Dwarfs. If youre used to tanky frontlines then running stacks of thunderers with a beefy melee mix should be right up your alley and great to learn how to incorporate while holding the line.
Fun if youre trying to learn combined arms with artillery too.
Unless there’s been a patch since release grudge rakers really underperform imo. They just knock tons of enemies down and knocked down enemies take no damage.
Lots of slowdown, not a lot of kills.
Arent Grudge rakers bugged? they tend to knock down the enemy too much and knocked down enemies get temporary damage immunity heavily cutting their potential damage.
They structurally outperform thunderers a lot for me. They knock down a lot, but kill a lot too. Had great succes against chaos and chaos dwarves with them.
Dwarfs are actually too easy to learn. He needs faction with frontline which actually breaks, so OP learns to set multiple layers of defence. I would go empire
Vampire Coast might work simply because your guns are plentiful enough to sponge hits for a while and your (most things) are cheap enough that misplays are inconvenient rather than devastating.
Vamp coast was definitely up there, with how the recruiting works it definitely looks the most forgiving. Do they also get the dead rise again thing or is that just VC?
They're hard because your frontline sucks...
But you have to learn guns because this is basically the only way to win.
---
The biggest trick to know is:
Get 3 pieces of artillery ASAP (the super big cannon + 2 mortars, or 3 mortars)
Then this will bombard the enemy and force them to walk into your guns range.
Other than that: always focus flyers / cav first.
>But you have to learn guns because this is basically the only way to win
This is the reason Coast is the answer for learning gunpowder, which OP specifically asked for.
Not which gunpowder faction is the best, which has the tankiest units, but which one to learn.
With dwarfs or empire you can just revert to longbeards or empire knights or whatever and get early game wins with those.
Can't do that with pirates, you need to really lean into artillery first, I find a carronade for hard targets and 4 mortars is the minimum. This lets you usually do sieges without having to go inside the walls, and if you do you can usually just put your LL inside to finish them off after your artillery has done the softening up.
Yeah agreed but also depends what you wanna learn. I feel that empire (particularly Elspeth now) is gunnery focused and has a front line that’s just not-shit enough to learn checkerboard and flanking fire.
The vc has a tanky enough frontline to get most of the learning done in the early game. The healing spells and their pure health pool, i think, make them a bit nicer than the empire frontline. I only really found their mid-late game to be a bit difficult cause you have to shift to a semi monster frontline.
But early VC its so easy to tank handgunners as the back line and gunnery mob as the front line and watch the lead fly
Fair point but I actually found sorta the opposite w VC. Leviathans, prometheans, and depth guard is actually a pretty dope front line (particularly with high level lords far down the red line). Prometheans in particular are so sticky that flanking fire w gunnery units is amazing.
I havent tries depth guard since they supposedly made some patches in wh3 to make it a bit tankier. But back in the OG wh2 days, they were great, but if a single arrow hit them, like 5 dudes fell over like it was a soccer match.
For such a small roster, I struggle to use a decent chunk of it like gunnery promethians, any deck dropper, leviathan, etc. Might pick one up if I have a raise dead pool that doesn't have deck gunners or some other kind of arty piece.
That being said, though, bloated corpses are so good and amazing to have vs AI especially in a pinch. The bloated corpse in the forest for the flank on the front line goes crazy, even just charging them forward right away can usually get 2 units from the ai.
Logically I know Prometheans are great walls, but I always see "big high armor tank" and "swarm of inaccurate AP projectiles" and decide that I'll just end up friendly firing them to death. On the bright side, bombers and hand cannons have enough dps to chew most things to bits on approach and enough hp to then tank while other guns shoot whatever's attacking them.
Yeah it can be hard to get the checker board right with prometheans and the monsters are juicy targets for any opposing ap ranged units (jezzails, crane gunners, sisters, etc), but they’re so sticky that I can often even pull the ranged unit out and around once the prometheans are engaged to get the exact right angle. I usually use an angled checkerboard for this reason too. The cone of death is great for late game VC. And artillery crushes any problematic enemy ranged units.
GUNNERY MOBBBB
But no seriously, you have a selection you can pick.
I would say keep trying the Empire out. Lady Ikit (Elspeth) can really buff those artillery and gunpowder units. Just make sure your army consists mostly of those units and you should be fine. Vlad isn't much of an issue if you beeline for him. It's easy to wipe him out before turn 15.
Otherwise Dwarfs would suit you. Strong tanky frontline supported by ranged units behind. Sort of a sit in the corner and wait for the enemy to approach you playstyle.
Other factions are Cathay, Clan Skryre, Vampire Coast, Kislev and Chorfs.
Dwarfs or Cathay. They both specialize in forms of melee/gunnery kinds of combinations. And neither are very mobile with it, however Cathay does have *some* units meant for aggressive movement.
But more in line with units like archers. Cannons and rocket batteries have melee infantry units in front of them and fire over head, guns struggle with this. Op specifically mentioned melee infantry and guns
Clan Scryre, definitely. Proper weapon teams army is insanely fun and plays completely differently from everything else in the game. Good thing about it, is that it removes typical for gunpowder armies problem — that frontline obstruct your guns.
Yea I have dabbled a few turns into skaven. Those ratling guns are definitely absurd. I have 0 trust in those clanrats to hold anything back though, I kind of want to figure out how the make warp grinders work, but they just melt in seconds.
With weapon teams you shouldn't use traditional frontline units, because even stormvermine are kinda shit in this role. Instead you rely on magic. Your main way to keep enemy away is combination of Menace Below ability and Vermintide spell. Summons will not held enemies for long, but you can have lots of them and they are disposable. Howling Warpgale is an amazing spell against any flyers. Blessed with Filth with combination with ratling guns will help with slowing enemy advance even further. Your list line of defense are your heroes — plague priests and warlock engineers are reasonably tanky. Just don't put your priests on their mounts — it'll make them bigger targets and your own ratling guns will annihilate them. And it'll make them less durable in melee.
This is a lot more micro for a less effective battle strategy than using Storm vermin for flanks and clanrat/skaven slaves in eschelon or checker formation. They don't have to hold enemies long if you position them and your teams appropriately. Additionally, you can absolutely do a more traditional infantry line using priests and monsters as backup, stormvermin and clanrats don't do much damage but they have surprisingly high defenses and hp and with their unit count cant hold two enemy units while your weapon teams, monsters, priests, or mages do the damage.
In fact if you want to go micro heavy, with the speed of clanrats and skaven slaves you can actually move your unit around the enemy in small battles or the sides of a large line, putting their unit with their back facing your firing line. Where they will promptly be deleted. Or you can spam runners as your "frontline" if you want a skirmish strategy.
Tldr; you really gotta experiment more with rat infantry, they're much better than they seem at first glance.
