Anti Large Tactics and strategies - late game

[FEARtheMoose]

So been playing my first campaign as the Empire, and long story short im about 220 turns in, Karl's crusade against chaos has been going well, everything north and east of norden has been razed to the ground, with two of the chaos factions completely wiped out, and the last one whittled back to just 3 cities [one province]. i control enough land to field 5 full stacks and about 4 half stacks as strategic garrisons/QRF armies. However, as i was about to enter the final legs of the crusade, my two long term military allies [180+ turns] the Dwarves and Bretonnia decided to go to war with each other! which put me in a very difficult predicament to say the least. Anyways, i didnt join either and now they really hate me, but because of them warring, the Counts decided this would be a good time to declare war on me due to the lack of support. Ok fine, im only at war with the last dregs of chaos scum. The vamps invade with 4 full stacks coming across my south eastern border. Now this wouldnt be an issue normally, but between them they have 10 Terrorgheists, 12 cyrpt horrors and about 10-12 Varghulfs with a light spattering of Vargheists [fairly evenly spread]. So a good 1/3 to half of their rosters are monstrous units. While ive had some epic battles trying to hold the undead back, im losing the war of attrition due to the larger units killing to many for my armies to repulse the next attack the next turn, which then results in a epic win, pyrrhic win, and then a horrible defeat. Plus due to the sheer amount of armies coming at me [throw in the odd stack of orks and waaarghs in the same province as well which isnt helping!] i have to commit all four of my full stacks, leaving me vulnerable to a surprise attack from bretonnia in the west or the dwarves in the south =(
I know using your hero units and Halberdiers are the like designated units for countering these, but what are strategies you lot have found work with minimum casualties?
For example, it seems to me that if you have one unit of Halberdiers engaging a Terrorgheist, if you send in another unit to engage to help speed up the process, you just lose more men due to the larger units area attack. This also means surrounding them results in more KIA even though they do route a bit faster.
It seems once the enemy has more than X amount of large units, i cant balance my army with enough troops to counter them, and then also counter the massive horde of undead coming in behind them.
I have to say though, after playing every total war since medieval 2, ive never had to ask for advice on a total war forum. So total war warhammer must be doing something right!
It seems i can only do one or the other, but im hoping im missing something, so do tell! Fellow veterans, shower me with your warhammer battle strategies and unit comps! =)

[Fanest]

Since ur Empire u should just spam Demigryphs with halberds - they destroy absolutely everything.

[clench]

Demigryphs, Steamtanks, and Luminarks

[steve1945]

Its all about Guns Guns Guns my man. Halberds are great for holding the enemy, including monsters. In place. Where a unit of swords would break a unit of Halberdiers wont. While they hold them in place use handgunners to kill monstrous creatures. 4 units of handgunners will 2 shot a giant. If you don't like using them or are having issues, cannons are effective at killing monsters, and if all else fails Cav is quite adept at killing them as well.

[emcdunna]

Luminarks apparently do a huge amounts of damage with each shot, so test them out at killing off terrogheists.

Demigryphs with halberds are amazing, but expensive.

If you want cost effective, use an entire stack of the spearmen without shields, and maybe a few handgunner/crossbow units.

Every single monster in the game can be taken down by 2 spear units, albeit taking lots of casualties. So it's not a hard counter by any means, but it's the most cost effective one.

Agaist terrorgheists, halberds barely do any better than the basic spearmen, but they cost 2 times as much in recruitment costs and upkeep costs. Go figure. CA should balance the heck out of this, TBH, because it's kinda broken right now. All you need to win most battles is 10 spearmen and 10 crossbows. Shoot some stuff, stab the other stuff.

[Beregond]

Its all about Guns Guns Guns my man. Halberds are great for holding the enemy, including monsters. In place. Where a unit of swords would break a unit of Halberdiers wont. While they hold them in place use handgunners to kill monstrous creatures. 4 units of handgunners will 2 shot a giant. If you don't like using them or are having issues, cannons are effective at killing monsters, and if all else fails Cav is quite adept at killing them as well.

