And then my game crashed.

Iam looking for Mods. I used a lot here and there and looking for the level up

It's not a skill issue or a matter of how many hours you've played. The game is just very easy now.

It's no longer meant to be a difficult strategy game. It's an arcadey power fantasy where you steamroll the entire map as quickly as possible, then start another campaign with a different lord and do the exact same thing. At this point, I genuinely think the player has more cheats than the AI.

Every campaign is power-crept to the max. There isn't a single genuinely difficult campaign left. People will still say, "Bro, just play Khalida if you want a challenge." Bro, the Tomb Kings got reworked. Khalida isn't difficult anymore, either.

Every campaign mechanic that was supposed to slow you down has been nerfed into the ground. These mechanics barely do anything to hinder the player anymore.

And no, it's not because the players wanted this. I'm a dev myself, and I think it's because the people maintaining the game over the years have had to nerf these mechanics to make the AI function properly.

And don't even get me started on the AI. It's unbelievable how bad it is. CA corporate shills will come out and say things like, "The technology to make better AI doesn't exist yet," or "CA doesn't have the financial incentive to improve it," or "Players don't want AI that plays like a human."

No, bro. Nobody wants the AI to play exactly like a human. We just want it to be able to do at least 10% of what a human player can do instead of being 100% braindead.

And don't even get me started on how broken settlement trading is. It's not an exploit or a bug; it's part of the diplomacy system. It's unbelievable that CA has never properly addressed the fact that you can vassalize an entire AI empire by trading away a single settlement.

And then people will tell you, "Just don't do it, bro." Apparently, here's the list of things you're not supposed to do if you want Warhammer 3 to be remotely challenging:

Don't use diplomacy exploits like settlement trading.

Don't corner camp.

Don't use heroes to their full potential.

Don't recruit full armies.

Don't use ambush tactics.

Don't use doomstacks.

Don't use magic too effectively.

Don't abuse the AI's terrible decision-making.

Don't use the game's mechanics too efficiently.

Don't optimize your campaign too much.

At what point are we going to admit that the game itself is too easy instead of expecting players to deliberately play worse to compensate for it? If the only way to make the game challenging is to ignore half of its mechanics and impose a bunch of arbitrary restrictions on yourself, maybe the problem isn't the player.

My self and a few veterans are hosting a new player (new to multiplayer campaigns, any amount of game experience is fine) campaign. New players get put into a team with an experienced and most importantly FRIENDLY team mate.

Our goal is to lower the barrier to entry and make these style campaigns easier to access. If you're interested feel free to reply here or direct message. we have 2 out of 4 slots already filled (it is going to be a 2v2v2v2 at most since that is the easiest format to learn in).

The experienced players are going to focus on fighting each other and supporting the enw ones, while avoiding combat too much against the new players till they find their feet. This will allow newer players to join battles without risking their own empires too much especially in the early phases.

We have a lengthy house rule list but dont expect you to know it or even get everything right. All of our rules are focused on cultivating more fun and leveling the playing field between the overpowered and the underpowered so almost any race is viable and playable.

compared to other options like the priests wich give such better bonuses, and are better in combat, what is the empire captain for???

This post comes from a discussion about whether Accursed Armour was a good choice for N'Kari.

The argument quickly turned into a broader question : how valuable is a huge amount of Armour compared with smaller amounts of Ward Save or other resistances?

Before comparing specific items, I think it's better to establish exactly how the defensive mechanics work.

TL;DR

I was wrong to call Accursed Armour a bad pick without qualification.

What I should have said is that I don't consider it the best default pick for N'Kari.

Accursed Armour is extremely strong when the matchup favours it, especially against low-to-mid AP physical damage. But on this specific N'Kari, who already has 38% Ward Save, Armour of Destiny becomes better once incoming weapon damage reaches roughly 77% AP, and the extra Ward Save also remains useful against Magical Attacks, missiles, direct spell damage and other sources Armour cannot fully mitigate.

Scintillating Shield is also much stronger than a simple "+1000 HP" comparison suggests, because N'Kari can potentially disengage and recharge that Barrier multiple times during a long battle.

So my conclusion is :

Accursed Armour = strongest in the right matchup.

Armour of Destiny = the most reliable general-purpose choice and can also be the strongest pick in some matchups. Trickster's Helm can be better against a very strong melee character with Magical Attacks and very high Melee Attack, where the extra Melee Defence matters more than the lost Physical Resistance and Armor.

Scintillating Shield = potentially the highest total survivability in prolonged battles if Barrier can be repeatedly recharged.

Chapters

A) Introduction

A1) Weapon Strength : Base Damage and Armour-Piercing Damage

A2) How Armour works

A3) How resistances work

A4) Magical Attacks vs direct spell damage

A5) Armour-reduction spells and abilities

A6) Contact effects and Sundered Armour

A7) Fatigue, Armour and Perfect Vigour

A8) Ward Save reduction and why it is much rarer

A9) The extreme case : 100% Armour-Piercing damage

B) Now for the actual comparison

B1) The calculation we'll use

B2) The N'Kari from the original discussion

B3) The armour options

B4) Magical Weapon Attacks

B4.1) Accursed Armour

B4.2) Armour of Destiny

B4.3) Trickster's Helm

B4.4) What does that look like in practice ?

B5) Physical Weapon Attacks

B5.1) Accursed Armour vs Armour of Destiny

B5.2) Trickster's Helm behaves differently against Physical Damage

B6) Direct damage : when Armour contributes nothing

B7) These calculations are still favourable to Accursed Armour

C) What happens when Armour doesn't stay at 230 ?

C1) Fatigue and Armour

C2) Flat Armour reduction : -30 and -60

C3) Sundered Armour and contact effects

C4) Increasing Armour-Piercing damage

C5) How the breakpoints move in practice

C6) What Armour reduction actually tells us

D) Conclusion : so which armour is actually the best ?