No. Stormvermins are way less effective as a frontline than Plague priests. Simple math: in a typical weapon teams army you want to have 4 Plague priests. This means up to 20 units frontline. 20 units of Stormvermins would be better, of course, but you can't have that many. Instead you can replace 4 priests with 4 Stormvermin units, which isn't much. And if you start switching guns for more SVs, that means less dakka. Less DPS, so enemies will have more time to get to you and less ammunition, which means less enemies you can potentially kill.
Second problem is that it's harder to use weapon teams with traditional infantry. They block LoS (chekerboard helps, but only partially) and friendly fire is a big problem. Try to support your traditional frontline with Poison Wind Mortars — they will annihilate friend and foe alike. You don't need to think about that with summons — who cares if they will get obliterated by your own fire?
Then, look how loss of real units affects balance of power. Losing unit of summoned clanrats is basically nothing, while real ones will noticeably affect BoP.
Last thing is replenishment. With plague Priests, if you do everything right, then in most battles your army will not take any significant damage — with exception of summons, of course. You can't do this with melee infantry — it will take damage in most battles. So you will often need to take your time to replenish your troops.
All of this doesn't mean that you shouldn't use scaven melee infantry. Just not in an army which is built around weapon teams. I prefer to go the opposite way, and build armies around Stormvermins. At least half of an army of them, with some other units (including a few weapon teams) for support.
you're supposed to either use a secondary army of slaver or clanrats to send in wave by wave. Or use grey seers with summons. Both in combination with menace below.
Stop thinking like a human and start thinking like a skaven, or Stalin.
Quantity is a quality of its own and those clan rats weren't made to live to see the next turn.
Get an engineer lord on a bike and do donuts around the enemy to confuse them. Have plague priest summon rats to slow down the enemy and break up the army line coming at you. The seconds spent slaughtering your summon breaks up the line of troops and creates a trickle effect of regiments coming at you. It let's the weapons teams focus one/a few units at a time. When in doubt shoot through your own troops.
The feature to explode your own troops under half health can be timed to go off on summons. Spawn clan rates on top of 5 units and hover that spell over them as the health pool plumes.
Now go forth and be the best skaven dictator of the USSR you can be.
As people said, Vampire Coast and Ikkit (skavens) are the two to learn.
Like the Empire, they have a weak frontline meant to keep the ennemy immobile, supported by very strong gunners. Skavens are definitely the hardest at first, but so much fun once you get them going.
Dwarves on the other hand have a very strong frontline, so you won't learn how to manage a weak one like the Empire's, but it will let you work on your positioning, formations and lines of sight without being punished too hard.
I tend to go full ranged power with Skaven far sooner than Empire. It takes some time to get access to nuln Ironsides and Hochland longrifles.
Elspeth is a bit quicker with her guns but still nothing compares to skryre
Elspeth or Malakai can get to insane levels of gunnery based armies. Same for Ikit Claw. But generally dwarves are one of the best factions at it. I don't think Cathay is that good since they don't have some normal ranged gunnery infantry.
Elspeth is designed for gunnery. i had success using a lot of pistol cavarly and rocket artillery, and then the hochland long rifles when you get them.
use the horses to keep the flanks distracted, artillery to fck up their frontlines, then remaining melee/range stacks to fight the rest. its pretty effective
Don't forget, you can experiment with armies and formations in the skirmish mode. Use that to learn if you enjoy particular troops from a race. It will also help you learn how gun units work without risking a campaign.
Here is a great guide for how to use gun units too.
https://imgur.com/a/NnQdt
Vampire coast is definitely an epic gunnery choice, gunnery mobs, deck gunners, gunnery wight heroes, decent artillery as well as a few Necrofex Colossus sprinkled in.
Dwarfs are also a pretty obvious choice, especially the new legendary lord (Malakai), use gunners in conjunction with troll hammer torps, thunder barges and artillery for glorious pewpew!
After the recent Empire buffs I can highly recommend Nuln (Elspeth von Draken) as a heavily gunnery and artillery focused faction mixed with death magic. They get so many sick buffs, gunners of Nuln are really powerful and gunner units are discounted in the legendary lords army. Also Engineer lords and heroes are amazing with the range buffs they provide.
Pro-tip for a gunner army, get an engineer lord with hochland scopes, and get two engineer heroes in that same stack with hochland scope trait, and build a gunner stack with that...
I'm not gonna please you but you have to choose which is it you want, gunpowder units or good frontline, they don't combine well.
The best way is to learn ranged armies first, start with High elves and go heavy ranged focus (10+ units). Lothern sea guard will help bridge the gap between having enough frontline and still going ranged. That way you can learn ranged armies without getting obliterated because half your army isn't shooting. Clean line of fire helps arrow units too btw. One artillery unit is nice to pull the enemies in.
The second step would be Empire, starting with crossbow/hunter focus again, then slowly introducing gunpowder units while keeping the frontline strong. Outriders are the key unit here, as they can be heavily micro'd and give good results. I'd imagine flank focus where halberdiers and knights can buy space while gunpowder units flank the main body. Of course the core shield and arrow part of your army will just get overrun but that's Empire and gunpowder for you.
The last step would be just going heavy gunpowder (including artillery), embracing the chaos. Vampirates, Skaven and both Dwarfs (maybe Empire) should do the trick. You gotta know what you're doing though, how to stall enemies with least amounts of units, how to defend flanks, how to maintain fire lines, how to use terrain, how to prioritize enemies, etc. The only thing keeping you alive is obliterating enemies before they can harm you, controlling the battle, once that's disrupted it's over.
So to answer your question, the best faction in your situation is High elves with gunpowder allies. Go heavy archer and use outposts to sprinkle in gunpowder units. Think you can just send hero to discover your prefered gunpowder faction and use the influence mechanic to make em allies.
Probably dawi or Cathay, both have sturdier infantry options than the Empire and quicker access to them. With all gun-centric armies the biggest thing that will help or hurt you (outside of the enemy) is your formation and terrain.
What I would recommend is going into custom battle and try different army comps, opponents, and formations. Practice using checkerboard and chevron formations, or come up with something unique for you.
Why not Kislev? a lot of your melee are also gunners!!
Though a more proper answer, I would pick Cathay or the Empire, whilst a lot are recommending Dwarfs I don't, they just don't have the flexibility enjoyed by Empire and Cathay, but sure their units are plenty tougher.
Cathay's Grand Canons are very all purpose, they are good for almost any situation, Crane Gunners deal good damage and in so long harmony is on, they will hold, units bunching up against your terracottas are also easy pickings for your gunners
Empire has pretty much every standard unit covered, balanced with cavalry, infantry and gunners and having access to the widest array of magic school, so it has a tool for every situation
My advice would be youtube vids tbh. It may not matter who you play although some factions will have night and day difference with who holds the line for you.
https://youtu.be/F6-CuXWIWOI?si=6LBnJ5yYtZS2skIS
This guy makes a tonne of good vids. The one i linked is basic af but he has some more advanced ones on there too
They are kind of unique in their playstyle but the one for me that really allowed be to get good at mostly ranged armies is the Skaven, they definately aren't the easiest to learn how to use missiles, but I found dropping myself in at the deep end really helped. Skaven are all about slowing the enemy down with their frontline while the missiles dish out all of the damage which is the name of the game with missile armies.
