Warhammer 3 — After Strategy

Total War: Warhammer 3: how to confederate and vassalize a faction (2026 guide)

Thu, 05 Nov 2026 00:00:00 GMT

To confederate in Total War: Warhammer 3, you generally need a faction of the same race, good relations and clear military superiority: the option then becomes available in diplomacy. Several races follow their own route, however. Vassalization depends even more on your race, because the pact is not open to everyone and Chaos has conquest routes.

This guide is up to date with Patch 9.0.4 from October 2026. Creative Assembly publishes no complete list of these rules, so the guide cross-checks official notes, 2022 guides and player reports, and says each time where the information comes from. Nothing here comes from a played campaign.

Confederation or vassalization: the difference

The two pacts differ in both effect and cost.

Point	Confederation	Vassalization
Effect	The two factions merge	The target stays independent, under your protection
Gain	Regions, armies and lords	Loaned army and a share of income
Target’s treasury	Not recovered	Not recovered
Control	Direct	Limited to orders and coordination
Main cost	Higher upkeep	Reliability if you break the treaty

The Gamepressure diplomacy guide and the Game Rant guide point to the same trap: you get the regions, not the money. A late confederation can therefore sink a budget that is already tight.

How to confederate through diplomacy

This route applies to races without a dedicated mechanic. It rests on three conditions.

Same race. A faction of another race does not qualify, whatever your relations.
Good relations. Gifts, trade pacts, alliances and attacks on its enemies all raise them.
Military superiority. The target must feel clearly weaker than you.

Update 2.0 shifted the balance: confederating a minor faction became harder, and confederating a major faction became easier. Reliability also feeds into the AI’s decision, according to Gamepressure.

In practice, relations alone are not enough. In a 2024 Steam thread, players describe a Bretonnian faction refusing at 280 relations. They list several acceptance factors, to be read as signals rather than rules.

Military alliance. It often comes before the deal.
Target in trouble. A faction fighting on too many fronts, or close to dying out, gives in sooner.
Missing leader. The death of its Legendary Lord would make it more open.

Rules by race

This table gives the known route for each race and the age of the information. Lines drawn from a 2022 guide may have changed, especially for races reworked since then.

Race	Confederation route	Origin
Dwarfs	Great Book of Grudges, base 7,500 settled grudges	Hotfix 5.0.3
Vampire Counts	Dedicated panel: unique tasks, hefty cost, Blood	Official blog, August 2026
Bretonnia	Up to 6 technologies, then a dilemma	Game Rant, 2022
Greenskins, Norsca	Beat the rival leader, then a dilemma	Game Rant, 2022
High Elves	Patrons of the Realm, 11 seats of power	Update 7.0 announcement
Wood Elves	Oak of Ages at tiers 2 and 3, up to 6 quests	Game Rant, 2022
Beastmen	Heavy superiority, with Dread able to force some lords	Game Rant, 2022
Lizardmen	Strong positive diplomatic modifier required	Game Rant, 2022
Dark Elves, some humans	Diplomacy: superiority and good relations	Game Rant, 2022

For Dwarfs, Hotfix 5.0.3 halved the base cost, from 15,000 to 7,500. Hotfix 5.0.4 adds that minor factions no longer raise the price of Legendary Lords.

The Empire deserves an in-game check. Game Rant described forced confederation through Fealty in 2022, but the Thrones of Decay rework split Imperial Authority from the Elector Counts system, now unique to Karl Franz. If you play another Empire leader, do not trust the old guides.

Repanse de Lyonesse would be an exception in Bretonnia: players say she uses standard diplomacy because her technology tree differs.

Vampire Counts: the most fluid case

The free update blog announces a series of unique tasks and a hefty cost to confederate another Legendary Lord, with Blood spent on it. The Red Duke, for his part, is confederated through the technology tree.

The notes partly contradict each other on target size. Patch 9.0.3 replaces the 5-region limit with a ratio: you need more than three times its regions, and the change also covers this panel, for new campaigns. Patch 9.0.4 nevertheless fixes the display of a condition of no more than 5 regions. What matters, then, is the panel tooltip in your own campaign.

How to vassalize

The Gamepressure guide describes a “become my vassal” pact: the target places itself under your protection, lends its army and gives up part of its income. That deal is not offered to everyone, though.