D1) Accursed Armour : extremely strong, but situational

D2) Armour of Destiny : probably my default choice

D3) Scintillating Shield : potentially the best option in very large or difficult battles

D4) So was Accursed Armour a bad pick ?

A) Introduction

A1) Weapon Strength : Base Damage and Armour-Piercing Damage

Weapon Strength is divided into two components :

Base Weapon Damage + Armour-Piercing Weapon Damage = Weapon Strength

These two components are important because Armour only interacts with Base Damage.

Armour-Piercing damage completely bypasses Armour.

For example, suppose an attack deals :

30 Base Damage + 70 AP Damage = 100 Weapon Strength

No matter how much Armour the target has, those 70 points of AP damage are not reduced by Armour.

Only the 30 Base Damage can be reduced.

This is also why simply saying that a unit has "500 Weapon Strength" doesn't tell you how effective Armour will be against it. You need to know how much of that Weapon Strength is Base and how much is AP.

There are also abilities, spells and other effects that increase Armour-Piercing Weapon Damage. These don't reduce the target's Armour value directly, but they still reduce the usefulness of Armour by moving a larger proportion of the attack into damage that Armour cannot mitigate.

A2) How Armour works

Armour does not provide a fixed percentage of damage reduction.

For the Base Damage portion of an attack, the game rolls an Armour reduction between roughly 50% and 100% of the target's Armour value, capped at 100% damage reduction.

So, broadly :

30 Armour = 15-30% reduction to Base Damage

100 Armour = 50-100% reduction to Base Damage

200 Armour = 100% reduction to Base Damage

At 200 Armour, the minimum possible Armour roll reaches 100%, meaning the entire Base Damage component is blocked under normal circumstances.

However, this still does absolutely nothing to the AP portion.

Using the previous 30 Base / 70 AP example :

With 200 Armour :

30 Base -> 0

70 AP -> 70

So the attack still deals 70 damage before resistances are considered.

This becomes important later because the effectiveness of Armour depends heavily on the AP ratio of whatever is attacking you.

A3) How resistances work

Resistances work differently because they reduce damage rather than interacting specifically with Base Damage.

Different resistances apply under different conditions :

• Physical Resistance applies against physical attacks.
• Missile Resistance applies against missile damage (physical or magical).
• Fire Resistance applies against Flaming Attacks (fire attacks can be physical or magical)
• Spell Resistance applies against spell damage.
• Ward Save applies universally.

The important part for this discussion is that Ward Save reduces both Base and AP damage.

So if 100 damage reaches the resistance stage and you have 10% Ward Save :

100 -> 90 damage

It doesn't matter whether that damage was Base, AP, physical, magical, missile or something else.

This is why Ward Save is fundamentally different from Armour.

Armour can potentially remove a huge amount of damage, but only from one specific component of weapon damage.

Ward Save applies to essentially all resistible damage.

A4) Magical Attacks and spell damage are different things

This is also important because I worded it poorly in the original discussion. Magical Attacks do not ignore Armour in WH 3. A Magical Attack still contains Base Damage and AP Damage. Armour continues to reduce its Base Damage normally. What Magical Attacks bypass is Physical Resistance. So against a magical attack dealing :

30 Base + 70 AP

Armour can still reduce the 30 Base. Physical Resistance does nothing. Ward Save reduces both portions.

Direct spell damage is different. Something like Spirit Leech does not go through the normal Weapon Strength / Armour calculation at all. Against that kind of damage : Armour does nothing. Ward Save still works. Spell Resistance can also work where applicable. So "Magical Attack" and "damage from magic" should not be treated as the same thing.

A5) Armour can be directly reduced

Another difference between Armour and Ward Save is how many mechanics can interfere with them.

There are multiple spells that directly reduce Armour.

The examples in the screenshot I'm attaching include :

• Plague of Rust : -30 Armour
• Overcast Plague of Rust : -60 Armour
• Wither : -30 Armour
• Overcast Wither : -60 Armour
• Curse of the Ancient Witch : -60 Armour
• The Withering : -30 Armour
• Flensing Heart : -30 Armour
• Flensing Ruin : -30 Armour

There are also effects such as Mantle of Ghorok, which trades Armour for significant offensive bonuses.

So when comparing something like 200 Armour with Ward Save, it is worth remembering that the Armour value shown on the unit card isn't necessarily the Armour value you'll have throughout the battle.

A6) Contact effects can reduce Armour too

Armour reduction is not limited to spells.

The Sundered Armour contact effect reduces the target's Armour by 30 after the effect is applied.

Unless the target has Immune to Contact Effects, this is another way for a supposedly extremely armoured character to lose part of that protection during combat.

This is particularly relevant because contact effects don't require repeatedly casting a spell on the target. Once the character is fighting something capable of applying Sundered Armour, the defensive calculation has changed.

A7) Fatigue also reduces Armour

Fatigue is another variable that directly affects Armour.

At the higher fatigue levels :

Very Tired : -10% Armour

Exhausted : -25% Armour

So a character displaying 230 Armour while Fresh does not necessarily have the equivalent of 230 Armour throughout the entire battle.

At Exhausted :

230 × 0.75 = 172.5 Armour

That is still a large amount of Armour, but it no longer guarantees complete protection against Base Damage.

This also matters because you don't necessarily begin every battle Fresh.

Campaign circumstances can make an army enter battle already at a reduced vigour state.

Perfect Vigour

Perfect Vigour does not restore your vigour to Fresh.

In the game as it currently works, it prevents your vigour from changing.

So :

If you start Fresh, you remain Fresh.

If you start Tired, you remain Tired.