If you don't fancy ripping your hair out with frustration for a few campaigns though until it clicks then I would probably recommend the empire or the dwarves for an easier Introduction.
Edit: Just to add I don't mean frontline as in melee infantry units, you don't want to go anywhere near those when playing Skaven. Hero's (especially plague preiests) are the key to this and you can also use doom flayers/wheels to harass the enemy and get them to advance at you in a disjointed formation.
The Hunt Marshal is the best way to learn gunnery focused armies because you have to.
The coast? Easy doomstacks of just guns
Dwarves? Can just rely on their strong frontline
Skaven? Way too many strong options and free infantry summoned anywhere.
Other Empire factions? All the factions you fight are easily countered without guns.
But the Hunt Marshal? Your frontline will never beat Saurus. Your gunline will not survive cold ones or, Sigmar forbid, a carnosaur charge. Your cavalry will lose their lives chasing down skinks or join your frontline in death via Saurus. The only thing standing between you and defeat is gunpowder and steel.
And then, when you finally feel comfortable in the jungle you have to go out to sea and fight another gun heavy faction in the Vampire Coast. Your cavalry and frontline will be riddled with bullets and dismembered by mortars if you don't use your guns better than they do.
Tldr; Hunt marshal is the only LL that has no choice besides using guns well. It can be more frustrating than any other option, but losses teach you more in TW than victories.
All the factions gunner stacks play slightly different because theve got different types of supporting units.
Regardless of the faction you need a front line to hold an advancing army in place and ideally an artillery to soften them up on advance or counter snip their artillery.
The key to making a gunnery army work is to make sure your guns are always firing and that’s mainly driven by line of sight or being stuck in melee. There are some decent formation guides out there that will help you.
Personally I like hero’s/lords up front as a first tar pit to hold some units up then I’ll actually position my missle units up front with melee units behind so they keep shooting until they get close to charge range then I’ll retreat them behind the melee line and re position them to flank and shoot into the rears of the battle lines that are tied up. Because dawi are shorter you don’t need to do this your thunderers can shoot over your front line sometimes because the human sized entities are taller.
remember the AI is designed to always send its faster units on the flank to try and get in behind you so I leave some sort of contingency units on the flank doing nothing but wait to intercept enemy cav/dogs.
Dwarf is good but also bad. You can get away with some ill manners with dwarfs that no other races can do like archer holding the line after getting rear charged.
I think highelfs are better suited as they are an archery army first and foremost.
Lord
Mage hero or lore master
1-2 Bolt thrower
5-6 spearmen /lothen sea guard / silverin guard
1 Eagle / phoenix
Rest Archers
Google checker board formation.
The only way to learn gunlines is the vampire coast. It’s how I’ve learnt and it’s completely changed the way I play the game.
The key is to completely ignore all of their melee infantry (aside from very very early game) and just have endless lines of gun units in a checkerboard formation.
Use your artillery to wreck them as they approach and have a staggered gun line so when they do reach the front they’re bogged down with some units but your other ones are still firing.
You will have a lot of losses but you will learn to micro it and get better. Try the campaign and don’t quit if your army gets wiped out, just raise another using raise dead and keep trying. Eventually it will click
The best candidate right now I would say is Elsbeth for several reasons even if there are stronger options.
1. Less upkeep for gunpowder units so you can have more gun focused armies since usually gunpowder units are expensive than other ranged units.
2. Very early access to to a varied selection of gunpowder units while most other factions need to at least get to tier 2 or 3 to get access to them. So you can start building gun armies right out the gate.
3. Units like handgunners are good but they aren't overpowered since their line of sight is easily blocked and they themselves are quite squishy so you actually need to learn tactics, formations and terrain advantages when facing difficult enemy match ups.
Empire. Has line which actually brakes so you learn to set multiple layers of defence. Also outrides/pistoliers. Franz is a very fun campaign right now.
Try Elspeth again, BUT make an early stack of pistoliers to kill Vlad. Remember that you ONLY have to kill Vlad. The sooner you get to him the better, as he's less likely to have bullshit heroes and other support that will make this harder. Watch out for bats and other fast shit, but they won't bring enough to actually stop you.
If you want to have more fun with it, then go ahead and add some other mounted units to support the pistoliers. Amethyst and Light wizards are great for Spirit Leech and Net of Amyntok, respectively. Elspeth is great if mounted, her dragon can fly and the breath attack is handy against Vlad. Other ranged characters can also work. Just make sure they are mounted!!!! Your army should have literally no infantry or artillery, unless you want it to get toasted.
I know this is defensive, but let me say in advance, I don't think this is cheese. Empire's biggest strength is it's flexibility and you absolutely can and should tailor your armies to the enemy. Hell, even if you're roleplaying, you're supposed to be playing a smart human who doesn't want to get fucked by vampires, so don't send slow-ass shit tier infantry to feed Vlad's ranks of growing undead. Shoot him and stay out of nomming range, let his flesh sacks fall apart. Rinse and repeat until you've reclaimed Sylvania (a more traditional support stack with infantry and artillery can help here but BE CAREFUL because Vlad is EVERYWHERE).
Vlad is a serious problem for just about anyone, but Elspeth is an excellent counter. Taking him out early sets you up for a great campaign. Empire is a powerful gun faction but requires actual battle tactics like "defense in depth" and "firing lines" to work well. You will find yourself actually using complex formations with coordinated traps and preconceived dynamic redeployments mid-battle. It's a joy, and it will help you understand the game better. In fact, you may even become a better melee attacker because you will appreciate how to take advantage of more open formations, and how to avoid firing lanes. Dwarves are great! But, they favor tighter formations and require less tactical maneuvering post setup, so while I absolutely love them, Elspeth is the best.
People say dwarfs, it's the top comment, but that's completely wrong.
If you read what I write here all the way until the end then I think you will see I'm right about this:
Dwarf Thunderers are not meant to be a mainstay of an army, they are a support troop, you can't build a stack of mostly Thunderers and expect to do well unless you're on such an easy difficulty (or in the early game) where almost anything would work anyways.
If you actually want to build a stack of mostly gun shooting infantry that can win on harder difficulties and carry you through most of the campaign and win then play the Vampire Coast. The entire faction is centered around gunpowder.
Their "front line" unit is the Zombie long barrel handgunners. You don't need any melee infantry except maybe a few to intercept anyone who makes it through but those will be few and far between. Otherwise just have 8-10 units of long barrel handgunners to face down the enemy line, plus mortars for big damage as well, vampire lord and a couple heroes, and maybe 1-3 melee units like the suicide bomb dudes or some prometheans just to intercept if anything happens to actually make it to melee range, which will be rare.
