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A long-awaited addition toTotal War: Warhammer 3,the Chaos Dwarfs bring an all-new playstyle and some formidable units to the battlefield. Situated primarily in the Darklands, the Dawi-Zharr’s engines of war might take some getting used to, but they are extremely powerful once you get the infernal ball rolling.
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This guide will teach you all the fundamentals of playing the Chaos Dwarfs faction in Warhammer 3. If you’re starting out and want to see them, this guide includes beginner’s tips, preferred playstyle, best units, unique mechanics, legendary lords, and more.
Chaos Dwarfs Playstyle
In the lore, the corrupted cousins of the Dawi revolved around a slave economy, utilising labourers to mine materials for their massive factories, from which they created demonic engines of war and destruction.
This theme permeates all facets of the Chaos Dwarf playstyle, as they can field not onlyhigh-tech artillery and mechanical creationsbut alsocheap chaff, tosoak up the enemy fire and protect their limited but more powerful units.
Iterating on the Beastmen’sunit capacity system, you are initially very limited on how many good units you can recruit. Toupgrade your capacitiesyou will need to spend Armaments, and it can take quite a few turns before you can build up a good supply.
To offset these limitations,you can field any number of Hobgoblin and Labourer units, which will make up the bulk of your early-game armies.
Like other cheap units, they won’t be particularly powerful, but you can find some nice bargains, and it should be easy to field a full-sized stack early on in your campaign.
Once your engine of war has been built up, you can start to ramp up your strong unit numbers.Tanky infantry, devastating missiles, powerful cavalry, and elite artilleryall combine to make amax-rank Chaos Dwarf armya terrifying sight.
Access to some excellent lores of magic, including the newLore of Hashut,will back up your armies with a good variety of spells, and it can be argued thatthe Chaos Dwarfs have one of the most well-rounded rosters in the entire game.
In the early game,Hobgoblin unitscanform the backbone of your armiesand are especially powerful when boosted by your legendary hero;Gorduz Backstabber.
Unique Mechanics
Labourers
The key resource to managing your interconnected infrastructure isLabourers. These can be capturedpost-battle, as a reward frommilitary convoys,and whenoccupyingsettlements.
You must try to maximise your Labourers, especially in the early game, asthey are required to power your Raw Material buildings.
This is thefirst interaction that you need to focuson when creating your Chaos Dwarf infrastructure, so try and build up a nice supply early on, as slower periods in the game will see you continually lose labour amounts.
Labourers slowly decay over time(sped up by lowControl), so it is important to try and constantly bring in fresh supplies.
You can manage how your Labourers are exported via theLabour panel, whereby you can manage your provincial intakes and directly give and take Labourers between your provinces.
Keeping yourEfficiencyas high as possible will increase your Raw Material production, so try and keep a healthy balance across all of your provinces, as higher numbers will proportionally decrease yourControl.
Labourers can be directlysacrificedin the Labour Panel to provide certain benefits. They can either:
Although you should try to keep all your provinces stocked with enough Labourers, you shouldprioritise ones with any bonuses to Raw Material output.
Outposts And Factories
To spend your Labourers, you require either special unique buildings in yourTowersettlements or toconstruct Outposts. These are settlements designed togenerate Raw Materials, which can later be turned intoArmaments.
Try to keep your Raw Materials ticking upwards, andin the early game, you can prioritise Raw Materials over Armaments, as you will want to be spending them on increasing yourTowerlevels.
Once you have a steady supply of Raw Materials, you can beginoccupying or converting settlements into Factories. These will take a supply of Raw Materials each turn and convert them into bothArmamentsandGold.
Factories are useless without enough Raw Material supply, so only build one when you are sure you can properly run it.
As the game goes on, and you get more and more resources, you can worry less about min-maxing your supply and demand, but in the early game, you need to focus on keeping a healthy production line.
An essential component in increasing your power, yourArmaments can be spent on powerful technologies, increasing yourunit capacities, building yourbest Tower buildings, and increasing the power of your armies via theHell Forge.
