History GameBreaker / TotalWar

* The Daemons of Khorne (Skarbrand's faction in particular) is generally considered the game's strongest race, and for good reason. All of their mechanics combine to let them snowball at an unbelievable rate that makes even Taurox the Brass Bull, blitzer of the previous game, jealous.

* The Wood Elves' answer to the above-mentioned doom-stack is a doom-stack of their own. The Twisted and the Twilight DLC not only upgraded Hawk Riders so that they are no longer [[TierInducedScrappy borderline useless]], but they become absolutely devastating when playing as the Heralds of Ariel, as this grants all of them the Volley of Kurnous ability. As the name implies, it's a volley of magic missiles that doesn't cost any Winds of Magic, can be used twice in a battle (three times with a skill from the Sisters of Twilight), and it deals tremendous damage to infantry, monstrous infantry, and cavalry, easily capable of erasing between a half to two-thirds of most units with a single cast. Furthermore, they can be vanguard-deployed right on top of the enemy lines, allowing them to instantly delete all of their ranged units right at the beginning of the battle. If that doesn't break the enemy's morale right away, they can still easily whittle down remaining units with their arrows and bide their time until they can cast their ability again, as melee units can't hit them while they're airborne. This does have a few weaknesses, though. First, Volley of Kurnous is not very effective against single entities or heroes, so armies with a lot of those are problematic. Second, Autoresolve will never be in your favor; expect to have to fight a lot of battles manually. Third, you need at least some forces on the ground, making a 'weak link' that you have to protect at all costs.

* SubvertedTrope by Junsatsushi in ''Rise of the Samurai'', who are somewhat similarly capable of spreading your influence in other provinces and taking them for you without a fight at all. These advantages are actually just necessary for you to hope to deal with the pressures of the Genpei War occupying your troops and keeping your allied clans from getting distrustful of you too fast from conquering everything by force.

* The Vampire Counts as a whole are extremely oppressive in Dominiation, to the point that they, and occasionally the Dark Elves, were the only returning factions played in the Summer Tournament. Due to how cheap their basic infantry is, they can keep on mindlessly sending in waves of skeleton and zombie reinforcements to completely overwhelm their opponents (And even '''respawn''' such units when your opponent grinds through them). Daemonic infantry has a similar crumbling mechanic, but they are much more expensive compared to zombies, and the new healing mechanics allow the Counts to keep the infantry in the fight for as long as possible. They still lack range and speed, but in domination, the capture points will spread even the fastest armies thin, which allows the Counts the plow through the weakest link with their respectable calvary.

* On the initial release of Immortal Empires, Helman Ghorst of all people skyrocketed to the top of the food chain after being a joke for the whole series. He gives a ton of ridiculous faction wide buffs to zombies, turning them from fodder designed to bog down the enemy for a few seconds into a massive tide of unkillable bodies. That, coupled with the copious amount of AOE buffs and heals the faction has means that a zombie army can punch far, far, far above its weight class. If that wasn't enough, there is a bug on release that gives them unlimited healing, meaning you can't ever hope to even outlast them.

** All of this faction's mechanics, from their tech tree to their lord bonuses to their regional commandments, benefits one thing - Bloodletters. Already solid anti-infantry killers well-liked by autoresolve, Bloodletters can eventually get unbelievably powerful in the late-game due to all the different bonuses they can get stacked onto them, with even the basic Bloodletter leaving other factions' ''elite infantry'' in the dust and Exalted Bloodletters becoming unstoppable juggernauts of destruction. Seeing Exalted Bloodletters with 70 melee attack, more than most ''heroes,'' is not unheard-of.

