Are Mounts Always an Upgrade in Total War: Warhammer III?

A large part of campaign progression in Total War: Warhammer III is upgrading the skills of your Lords and Heroes as they gain levels, which in many cases includes unlocking new mounts. 

These mounts can range from a simple horse to mammoths, flying war beasts and dinosaurs, depending on the character's affiliation and type. 

But are mounts always a benefit in battle, or can they sometimes be a disadvantage? Today we'll look at the pros and cons of mounts in Warhammer III. 

The answer to the question, generally speaking, is "it depends". 

The most important characteristic of mounts is that they give characters more mobility on the battlefield - this is especially important for spellcasters, but mobility is pretty much always a good thing. 

But when reviewing your mount options generally, it's a good idea to ask yourself exactly what you are using the character for, and then examine exactly how the stats and abilities of your character changes when using the mount. 

If you want your character to cause a lot of havoc in enemy formations, then a big mount that can push smaller foes out of the way, be it a mammoth, a brood horror or a screaming bell, is a good bet. But larger mounts come with some weaknesses, even if they universally improve the combat stats of your lord or hero. 

A lord or hero who is on foot is a small target for projectiles, and often enemies won't even be able to shoot them at all if they are in the middle of a brawl. Putting them on a big mount makes them an easy target. There's also the fact that more enemy melee combatants will be able to surround and attack them at any one time. A small character on foot can only be surrounded by a fairly small number of entities, but if they're on a huge mount then they can suddenly be attacked by a good chunk of an enemy unit simultaneously. Mounting a character also tends to make them vulnerable to the anti-large bonus, so you will have to be more careful of enemy anti large units, especially the more dangerous ones like Slayers and Black Guard of Naggarond. 

So while most mounts will make your character more powerful, they will also often take more damage simply due to being a larger target, therefore requiring more micromanagement to keep them safe. 

This isn't to say that mounts are a bad choice or anything, that's definitely not the case at all, but you shouldn't just slap your lords and heroes on the highest tier mount that's available and expect them to perform better in all situations. If you want a lord or hero to simply survive as long as possible to hold the line, then having them on a small mount or no mount at all might actually be the best option. 

But if you want to actively micromanage them, and have them move around the battlefield seeking out targets to quickly disrupt or destroy, then putting them on a big scary mount is probably the way to go.

We hope you enjoyed this article about Total War: Warhammer III. Warhammer III is developed by Creative Assembly.