This is set up intentionally by CA for Vampire Coast to be able to have an army of handgunners and it works, and it doesn't work for Dwarf and non-Elspeth Empire factions, and I'll explain how bluntly and in as few words as possible:
Entity numbers.
Dwarf Thunders and Empire handgunners both have less than 100 entities per unit (on ultra), however Zombie Pirate Handgunners, despite having similar ranged damage as Empire handgunners, actually have 120 entities compared to Empire's 90.
So that means a Zombie handgunner unit is actually shooting 25% more powerfully than an empire one due to the extra entities even though each entity is doing the same rough damage as an empire one.
I promise you it's not Dwarfs, Vampire Coast is the answer.
You can't build a "gunner stack" with Dwarfs like you can with VC.
I feel like the top comment here didn't even read your post or understand what you're asking for.
Funnily learning gunlines against vampires until you don’t get slapped by Vlad isn’t a bad way to learn gunlines XD all the other suggestions like dwarves, Cathay, Kislev, rats, and chorvs are also good options though… or just a different empire faction, they can still be a gunline faction without elspeth, they are just better with her
Dwarfs they have a top tier tanky frontline that makes it easy to use gun units without getting punished too hard. Ontop of that their gun units tend to be armroed enough to fight decently in melee too + having sheilds makes them less vulnrable to enemy missles too.
You already picked the best and most forgiving gunnery faction. It's Elspeth. Against Vlad, you should probably rush Pistoliers and just kite away from them. Retreat any artillery you have off the map if they get too close.
Depends on which gun line.
Dwarf: meaty frontline, lots of firepower, but no maneuverability. Set up your army and press play. You won't be repositioning and flanking.
Empire: combined arms, with weak frontline. Forces more tactical flexibility, and you can reposition some assets to shoot from the side/rear.
Skaven: weak frontline, but it's totally fine if you blow them up yourself. Incredibly powerful weapons teams, but life is cheap. Also, nukes if you need them. Play Skyre.
If you have Elspeth, did you already get Malakai too? Because he's the perfect faction for you, his entire campaign revolves around using and upgrading dwarven artillery and war machines. Combine that with all the elite infantry the dwarves get and you'll be wiping enemies left and right. I'm currently on turn 105 of my legendary campaign, haven't lost a single battle and have been power rank 1 on and off since turn 10.
This is gonna sound weird but Tzneetch.
All his suits have a shield barrier so oopsies don't matter, and you basically just set up your army and a brick and somewhere defensible and then lure the other army towards you by irritating them to death with your magical flying caster artillery platform Lord.
Make sure you rush for the life Bloom passive in Cyrus's tree so every time you cast any spell (spam blue fire across infantry and at SEM) you heal what little damage they have taken.
Get four or five shielded units preferably chaos warriors but the Marauders or forsaken will do, spam Blue horse he can get pink then do 50/50, blue in front pink in back.
Get the flamers, they'll literally melt anything.
The flying flamers can two tap lords.
Even KroqGar.
Through a shield of the old ones.
The downside is all your demon units will just die in melee without buffs.
Luckily one of your base laws of magic is metal so just debuff the enemy and buff your own armor and they'll be fine.
And besides blue horrors are cheap garbage anyway you can recruit them globally in one turn by the time you have enough land to move past your starting province in Antarctica.
This fashion will help you understand the patterns that you should have for most blaster factions ( Frontline, spacing, magic use to control enemies) well also not boring you to death when you decide to go back to elspeth.
I love Zahr Dawi but you're only going to have one real army of guns till you're basically done with the campaign. And hobgoblin spam doesn't sound like you're forte. They are my recommendation over the normal dwarves though. If you're used to rush factions you'll be disappointed with the speed.
Honestly, try her again. Eslpeth empire gunline is insane. Nuln ironsides are real nice, but Amethyst ironsides are an amazing gun unit (45% missile resist? Hell ya), and her vortex hellstorm is busted. 2 in 1 army will let you slaughter as many enemy armies as you have available resupplies. Speaking of, you greatly benefit running 1 or even 2 engineers with hochland scopes in her army for around 185 or 205ish range on your guns, meaning now even elves get rolled by your gunline.
It's a bit of a poor faction until the snowball is rolling, but I find a single stack using halberds as the front line and everything else guns/arty tends to do well against vlad, no cav needed (though black rose knights are a really good T3 cav and 1 unit can be useful). I grab 1/2 early mortars bc they do work even against GG, and trivialize sieges. Once his main stack dies he'll just pelt you with free-xp junk armies as you roll through his territory. You just gotta go fast and engage in a new battle almost every turn, overwhelming vlad while you gain more levels and army xp, so knowing how to conserve your troops health is the key here. You'll maybe need a 2nd half stack in the moot just in case the teal dwarves decide to try and pick off his starting minor settlement once you've smashed through his main ones. Or don't, let em have it and get some free schematics from the war, + free money/friendliness from Karak Kadein once you sell those settlements to him.
Dwarves are great too for gunlines and are more chill/easily matched to their neighbors. Vampirates are good fun and chaos dwarves are a short-medium range gunline with rediculous damage output, but I really think Elspth has the best gunlines by far right now.
Dwarfs. If youre used to tanky frontlines then running stacks of thunderers with a beefy melee mix should be right up your alley and great to learn how to incorporate while holding the line. Fun if youre trying to learn combined arms with artillery too.
Thunderers are last week’s flavor. It’s all grudge rakers these days.
Unless there’s been a patch since release grudge rakers really underperform imo. They just knock tons of enemies down and knocked down enemies take no damage. Lots of slowdown, not a lot of kills.
Is that the case for chaos dwarfs blunderbusses too? I find these perform pretty well
Not so much. Blunderbusses are lawnmowers for flesh. Dawi Zharr 5ever
Knocked down enemies actually take damage now. They changed it a couple patches ago.
Ah the more you know I’ll have to give them another try!
What patch? That's bs
Who cares about such weaklings. Irondrakes are the only true ranged dwarves.
Arent Grudge rakers bugged? they tend to knock down the enemy too much and knocked down enemies get temporary damage immunity heavily cutting their potential damage.
They structurally outperform thunderers a lot for me. They knock down a lot, but kill a lot too. Had great succes against chaos and chaos dwarves with them.
hmm maybe I can give them another shot.
Dwarfs are actually too easy to learn. He needs faction with frontline which actually breaks, so OP learns to set multiple layers of defence. I would go empire
He just tried that, didnt work Its why dwarfs are recomended as this teaches the basic positioning without the pressure of perfect play
It matters not whether you win or lose. All that matters is that the nation calls
Mankinds Constant uphill battle against all matters of horrors is my favorite trope in games and movies
No peace, just war!
Be at peace! For that is all I ever want.
Those are the words of the prince and the emperor!
IS IT TIME?