* If one is lucky or knows how to re-roll the retainers agents gain, it is possible to get a Foreign Veteran with three variations of foreign gun trader, netting in total a +15 accuracy and reload speed bonus to modern units, on top of the regular +10 to accuracy from "Soldier" skill tree. Add to this units trained in a gunsmith province (+20 accuracy) with firing range (another +15) and your line infantry, the most basic of units to field, will have a whooping 90 accuracy right after being fielded, with reload speed close to that of your [[EliteMooks Imperial/Shogunate/Republican Infantry]]. Said Foreign Veteran can easily add few experience levels just by being in the same army, rising accuracy [[UpToEleven above 100]]. Or you can (as Shogunate follower or Republican) invite French experts, for yet another +5 accuracy to your modern units. [[ButWaitTheresMore Still need more]]? Rank 5 Generals have mutually exclusive skill that either adds yet another +5 to accuracy[[note]]so at this point, French-alligned faction has a Line Infantry with 100 accuracy without those soldiers even gaining a single rank of experience[[/note]] ''or'' +10 to reload speed for units under his command[[note]]While also offering faster artillery support from ships and greatly speeding up ship reload in naval battles[[/note]], so pick how exactly you want to break the game. Remember that Yari Ashigaru example listed above? Line Infantry are their equivalent in [=FotS=]. And obviously nothing prevents you from doing the exact same thing with the next tier of infantry once you unlock it, making them superior to just about anything else in the game, as they aren't limited in numbers, unlike the elite Guard units, while retaining the main advantage of Line Infantry, that is - cheapness to field and maintain. Sharpshooters? Who even needs those slowpokes?

* Pikemen, though only in single-player siege defensive battles due to ArtificialStupidity. Everywhere else, and especially against actual players, there's no trouble to weather pikemen down with ranged units and/or flank their sides or rear which utterly crushes pikemen...but while defending a town, the AI is far too willing to suicide against arrayed pikes protected from the town's buildings' at their sides rather than attempting to attack from every possible angle first. Also, a player came make this [[UpToEleven even worse]] by placing an armoured unit (such as Hoplites) or a barricade in front of the pikemen which will protect the pikemen from the front thus ensuring the AI isn't going to get to the pikemen (but they'll try to anyway).

*** There is a specific type of hero spam stack that takes this UpToEleven and rips the dial off. Beastmen, Vampire Counts, Vampire Coast and Lizardmen all have access to a hero trait that lowers enemy leadership in the region (Nurgle's Foul Stench, Dread Incarnate, and Pompous, respectively). A full stack of these can cause the enemy army's leadership to bottom out at 0 before the battle even begins, meaning the instant anything reduces it more (and all of these factions have magic that does just that) they will all begin routing. It's possible to win a battle without killing any enemies this way, and it's considered the single most broken thing in the entire game because it basically can't lose (the only counter to it is to field shitload of unbreakable units which AI never does).

** On that note, Tomb King chariot units, which are the fastest (albeit least tanky) in the game. Step One: Charge your skeletons straight into the enemy as meatshields. Step Two: Charge your chariots in the flanks of the central mass. Step Three: Laugh as the chariots instantly break the morale of whatever they hit and annihilate swaths of the enemy's starter units. This can swing the battle for you in an instant as the AI really, ''really'' doesn't know how to recover from this. This gets taken UpToEleven if you research their respective Dynasty to make them even faster and hit even harder. Their only downside is the micromanagement aspect, since they die exceptionally fast if they get swamped by blobs.

* Once gunpowder is discovered, defending settlments become ridiculously easy simply by building the "Cannon towers" building and leaving a few units in the settlements, then sallying out when you're sieged. When sallying out, the enemy army doesn't move until your units have actually stepped outside of your walls, even if your cannon towers are shelling them out all the while (balista towers don't have the range to hit enemies in their deployment zone, but cannon towers can and will). Simply park your units on the wall to activate the cannons, put the game in fast-forward, and watch the enemy get obliterated. Even if it doesn't destroy the army entirely and/or make it rout, it can easily take out half of a would-be attacker's strength at minimum with zero losses for you.

