Total War: Warhammer III — Survival Battles, sieges, and supplies guide

With a game title that has the word “war” written twice, you’ll obviously have a lot of conflicts to resolve. There are also new mechanics in play that can prove to be both engrossing and detrimental to overall progression. Here’s our Total War: Warhammer III guide to help you with Survival Battles, siege mechanics, and defensive supplies.

Note: For more information, check out our Total War: Warhammer III guides and features hub.

Total War: Warhammer III Survival Battles, siege mechanics, and defensive supplies guide

Sieges and Supplies

Originally, this guide was only supposed to be about Survival Battles in Total War: Warhammer III. However, I’ve decided to add sieges because, along with defensive supplies, these core mechanics remain in play.

First off, defensive supplies generally come from the main settlement building (1,000 supplies) even at the lowest tier. Likewise, you can amass 50 to 100 supplies per turn if a minor settlement has a garrison building. This amount is then used in case your settlement is attacked by a hostile force to trigger a siege battle.

Shore up your defenses: Supply locations, barricades, and towers

In a siege battle, look for green icons that denote structures that can help bolster your forces:

• Supply locations – Grant supply points every turn.
• Towers – Can be built using supply points:
  • Arrow tier 1 – 500.
  • Arrow tier 2 – 900.
  • Piercing – 1,400.
  • Magic/Explosive – 2,000.
• Barricades – Can be built using supply points:
  • Platform (increases range) – 300.
  • Monument (increases leadership and melee defense) – 400.
  • Trap (lowers enemy speed and melee attack) – 400.
  • Blocker (increases missile resistance) – 500.
• Gatehouses – Provides a passage in and out of the settlement (can also cause pathing issues when blobs of units try to enter, same with narrow streets).
• Fort Towers – Requires a unit standing within its area so it can fire piercing projectiles.
• Rally Horn – Increases melee defense and leadership.
• Victory Location/Plaza – Increases the ticks of victory points (or you could just rout every enemy unit to win the battle).

Note 1: As the attacker, your only concern in sieges is having artillery or monsters to break down the walls, while siege equipment such as ladders and rams are brought along by infantry.

Note 2: As the defender, sieges are fairly dynamic since you need to adjust accordingly. Spend supply points to construct towers and barricades, and plug the gaps in your lines to prevent hostiles from pouring in.

What are Survival Battles in Total War: Warhammer III

Sieges are long, drawn-out affairs that can last around 30 minutes. These can prove to be hassles if you’re invading new lands. The defenders will often have towers blocking your path and you’ll incur casualties. As for Survival Battles in Total War: Warhammer III, think of these as Sieges XL, as in ginormous “siege-like” encounters that take place in massive maps.

You can play Survival Battles if you select them on the main menu’s interface. But, if you’re playing the campaign, then they’re the culmination of your trek inside a Realm of Chaos. This is where a Chaos champion resides, a favorite of each of the Ruinous Powers. You’ll need to defeat all four across all realms to unlock the Forge of Souls final battle and win the campaign.

Note: Be forewarned that only your legendary lord’s army can participate in Survival Battles in the campaign. They can also take over an hour to complete. Sure, they can be auto-resolved (and even your reinforcements can help tip the balance in your favor). But, there’s no checkpoint or in-battle save system that can aid you if you want to try these manually. In the unfortunate event that your game freezes or crashes, you’ll lose all progress you’ve made in that encounter.

Survival Battle mechanics: Siege tactics and enemy waves

A few mechanics are retained from regular sieges when you play the Survival Battles in Total War: Warhammer III:

• The towers and barricades are still around, with notable effects.
• There are three capture points on the battlefield that also act as supply locations (generating supplies every second). You have to take over these spots in sequence as you go along.

In the first area, there will be a weaker set of mobs. Upon taking them out and capturing the objective, you’ll start gaining more supply points.

In a short while, numerous enemy mobs that follow that particular deity will spawn, and they need to be eliminated. A progress bar will tick down from 100% to zero to show you if every hostile has been dealt with. Ideally, you’ll want sturdy infantry to block chokepoints, while Magic/Explosive Towers provide the nukes. More often than not, enemy troops will beeline for the capture point and destroy barricades, but they tend to ignore some towers (which leads to their demise).

Reinforcements and buffs

Apart from the above, you can also spend your supply points on the following:

• Reinforcements (left side of your army panel) – In the campaign, your pool of reinforcements is comprised of every single unit that you can recruit for your faction. There are even multiples of some of these, so you can beef up your troop count when necessary. Reinforcements will appear in the selected capture zone, so make sure you select the correct one (you don’t want soldiers to appear on the part of the map that you just left).
• Buffs/upgrades (right side of your army panel) – These include buffs to melee attack, melee defense, armor, Winds of Magic reserves, and healing (which also revives dead combatants).

The Chaos Champion’s Soul

After the enemy waves have been routed, you’re notified that you need to head to the second location (with more mobs and enemy waves), and then the third. For the third and final zone, just clear out the defenders and prepare accordingly.

Once the countdown has expired, a (generic) Daemon Prince, a Champion of a Chaos God, will spawn. By now, you should have access to your high-tier reinforcements, so make them count. Blitz your target and take him out so you can obtain their soul.

But, you’re not done yet, because numerous mobs will continue to appear. Kill them until the bar reaches zero to complete the whole encounter. Still, you do need to finish all four Survival Battles in Total War: Warhammer III if you wish to reach the campaign’s conclusion.

Note 1: Finishing a Survival Battle successfully will boot out any lord in another faction that’s also in the same realm. If this happens to you, then you can retry much later once a new set of Chaos Rifts appear.

Note 2: Unfortunately, even though you’ve killed a champion of Chaos, you don’t actually receive a tangible reward from your victory. This is mostly just a tally for the campaign, and the actual rewards that you obtain are from landmarks in the Realms of Chaos, not from Survival Battles themselves.

Total War: Warhammer III is available via Steam, Epic Games, and the Xbox Game Pass for PC.