability is used.
Yeah it was a big miss there.
Tbf, the mortal factions are paying for armor. Chosen, blorcs, and hoemasters are much more resilient against ranged fire, while the daemons lack armor. Things seem about right to me cost wise
Also swordmasters are much worse against large targets, while chosen are still very strong
@@jayfarrell932 I think the hight elfs are the ones that come on top in this, the martial prowes buff realy changed them, maybe they should put it at 30% just to see how they do.
@@Zergling. I would put it at 20% just to see how they do. (Yes, I might be a HE main)
@@sfp2290 hehehe
1. Many times mentioned switch from ap to more no ap dmg on bladesingers.
2. Regular chosen would beat both demonettes and bloodletters due to same dmg profile and quite a bit better stats.
All that Ap was wasted against demons
yeah, they picked the best units from a game where armour and AP was king and put them against a bunch of low armour, physical resist, high AP units.
at least a bunch of old units are getting magical attacks to help counter Daemons.
This was a good test but I do think everyone needs to keep in mind that high AP units are not what you should be using to fight daemons anyway. There are chosen variants with weapons that would be more suited to fighting Daemons than the great weapon type. Shielded Chosen have much higher melee defense and most of their damage is non-AP and attack slightly faster. Similarly for the Bladesingers, they should've been in non-AP stance. Also we're not sure what this will do to their cost yet but there is also going to be marked Chosen for every god so that will be interesting how that changes things.
If I remember correctly, the Dawi hammers also have the splash attack hitting 2 enemies at a time
Such a bad nerf that was. Lowered their damage output so much.
I think a major factor is, that the 'best' units from WH2 generally have to have a decent amount of armour-piercing because in the WH2 version they had to go up agaisnt such heavily armored units. Here the power of the demons is distributed away from armor, so anti-infatry units (dual weapons units etc.) would probably perform better than the armor-piercing units that were the best agaisnt WH2 infantry.
Hoping you're right. This does not fill me with hope.
Not to mention slanessh is all melee,no ranged and not as diverse as wh2 factions,Khrone doesn't even have magic,
On top of that Daemons are suspectible to magic damage
That is it. It's not that hard to see. Units pay for that AP damage and they are wasted against demons with no armors.
@@00yiggdrasill00 it's a fact, there is nothing to hope here
@@tommasopisapia7464 my worry is that most wh2 front lines will buckle to quickly. It took the strongest stuff in the game to even buy much time. I get chaos is a bit inflexible so they need a powerful melee, but will archers and cav still have time to do their thing?
When you buy a GW chosen/black orcs you pay for armor and AP, which are both almost useless against the hoes and the bloodletters. Which are both designed yo be great against heavy infantry, and worse against everything else.
So yeah the prices do make sense imo, and i bet regular chosen could do better against some of those matchups
I would think that the Chosen with shields would have a better chance of winning against bloodletters and daemonettes.
Their great weapons are wasted on such light armor where they could have a better melee defense and more staying power against them. Bringing the wrong tool for the job.
Probably a bit better but they'd still lose I suspect. When you consider the Chosen start with an extra 1200-2700 health the damage difference between the units becomes pretty stark.
7:20 You didn't activate Bladesingers ability that makes them do unarmored piercing damage
For the daemonettes and bloodletters, I think they are vastly superior because their factions lacks any ranged infantry. In a real fight the greenskin ranged infantry can dmg them pretty badly (since they got lower armor) while the elves has some of the best ranged infantry before they come in contact with the demons. Its just a balancing choice i believe.
make sense
Yeah I tend to agree that if they don't have ranged units they should be better in melee
Agree!
Yep, CA does not balance in a vacuum for this specific reason.
people should keep in mind Khornes superior stats are to make up for his lack of spells. Its a fair exchange if you don't want to make Khorne bottom tier.
He also doesn't really have ranged either. One ranged arty that can resupply from melee doesn't make up for not having ranged spam.
@@leadpaintchips9461 and he has basically the worst soulgrinder imo and quite a few other things that make his armies voulnerable if you fight them the right way. just that "charge him with melee infantry" is the one thing that never works. ever.
@@StabbyTheSkaven Ya, "charge them with melee infantry" is kindof his wheelhouse. It's like expecting to beat Welves in the woods with ranged, or Helves in the open with ranged.
@@leadpaintchips9461 Funny because his best strategy is actually to use the flesh hounds of khorne
Khorne is one of the worst factions right now.