* Once gunpowder is discovered, defending settlments become ridiculously easy simply by building the "Cannon towers" building and leaving a few units in the settlements, then sallying out when you're sieged. When sallying out, the enemy army doesn't move until your units have actually stepped outside of your walls, even if your cannon towers are shelling them out all the while. Simply park your units on the wall to activate the cannons, put the game in fast-forward, and watch the enemy get obliterated. Even if it doesn't destroy the army entirely and/or make it rout, it can easily take out half of a would-be attacker's strength at minimum with zero losses for you.

* Once gunpowder is discovered, defending settlments become ridiculously easy simply by building the "Cannon towers" building and leaving a few units in the settlements, then sallying out when you're sieged. When sallying out, the enemy army doesn't move until your units have actually stepped outside of your walls, even if your cannon towers are shelling them out all the while. So simply park yoru units on the wall to activate the cannons, put the game in fast-forward,a nd watch the enemy get obliterated Even if it doesn't destroy the army entirely and/or make it rout, it can easily take out half of a would-be attacker's strength at minimum at zero loss for you.

* Once gunpowder is discovered, defending settlments become ridiculously easy simply by building the "Cannon towers" building and leaving a few units in the settlements, then sallying out when you're sieged. When sallying out, the enemy army doesn't move until your units have actually stepped outside of your walls, even if your cannon towers are shelling them out all the while.

* Khorne is generally considered the game's strongest faction, and for good reason - All of their mechanics combine to let them snowball at an unbelievable rate that makes even Taurox the Brass Bull, blitzer of the previous game, jealous.
** Their faction leader Skarbrand is a one-unit doomstack on his own, literally capable of solo-ing ''entire full-stack armies'' by himself (once he gets enough upgrades, though he is still extremely strong early game) and two-shotting enemy generals due to his insane melee attack and weapon strength. Not only is almost all his damage armor-piercing but with his unique weapon it ''improves'' the more units Skarbrand kills, ending with a '''100%''' bonus.

** Khorne's armies treat razed territory as friendly for the purposes of replenishment and have a chance to automatically colonize ruins as long as they control at least one settlement in a province. Combined with the above movement bonuses and the creation of Blood Hosts this lets them capture enormous swathes of territory very quickly for very little effort.

* Legion of Chaos get a low-key one that the AI can use too. Legion of Chaos gains an ability that gives each of their armies a plague which they can change whenever they wish and is always in effect. Not mentioned anywhere is the fact 'armies' includes ''settlement garrisons.'' Every army in Legion of Chaos territory has a chance to get the default plague, Bowelsteep, just by going near their settlements. Further, fighting a plagued army has a ''very'' high chance to give the opposing army the plague, meaning that every Legion of Chaos settlement captured or sacked has a chance to give the attacker Bowelsteep, which halts replenishment for several turns. This makes trying to ''capture'' Legion of Chaos territory is an utter nightmare of plague attrition that would do Papa Nurgle proud.