A November 2024 player survey compared the base diplomacy of each race’s first leader in Immortal Empires. It is neither official nor newer than 9.0, but it is the most complete list found.

Pact in base diplomacy	Races
Available	Daemons of Chaos, Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, Warriors of Chaos, Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts
Missing	Bretonnia, Cathay, Dark Elves, Dwarfs, Empire, Greenskins, High Elves, Kislev, Lizardmen, Ogres, Skaven, Vampire Coast, Wood Elves
No diplomacy	Beastmen
Not tested	Chaos Dwarfs, Norsca

The survey leaves out campaign abilities and vassalization through war. A race listed as missing may therefore get a vassal some other way.

Conquest routes

Chaos holds the best-documented methods.

Subjugation. Update 2.1 lets Warriors of Chaos subjugate human and elven races.
Final settlement. Archaon and Be’lakor can confederate other Warriors of Chaos by capturing their last stronghold.
Dark Fortresses. Occupying a Dark Fortress in a Norscan homeland capital gives you that faction as a vassal while you hold its homeland.
Archaon in 9.0. A defeated Chaos Legendary Lord joins Archaon, and their regions go to a new vassal if they are not Warriors of Chaos.

That last route excludes Beastmen, Chaos Dwarfs, Daemons of Chaos and Norsca. Patch 9.0.4 also fixed forced confederation for Warriors of Chaos, which was vassalizing by mistake, so older player reports on that point no longer hold.

Making a vassal useful

On paper, a vassal is a free buffer. Several limits still deserve your attention.

Modest income. Players rate tribute as low, while a vassal with plenty of regions holds up better alone.
Reliability. Hotfix 4.0.2 confirms that breaking a treaty with a vassal affects your reliability.
Absorption. A Greenskin or Norscan vassal can vanish if a rival leader of its race beats it, according to a 2022 thread.
Archaon. Since Hotfix 9.0.2, vassals not aligned with Chaos break vassalage if you join Archaon.
God-aligned lords. Valkia, Festus and Vilitch give their vassals specific bonuses, on top of spreading their corruption.

The quietest risk comes from mixed alignments. Players report that Order vassals get along badly with Chaos or Skaven vassals, which blocks some deals.

Confederate or vassalize: which to choose

The choice depends on what you want to take.

Confederate if you want a Legendary Lord, their armies and their regions, and your budget can absorb the upkeep.
Vassalize if the target protects a border and you do not want to manage its settlements.
Wait if the target is healthy: pushing it into a hard war seems to work better than piling up gifts.

If you play a race without a vassal pact, confederation remains your only diplomatic tool for absorbing a rival. To pick a faction by strength, see our Immortal Empires tier list.

Going further

Total War Warhammer 3: where to start in Immortal Empires

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Total War Warhammer 3 has become a cathedral of content. It is impressive, generous, sometimes wonderful and honestly intimidating. The wrong reflex is trying to understand everything before starting a campaign: every lord, every DLC, every mod, every school of magic. You will never leave the menu.

The better reflex is the opposite: choose a readable faction, play twenty turns seriously, lose a few battles, and only then widen the door. Warhammer 3 is not difficult because of its rules. It is difficult because it gives too many options too early.

Start small in Immortal Empires

Immortal Empires is the huge sandbox map of Total War Warhammer 3. It is also the best mode to play today, provided you do not treat it like an encyclopedia. Your first campaign should teach three things: hold a province, compose a coherent army and choose your wars.

Do not try to optimize every building. Look first at your economy, recruitment and immediate enemies. If your first province is stable, you are learning. If you move in three directions at once, you are being carried by the map rather than reading it.

Three good first campaigns

Karl Franz, Empire
A very readable general teacher. Correct infantry, solid ranged units, useful cavalry, clear artillery and accessible magic. You will learn diplomacy, multiple threats and classic battles.

Tyrion, High Elves
Strong for learning ranged power, economy and clean armies. Less chaotic than many Old World positions.

Thorgrim, Dwarfs
A strong choice if you enjoy holding a line. Dwarfs forgive some micro mistakes, but they force you to think about placement, artillery and endurance.

Avoid factions with very special mechanics or explosive starting positions for a first campaign. Skaven, Daemons of Chaos and some DLC factions are fantastic, but better once you already know how to read a battle.