23:44 that fireball was so satisfying
Seems to be an asymmetric balance thing going on between AP and physical resistance
Yeah, the “best” WH2 infantry were all armor piercing because in WH2 that’s what you needed to be da best. But against demons, that AP is not as useful. So you are paying for a stat that doesn’t get its full value
@@thegoondockswarcouncil9543 exactly
@@thegoondockswarcouncil9543 at least magical attacks are now indirectly buffed (due to magic resist becoming spell resist) so now all of the magical attackers will do better. it from what CA have said it seems like quite a few old units have been given magical attacks in order to help them counter Daemons
@@thegoondockswarcouncil9543 I think most WH2 factions have decent range units. [Especial the High/Dark elves which extremely broken basic range units]
Even they don't deal piercing but still have number to wreak deamons.
I disagree that AP-Armored chosen GW should win against Exalted Daemonettes or Bloodletters. Both their advantages are negated by both the daemons also having high AP and no armor.
Would regular chosen, or chosen dual-weapons if that existed, do better against daemons? Swordmasters also have an anti-infantry advantage on the chosen, no?
Chosen-GW are armored, AP generalists, whereas swordmasters are anti-infantry specialists. If you put them both against anything large, the chosen should get more work done.
Finally, Daemons are priced as part of factions without ranged units and without magic for khorne, so they don't have those big "balance of power pushers" as Legend puts it, so they need their regular units, especially infantry, to be better valued.
tbf, this raises the question why chosen don't have anti-infantry. if you want to deal with large, you don't use regular chosen, you use those with halberds. chosen gw beeing better against large and not so great against infantry compared to similar units is just weird, and this video shows how bad that choice is.
and armor is not that much of a buff. there is simply too much AP damage in this game for armor having a big value.
@@Dr.AvenVon Anti-infantry is just +MA, +Dmg only against infantry. There is a state where chosen gw already have enough MA and Dmg, that they are nearly as good as halberds against large _and_ great against armored infantry as well, thus great against everything. They might not be the best at either, but it could be sufficient. They don't need to be the best anti-infantry. They could also be the infantry that beats the most units overall, for example.
@@arthanor9631 considering that chosen gw will be max, half health once they reach melee, aditional anti infantry should be something they have, for they are way to expensive for what they bring. yes, they deal a ton of damage to most units. but they will rarely beat those, because in most matches they will simply be crippled by missles and magic, for they are slow as fuck. considering what you pay for, they don't deal as much damage as they should.
@@Dr.AvenVon but as I said, the answer doesn't need to be more anti-infantry. They are built as all-comers and in theory nothing should want to fight them. Maybe they need more stats, but I'd rather get them raw stats than anti-infantry. In the chaos roster, that's usually for dual-axes. So raw stats and maybe a price discount since, like daemons, they don't have much missile support.
Then what about WH1 and 2 factions without ranged like VC? They certainly don't have a unit like daemonettes.
Bloodletters and daemonettes both want to fight against high armor infantry that deals physical damage, wh2 units almost all have high armor and deal ap physical damage, the ap is a complete waste on the low armor daemons. I feel like this is said everytime there is one of these videos but why does hs still sound so surprised about it?
Sounds like he doesnt understand how this game works. Units that are hard countered lost, who knew.
I still like he talking like that, nice for being a commentator in this videos.
this is complitly false for blade singer, yet they loosed
@@Quentor33 As a lot of people have commented here he didn't use their special ability which would have given them was more ap and probably the victory
Yeah, as others have said, this was just a really poor test, and illustrates one of the failings of this format. On the mortal side, you're paying for qualities that have very little utility in this match-up (Armor, against high AP units, and Armor piercing, against units that have almost no armor), and on the Demon side, you're using everything you're paying for. AP, Magick damage, physical resist...very useful against heavily armored units without magick attacks. The one exception is the Blade singers, and there you again failed to use an ability you paid for, to massivly increase their base melee damage against low armored infantry.
There's just not much that can really be gained from these tests, other than some base entertainment. Which is perfectly fine, but we shouldn't be making balance decisions based off of it.
and we really should not talk about "underperforming" and so on. its just strange because i would expect the guy to know that nothing in these situations is any indication about actual gameplay.