* Tzeentch's army construction leans into everything that's traditionally good in the Total War Warhammer series, namely ranged attacks and magic, and does them better. All Tzeentch units gain a Barrier, which is an infinitely-recharging secondary hitpoint pool that takes damage before the units' hitpoints, meaning Tzeentch units are highly resistant to being worn down in skirmishes since the barrier can take all the damage them just replenish. Nearly all of their roster has a ranged attack, even many of their 'melee' units, making them masters of kiting and skirmishing, and with the change in game mechanics that means Spell Resistance no longer applies to magical damage their attacks can only be resisted by Armor, which is often in short supply, and their Armor-Piercing attacks can't be resisted by anything except a Ward save. Their magical abilities are second to none, which only adds to their ability to frustrate and destroy, and on top of all that their campaign mechanics allow them to do things like force other factions to go to war, force all of a faction's armies to skip their next turn, or just straight-up steal settlements. That they're ''not'' the strongest faction in the game only underlines how broken Khorne's mechanics are.
* The Slaaneshi roster is ''fast'' and gets extra bonuses when flanking, which makes them very DifficultButAwesome due to their reliance on cycle-charging, but once mastered they can do staggering amounts of damage while taking very little in return before the enemy routs. And the enemy routing is a good thing, because some Slaaneshi units get bonuses when fighting low-Leadership enemies up to and including Regeneration. Most of Slaanesh's unique spells support this strategy by reducing the enemy's Leadership and Melee Attack, hindering their ability to fight back. They're also the only Chaos faction to be able to engage in diplomacy with non-Chaos factions and they have a unique system by which they can force other factions to become their permanent vassals. How effective this is depends largely on situation, playstyle, and difficulty, as vassals range from 'good sources of income' to 'worse than useless.'
* Despite being the game's weakest faction, Nurgle eventually gains access to the Crumbling Ague, a unique plague, that can be quite powerful. If it afflicts your own armies it gives a massive 35% Casualty Replenishment Rate, which is not only the most important campaign stat an army can have but is doubly important for Nurgle due to his unique army recruitment, allowing for the swift replenishment and recruitment of entire armies far from home. If it spreads to the enemy it causes no small amount of attrition while also cutting their movement range, making them even more ineffective, and its inbuilt bonuses to plague spread rate means it takes a very long time to go away completely.

** Due to AI limitations, it is very easy to completely cheese settlement battles and sieges with Ogres thanks to two factors: Gorgers, and the "Stoneshaker" battle ability. The former are fast, relatively easily accessible monstrous infantry with Stalk. The latter is an ability that allows the player to, after the initial cooldown, knock down a gate anywhere on the map with a single cast. This becomes cheesy because when the AI deploys its troops during a siege, it ignores Stalking units. By placing a handful of Gorgers at the far end of the map and simultaneously clustering their remaining forces at another gate, the player can bait the AI into dedicating all their troops to the visible threat, leaving all other gates and even the victory points completely undefended. The player can then use the Stoneshaker ability to blast a gate open on the other end of the town and march the Gorgers through. Since they don't enter battle, they remain Stalking, so the AI will completely ignore them even as they can rush up to the victory point and capture it. They'll turn around and try to retake it then, but they often don't have any units fast enough to get there in time. With some practice, this tactic allows an Ogre player to not only beat normally insurmountable odds, but depending on the layout of the city, do it in just a few short minutes.

* Kislev gets Boris Ursus. Boris reduces the upkeep for war bear riders, one of Kislev's best units, by 50% in his army and he gets multiple boosts that make them hit harder. Throw in a Patriarch or two for Salyak's Lullaby (to heal them) and Tor's Battle Hymn (for that '''''+40 melee attack''''') and maybe a Frost Maiden (put them all on bears, of course) and you get a nigh-indestructible doomstack of bears that can simply run over anything in its way. Seriously, even the once gamebreaking Demigryph Knights in the first game look like buckets of KFC in comparision once the Red Tzar gets enough buffs and upgrades going. [[https://youtu.be/hxLBqMqqNWI Here is just a sample]] of what doomstacking War Bear Riders with Boris can get you in the late game.

* Khorne is generally considered the game's strongest faction, and for good reason - All of their mechanics combine to let them snowball at an unbelievable rate that makes even Taurox the Brass Bull, breaker of the previous game, look jealous.