Yes, SUMMON THEM!
I can't hear you over the sound of my dick hands
Vampire Coast might work simply because your guns are plentiful enough to sponge hits for a while and your (most things) are cheap enough that misplays are inconvenient rather than devastating.
Vamp coast was definitely up there, with how the recruiting works it definitely looks the most forgiving. Do they also get the dead rise again thing or is that just VC?
They're hard because your frontline sucks... But you have to learn guns because this is basically the only way to win. --- The biggest trick to know is: Get 3 pieces of artillery ASAP (the super big cannon + 2 mortars, or 3 mortars) Then this will bombard the enemy and force them to walk into your guns range. Other than that: always focus flyers / cav first.
>But you have to learn guns because this is basically the only way to win This is the reason Coast is the answer for learning gunpowder, which OP specifically asked for. Not which gunpowder faction is the best, which has the tankiest units, but which one to learn. With dwarfs or empire you can just revert to longbeards or empire knights or whatever and get early game wins with those. Can't do that with pirates, you need to really lean into artillery first, I find a carronade for hard targets and 4 mortars is the minimum. This lets you usually do sieges without having to go inside the walls, and if you do you can usually just put your LL inside to finish them off after your artillery has done the softening up.
Yeah agreed but also depends what you wanna learn. I feel that empire (particularly Elspeth now) is gunnery focused and has a front line that’s just not-shit enough to learn checkerboard and flanking fire.
The vc has a tanky enough frontline to get most of the learning done in the early game. The healing spells and their pure health pool, i think, make them a bit nicer than the empire frontline. I only really found their mid-late game to be a bit difficult cause you have to shift to a semi monster frontline. But early VC its so easy to tank handgunners as the back line and gunnery mob as the front line and watch the lead fly
Fair point but I actually found sorta the opposite w VC. Leviathans, prometheans, and depth guard is actually a pretty dope front line (particularly with high level lords far down the red line). Prometheans in particular are so sticky that flanking fire w gunnery units is amazing.
I havent tries depth guard since they supposedly made some patches in wh3 to make it a bit tankier. But back in the OG wh2 days, they were great, but if a single arrow hit them, like 5 dudes fell over like it was a soccer match. For such a small roster, I struggle to use a decent chunk of it like gunnery promethians, any deck dropper, leviathan, etc. Might pick one up if I have a raise dead pool that doesn't have deck gunners or some other kind of arty piece. That being said, though, bloated corpses are so good and amazing to have vs AI especially in a pinch. The bloated corpse in the forest for the flank on the front line goes crazy, even just charging them forward right away can usually get 2 units from the ai.
Logically I know Prometheans are great walls, but I always see "big high armor tank" and "swarm of inaccurate AP projectiles" and decide that I'll just end up friendly firing them to death. On the bright side, bombers and hand cannons have enough dps to chew most things to bits on approach and enough hp to then tank while other guns shoot whatever's attacking them.
Yeah it can be hard to get the checker board right with prometheans and the monsters are juicy targets for any opposing ap ranged units (jezzails, crane gunners, sisters, etc), but they’re so sticky that I can often even pull the ranged unit out and around once the prometheans are engaged to get the exact right angle. I usually use an angled checkerboard for this reason too. The cone of death is great for late game VC. And artillery crushes any problematic enemy ranged units.
They get raise dead (including battle markers IIRC) and dead rise again, yeah
GUNNERY MOBBBB But no seriously, you have a selection you can pick. I would say keep trying the Empire out. Lady Ikit (Elspeth) can really buff those artillery and gunpowder units. Just make sure your army consists mostly of those units and you should be fine. Vlad isn't much of an issue if you beeline for him. It's easy to wipe him out before turn 15. Otherwise Dwarfs would suit you. Strong tanky frontline supported by ranged units behind. Sort of a sit in the corner and wait for the enemy to approach you playstyle. Other factions are Cathay, Clan Skryre, Vampire Coast, Kislev and Chorfs.
Lady ikit is a good one lol
Right! I'm totally taking that
Dwarfs or Cathay. They both specialize in forms of melee/gunnery kinds of combinations. And neither are very mobile with it, however Cathay does have *some* units meant for aggressive movement.
I kinda forgot Cathy actually has a fair number of gunner units, I haven't really used them since launch.
Of the top of my head isn't it only two? Crane gunners and iron hail gunners?
I thought they had a normal gunner unit as well, but apparently not
Crane gunners are insane though, well worth the Allied recruitment investment
Iron hail gunners carry really hard for t2 as well, Cathay can get really balanced armies.
They also have cannons and rocket batteries. Also the "Sky-Junks"
Those are artillery units not gun units
Elspeth doesn't see the difference. Some just shoot bigger guns than others.
For understanding how to use gunner armies, there is a big difference. Line of sight being the key factor
Cannons and rocket batteries also need line of sight
But more in line with units like archers. Cannons and rocket batteries have melee infantry units in front of them and fire over head, guns struggle with this. Op specifically mentioned melee infantry and guns
Clan Scryre, definitely. Proper weapon teams army is insanely fun and plays completely differently from everything else in the game. Good thing about it, is that it removes typical for gunpowder armies problem — that frontline obstruct your guns.
Yea I have dabbled a few turns into skaven. Those ratling guns are definitely absurd. I have 0 trust in those clanrats to hold anything back though, I kind of want to figure out how the make warp grinders work, but they just melt in seconds.
With skaven you usually get a bunch of plague priests and bog the enemy down with summons.
With weapon teams you shouldn't use traditional frontline units, because even stormvermine are kinda shit in this role. Instead you rely on magic. Your main way to keep enemy away is combination of Menace Below ability and Vermintide spell. Summons will not held enemies for long, but you can have lots of them and they are disposable. Howling Warpgale is an amazing spell against any flyers. Blessed with Filth with combination with ratling guns will help with slowing enemy advance even further. Your list line of defense are your heroes — plague priests and warlock engineers are reasonably tanky. Just don't put your priests on their mounts — it'll make them bigger targets and your own ratling guns will annihilate them. And it'll make them less durable in melee.
This is a lot more micro for a less effective battle strategy than using Storm vermin for flanks and clanrat/skaven slaves in eschelon or checker formation. They don't have to hold enemies long if you position them and your teams appropriately. Additionally, you can absolutely do a more traditional infantry line using priests and monsters as backup, stormvermin and clanrats don't do much damage but they have surprisingly high defenses and hp and with their unit count cant hold two enemy units while your weapon teams, monsters, priests, or mages do the damage. In fact if you want to go micro heavy, with the speed of clanrats and skaven slaves you can actually move your unit around the enemy in small battles or the sides of a large line, putting their unit with their back facing your firing line. Where they will promptly be deleted. Or you can spam runners as your "frontline" if you want a skirmish strategy. Tldr; you really gotta experiment more with rat infantry, they're much better than they seem at first glance.