Due to theMiners' Workshopbuilding chain in Factories,try to have a Factory in each province you plan on owning functioning Outposts, as you’re able to passively increase your Raw Material output.
The Hell Forge
One of the main ways to spend your Armaments is theHell Forge. Split between theArmouryandManufactory, this system enables you toincrease your supply of elite troops and upgrade them with various augments.
Your initial goal in the forge is tospend Armaments to increase the capacityof whichever units you can recruit. It is no use increasing the cap if you are unable to make use of it, so try topre-plan which buildings you want to build in your Towers before committing Armaments into the Hell Forge.
Increasing certain unit capacities by specified amounts will unlock theManufactory. While not super relevant early game,late game this becomes amajor Armament drain, as you will be fielding lots of units and can augment them with multiple buffs.
Depending on how far you have increased a unit’s capacity will dictate what augments are available to you. These will drainArmaments per turn,depending on how many units will be utilising the buffs.
Selecting an augment willbuff all units of that type, so attempt to consider which ones you feel will complement your current forces.
Military Convoys
Able to be accessedonturn five,Military Convoys are very similar toCathay’s Caravansystem. You will be able torecruit Convoy Masters, who will be sent off to the far-flung reaches of the world in search of trade.
You can manually decide which resources you want to target and which you are ok with spending. In the early game,spending some Gold to get Raw Materials or Labourersis probably the best offer, as you likely won’t have the Armament supply to freely be able to trade them away.
Later on,Armaments make for some of the best dealsand can result in huge amounts ofGoldorLabourers.
Different Convoys will take different amounts of turns to complete, and you will encounter randomised events depending on their travel route. These can destroy your convoy if you are not careful, sotry gaining some levels with quicker and easier journeysbefore tackling the more lucrative ones.
Different Convoy Masters come armed withdifferent buffs, so try to experiment to find ones that eithergenerate more lootor canmore easily defend themselvesfrom attack on the road.
The Tower Of Zharr
The final resource the Chaos Dwarfs have access to isConclave Influence. This can be generated viauniquebuildingsor simply byowning settlementsand is a way to buy certain permanent faction effects.
You will compete with other Chaos Dwarf factionsfor these effects, so be sure to choose wisely, as they vary greatly in potency, and Conclave Influence can take a long time to build up.
The Tower of Zharr is split up intoSeatsandDistricts. These are essentially talent nodes divided into sections, andwhen a section is filled, it will unlock a passive effect. Oncetwo of the three Districtshave been completed, the next tier of Seats will unlock.
In addition to sharing the tree with other Chaos Dwarfs, you cansteal Conclave seatsfrom them bypayingadditional Influence. This will make them angry with you but can be a great way of maintaining a hold over the most important seats.
Once a district is completed,all Chaos Dwarfs will gain the district buff, so you may work cooperatively to try and gain as many of these buffs as possible. As the Conclave tiers progress, the seats will cost more and more Influence to purchase.
A good strategy can be tosave up Influence for higher tier seatswhileletting the A.I. purchase the worst lower tier ones, thereby unlocking the next tier for you to jump in.
Three
Military
The fourth and final tier of Seats contains three special effects, whereby it willConfederatespecified Chaos Dwarf factions. Note thatyou cannot Confederate other players.
Legendary Lords
The Chaos Dwarfs come with a choice ofthree Legendary Lordsand oneLegendary Hero.
Gorduz Backstabber specialises in boosting Hobgoblin unitsand is best utilised tosupplement your main early-game armybefore being transitioned into aHobgoblin stack.
This is due to you eventually wanting to field your best units recruited from upgrading your army capacities, which Gorduz does not have any buffs for.
These do not include Hobgoblins, but Gorduz can still turn a cheap stack into a strong force, sotry and keep him surrounded by as many non-Dwarf unitsas possible.
Gorduz is recruitable byall Chaos Dwarf factions, and you will receive his unlock quest (to field eight units of Hobgoblins) after building your firstHobgoblin Mustering Camp.