* Pretty much ''all'' of the Chaos Daemon armies are this compared to anything that has been put in the trilogy before, at least at release.
** The Exiles of Khorne is one of the strongest factions ever put into the ''Total War: Warhammer'' trilogy, only maybe rivalled by Tzeentch and the TWII High Elves. Their faction leader Skarbrand is a one-unit doomstack on his own, literally capable of solo-ing ''entire full-stack armies'' by himself (once he gets enough upgrades, though he is still extremely strong early game) and two-shotting enemy generals. Bloodletters are anti-infantry powerhouses who can hold their own against Monstrous units, and that's before they get veterancy upgrades - and that's ''before'' getting into how auto-resolve massively favors them when calculating battles. Bloodletters are the ''basic'' Khorne unit, by the way; the faction gets even more ridiculous once the Exalted Bloodletters (let alone Bloodthirsters) get involved. Combined with the ability to create a Blood Host (basically a completely free new army) at will whenever they raze a sttlement and automatically colonizing ruined settlements with enough Khorne corruption, Khorne is essentially the post-rework Beastmen on every single drug imaginable, and is pretty much the ultimate snowball faction that will take over the Realms of Chaos in short order if allowed.
** Rivalling the Exiles of Khorne is Tzeentch, who in some cases flat-out surpasses Khorne daemon units in many ways at the most broken faction in the game. This is primarily because of Barrier, which ''all Tzeentch units'' have by default. Essentially a magical shield, this gives Tzeentch units way more durability than they would have on paper, allowing them to shrug off melee attacks that would otherwise obliterate them. That's before getting the main reason into why they are so broken; Tzeentch daemons are ''almost all ranged units'', a type that has been historically overpowered since the first game was released. This allows Tzeentch daemons to effortlessly kite any other faction to death while spamming powerful magic spells at them, and even if the enemy gets into close combat, they can tank some damage while waiting for the rest of the Chaotic magical bombardment to take out enemy forces.
** Slaanesh takes a very close third among the game-breaking Chaos Daemon factions, and that is only because of certain bugs involving cavalry charges that drastically affects Charge damage. Slaanesh is essentially an unholy fusion of the Wood Elves, Tomb Kings, and Dark Elves; Slaanesh is all about cavalry. A '''lot''' of cavalry. Essentially THE GlassCannon army of the ''Total War: Warhammer'' trilogy, all Slaaneshi daemons are extreme FragileSpeedster units that move super fast and hit super hard, at the expense of utterly disintegrating if an enemey sneezes at them. This makes them very, very micro-intensive and DifficultButAwesome, severaly punishing poor gameplay but also immensely rewarding skilled players who know how to trap and encircle enemy armies. Oh, and let's not even get into the Lore of Slaanesh magic tree, which is could be an entire folder on this page by itself. That's all just on the battlefield, because Slaanesh also has some hilariously strong diplomacy and treaty bonuses as well (even with enemy factions} with the Seduction mechanic, to the point that getting enough Seduction lets you literally steal enemy units and deploy them as yours.
** Nurgle is generally considered the weakest faction in the game as of launch but even he gets in on the fun. Nurgle plays a lot like the tabletop version of Nurgle daemons - they are slow, they are tanky, and they can hold large armies in place like nobody's business. That is, until you find out how to get [[ThePlague The Crumbling Ague]]. This disease alone not only massively increase your Plague spread and Nurgle corruption, but also gives Vanguard deployment to your entire army AND gives you a whopping '''35% casualty replenishment rate''', essentially allowing you to regenerate your army as fast as you take causalties. For free. Oh, and as an added bonus, its causes all enemy armies to suffer Attrition and severely reduces their movement range on the campaign map.
* Ogre Leadbelchers. Imagine having 16 half-ranged cannons in a single unit, then imagine those cannons are almost as mobile as cavalry. Now field 6-7 of those units. Concentrated fire from Leadbelchers will tear ''anything'' to bits in record time, even heavy-hitters like Skarbrand and tanks like Ku'gath, and can rout entire armies of infantry before they get close. Aside from line-of-sight issues (which are a natural given for direct fire gun units) and their unusual inability to shoot walls and wall towers (which does not apply to supply-built towers) despite the other notable monstrous missile infantry, the Greatbow Ushabti, being able to do so, about the only thing that troubles them is an entire army of cavalry (like Slaanesh) and even then they'll reap a toll before they die.
* Similarly, The Ogre's Ironblaster is a candidate for the strongest artillery piece in the game period. It fires shotgun blasts of cannonballs with a whopping '''''1.7k''''' missile strength that can mulch pretty much any unit type in the game, and they have a tight spread and massive range that makes them much more lethal. Unlike most other artillery units that are fairly inaccurate until the enemy gets close, Ironblasters are disturbingly accurate, they can easily snipe lords from the very edge of their range. The real issue most people bring up is that Ironblasters are extremely fast at 60 speed, which lets them outrun heavily armored infantry your opponents will be inclined to bring. Ironblasters are pretty much a '''''modern-day tank''''' put into a fantasy setting.
* Due to AI limitations, it is very easy to completely cheese settlement battles and sieges with Ogres thanks to two factors: Gorgers, and the "Stoneshaker" battle ability. The former are fast, relatively easily accessible monstrous infantry with Stalk. The latter is an ability that allows the player to, after the initial cooldown, knock down a gate anywhere on the map with a single cast. This becomes cheesy because when the AI deploys its troops during a siege, it ignores Stalking units. By placing a handful of Gorgers at the far end of the map and simultaneously clustering their remaning forces at another gate, the player can bait the AI into dedicating all their troops to the visible threat, leaving all other gates and even the victory points completely undefended. The player can then use the Stoneshaker ability to blast a gate open on the other end of the town and march the Gorgers through. Since they don't enter battle, they remain Stalking, so the AI will completely ignore them even as they can rush up to the victory point and capture it. With some practice, this tactic allows an Orge player to not only beat normally insurmountable odds, but depending on the layout of the city, do it in just a few short minutes.
* Gorgers are also broken in the launch build of the game for another reason, presumably due to GoodBadBugs, being able to deal far more damage than what their weapon strength and overall base stats suggest. Even without Gnoblars to screen for them or Skrag's pot fully charged up and buffing them, they are able to trade blows far more effectively and cost efficiently than they should against supposed counters such as Kislev's War Bears or Cathay's Celestial Dragon Guard, as showcased in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Hw-CrL4Tc this video]].