In the end its not a surprise, the daemons are just built different. Chosen are good, but its just stats and armor. Bloodletters have more going for them in passives, abilities and their nature as daemons.
they are unarmored and have low md so they don't do as good vs lower tier infantry and due to low armor are susceptible to anything ,if hte match up between Sowrdmaster and Chosen they were almost 5% health,that is not a good look for Daemons.
They should be matched up with Shielded Chosen,since you don't need armor piercing damage
The problem is Zerk isn't considering anything else but how these units perform in "elite melee vs elite melee" matchups.
Put 5 Chosen GW against 5 Lothern Seaguard and put 5 Exalted Bloodletters against the same. The Bloodletters are gonna get wrecked because they have no armor. Chosen GW can tank units like Saurus without much issue because of their 120 armor, but I doubt exalted bloods could defeat 2 units of Saurus
I'd say Green Skins went 2 -3 with Nurgle there. Even with the last unit Black Orcs getting shot in the back while fighting their opponent they still managed to wipe their plague bearer unit when they routed.
Chosen have more hps to stay alive from non-melee attacks and are going to get Nurgle healing for WoC and Nurgle so that's something to consider if they plan on buffing them.
Plaguebearers get their ranged attacks, but Ironbreakers are disqualified for simply having one. ffs
He just know the Ironbrakers would destroy everyone else
One thing to consider with the cost effectiveness is that the chosen for example are paying more for the armour that the daemons don’t have. So the daemons are cheaper because they can be easily killed by cheap ranges units while the armoured units can’t.
armoured units still take alot of damage from ranged. way too many units in this game have ap damage, and even regular missle units can deal a good amount of damage to armoured units
@@Dr.AvenVon alright so a chosens armor blocks 80% of non-ap damage, so let's say they're shot by like... crossbowmen. that's a total of 9.6 damager per shot, 6 ap and 3.6 remaining non-ap, assuming all shots hit thats 864 damage per volley, chosen have 10480 health, aproximately meanin they can take 12 full volleys or one unit of crossbowmen with 0 innacuracy against chosen with no buffs or sheilds can kill 1.8 chosen if they are allowed to use all of their ammo.
exalted bloodletters 40 armor gives them roughly 30% negation on non-ap. so again with crossbowmen that's 6 AP and 12.6 remaining non-ap that's 18.6 total damage, factor in 20% physical resist (18.6 x .8) and we get 14.88, for a total of 1339.2 per volley. exalted blood letters have 9200 health, meaning it takes 6.8 full volleys to kill them, meaning 1 crossbowmen can kill 3.2 exalted blood letters assuming 0 innacuracy and no buffs. these calculations only get worse with units with less AP which are even more cheap and common... for a particularly aggregious example it would take 3 and a half units of blue horrors full ammo to kill 1 chosen, but 1 blue horror with no innacuracy could take an exalted bloodletter to 1/5th Hp, the damage difference quite litterally being more than 1000 per volley
@@Dr.AvenVon a couple other examples cause the math here is really funny and shows that, despite the fact ranged is op in many way's, armor does impact quite a bit.
goblin archers can kill 2 exalted blood letters per unit, 1 unit of goblin archers cannot kill a unit of chosen
skaven slave slingers can kill 1.4 exalted bloodletters, 2 units of skaven slave slingers cannot kill a unit of chosen.
glade guard can kill 3 exalted blood letters per unit, 1 unit can kill 1.2 chosen
pink horrors can kill 2.7 exalted blood letters per unit, 1 unit can kill 1.2 chosen
@@oneringtorulethemagicarp7199 yeah, lets just ignore how you can use multiple ranged units against chosen, because chosen are so fucking expenisve. for one chosen unit you can use 3 crossbowmen units. or that the empire has handgunners who will heavily damage chosen. or how the empire has artilery which will outright kill chosen, because a snail is faster than they are. or, simply use magic, the caster will allways be faster than the chosen and simply kill them with spells.
using crossbows against chosen is the same mistake that was made in this video, using the wrong unit to attack the enemy. again, handgunners will damage chosen noticably, while beeing very cheap in comparison.
if chosne would just be slightly faster than they are, they'd be maybe worth their money (maybe)
@@Dr.AvenVon oh your right, let's add that to the calculations!
peasent bowmen are 400 gold, exalted bloodletters are 1200, 3 units of peasent bowmen are 1200. 3 units of peasent bowmen can kill 7.3 units of exalted bloodletters
chosen are 1450, peasent bowmen are 400, 3.6 units of peasent bowmen are 1450. 3.6 units of peasent bowmen can kill 4.2 chosen. wait, thats odd, it seems as thoug armor is still saving 3 full units...
