I used to play a lot of TW:Rome I back in the day and I was surprised to see much of the same old stuff was still relevant in battle strategy in TW:Warhammer. But definitely things have moved on a lot and the AI is much more capable now than it used to be.
Anyway, I play grand campaign with the Dwarves and three times in a row now I have been crushed by the green-skinned mob, under various different banners. I play on hard as that seems to be the middle ground and makes the battle feel about right challenge-wise until the sudden stacks of doom appear.
I've watched a couple of LPs and I seem to have about right conquering order, but the speed at which the orc/goblin factions can pump out units seems baffling.
Last game my main army (20 stack consisting of 45/45/10% infantry/missile/artillery) was completely destroyed by an orc army that had a higher level lord and a total of 5 catapults. Those catapults were the main problem - they simply destroyed my infantry line and missile units, meanwhile the rest of the army was pretty much all cavalry so I had no time to protect my missiles in the barrage of stones and the cavalry charge. Naturally I tried to march into the battle as quickly as possible, but the arty + cavalry combo was just too quick to route all my troops despite promotions and leadership bonuses.
So, I have a couple of questions now to help me finish a campaing.
1. Playing as dwarves, how do I defend against multiple artillery units myself having no cavalry? The catapult rush last game came so early that I had no chance of getting copters either.
2. What do I need to do to get two full armies early enough? Movement on the map is so slow that I need at least one army simply defending the south and the other one might be able to conquer stuff in the meantime.
3. How detrimental to the campaign would it be to attack the dwarves clostest in the west so that I could grab the port city early? Will the diplo penalty stay for a long time?
In addition to the greens issue I'm also a little puzzled about what I should build in each city. Having walls spends a building slot and that's pretty much a must have because of the added garrison. Furthermore, I can't seem to keep up with the rivals pace developing new units and tech because the cities grow so slowly (yes I use various bonuses for growth but still).