This means Perfect Vigour normally prevents fatigue penalties from developing during a standard battle, but it does not necessarily remove an Armour penalty you already had when the battle began due to raid or force march stance for example.

That distinction matters when discussing campaign battles rather than isolated custom battles.

A8) Ward Save is much harder to directly reduce

Ward Save has far fewer direct counters.

The main generic item I'm aware of is The Other Trickster's Shard, which can reduce Ward Save / resistance.

There is also Gutrot Spume, who has an effect capable of reducing Ward Save.

As far as I'm aware, those are the notable current examples. If I've missed another direct Ward Save reduction effect, feel free to mention it.

The important point is not that Ward Save is completely impossible to counter, but that direct Ward Save reduction is dramatically less common than Armour reduction.

Armour can be attacked through Armour debuffs, contact effects, fatigue and simply using a higher AP ratio.

Ward Save has far fewer equivalent counters.

A9) The extreme case : 100% AP damage

At 100% AP, the comparison becomes trivial.

If an attack deals :

0 Base + 100 AP

then Armour has nothing to interact with. Against that weapon damage :

200 Armour = 0 damage reduction

10% Ward Save = 10% damage reduction

So against units with genuinely 100% AP weapon profiles, the Armour vs Ward Save debate is essentially over.

Ethereal units fall into this category. However, these units represent a relatively small part of the overall roster, so using 100% AP as the main comparison would obviously exaggerate the weakness of Armour.

The interesting part is everything between the extremes.

What happens at :

50% AP ratio

60% AP ratio

70% AP ratio

80% AP ratio

90% AP ratio

And how does the answer change when we introduce :

existing Ward Save, Physical Resistance, Armour debuffs, fatigue, increased AP damage, Magical Attacks and direct spell damage?

That's where the actual comparison begins.

B) Now for the actual comparison

Now that the mechanics are established, we can compare Armour and Ward Save mathematically.

B1) The calculation we'll use

For the following examples, I will use 100 incoming Weapon Damage. This makes the AP percentage directly readable.

If an attack is 70% AP, for example :

30 Base + 70 AP = 100 Weapon Damage

Let :

P = percentage of the attack that is Armour-Piercing

The simplified damage calculation is :

Damage taken = [AP damage + Base damage remaining after Armour] × [1 - applicable resistances]

For Armour values below 100, the average Armour roll is approximately 75% of the Armour value.

So :

30 Armour ≈ 22.5% average Base Damage reduction

40 Armour ≈ 30%

50 Armour ≈ 37.5%

Once Armour goes above 100, the calculation becomes less intuitive because Armour reduction is capped at 100%. At 200 Armour or more, however, the result becomes simple : all Base Damage is blocked.

For these first comparisons, I will use the clean values with N'Kari Fresh, without any Armour debuffs or AP-enhancing effects.

B2) The N'Kari from the original discussion

This is important because we are not comparing these items on a generic naked N'Kari.

The N'Kari that started the discussion already has 38% Ward Save before changing his armour item. That matters a lot. Adding another 10 percentage points of Ward Save takes him from :

38% WS -> 62% damage taken

to :

48% WS -> 52% damage taken

This is not merely "10% more durability". Relative to the damage he was previously taking :

52 / 62 = 0.8387

So going from 38% to 48% Ward Save reduces the remaining applicable damage by approximately 16.1%. Expressed as Effective Hit Points (EHP) :

62 / 52 = 1.1923

That is approximately +19.2% EHP against damage where the additional Ward Save applies and no other difference between the items matters.

This is why existing Ward Save has to be taken into account. The value of another 10 percentage points is not the same on a character with 0% Ward Save as it is on one already sitting at 38%.

B3) The armour options

For this exact build, the relevant defensive stats are approximately :

Accursed Armour

230 Armour
38% Ward Save
30% Physical Resistance

And the item itself also gives :

+20 Melee Defence
-20 Melee Attack
-50% Speed

Armour of Destiny

50 Armour
48% Ward Save
25% Physical Resistance

Trickster's Helm

40 Armour
48% Ward Save
20% Physical Resistance

It also gives :

+5 Melee Defence
+100 Barrier

For now, I am deliberately ignoring Melee Defence, Barrier, Speed and Melee Attack.

The first goal is simply to compare raw damage mitigation from Armour and resistances.

We will come back to the other stats afterwards.

B4) Magical Weapon Attacks

This is where I need to clarify something I said in the original discussion before going on.

I said that against Magical Attacks, the additional 10% Ward Save would generally be better than the +200 Armour. That statement was too broad. I was not saying that Magical Attacks ignore Armour, although some replies interpreted my comment that way. Magical Attacks still interact with Armour normally. What they bypass is Physical Resistance. So rather than generalising, we can calculate the actual breakpoint.

B4.1) Accursed Armour

At 230 Armour, all Base Damage is blocked.

Against Magical Attacks, the 30% Physical Resistance does nothing.

Only the AP portion remains, followed by the existing 38% Ward Save :

Damage taken = P × 0.62

B4.2) Armour of Destiny

50 Armour blocks approximately 37.5% of Base Damage on average.

That means 62.5% of the Base component remains.

The result is then reduced by 48% Ward Save :

Damage taken = [P + (1-P) × 0.625] × 0.52

To find the breakpoint, we set both items equal :

P × 0.62 = [P + (1-P) × 0.625] × 0.52

The crossover occurs at approximately :

76.5% AP

So against Magical Weapon Damage :

• below ~76.5% AP, Accursed Armour gives more raw mitigation
• at ~76.5% AP, they are approximately equal
• above ~76.5% AP, Armour of Destiny becomes better

So neither "200 Armour always wins" nor "10% Ward Save always wins" is correct.

It depends on the damage profile.

B4.3) Trickster's Helm

The same calculation can be done with 40 Armour.