also your arguement that armor is bad because it can be killed by using armor peircing damage and thus bringing up that they survive the thing they're supposed to survive better is irrelevent is... uh... dumb
“Can I get away with that?” “Yeah, probably be alright” lmao. We love you man haha
These videos are good, but the statements about the costs they should be, and the statement that wh2 units aren't ready to deal with demons are not sound. These units work in a greater context of their faction. Just like the nurgle units shoot poison missles before engaging, if you find yourself against bladesingers you will likewise be shot first because you're fighting wood elfs. These vids provide great information but it is very limited contextually and cannot be extrapolated out to determine what their costs should be. If they did balance the costs the way that you suggest then certain factions would be buffed to an insane level being able to afford OTHER pieces that swing the game. The cost of a unit should be determined by the cost of OTHER units in the same faction and the over all balance of power that they can bring vs other factions.
Precisely. Whole the footage is of some mild interest, the man is an idiot.
since these test are always in a vacuum, to get the full picture you need look at what roles the specific units play. ie Black Orcs are just a high value part of a large army, while swordmasters are essentially special forces
Should take in consideration that there is alot more than raw stats to the balancing of the units, the sinergies and race capabilities for example, so we do not need all the 1400 units to draw against eachother, that would be then pointless to have more than 2 factions, but interesting as always.
More of this please, love the unit testing videos!
I'm not terribly concerned about the bloodletters and daemonettes being more cost effective since I figure it counterbalances their lack of missile infantry.
They will get some missile infantry with marauders. Nothing great ofc.
Pretty amazing you can go through an entire video like this while willfully ignoring the concept of armour and armour piercing that completely distorts all your conclusions.
Entertaining nevertheless.
I think bladesingers would have better results if you turned on their non ap stance
The demons have to be this powerful in melee because of their limited ranged options , all game 2 factions in this instance have access to powerful shooting capabilities .
When you pay extra for Armor-piercing of course there is gonna be a price mismatch when fighting against physical resistance.
"Who's the BEST Melle Infantry?"
Legen of Total War: this is legal??
To be fair, units and their pricepoint don't exist in a vacuum, you have to take into account the rest of the roster's kit. For exmaple iirc Vampire Counts pay a premium for their elite infantry, but they have access to so much healing and mosh pit buffing, that it compensates.
the Bladesingers are in a roster with tons of skirmishing power, while the Daemonettes/Bloodletters aren't really. Similarly the Blorcs are in a (surprisingly) well-rounded roster with lots of chaff. The Daemon rosters just don't have those options, so while their top melee infantry is cost efficient, they pay for it by those units by not having too much chaff options (in Khorne's case) or being incredibly fragile against anything ranged.
Also, Daemonettes are meant to shred armored units like cabbage, so it makes a lot of sense for them to beat Blorcs and Chosen. You're essentially sending those boys into a unit that is designed to counter them.
And yeah, let's be honest, Khorne *should* be the best at pure melee prowess. That's literally all his roster does, with the sole exception of the cannon. It seems pretty fair that if he's a one trick pony, he at least gets a discount on that one trick, or other rosters would just be objectively better as whole. Not saying the balance is in the right place, but it is worth taking into account, since these kind of 1v1 comparisons can strip away that kind of context.
"Blorcs"
Also worth pointing out that the Daemons trade armor for phys resist. So they naturally perform better against big AP anti-infantry units like Chosen and Swordmasters, because one of the main strengths of those units (AP) does nothing here.. But they will take more damage and perform worse against lower tier units with decent stats but no AP. Not to mention how vulnerable they are to ranged fire.
I wonder how regular chosen with shields and axes would do against the low armor daemons, they might actually do better
The commentary was spot on. Great video!
Hype for this! Hoping to see a ranged version at some point
Just found your channel and have been watching all the videos. Have learnt so much i thought i should know after over 1000hrs!
I hope you will one day try testing grail guardians against units like tzar guard,iron breakers, plague bearers to see who can tank the most.
grail guardians tanking? what?
@@tomatoesofdoom they have one of the highest stats in the game, with high melee defense, armor and physical resistence and high hp and perfect vigour. They should out last ironbreakers even without charge and with breakers getting a voley in.