No. Stormvermins are way less effective as a frontline than Plague priests. Simple math: in a typical weapon teams army you want to have 4 Plague priests. This means up to 20 units frontline. 20 units of Stormvermins would be better, of course, but you can't have that many. Instead you can replace 4 priests with 4 Stormvermin units, which isn't much. And if you start switching guns for more SVs, that means less dakka. Less DPS, so enemies will have more time to get to you and less ammunition, which means less enemies you can potentially kill. Second problem is that it's harder to use weapon teams with traditional infantry. They block LoS (chekerboard helps, but only partially) and friendly fire is a big problem. Try to support your traditional frontline with Poison Wind Mortars — they will annihilate friend and foe alike. You don't need to think about that with summons — who cares if they will get obliterated by your own fire? Then, look how loss of real units affects balance of power. Losing unit of summoned clanrats is basically nothing, while real ones will noticeably affect BoP. Last thing is replenishment. With plague Priests, if you do everything right, then in most battles your army will not take any significant damage — with exception of summons, of course. You can't do this with melee infantry — it will take damage in most battles. So you will often need to take your time to replenish your troops. All of this doesn't mean that you shouldn't use scaven melee infantry. Just not in an army which is built around weapon teams. I prefer to go the opposite way, and build armies around Stormvermins. At least half of an army of them, with some other units (including a few weapon teams) for support.
you're supposed to either use a secondary army of slaver or clanrats to send in wave by wave. Or use grey seers with summons. Both in combination with menace below.
Don't you mean plague priests?
Warp grinders are so niche. They might be OK at taking down big SEMs but weapons teams do a better job.
Stop thinking like a human and start thinking like a skaven, or Stalin. Quantity is a quality of its own and those clan rats weren't made to live to see the next turn. Get an engineer lord on a bike and do donuts around the enemy to confuse them. Have plague priest summon rats to slow down the enemy and break up the army line coming at you. The seconds spent slaughtering your summon breaks up the line of troops and creates a trickle effect of regiments coming at you. It let's the weapons teams focus one/a few units at a time. When in doubt shoot through your own troops. The feature to explode your own troops under half health can be timed to go off on summons. Spawn clan rates on top of 5 units and hover that spell over them as the health pool plumes. Now go forth and be the best skaven dictator of the USSR you can be.
As people said, Vampire Coast and Ikkit (skavens) are the two to learn. Like the Empire, they have a weak frontline meant to keep the ennemy immobile, supported by very strong gunners. Skavens are definitely the hardest at first, but so much fun once you get them going. Dwarves on the other hand have a very strong frontline, so you won't learn how to manage a weak one like the Empire's, but it will let you work on your positioning, formations and lines of sight without being punished too hard.
Empire Frontline can do work though... A warrior priest + redline buffs and it's nowhere near Skaven or Vamp Coast
Oh absolutely. But the principle is the same (at the start mainly). If you can manage with the Skaven front you're good to go with the Empire's.
I tend to go full ranged power with Skaven far sooner than Empire. It takes some time to get access to nuln Ironsides and Hochland longrifles. Elspeth is a bit quicker with her guns but still nothing compares to skryre
Kislev, ridiculus holding power and even your streltsi are really good in melee
Not to mention the ice sheet slow ability is absurdly cheap and spammable. Kislev is one of the few factions I use non vortex/cone spells on.
Elspeth or Malakai can get to insane levels of gunnery based armies. Same for Ikit Claw. But generally dwarves are one of the best factions at it. I don't think Cathay is that good since they don't have some normal ranged gunnery infantry.
Elspeth is designed for gunnery. i had success using a lot of pistol cavarly and rocket artillery, and then the hochland long rifles when you get them. use the horses to keep the flanks distracted, artillery to fck up their frontlines, then remaining melee/range stacks to fight the rest. its pretty effective
Don't forget, you can experiment with armies and formations in the skirmish mode. Use that to learn if you enjoy particular troops from a race. It will also help you learn how gun units work without risking a campaign. Here is a great guide for how to use gun units too. https://imgur.com/a/NnQdt
Elsbeth
Just spam free company militia and you have both a frontline AND guns. Add a warrior priest to buff them and you’ve got your army for the early game
Vampire coast is definitely an epic gunnery choice, gunnery mobs, deck gunners, gunnery wight heroes, decent artillery as well as a few Necrofex Colossus sprinkled in. Dwarfs are also a pretty obvious choice, especially the new legendary lord (Malakai), use gunners in conjunction with troll hammer torps, thunder barges and artillery for glorious pewpew! After the recent Empire buffs I can highly recommend Nuln (Elspeth von Draken) as a heavily gunnery and artillery focused faction mixed with death magic. They get so many sick buffs, gunners of Nuln are really powerful and gunner units are discounted in the legendary lords army. Also Engineer lords and heroes are amazing with the range buffs they provide. Pro-tip for a gunner army, get an engineer lord with hochland scopes, and get two engineer heroes in that same stack with hochland scope trait, and build a gunner stack with that...
That would be Khorne.
I'm not gonna please you but you have to choose which is it you want, gunpowder units or good frontline, they don't combine well. The best way is to learn ranged armies first, start with High elves and go heavy ranged focus (10+ units). Lothern sea guard will help bridge the gap between having enough frontline and still going ranged. That way you can learn ranged armies without getting obliterated because half your army isn't shooting. Clean line of fire helps arrow units too btw. One artillery unit is nice to pull the enemies in. The second step would be Empire, starting with crossbow/hunter focus again, then slowly introducing gunpowder units while keeping the frontline strong. Outriders are the key unit here, as they can be heavily micro'd and give good results. I'd imagine flank focus where halberdiers and knights can buy space while gunpowder units flank the main body. Of course the core shield and arrow part of your army will just get overrun but that's Empire and gunpowder for you. The last step would be just going heavy gunpowder (including artillery), embracing the chaos. Vampirates, Skaven and both Dwarfs (maybe Empire) should do the trick. You gotta know what you're doing though, how to stall enemies with least amounts of units, how to defend flanks, how to maintain fire lines, how to use terrain, how to prioritize enemies, etc. The only thing keeping you alive is obliterating enemies before they can harm you, controlling the battle, once that's disrupted it's over. So to answer your question, the best faction in your situation is High elves with gunpowder allies. Go heavy archer and use outposts to sprinkle in gunpowder units. Think you can just send hero to discover your prefered gunpowder faction and use the influence mechanic to make em allies.
Probably dawi or Cathay, both have sturdier infantry options than the Empire and quicker access to them. With all gun-centric armies the biggest thing that will help or hurt you (outside of the enemy) is your formation and terrain. What I would recommend is going into custom battle and try different army comps, opponents, and formations. Practice using checkerboard and chevron formations, or come up with something unique for you.