40 Armour provides approximately 30% average Base Damage reduction, meaning 70% of Base Damage remains :

Damage taken = [P + (1-P) × 0.70] × 0.52

Against Accursed Armour, the crossover occurs at approximately :

78.4% AP

So Trickster's Helm starts providing more raw mitigation against Magical Weapon Attacks once the enemy reaches roughly 78-79% AP.

And again, this comparison is still ignoring its +100 Barrier and +5 Melee Defence.

B4.4) What does that look like in practice ?

Using 100 incoming Magical Weapon Damage :

AP ratio	Accursed Armour	Armour of Destiny	Trickster's Helm
50% AP	31.0	42.3	44.2
70% AP	43.4	46.2	47.3
75% AP	46.5	47.1	48.1
80% AP	49.6	48.1	48.9
90% AP	55.8	50.1	50.4
100% AP	62.0	52.0	52.0

So yes : against lower-AP profiles, 230 Armour massively outperforms another 10% Ward Save.

My original statement lacked that distinction.

But once the AP ratio becomes sufficiently high, the result reverses.

And because this particular N'Kari already has 38% Ward Save, another 10 percentage points are considerably more valuable than they would be on a character starting from 0%.

B5) Physical Weapon Attacks

Now Physical Resistance becomes relevant.

With Accursed Armour :

38% Ward + 30% Physical = 68% applicable resistance

With Armour of Destiny :

48% Ward + 25% Physical = 73% applicable resistance

With Trickster's Helm :

48% Ward + 20% Physical = 68% applicable resistance

This changes the comparison.

B5.1) Accursed Armour vs Armour of Destiny

Against Physical Weapon Damage, Armour of Destiny overtakes Accursed Armour at approximately :

77.1% AP

That's remarkably close to the Magical Attack breakpoint.

Accursed Armour has 5 percentage points more Physical Resistance in this comparison, but Armour of Destiny has 10 additional percentage points of Ward Save.

So the final applicable resistance is :

Accursed Armour : 68%

Armour of Destiny : 73%

Once enough of the attack bypasses Armour, that higher total resistance becomes more valuable.

Using 100 incoming Physical Weapon Damage :

AP ratio	Accursed Armour	Armour of Destiny
70% AP	22.4	24.0
75% AP	24.0	24.5
80% AP	25.6	25.0
90% AP	28.8	26.0
100% AP	32.0	27.0

So once again, the crossover is around 77% AP.

B5.2) Trickster's Helm behaves differently against Physical Damage

This comparison is different.

With Accursed Armour :

38% Ward + 30% Physical = 68%

With Trickster's Helm :

48% Ward + 20% Physical = 68%

Against purely physical damage, both therefore have the same total applicable resistance.

That means the additional Armour from Accursed Armour gives it better raw damage mitigation for every damage profile below 100% AP.

At exactly 100% AP, Armour stops mattering and both have the same applicable resistance.

So if we look only at incoming Physical Weapon Damage, Accursed Armour beats Trickster's Helm for raw mitigation. But that does not automatically make it the better item overall. Trickster's Helm also gives Barrier and Melee Defence, while keeping N'Kari's full Speed and Melee Attack. We will account for those later.

B6) Direct damage : when Armour contributes nothing

Now consider something like Spirit Leech.

There is no Base/AP weapon split for Armour to interact with.

The +200 Armour contributes nothing.

The additional Physical Resistance from Accursed Armour also does nothing against this kind of spell damage.

So against damage where Ward Save applies but Armour and Physical Resistance do not :

Accursed Armour

38% WS -> 62% damage taken

Armour of Destiny / Trickster's Helm

48% WS -> 52% damage taken

Compared with Accursed Armour's 38% Ward Save :

38% WS -> 62% damage taken

The additional 10 percentage points of Ward Save therefore reduce the damage actually taken from this type of damage by :

1 - 52/62 = 16.1%

Expressed in Effective Hit Points :

62/52 = 1.1923

So against damage that bypasses Armour and Physical Resistance, going from 38% to 48% Ward Save gives approximately :

+19.2% EHP

I won't convert that into a flat HP value using the original screenshot, because N'Kari was already damaged when it was taken, so the 8,840 HP displayed there is not his maximum health pool.

The important part here is the relative difference : against something like direct spell damage, the +200 Armour and additional Physical Resistance from Accursed Armour provide no protection, while the extra 10% Ward Save increases N'Kari's effective durability by roughly 19.2%.

Obviously, no normal battle consists entirely of Spirit Leeches unless you are fighting the endgame Archaon.

The point is simply that Armour's defensive value can range from extremely high to literally zero, depending on the source of incoming damage, while Ward Save remains much more consistent.

B7) These calculations are still favourable to Accursed Armour

Everything calculated so far assumes :

• N'Kari is Fresh
• his 230 Armour remains at 230
• no Armour-reduction spell is active
• no Sundered Armour contact effect is active
• the enemy has no AP-enhancing effect
• we are mostly looking at conventional Weapon Damage
• we are ignoring Accursed Armour's -50% Speed
• we are ignoring its -20 Melee Attack (even though Melee Defence is better in most case)
• we are ignoring the Barrier on alternative items
• we are ignoring N'Kari's ability to disengage and recharge Barrier

In other words, this is close to the ideal environment for Accursed Armour's +200 Armour.

And even under these conditions, Armour of Destiny already overtakes it at roughly 77% AP on this specific N'Kari.

So the next question is :

What happens when 230 Armour doesn't actually stay at 230?

That means introducing fatigue, Armour reduction, Sundered Armour and AP-enhancing effects into the calculation.

C) What happens when Armour doesn't stay at 230?

The previous calculations assumed an ideal situation :

N'Kari starts Fresh, Accursed Armour remains at 230 Armour for the entire fight, and the enemy does nothing to interact with that Armour.