Battle basics: line, fire, flank, magic

The basic recipe still works. Your infantry line fixes the enemy, but it does not win alone. Archers, guns or cannons often do the real damage. Cavalry and fast units punish flanks, not solid centers. A lord or hero holds a dangerous point when the line shakes. One well-timed spell is worth more than ten panic casts.

Magic often separates a clean victory from an expensive mess. Do not cast because the spell looks spectacular. Wait until the enemy is grouped, blocked or already committed. A zone spell launched too early creates noise; the same spell when two regiments are packed against your line can decide the battle.

Mods: start light

The Warhammer 3 Workshop is enormous, but it can ruin the learning process. For a first campaign, keep the list short:

Community Bug Fix Mod for known fixes;
one interface improvement if it helps you read information;
possibly a camera mod to observe battles better.

Keep SFO: Grimhammer, Radious and large lord packs for later. They can be excellent, but they change balance. If you begin with them, you will not know whether you are learning Warhammer 3 or a deeply rewritten version of it.

Reading a lost battle

Warhammer 3 can make a defeat look like it came from an overpowered monster or a spell you did not understand. Sometimes that is true, but the causes are often smaller. The line was too stretched. Ranged units lost their angle. Cavalry charged too early and got trapped. The lord chased a secondary target while the center collapsed.

After a failed battle, start with formation. If fast units were too far away, they could not save the flanks. If your shooters were behind a slope or wood, they may have spent the battle searching for line of sight. If magic went into scattered units, it produced noise instead of a swing.

This reading matters more than a tier list. A faction considered strong can collapse when deployed badly. A simpler faction can win cleanly if the plan is coherent: fix, shoot, flank, then pursue only when the enemy line breaks.

When to open DLCs and big overhauls

The right time to install huge mods or buy a new race is not “when you are lost”. It is when you know what you want to change. If you want longer battles, an overhaul can make sense. If you want a more aggressive campaign style, a specialized lord may be a good purchase. If you only want the game to feel less confusing, add interface clarity before adding content.

That discipline avoids the buffet effect. Warhammer 3 can become a game you collect more than you play. One finished campaign with few mods teaches more than ten starts overloaded with novelty and abandoned around turn 25.

DLC: buy for factions, not fear

The commercial trap is obvious: there is always a faction you do not own. Resist it. Buy a DLC because you genuinely want to play its lord or race, not because a tier list calls it central.

For beginners, one complete campaign with content you already own is better than five DLCs launched for ten turns each. Warhammer 3 reveals itself over time: when your economy holds, enemies close in and your main army becomes a real identity.

A simple first-campaign checklist

Before ending turn, ask three questions. Is the starting province secure? Can the main army answer the next enemy stack? Is the economy strong enough to replace losses after one bad battle? If the answer is no, expansion should wait. Warhammer 3 punishes players who mistake map access for campaign control.

In battle, use the same restraint. Keep infantry connected, protect artillery, give missile units a clear line of sight, and do not send cavalry into the center just because it is fast. If a lord, monster or spell wins the fight for you, still ask what would have happened without it. That is how the first campaign teaches the game rather than only carrying you through it.

Practical case: why Karl Franz teaches better than exotic starts

A first campaign with Karl Franz quickly gives the player understandable problems: a province to secure, hostile neighbors, a fragile economy, and armies mixing infantry, ranged units and cavalry. It is not the most original campaign, but it is a good classroom. You see why a line breaks, why artillery needs protection, and why declaring one more war can ruin an already tense front.

Starting with a very exotic faction can be thrilling but misleading. If your economy depends on a special mechanic, if your army ignores normal morale rules, or if your lord compensates for every mistake, you may learn an exception before learning the game. Save those campaigns for the moment when you can already explain why a battle was lost.

Sources and media

This rewrite uses the Steam page for Total War: Warhammer III and the official Total War page. The screenshots above are Steam media tied to steamAppId 1142710.

Verdict

Total War Warhammer 3 does not need more gigantism. It already overflows. The best advice for 2026 is almost anti-spectacular: choose a simple faction, play slowly, understand your defeats, and only then open the door to DLC and mods.

Approached like that, Warhammer 3 stops being an endless menu and becomes what it does best: a factory for absurd, readable battles full of monsters, cannons and decisions that turn on one good moment.

For more Total War, read our Napoleon Total War guide and our Immortal Empires faction tier list.