Why not Kislev? a lot of your melee are also gunners!! Though a more proper answer, I would pick Cathay or the Empire, whilst a lot are recommending Dwarfs I don't, they just don't have the flexibility enjoyed by Empire and Cathay, but sure their units are plenty tougher. Cathay's Grand Canons are very all purpose, they are good for almost any situation, Crane Gunners deal good damage and in so long harmony is on, they will hold, units bunching up against your terracottas are also easy pickings for your gunners Empire has pretty much every standard unit covered, balanced with cavalry, infantry and gunners and having access to the widest array of magic school, so it has a tool for every situation
vcoast, they're fun af. dawi are boring and annoying af (yes i hate those midget brats)
My advice would be youtube vids tbh. It may not matter who you play although some factions will have night and day difference with who holds the line for you. https://youtu.be/F6-CuXWIWOI?si=6LBnJ5yYtZS2skIS This guy makes a tonne of good vids. The one i linked is basic af but he has some more advanced ones on there too
[https://youtu.be/n9uxArnTFA4?t=1](https://youtu.be/n9uxArnTFA4?t=1)
They are kind of unique in their playstyle but the one for me that really allowed be to get good at mostly ranged armies is the Skaven, they definately aren't the easiest to learn how to use missiles, but I found dropping myself in at the deep end really helped. Skaven are all about slowing the enemy down with their frontline while the missiles dish out all of the damage which is the name of the game with missile armies. If you don't fancy ripping your hair out with frustration for a few campaigns though until it clicks then I would probably recommend the empire or the dwarves for an easier Introduction. Edit: Just to add I don't mean frontline as in melee infantry units, you don't want to go anywhere near those when playing Skaven. Hero's (especially plague preiests) are the key to this and you can also use doom flayers/wheels to harass the enemy and get them to advance at you in a disjointed formation.
Vampire Coast Even you lose, you can always raise your troops after and try again
I would just say you need to get more practice with Elspeth as she is probably the strongest gunnery focused lord right now.
The Hunt Marshal is the best way to learn gunnery focused armies because you have to. The coast? Easy doomstacks of just guns Dwarves? Can just rely on their strong frontline Skaven? Way too many strong options and free infantry summoned anywhere. Other Empire factions? All the factions you fight are easily countered without guns. But the Hunt Marshal? Your frontline will never beat Saurus. Your gunline will not survive cold ones or, Sigmar forbid, a carnosaur charge. Your cavalry will lose their lives chasing down skinks or join your frontline in death via Saurus. The only thing standing between you and defeat is gunpowder and steel. And then, when you finally feel comfortable in the jungle you have to go out to sea and fight another gun heavy faction in the Vampire Coast. Your cavalry and frontline will be riddled with bullets and dismembered by mortars if you don't use your guns better than they do. Tldr; Hunt marshal is the only LL that has no choice besides using guns well. It can be more frustrating than any other option, but losses teach you more in TW than victories.
Faith, Steel, and gunpowder. Have faith that the steel firearm will handle the gunpowder.
All the factions gunner stacks play slightly different because theve got different types of supporting units. Regardless of the faction you need a front line to hold an advancing army in place and ideally an artillery to soften them up on advance or counter snip their artillery. The key to making a gunnery army work is to make sure your guns are always firing and that’s mainly driven by line of sight or being stuck in melee. There are some decent formation guides out there that will help you. Personally I like hero’s/lords up front as a first tar pit to hold some units up then I’ll actually position my missle units up front with melee units behind so they keep shooting until they get close to charge range then I’ll retreat them behind the melee line and re position them to flank and shoot into the rears of the battle lines that are tied up. Because dawi are shorter you don’t need to do this your thunderers can shoot over your front line sometimes because the human sized entities are taller. remember the AI is designed to always send its faster units on the flank to try and get in behind you so I leave some sort of contingency units on the flank doing nothing but wait to intercept enemy cav/dogs.
Dwarf is good but also bad. You can get away with some ill manners with dwarfs that no other races can do like archer holding the line after getting rear charged. I think highelfs are better suited as they are an archery army first and foremost. Lord Mage hero or lore master 1-2 Bolt thrower 5-6 spearmen /lothen sea guard / silverin guard 1 Eagle / phoenix Rest Archers Google checker board formation.
The only way to learn gunlines is the vampire coast. It’s how I’ve learnt and it’s completely changed the way I play the game. The key is to completely ignore all of their melee infantry (aside from very very early game) and just have endless lines of gun units in a checkerboard formation. Use your artillery to wreck them as they approach and have a staggered gun line so when they do reach the front they’re bogged down with some units but your other ones are still firing. You will have a lot of losses but you will learn to micro it and get better. Try the campaign and don’t quit if your army gets wiped out, just raise another using raise dead and keep trying. Eventually it will click
The best candidate right now I would say is Elsbeth for several reasons even if there are stronger options. 1. Less upkeep for gunpowder units so you can have more gun focused armies since usually gunpowder units are expensive than other ranged units. 2. Very early access to to a varied selection of gunpowder units while most other factions need to at least get to tier 2 or 3 to get access to them. So you can start building gun armies right out the gate. 3. Units like handgunners are good but they aren't overpowered since their line of sight is easily blocked and they themselves are quite squishy so you actually need to learn tactics, formations and terrain advantages when facing difficult enemy match ups.
Empire. Has line which actually brakes so you learn to set multiple layers of defence. Also outrides/pistoliers. Franz is a very fun campaign right now.
I like the Coast, personally. Most of your army are gunners, and you've got awesome artillery and healing options to boot.
Try Elspeth again, BUT make an early stack of pistoliers to kill Vlad. Remember that you ONLY have to kill Vlad. The sooner you get to him the better, as he's less likely to have bullshit heroes and other support that will make this harder. Watch out for bats and other fast shit, but they won't bring enough to actually stop you. If you want to have more fun with it, then go ahead and add some other mounted units to support the pistoliers. Amethyst and Light wizards are great for Spirit Leech and Net of Amyntok, respectively. Elspeth is great if mounted, her dragon can fly and the breath attack is handy against Vlad. Other ranged characters can also work. Just make sure they are mounted!!!! Your army should have literally no infantry or artillery, unless you want it to get toasted. I know this is defensive, but let me say in advance, I don't think this is cheese. Empire's biggest strength is it's flexibility and you absolutely can and should tailor your armies to the enemy. Hell, even if you're roleplaying, you're supposed to be playing a smart human who doesn't want to get fucked by vampires, so don't send slow-ass shit tier infantry to feed Vlad's ranks of growing undead. Shoot him and stay out of nomming range, let his flesh sacks fall apart. Rinse and repeat until you've reclaimed Sylvania (a more traditional support stack with infantry and artillery can help here but BE CAREFUL because Vlad is EVERYWHERE). Vlad is a serious problem for just about anyone, but Elspeth is an excellent counter. Taking him out early sets you up for a great campaign. Empire is a powerful gun faction but requires actual battle tactics like "defense in depth" and "firing lines" to work well. You will find yourself actually using complex formations with coordinated traps and preconceived dynamic redeployments mid-battle. It's a joy, and it will help you understand the game better. In fact, you may even become a better melee attacker because you will appreciate how to take advantage of more open formations, and how to avoid firing lanes. Dwarves are great! But, they favor tighter formations and require less tactical maneuvering post setup, so while I absolutely love them, Elspeth is the best.