@@jarvee9407 so like. what kind of test is this. One unit gets its charge bonus and one doesn't? What's even the point of the test then
@@tomatoesofdoom they can both get their charges. It's just grail guardians are way faster so they are more likely to catch the other off guard. But sure it's nonsence test as all one on one tests. I just wanna see the results.
When a demon unit is about to break it hardly matters as opposed to a unit that will route and potentially return. Plus the extra armor of the chosen is negated (meaning they would kill more low tier units before dying)
I wouldn't really draw any conclusions about price from these analyses, or quite frankly anything other than which unit will beat which unit 1v1. Some units are paying for things that aren't relevant in these types of situations, for instance the armour of the chosen and black orcs makes them much more resistant to missile fire than any of the demons and take less chip damage from chaff infantry. In addition you have to view the price of units in the context of their wider rosters; Khorne, Nurgle and Slaanesh have fewer playstyles than say wood elves or high elves or orcs. That will change over time as more units get added and the addition of the mortal units will change things but will still have have deficiencies just by their nature, Khorne isn't really going to be making use of magic, none of the chaos factions with the exception of Tzeentch and the Chaos Dwarfs will be able to do a heavy missile playstyle. I wouldn't make any pronouncements about the cost effectiveness of units based upon tests like these.
your commentary turned my day around, love it! Thanks!!
Of course factions with no real ranged units should have better cost effectiveness for their melee troops!
09:45 Lmfao pure brilliance that remark my friend
Daemons are completely fine. This is the match up Daemonettes and Bloodletters are made for. The real crime here is that broken buff to martial prowess. HE stats are going to be ridiculous for a long time in combat thanks to that buff. In no world should Hoemasters beat Chosen with GW.
Why shouldn't an anti-infantry AP glass cannon unit that is allowed to engage at full HP not perform well against a high-HP, higher-armored generalist AP unit? Chosen GW will perform way better vs any other unit and has higher HP to endure charges and repeated engagements. They also have a lower model count, so 1v1 an individual Chosen is much stronger than a Swordmaster if it's lore reasons you're thinking of.
@@ksvens8658 Ok maybe I was being too harsh on the Swords. My main concern is martial prowess being buffed because that stat increase is really strong and lasting a bit too long now imo.
Enjoyed every minute of it! Excellent video to watch during my lunch.
Daemoninc unis have no armor though and are much more susceptible to magic damage also they faction they are in means they do not get as much support from units
It was not surprising that Bloodletters did well - they should. But exalted daemonettes... they have many other strengths - speed, flanking - AND can get magic support. I was surprised the daemonettes did as well as they did face to face, that's a bit scary.
@@CallioNyx well if you want to go into details Exalted Deamonettes also havery low HP count,so VerySquishy,,Slaneesh has n o raned units,mostly unarmored units and limited magic capabilities
As ever, you can expect unarmoured infantry with AP infantry bonus weapons to trade favourably against armoured infantry with non-anti-infantry AP weapons, whose armour is wasted against the demon's AP, and whose AP is wasted against the demon's lack of armour.
Bloodletters are can-openers designd for cracking open high-armoured infantry. If you ran a different test, like, say, 'which unit can kill the most low-tier infantry the quickest before it dies' or 'which unit can surivive the longest' or 'which unit can kill a large single entity the quickest' or 'which unit can survive a cavalry charge the best' then you'll get very different results for units more or less specialised for those kinds of things.
I think it's appropriate that Khorne should have the best melee infantry and regiment of renown melee infantry.
On way back from the Commonwealth opening ceremony! This will be my night cap when I’m home
Oh ! Was waiting for it long time ago.
I bet on Exalted Bloodletters. The question is about DLC units : Chosen of dedicated gods are here or no ?! I will found it very soon !
Edit : Yes they are the best, until Chosen marked come and destroy them ! Chosen (Dual Axes) of Khorne.
Exalted Bloodletters will loose to Shielded Chosen,everyone seems to Forget they don't have much amor
@@MrTimeattackerShielded ? Maybe with nurgle mark : poison/more health yes.
I think Dual Axes Chosen are going to be really good damage dealer, even more on units who have low armor.
Oh bless up I've been waiting for this almost as much as the actual game
I feel like its only fair that melee only factions like Khorne and Slaanesh have cheaper access to the best melee infantry, since melee is all they've got. If you wanna surprise your opponent with some sort of weird High Elf elite melee infantry build, then it seems only fair that you should have to pay a bit more for a bit less prowess. Still, Chosen seem in need of a cost reduction.