* Similarly, The Ogre's Ironblaster is a candidate for the strongest artillery piece in the game period. It fires shotgun blasts of cannonballs with a whopping *1700* missile strength that can mulch pretty much any unit type in the game, except they have massive range that makes them much more lethal. Unlike most other artillery units that are fairly inaccurate until the enemy gets close, Ironblasters are disturbingly accurate, they can easily snipe lords from the very edge of their range. The real issue most people bring up is that Ironblasters are extremely fast at 60 speed, which lets them outrun heavily armored infantry your opponents will be inclined to bring. Ironblasters are pretty much a '''''modern-day tank''''' put into a fantasy setting.

* Gorger are also broken in the launch build of the game for another reason, presumably due to GoodBadBugs. Being able to deal far more damage than what their weapon strength and overall base stats suggest, they are able to trade blows far more effectively and cost efficiently against units that should otherwise hard counter them such as Kislev's War Bears or Cathay's Celestial Dragon Guard, as showcased in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Hw-CrL4Tc this video].

* Ogre Leadbelchers. Imagine having 16 half-ranged cannons in a single unit, then imagine those cannons are almost as mobile as cavalry. Now field 6-7 of those units. Concentrated fire from Leadbelchers will tear ''anything'' to bits in record time, even heavy-hitters like Skarbrand and tanks like Ku'gath, and can rout entire armies of infantry before they get close. About the only thing that troubles them is an entire army of cavalry (like Slaanesh) and even then they'll reap a toll before they die.
* Similarly, The Ogre's Ironblaster is a candidate for the strongest artillery piece in the game period. It fires shotgun blasts of cannonballs that can mulch pretty much any unit type in the game, except they have massive range that makes them much more lethal. Unlike most other artillery units that are fairly inaccurate until the enemy gets close, Ironblasters are disturbingly accurate, they can easily snipe lords from the very edge of their range. The real issue most people bring up is that Ironblasters are extremely fast at 60 speed, which lets them outrun heavily armored infantry your opponents will be inclined to bring. Ironblasters are pretty much a '''''modern-day tank''''' put into a fantasy setting.