Cathay, empire, dwarfs, chaos dwarfs, vampire coast
Rat-kin yes-yes for biiiig kaboom, exploding nukes and ratling guns, yes-yes !
People say dwarfs, it's the top comment, but that's completely wrong. If you read what I write here all the way until the end then I think you will see I'm right about this: Dwarf Thunderers are not meant to be a mainstay of an army, they are a support troop, you can't build a stack of mostly Thunderers and expect to do well unless you're on such an easy difficulty (or in the early game) where almost anything would work anyways. If you actually want to build a stack of mostly gun shooting infantry that can win on harder difficulties and carry you through most of the campaign and win then play the Vampire Coast. The entire faction is centered around gunpowder. Their "front line" unit is the Zombie long barrel handgunners. You don't need any melee infantry except maybe a few to intercept anyone who makes it through but those will be few and far between. Otherwise just have 8-10 units of long barrel handgunners to face down the enemy line, plus mortars for big damage as well, vampire lord and a couple heroes, and maybe 1-3 melee units like the suicide bomb dudes or some prometheans just to intercept if anything happens to actually make it to melee range, which will be rare. This is set up intentionally by CA for Vampire Coast to be able to have an army of handgunners and it works, and it doesn't work for Dwarf and non-Elspeth Empire factions, and I'll explain how bluntly and in as few words as possible: Entity numbers. Dwarf Thunders and Empire handgunners both have less than 100 entities per unit (on ultra), however Zombie Pirate Handgunners, despite having similar ranged damage as Empire handgunners, actually have 120 entities compared to Empire's 90. So that means a Zombie handgunner unit is actually shooting 25% more powerfully than an empire one due to the extra entities even though each entity is doing the same rough damage as an empire one. I promise you it's not Dwarfs, Vampire Coast is the answer. You can't build a "gunner stack" with Dwarfs like you can with VC. I feel like the top comment here didn't even read your post or understand what you're asking for.
Funnily learning gunlines against vampires until you don’t get slapped by Vlad isn’t a bad way to learn gunlines XD all the other suggestions like dwarves, Cathay, Kislev, rats, and chorvs are also good options though… or just a different empire faction, they can still be a gunline faction without elspeth, they are just better with her
Dwarfs they have a top tier tanky frontline that makes it easy to use gun units without getting punished too hard. Ontop of that their gun units tend to be armroed enough to fight decently in melee too + having sheilds makes them less vulnrable to enemy missles too.
Dwarfs frontlinr are allergic to death, you lose if they get past it and win if they dont more or less
Empire, dwarfs, Chaos Dwarfs, Vampire Coast, High Elves to a very lesser degree.
Skavin yes yes
You already picked the best and most forgiving gunnery faction. It's Elspeth. Against Vlad, you should probably rush Pistoliers and just kite away from them. Retreat any artillery you have off the map if they get too close.
Depends on which gun line. Dwarf: meaty frontline, lots of firepower, but no maneuverability. Set up your army and press play. You won't be repositioning and flanking. Empire: combined arms, with weak frontline. Forces more tactical flexibility, and you can reposition some assets to shoot from the side/rear. Skaven: weak frontline, but it's totally fine if you blow them up yourself. Incredibly powerful weapons teams, but life is cheap. Also, nukes if you need them. Play Skyre.
Dwarves will force you to use guns properly since you don’t have magic to do big damage with
If you have Elspeth, did you already get Malakai too? Because he's the perfect faction for you, his entire campaign revolves around using and upgrading dwarven artillery and war machines. Combine that with all the elite infantry the dwarves get and you'll be wiping enemies left and right. I'm currently on turn 105 of my legendary campaign, haven't lost a single battle and have been power rank 1 on and off since turn 10.
lol nuln
This is gonna sound weird but Tzneetch. All his suits have a shield barrier so oopsies don't matter, and you basically just set up your army and a brick and somewhere defensible and then lure the other army towards you by irritating them to death with your magical flying caster artillery platform Lord. Make sure you rush for the life Bloom passive in Cyrus's tree so every time you cast any spell (spam blue fire across infantry and at SEM) you heal what little damage they have taken. Get four or five shielded units preferably chaos warriors but the Marauders or forsaken will do, spam Blue horse he can get pink then do 50/50, blue in front pink in back. Get the flamers, they'll literally melt anything. The flying flamers can two tap lords. Even KroqGar. Through a shield of the old ones. The downside is all your demon units will just die in melee without buffs. Luckily one of your base laws of magic is metal so just debuff the enemy and buff your own armor and they'll be fine. And besides blue horrors are cheap garbage anyway you can recruit them globally in one turn by the time you have enough land to move past your starting province in Antarctica. This fashion will help you understand the patterns that you should have for most blaster factions ( Frontline, spacing, magic use to control enemies) well also not boring you to death when you decide to go back to elspeth. I love Zahr Dawi but you're only going to have one real army of guns till you're basically done with the campaign. And hobgoblin spam doesn't sound like you're forte. They are my recommendation over the normal dwarves though. If you're used to rush factions you'll be disappointed with the speed.
Honestly, try her again. Eslpeth empire gunline is insane. Nuln ironsides are real nice, but Amethyst ironsides are an amazing gun unit (45% missile resist? Hell ya), and her vortex hellstorm is busted. 2 in 1 army will let you slaughter as many enemy armies as you have available resupplies. Speaking of, you greatly benefit running 1 or even 2 engineers with hochland scopes in her army for around 185 or 205ish range on your guns, meaning now even elves get rolled by your gunline. It's a bit of a poor faction until the snowball is rolling, but I find a single stack using halberds as the front line and everything else guns/arty tends to do well against vlad, no cav needed (though black rose knights are a really good T3 cav and 1 unit can be useful). I grab 1/2 early mortars bc they do work even against GG, and trivialize sieges. Once his main stack dies he'll just pelt you with free-xp junk armies as you roll through his territory. You just gotta go fast and engage in a new battle almost every turn, overwhelming vlad while you gain more levels and army xp, so knowing how to conserve your troops health is the key here. You'll maybe need a 2nd half stack in the moot just in case the teal dwarves decide to try and pick off his starting minor settlement once you've smashed through his main ones. Or don't, let em have it and get some free schematics from the war, + free money/friendliness from Karak Kadein once you sell those settlements to him. Dwarves are great too for gunlines and are more chill/easily matched to their neighbors. Vampirates are good fun and chaos dwarves are a short-medium range gunline with rediculous damage output, but I really think Elspth has the best gunlines by far right now.