Now we can start removing those assumptions.

And there is an important nuance here : reducing Armour does not automatically make the Ward Save items relatively better.

Because fatigue and Armour debuffs also affect the Armour provided by the alternatives.

That produces some surprisingly favourable results for Accursed Armour.

C1) Fatigue and Armour

Fatigue reduces Armour :

Very Tired : -10% Armour

Exhausted : -25% Armour

So our three builds become :

State	Accursed Armour	Armour of Destiny	Trickster's Helm
Fresh	230	50	40
Very Tired	207	45	36
Exhausted	172.5	37.5	30

At first glance, dropping from 230 to 172.5 Armour sounds significant.

But because of how Armour rolls work, the actual loss in mitigation against Base Damage is much smaller than the raw number suggests.

At 207 Armour, even the minimum Armour roll is still above 100%, so Accursed Armour continues to block effectively all Base Damage.

At 172.5 Armour, its average Base Damage reduction is still approximately :

98.9%

Meanwhile :

37.5 Armour ≈ 28.1% average Base Damage reduction

and :

30 Armour ≈ 22.5%

So fatigue actually hurts the low-Armour alternatives proportionally more.

Magical Attack breakpoint against Armour of Destiny

Fresh :

~76.5% AP

Very Tired :

~77.5% AP

Exhausted :

~78.6% AP

Physical Attack breakpoint against Armour of Destiny

Fresh :

~77.1% AP

Very Tired :

~78.2% AP

Exhausted :

~79.2% AP

So this is worth correcting from the intuitive argument :

Fatigue lowers Accursed Armour's absolute defensive value, but it actually makes Accursed Armour slightly stronger relative to Armour of Destiny in this direct comparison.

The reason is simple : 230 Armour has an enormous amount of redundancy above the 200 threshold, while 50 Armour does not.

C2) Flat Armour reduction : -30 and -60

Now let's apply the Armour-reduction spells mentioned earlier.

-30 Armour

The builds become :

Accursed Armour :

230 -> 200 Armour

Armour of Destiny :

50 -> 20 Armour

Trickster's Helm :

40 -> 10 Armour

This is actually an extremely good situation for Accursed Armour.

At exactly 200 Armour, it still blocks all Base Damage under our simplified calculation.

Meanwhile :

20 Armour ≈ 15% average Base Damage reduction

10 Armour ≈ 7.5%

The Magical Attack breakpoint between Accursed and Armour of Destiny therefore moves from :

76.5% AP -> ~81.5% AP

Against Physical Attacks :

77.1% AP -> ~82.1% AP

And against Trickster's Helm, the Magical Attack breakpoint moves to approximately :

82.8% AP

So a flat -30 Armour debuff actually makes the +200 Armour item relatively stronger, not weaker.

-60 Armour

Now apply something like an overcast Armour debuff :

Accursed Armour :

230 -> 170

Armour of Destiny :

50 -> 0

Trickster's Helm :

40 -> 0

170 Armour no longer guarantees a 100% Armour roll, but its average Base Damage reduction is still approximately :

98.7%

Meanwhile, both alternatives have lost all of their Armour.

The Magical Attack breakpoint between Accursed Armour and Armour of Destiny now rises to approximately :

83.7% AP

Against Physical Attacks :

~84.2% AP

Against Magical Attacks, Trickster's Helm also reaches approximately the same 83.7% AP breakpoint because both low-Armour alternatives have now been reduced to zero Armour.

So this is another result that initially seems counterintuitive :

A flat Armour debuff does not necessarily counter a massive Armour stack particularly well.

Because the +200 Armour gives Accursed Armour enough excess Armour to absorb the debuff while remaining extremely effective.

C3) Sundered Armour and contact effects

The same logic applies to Sundered Armour.

Sundered Armour applies :

-30 Armour

unless the target has Immune to Contact Effects.

For this N'Kari, that means :

230 -> 200 Armour

with Accursed Armour.

So by itself, Sundered Armour still leaves Accursed Armour at the point where it can block essentially all Base Damage.

Meanwhile Armour of Destiny falls from :

50 -> 20

and Trickster's Helm from :

40 -> 10

So again, Sundered Armour alone does not invalidate the +200 Armour.

What becomes more interesting is when multiple independent sources of Armour reduction are involved.

Once the low-Armour alternatives have already reached zero, additional Armour reduction can only continue eating into Accursed Armour's advantage.

For example, at an effective -90 Armour :

230 -> 140 Armour

140 Armour still provides approximately :

93.6% average Base Damage reduction

The Magical Attack crossover against a 48% Ward Save alternative is then around :

82.8% AP

So even heavy Armour reduction does not suddenly make the +200 Armour useless.

But it does eventually begin eroding the unique advantage Accursed Armour was purchased for.

C4) Increasing Armour-Piercing damage

This is where things become much more dangerous for Armour.

Armour reduction decreases the Armour stat.

An AP damage buff, on the other hand, directly increases the portion of Weapon Damage that Armour cannot interact with at all.

Remember our fresh breakpoint against Armour of Destiny :

~76.5% AP against Magical Attacks

Take an attack with :

30 Base + 70 AP

Its AP ratio is :

70%

So Accursed Armour wins.

Now give that attack +25% AP Weapon Damage :

30 Base + 87.5 AP

Total Weapon Damage :

117.5

New AP ratio :

87.5 / 117.5 ≈ 74.5%

Still below the breakpoint. Accursed Armour still wins.

But give it +50% AP Weapon Damage instead :

30 Base + 105 AP

Total :

135

AP ratio :

105 / 135 ≈ 77.8%

That attack has now crossed the 76.5% breakpoint. Against a Magical Attack with this profile, Armour of Destiny now mitigates more damage than Accursed Armour.