Couldn't get enough of the Hoemasters puns, great video dude!
Swordmasters are way stronger in this competition compare to warhammer 2 because of the martial prowess buff by the way ! 25 percent instead of 50.
Yes I too saw the video.
@@leeboy26 I wrote that before I saw the video maybe ? It was ''pre visionning'' expectations.
I’ve been looking forward to this for quite some time!
Honestly I'm more fine with Daemon faction infantry being better than most mortals. Maybe Chosen should get some adjustment, but the others is fine to me, mostly cause Daemon factions besides Tzeentch just don't get get many or any range units. Every single Warhammer 2 army has ranged options that can just wittle away a lot of the Daemons health before getting in combat. Tests like these are fun for individual comparisons but honestly don't seem to get the full experience of army vs army that would happen.
Heck a lot of the test battles so far seem to go either way for daemons vs Warhammer 2 factions.
My favorite front liners are Dwarf Ironbreakers. I'm inspired to do my own test. The blasting charges are such a great opener.
You say wh2 units aren't ready but you're mistaken. Chosen have huge armor values that protect them from ranged and non ap, unlike the demons, and they have AP attacks, useless against non armoured demons. You're paying for all of that, it's normal and expected that they'd cost more.
Chosen are the ideal target for high tier demons. High tier demons are literally the worst target for Chosen GW.
Not to mention, if in the game you made the top tier Khorne melee unit isn't winning every 1v1 engagement, then your game is wrong. Khorne should win that fight, period.
If anything, this test showed that the Swordmasters are the overblown ones. They get high armor, missile parry chance, good stats plus martial prowess, and are literally able to beat their hard counter (demonettes) all while costing 1200.
Can You show us those vs chosen with different marks when You will be able to?
Due to ultra unit size theri hp stays for long hence martial prowess and martial prowess now last until its below 25% health Big buff
Comments very on point, between AP vs Physical resist, as well as durability to missile play etc obviously not being reflected in their price point in a 1v1 melee.
The results seem totally fine.
Don't just ignore your own rules.
In WH2 you excluded blasting charges for the dwarfs and now you suddenly include Plaguebearers with a similar ranged ability.
As well as a whole bunch of other issues:
- not allowing blasting charges
- claiming that black orcs should do better against a dedicated amor-piercing, anti-infantry unit. The result is exactly what should happen.
- no usage of the bladesinger ability. It would probably swing a few battles.
- waiting forever to mention the change to martial prowess
- lying about crimson killers being the only one with splash attacks and conveniently ignoring Hammerers.
You should seriously take that down and completely rework it.
Just a bad and misleading video in the current state.
Probably just forgot the Hammerer splash because that was a very late change and happened after his WH2 video on which infantry is the best.
@@darthplagueis13 Maybe, but he is also an active player and that change, alongside the price increase, got quite a bit of flak, so it is pretty unlikely.
@@Lukashoffmann94 Really? You think it's less likely that Zerkovich doesn't remember a late stage balancing change in a faction he rarely plays (and that generally doesn't have that high of a pickrate) on a unit that rarely gets ever used compared to him deliberately lying about a thing even though he literally does not benefit from spreading misinformation like that whatsoever?
The Krimson Killaz have been the only infantry unit to have melee splash attacks for the span of nearly two games, so I don't think it's too unlikely that he just mentally bookmarked them under "that one unit with the splash attacks" and didn't really think about it.
@@darthplagueis13 Probably 50/50 on that one.
I just don’t trust him after the strange rules in WH2 to exclude blasting charges, then allowing plaguebearers in WH3 and now all of the „mistakes“ in this video.
The hole vid will even be outdated in less than a month, so quite a strange timing.
@@Lukashoffmann94 I think his main reason for excluding blasting charges was not even the damage they deal but the fact that they completely and utterly scatter infantry formations (which makes testing results extremely inconsistent) whereas the deaths heads just deal damage.
I reckon he's mostly just being a bit inconsistent and probably did not lay out a well-planned script before recording it, because again: He has literally no reason to spread misinformation. As you pointed out yourself, the video will likely be soon outdated so I'd assume he just rushed the video out before the release of Immortal Empires because he believed that he was going to be getting more viewers this way because Immortal Empires content is currently exclusive to only a few creators and he's one of the only ones to actually do some general testing instead of uploading just footage from matches.