I haven't advanced in my EMpire campaign that much yet to face lots of monstrous units, yet in my Dwarf campaign I had a very hard battle against the Tzeentch birdy Lord of Change. I lost it, damaging his army a lot, yet I found my 2 units of cannons doing pitiful damage against his Giants. We had a nice long Underway, lots of open space and few of the cannon shots missed. Yet the results were kinda meh. In the end, I sent in the slayers with hammerers, supported by Thunderers, managing to kill one giant and bring another down to 1/3 of health before we were trampled by Chosen and Knights. Question is, what's wrong with cannons?

[Mysticforce]

Most siege units work better vs large groups rather than solo monsters. Those cannons could have chewed up chosen and chaos knights far worse than giants.

[surg3on]

Question is, what's wrong with cannons?

They seem to miss a lot but yes, they do seem a bit... soft against giants. technically they should be able to 1-2 shot them if they hit

[Carl Jung was right]

Cannons are fantastic against large. And no they should not 1-2 shot them. Although it would kinda make sense in "reality" of Warhammer, for balance purposes it would render too easy a counter for large units, wouldn't you say? They don't kill them outright, but a cannon ball carves a chunk from both the HP and morale bar. Most of the time I can get the big guy (in my experience with trolls, chaos giants and other monsters with morale) to rout much faster from artillery than I would if I were to just engage it with melee units.

However in your late stage of the game, gold for unit recruitment shouldn't be any longer a problem. As for unit replenishment, if you're waiting for your depleted units to replenish naturally, you're simply playing the game wrong. In W:TW, a depleted unit costs just as much upkeep as a full strength unit. Therefore the solution to your unit shortage is to maintain a "logistic chain" wherein you have generals fetching fresh units to and fro the front lines, generals constantly recruiting units in your capital province as needed, and your main fighting general constantly merging depleted units. That way you can rebuild a battered stack to full strength in just 1-2 turns, which is more than enough for wearing down almost any kind of enemy.

[Beregond]

Cannons are fantastic against large. And no they should not 1-2 shot them. Although it would kinda make sense in "reality" of Warhammer, for balance purposes it would render too easy a counter for large units, wouldn't you say? They don't kill them outright, but a cannon ball carves a chunk from both the HP and morale bar. Most of the time I can get the big guy (in my experience with trolls, chaos giants and other monsters with morale) to rout much faster from artillery than I would if I were to just engage it with melee units.

May be I was doing smth wrong, yet my 2 units of Dwarf cannons were concentrating fire on 1 Chaos Giant and by the time he reached my lines he barely had his HP down by 10%. This was truly a waste of good shots and I wish I'd targeted knights instead

[FEARtheMoose]

However in your late stage of the game, gold for unit recruitment shouldn't be any longer a problem. As for unit replenishment, if you're waiting for your depleted units to replenish naturally, you're simply playing the game wrong. In W:TW, a depleted unit costs just as much upkeep as a full strength unit. Therefore the solution to your unit shortage is to maintain a "logistic chain" wherein you have generals fetching fresh units to and fro the front lines, generals constantly recruiting units in your capital province as needed, and your main fighting general constantly merging depleted units. That way you can rebuild a battered stack to full strength in just 1-2 turns, which is more than enough for wearing down almost any kind of enemy.

Logistic trains only work if you have enough spare income per turn to support some resupply armies after your buffer income [i didnt] - i dont want to get down to less than 1500 per turn in case of raiding, and you dont need every man you have on the front line [i did]. Thats pretty basic stuff that you know Ive been doing all the usual tactics but was slowly being whittled away despite it. Hence why i wanted to know if they was a particular unit that can stop monsters dead in their tracks, to help with the 30-50% KIA they inflict each battle. Kinda hard when they have 10-12 monstrous units and heros per army.

Its cool though, i got it sorted out last night - 4 units of Demigryphs with halberds in each army [they really do wreck monsters], and expanding into EX chaos territory i razed 100 turns ago has solved the constant back and forth war of attrition.

[Nuellafürst]

Steam Tanks are the answer to everything. They often miss when trying to shoot flyers, but 3 of them are enough to route 2 units of trolls without a single troll reaching melee range. Support tanks with halberdiers and no monster has any chance.

[conjurous]

Had a battle with greenskins and they had 2 giants and i had 2 cannons, was funny watching the cannons get direct hits and knocking them down, slows them down alot, one of the giants was getting knocked over constantly and didn't even make it to the battle before he was dead.