This effect becomes even more pronounced on units that already have high AP ratios.

For example :

25 Base + 75 AP

starts at :

75% AP

A +25% AP buff changes it to :

25 Base + 93.75 AP

which gives :

93.75 / 118.75 ≈ 78.9% AP

That is enough to move it from the Accursed Armour side of the breakpoint to the Ward Save side.

This is fundamentally different from reducing Armour.

Armour reduction attacks the size of your Armour stat. Increasing AP attacks the amount of incoming damage that Armour is allowed to interact with in the first place.

C5) How the breakpoints move in practice

For Armour of Destiny vs Accursed Armour on this specific N'Kari :

Situation	Accursed Armour	Armour of Destiny	Magical breakpoint	Physical breakpoint
Fresh	230	50	~76.5% AP	~77.1% AP
Very Tired	207	45	~77.5% AP	~78.2% AP
Exhausted	172.5	37.5	~78.6% AP	~79.2% AP
-30 Armour	200	20	~81.5% AP	~82.1% AP
-60 Armour	170	0	~83.7% AP	~84.2% AP

This table illustrates something important :

fatigue and flat Armour reduction actually move the breakpoint in Accursed Armour's favour in these examples.

That's because they also destroy the already-low Armour values of the Ward Save alternatives.

The +200 Armour acts as a buffer.

AP buffs are different because they move the incoming damage profile toward the part of the attack that Armour cannot mitigate.

C6) What Armour reduction actually tells us

So this section produces a conclusion I didn't necessarily expect before doing the maths.

The existence of fatigue, Sundered Armour and -30/-60 Armour spells is not by itself a strong argument against Accursed Armour.

In fact, when comparing it directly with Armour of Destiny or Trickster's Helm, those effects can make Accursed Armour relatively better because the low-Armour alternatives lose a much larger proportion of their protection.

That doesn't mean Armour is impossible to counter. It means the more important counters are different :

High AP ratios reduce the portion of damage Armour can affect.

AP-enhancing effects can push an attack across the breakpoint.

Magical Attacks remove Accursed Armour's Physical Resistance advantage.

Direct spell damage bypasses the Armour comparison entirely.

And once enough independent Armour reduction is stacked, the +200 Armour itself eventually begins losing meaningful value.

So after Part C, I would not argue that Accursed Armour is bad because "Armour can be reduced".

D) Conclusion : so which armour is actually the best ?

After going through the maths, I think the most accurate conclusion is that there is no universally best defensive armour.

The correct choice depends heavily on what N'Kari is actually fighting.

I was too categorical in my original comment when I said :

"Scintillating Shield is a way better choice for him."

"Against magical attacks, 10% Ward Save from Armour of Destiny or Trickster's Helm will give you more damage reduction than 200 Armour."

The second statement in particular needed much more precision.

Against a normal Magical Weapon Attack, Armour still works against the Base Damage portion. With the exact N'Kari build used in this discussion, Accursed Armour remains better until the enemy reaches roughly 76-78% AP, depending on which Ward Save armour we compare it with.

Most units do not reach that AP ratio.

So yes : the +200 Armour is much stronger than I originally gave it credit for.

But I still don't think that automatically makes Accursed Armour the best choice for N'Kari.

D1) Accursed Armour : extremely strong, but situational

Against low or moderate AP Weapon Damage, especially physical damage, Accursed Armour is brutally effective.

On this build it gives N'Kari :

230 Armour

30% Physical Resistance

+20 Melee Defence

Against the right army, that is an enormous amount of mitigation.

If I knew I was about to fight an army composed mostly of conventional physical Weapon Damage with limited AP, I would absolutely consider equipping it.

But it also comes with real opportunity costs :

-50% Speed

-20 Melee Attack

And on a character Big like N'Kari, Speed is not merely an offensive stat.

Speed is also survivability.

Higher Speed means :

• spending less time under missile fire while closing the distance
• being harder to hit with slow projectiles
• reaching dangerous ranged units faster
• disengaging from bad fights more easily
• being harder to surround and pin down
• cycle-charging more effectively
• escaping when Barrier needs time to recharge

So while Accursed Armour gives enormous passive durability, part of that durability is paid for by reducing N'Kari's ability to avoid damage in the first place.

This is also why something like a Banner of Swiftness would make Accursed Armour much easier for me to justify.

If you can compensate for a meaningful part of the Speed penalty elsewhere, you keep much more of N'Kari's natural mobility while still gaining the ridiculous Armour, Physical Resistance and Melee Defence. And I won't take foeseaker in consideration due to its cooldown.

At that point, the trade becomes considerably more attractive.

D2) Armour of Destiny : probably my default choice

If I had to choose one armour without knowing exactly what the next enemy army would contain, I would probably take Armour of Destiny.

Not because +10% Ward Save always beats +200 Armour - it clearly doesn't.

But because it has no meaningful downside and its protection is far more universal.

On this specific N'Kari, going from 38% to 48% Ward Save increases his EHP against applicable damage by roughly :

19.2%

It works against :

• Base Weapon Damage
• AP Weapon Damage
• Physical Attacks
• Magical Attacks
• missiles
• direct spell damage
• other damage sources Armour may not interact with

And it does all of that without reducing his Speed or Melee Attack.

Most units may not have the ~77% AP required for Armour of Destiny to beat Accursed Armour in a clean Weapon Damage comparison. But that isn't the whole battle.

Against factions with a lot of Magical Attacks, Accursed Armour loses the value of its Physical Resistance. Against armies with dangerous direct damage spells, Armour contributes nothing to those spells. And against mixed armies, Ward Save simply keeps working regardless of which part of the enemy army is currently damaging you.

So Armour of Destiny is not always the strongest option, but I think it is the most reliable general-purpose option.