I know you're already aware of the weaknesses of this test, but it would be pretty cool to see some alternate test scenarios. Exalted daemonettes for example don't get to show off how severely they melt troops in a charge from behind, which puts them miles ahead of others' damage output.
One test could be time to kill a routing unit. Another could be % damage closing the gap on an archer unit from max range. Getting more involved in these tests could make them interesting.
YESSSS. DO THE WHOLE SERIES ALL OVER AGAIN.
I feel like when it comes down to stat checks between the bloodletters and chosen. Complete roll of the dice between those two
The change to Martial Prowess is tremendous for HE elite infantry - too often they end up bapped by artillery so hard they've lost it before entering combat, but keeping it all the way to 25% means they keep it almost up to when they're close to breaking anyway.
22:40 I'm surprised that the Dark Elves couldn't fill their Prowess bar in a 5 v 5, do Daemons not count as kills or something?
The hoemaster bit had me fighting for my life to not spit my food out laughing lmao 😂
Also another consideration for this; in warhammer 3 the chosen of chaos were reworked to have a variant for each chaos god, which could be better than just the undivided ones
Did you change the damage type of the blade singers?
I feel like Black Orcs should have higher mass. They shouldn't have models knocked back from a charge clash, imo.
i'm pretty sure hammeres also has a splash attack of 2, they were buffed in the Hammers & Herdstones update.
Not gonna lie this battles are my favorite videos on the channel.
I'm split about this, I like the idea that the demon factions are specialized to the point where gold for gold they win 'even' matchups, but it doesn't fit the WH tabletop model of cost being an unbiased rating of power. Maybe cost adjustment in MP only? Either way, love the video!
On the other hand, a strategy game like Total War has more nuanced combat than tabletop, which has different phases for combat that all models have to use, so in TT you would charge your melee infantry forwards and likely get to combat before your opponent gets a turn to shoot, so price balancing works, but in TW you can have units running, fighting, shooting, and casting all at the same time, so to balance out factions like khorne who have no casting or shooting, they have to be better for their price than similar units.
It's not like points cost in tabletop is ever totally accurate either though.
9:43
Lol
Even you couldnt help but laugh
Are the units close enough to cause Leadership Penalties?
It looks like there's more room that can be used, and that some close fights swung when the unit next to them fled.
I can maybe rationalize how effective the daemons melee units are just since they have no other options as a faction. Their melee core has to bee strong and cost effective because they can never outrange so they'll always probably be losing units to ranged fire without a direct counter.
I'll be honest, despite the fact it'd take a while I would love to see the full breakdown of WH1, WH2, and WH3 competitions.
“let’s try them out against some hoes” I legit started laughing my ass off at work
"OK, next time he says 'Ho-Masters' it won't be funny any more."
"Ho-Masters"
"Nope, I was wrong. It's still gold."
You didn't mention a wagghh for the BO vs the EPB, did they get one like they did vs the tzar guard
I noticed with the daemonettes vs hoeth that the daemonettes were missing fairly often, maybe that elven speed is really coming in handy where.
i'm curios about the cavalry video how demigryoh halberds will perform vs war bears riders and crushers
With all due respect, a lot of what Zerkovich is doing here is misleading.
1. Chosen have armor and armor piercing, which is relatively useless into bloodletters and demonettes, while both of those have a physical resist and the bloodletters have anti infantry, which are useful. So it's not rly that Chosen suck, more so that ability matchup is bad (but chosen do suck and should get buffed lol)
2. Bladesigner needed to switch modes
3. Again, the hoemasters aren't straight up better (although they are for the cost) it's just that they have anti infantry. Put chosen and hoemasters into a monster unit and the chosen will do much better
Nice comparison! I didn't expect chosen will be lose...
how do you simultaneously get multiple units to charge different targets? typically the one in front of them.
That banter is so just so on point 🤣
I thought Aspiring Champions also had splash attacks? Was I mistaken on that, or is it really only a Crimson Killa's thing?
Man I love these videos you do. Please do a legendary lord list please I beg you
I swear I was just wishing you'd do a melee infantry unit test last night.
I'm interested in seeing how khorne chosen fare against exalted bloodletters and undivided chosen. once they're available to test.
I'd like to see a test (and you copuld propably make it a double test):
Wich anti-Large Infantry is best at taking down anti-infantry Large Units (I think that large groups, like monstrous infantry and cav should be checked speratly from single large entitys, but still, would be interesting)
The elves marching in the intro looked cool.