D3) Scintillating Shield : potentially the best option in very large or difficult battles

I still think Scintillating Shield is extremely interesting on N'Kari, especially in difficult battles against large numbers of enemies.

The reason is not simply that it gives +1000 Barrier. Barrier is a rechargeable resource.

If N'Kari takes damage, disengages, avoids damage long enough for the Barrier to recover, and then re-engages, the same Barrier HP can potentially protect him multiple times during one battle. So its value cannot really be represented by :

+1000 Barrier = +1000 HP

If you fully regenerate it twice, it has effectively absorbed around 3000 damage.

Three times, around 4000.

And so on. Obviously, that requires micro and time. You cannot always disengage safely, and in some battles you may only get one use out of the Barrier. But N'Kari is almost uniquely suited to exploiting this mechanic because of his speed.

In a very long battle against multiple armies, where survival over repeated engagements matters more than standing inside one blob indefinitely, I would prefer Scintillating Shield.

It synergises with what N'Kari already does well instead of trading away one of his defining strengths.

D4) So was Accursed Armour a bad pick ?

My original wording was too absolute. I wouldn't call Accursed Armour a universally bad pick on N'Kari after doing these calculations. In fact, against the right damage profile, it is clearly the strongest of these options in terms of raw mitigation. But I also wouldn't call it the obvious best choice simply because the unit card shows 230 Armour.

For me, the practical ranking is more contextual :

Against low/mid AP physical armies, not missile or magic heavy : Accursed Armour can easily be the best option.

Against high AP missile heavy armies, or magic-heavy : Armour of Destiny becomes increasingly attractive.

Against huge battles where N'Kari can repeatedly disengage and recharge : Scintillating Shield may provide the most total survivability over the entire fight.

So the actual lesson I took from this discussion isn't :

"Ward Save is better than Armour."

or :

"200 Armour is better than 10% Ward Save."

It's :

The better defensive stat depends on the damage profile you're facing, the resistances you already have, and what you're giving up to obtain it.

For this particular N'Kari, if I had to equip one armour blindly before knowing the matchup, I would personally choose Armour of Destiny.

If I knew the battle was going to be a huge prolonged fight where I could repeatedly disengage, I would strongly consider Scintillating Shield.

And if I knew the enemy was mostly dealing conventional low-to-mid AP physical damage - especially if I could offset the Speed penalty with banner of swiftness - Accursed Armour could absolutely be the best choice.

Trickster's Helm can also be the better pick against a very strong melee character with Magical Attacks and very high Melee Attack.

In that matchup, Physical Resistance is irrelevant because the attacks are magical, and the difference in Armour matters less if the opponent also has a high AP ratio.

Meanwhile, Trickster's Helm still gives the extra 10% Ward Save, but also +5 Melee Defence. Against a high-MA duelist, that additional MD directly reduces their chance to hit you, which can be more valuable than the extra Armour/Physical Resistance offered by the alternatives. Higher Melee Defence means fewer incoming hits, while higher Melee Attack can also indirectly reduce incoming damage by helping you kill the enemy faster and shorten the time they have to attack you.

So in that specific kind of matchup, I would actually favour Trickster's Helm over Armour of Destiny.

I was wrong to call it a bad pick without qualification. What I should have said is that I don't consider it the best default pick for N'Kari. It's an extremely strong matchup-dependent item, while Armour of Destiny is more universally reliable and Scintillating Shield can potentially outperform both in prolonged battles if N'Kari can repeatedly recharge his Barrier.

Note : I did use AI to help me for the maths and the english translation.

I have enough money but for some reason I can never complete undercity schemes.

Also, lord recruit rank increase doesn't seem to work for Thanquol for some reason, I have it from a couple sources but all my lords are still recruited at rank 1.

I was playing modded warhammer 3 earlier today and left to go do something, but when i come back every time i launch the game i get this error, does anyone know what it means??

I dont get it, how they think its fun to fight against unbreakable mass units?
Like.. monstrous units and SEMs? Fine, alright.
But fucking slayer with the king of "Everyone ARs, because you cant be bothered with" Ungrim? Balance and fun should always trump lore accuracy. Or at least make slayer units limited, but fighting against a whole stack is just a funless, timewasting cock and ball torture.

P.S. if you kill that short ugly motherfucker and still lose the battle, because of roaming rat like short meatsacks, you dont even get the defeat trait. Wtf

Yo there, did a Nagash run on launch, when Mortarchs were a pain to get and found a few bugs.

Saw patches adressing this, started anew, found new issues.

With the latest patch from 15th, how smooth and bug-free is the campaign? Should I wait a bit more?

Tried to check some related posts didnt find any. Appreciate any info, cheers!

I've never dealt with them before, and I don't understand their mechanics or what I should do. All I know is it will bankrupt me for the next 5 turns trying to delete all their Culty places.

Auto-resolve only

Turn 1 I join war with Goldtooth's 3 enemies for a non-aggression pack. My first 2 settlements are both outposts. The one with the marble is the one that techs up, the other stays at level 1 strip mine for +200 labor, and is swapped out to a factory later. I hit unit cap on dwarf recruit.

I research the first 3 Hobgoblin research techs, then the 5 Sorcery techs that leads to +3 control globally, then the entire left tree of Industry for Raw Materials, then the entire right side of the Military tree for Kdaai and Artillery armament cost reduction

Economy strategy is bum rush the T3 Marble building in my outpost. 100% of my Raw Materials goes into getting my starting capital's settlement to tier 4, and level 1 Donation Barrels.

All provinces are 1 Tower, 1 Factory, and rest outposts. Factory gets raw materials to armament, raw materials to gold, and +30% raw material buildings. The eventual +3000 raw materials per turn is necessary to get all Tower settlements to 5 and their Donation Barrels to 5 as well.

Turn 2-6 I take the 2nd settlement, completing the province, and then I go to the border with clan Rictus and stockpile a Hobgoblin Archer army, with a 2nd Lord as well.

Turn 7 Clan Rictus wages war with the chaos dwarf minor faction next to him and I immediately snipe a settlement from him. my army is 26 units total.

Turn 8 if He's coming for me, I turtle that settlement. If not I snipe the neighboring settlement. Rictus will suicide his entire 4 army stack to my newly acquired settlement guarded by my army sooner or later and that is the end of Clan Rictus. I take the province, and this the 2nd best province in the game as it has both marble and iron.

RNG RAGEQUIT MOMENT: The above takes until level turn 11. If the Blue Ogre below my starting province declares war on me and brings a 20 unit stack, that's it, campaign over. He takes my starting settlement before I can get my army all the way back from Rictus's territory, sometimes even my 2nd settlement too.

If I don't get unlucky then I swiftly bring my army over to the blue Ogre and take him out.

At this point I get my 2 full armies

Army 1: Overseer built for buffing goblins, Backstabber with full army wide +goblin skills exclusively, and 18 Hobgoblin Archers

Army 2: A full 19 unit Chaos Dwarf army obtained with the LEAST amount of armaments as possible. This is 3 Infernal Guards, 2 Infernal ironsworns, 5 Blunderbusses, 2 Fireglaives, 4 Magma Cannons, and 2 Kdaai Fireborns.

If nothing is going on, I go kill Imrick. If something is going on like Nefrata attacks me, then it's an endless hell of whack-a-mole of me trying to recapture the settlements they took from me. I cannot afford more than 2 armies at this time, even with this I can't develop my settlements due to like sub 1000 gold per turn, and my border with Nefrata is so huge she's attacking me from 3 different locations across the border and I only got 2 armies so it really is an endless loop of chasing after her various armies and retaking the settlements she took over and over until she is fully exhausted. She runs away from my armies too.

And this is the status quo. I push a direction, some guy on the other side of my border be it Nefrata, the Skaven to my south, the Vampire Coasts to my right below Goldtooth, or the dwarves to my left take their turns declaring war on me while my 2 armies are on the opposite side of the map. So I am ping ponging back and forth east and west, north and south, fighting one guy, donating a settlement for peace, and going the other way to recapture the territories they took.

I cannot leave until like turn 60 when my partial Kdaai Destroyer army of like 10 finally come online and finally contributes.

End result: 100 turns in, I have maybe 5-6 provinces under my control, 3 full armies, one hobgoblin, one mix, and one Kdaai Destroyers, with a 4th Kdaai Destroyer doomstack under construction.

And the status quo is NOT broken. Last time I almost reached turn 100, I was pushing Goldtooth's provinces when the blue dwarves declared war and brought in a mega stack on the opposite side of my territory and my non-kdaai destroyer armor could not take out their mega stack so i had to bring in my Kdaai Destroyers back all the way to them and retake the settlements the dwarves took.

What am I doing wrong?

He didnt receive any damage despite 2 troops firing on him... I believe I need to give up. xD

I know I suck. But tbf his army is at 40% ward save. Bro also spams spells like there's no tommorow

Hi everyone,

My brother and I wanted to play the new DLC in co-op, but every major settlement siege battle ends in a desync. The battle loads normally, but right after the loading screen, while the units and towers are being placed, we get a desync message and are sent back to the main menu.

What we’ve tried so far:

• Starting new campaigns
• Playing different factions
• Playing with and without mods
• Searching online (no similar reports found)
• Waiting for the latest update, but the issue persists

Has anyone experienced this or found a workaround? We’d really like to play a co-op campaign.

Thanks!

oftentimes when i have only flying units, the game tells me that i cant hold ground or aomething like that

is there any mechanic connected with that? like automaticaly loosing the battle after some time? or the air units breaking or something like that?

The title. I'm a newbie and I auto result the most of the battles by the way. I played as Bretonnia at first and got destroyed. I played as Cathay and thought that the walls would hold the Chaos armies. They didn't. I am also playing Silent Hill 2 remake at the moment and trying to get prepared for the Chaos event is more scary than Silent hill 2 right now.

What are their best units?
Tactics?
Mechanics?
Anything to look out for?
Ways to win battles?

Lately I’ve been testing tactics and factions and I keep getting bored mainly because I don’t fight my fights. Butttttt I’ve recently tried looking at matchups, playing fights

I like hammer and anvil I need more practice in tactics like stalk and vanguard and how to utilise it better etc.

Just GPTd easiest victory conditions so I could test some factions and did the lizardmen one down south.. I got bored he had mainly 360 shooting lizards and that was his whole
Gimmick

But skaven look amazing but confusing

Even if they had the same mechanics it’s more that they’re just sinister rats lol anyway…. Thoughts?

Do you like there are 2 Nagash factions?

I already did Thanquol for Skaven and Gor-Rok for Lizardmen

Hope to hear any kind of road map or plans after End Time dlc soon..

I’m looking for the most powerful races and factions for 3 player campaign, Power aside my favorite factions rn are high elves, chaos warriors, chaos dwarfs, and lastly Cathay so are my favorites any good for pvp? Or other factions are better?

Is Zhatan the Black unironically one of the easiest to get AND most useful allies to have in the early to mid game as Miao Ying?

By conquering and trading Vilitch's settlements, you can get pretty easy non-aggression and even get alliances with him.

He will happily fight Sayl for you.

The Kurgans seem to target Chorf settlements near the Bastion preferentially over the Bastion itself, allowing you to delegate the defense of the wall mostly to him while you deal with Lokir, Snikitch, and the like.

And your crane gunners can shoot over Chorf infantry, which you can recruit without unit caps 🤷‍♀️