I am a big fan of AOW3 and i have over 200 hours playing the game, with at least 150 hours dedicated to play the warlord, as a result everything writen in this guide is based solely on my own exprience and understanding of the game mechanics, features and playstyle. I do not claim to be the best player out there and i do not claim that my strategy is the best for the warlord class, i simply share what worked for me and would like to give new comers and advanced players alike some thoughtful insight about the class (and to be more specific, its units, in this guide)

Enjoy!

"Rule by the sword", focusing on conventional warfare, high quality specialized units and the ability to mass huge armies with little regard to upkeep, the warlord is an effective and oiled warmachine that starts up slow and ends up unstoppable. The warlord is a class that owns both sides of the equation when it comes to "Quality Vs Quantity".

The warlord wields a variety of powerful units from different tiers and the ability to directly upgrade their stats further by hero/empire upgrades and spells, this means that the warlord can go to war with armies consisting of superior tier II units compare to other classes and reinforce them or mix them with later game units as the game flows.
The warlord doesn't need to rush to hes tier IV unit to be a dominant force on the battlefield, a large number of the warlord's upgrades and spells have a big impact on the outcome of the battle and in such are better to be researched as soon as they are available, even if it means delaying the warlord's end game class units.
A match with the warlord is often decided before researching the tier III class units.

Almost all of the warlord units maintain a dedicated role and stay relevant throughout the entire game to fulfill a variety of tasks.
The warlord's units are also very mobile, with move speed values no lower then 30, the warlord can mobilize hes troops quickly across the map.
The mounted units that serve under the warlords command, be them class or race units, are the best cavalry units in the game.
The warlord has an arsenal of empire upgrades that allows him to manage large armies , reduce unit costs, direclty increase the empire gold income, mobilize armies faster across the map and trait upgrades to units that effectively makes them force multipliers in combat.
The warlord spells mainly consist of large variety of buffs and moves to give the warlord's units a distinct edge in combat, as well as crowd control abilities that can change the tide of the battle in the warlord's favor.

However, the warlord has its weakpoints as well.
The warlord is the worst class in the game when it comes to scouting, map exploration and intelligence gathering in the early game, since the class doesn't have a dedicated scout to start with, the warlord must rely on "conventional scouting" with ground units or taking a suitable specialization to summon a scout.
Another major weakness is that all of the warlords units, and spells are focused on dealing physical damage, which means that units with physical damage reduction, namely with the "Incorporeal" trait, will prove to be very hard to deal with.
The warlord class is based around physical combat, and as such are the defensive upgrades and traits of the class units as well as their attributes upgrades when they rank up, all of them have their physical resistance higher then the magical value, this means that warlords units are more susceptible to elemental damage types.
In addition, most of the game changing upgrades and spells of the warlord come online near the mid-game and the the most powerfull researches and abilties come in the late game.
This in total renders the warlord to a slow start compared to other classes, but once the basic necessary upgrades have been researched and the enemies location have been discovered, the war is on.

This guilde will cover and focus on the warlord's units.

Before going into what race and specializations to pick as a warlord, it is first important to understand the class units, their strengh and weakness, and then decide accordingly and plan around them.

Since im limited to the amount of letters i can type per section, i will split this section into several parts.

Berserker

Tier II 52 32 11 9
Cost 75 10

• Melee Strike 13
  
• Charge
• Mind Control immunity
  
• Overwhelm
• Infantry
  
• Walking
• Wall climbing

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Strategy:
The berserker is the first class unit available for research as the warlord.
right off the bat the berserker is a much stronger version of the "stock" race specific infantry unit, with a good physical defense and moderate magic resistance the unit is resilent and can take a fair amount of punishment in combat, especially in the early game while creeping.
While the berserker is very resilent against physical attacks, he takes more damage from elemental based attacks due to lower magic resistance.
The damage the berserker can dish however, is where it shines the most.
with a base of 13 physical damage and charge, the berserker can dish a big chunk of damage on the first hit to pretty much any tier I to tier III unit, even more if overwhelm is counted in when the target has shield or is a pikeman type unit.
When the berserker reach Veteran rank he also receives the inflict bleeding wounds trait , which further increases the damage output of the unit.
Mind control immunity means you can safely charge them into support units such a succubuses and bards without any fear of being seduced/converted/charmed.
The berserker is also an infantry class unit, and as such has the climbing wall ability.
Any early conquest of cities should be considered using berserkers as the front line infantry to climb on the walls.
The berserker becomes obsolete when the production of the race-specific tier III unit becomes available.


Tier II 50 32 12 10
Cost 70 20

Melee Strike 12

Shoot Light Crossbow 11

Animal, Monster, Dragon, Giant, Fey Slayer

Irregular

Swimming

Walking

Armored

20% , , protection

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Strategy:
Monsters hunters come second in the research list after berserkers, and are the warlord's response to Sorcerer's and Arch druid's creatures/summons.
Monster hunters, like the berserkers, primarily serve as front line units for the warlord armies, however they are more specalized towards certain enemy types.
Monster hunters have better protection then the berserkers, having better defensive values and having a ranged attack.
While they lack the charge and overwhelm traits, they instead deal more direct damage to pretty much everything that isn't a race specific unit type (goblins, dwarves,elves etc...), due to their "slayer" trait.
on top of that, the monster hunters also have 20% protection to 3 types of elements, which are mostly used by classes such as the Arch Druid and Sorcerer, and also by a lot of creatures in the world map.
When ranked up, monster hunters gain access to summon slayer, undead slayer and throw net, which further increase their versatility and gives them a crowd control ability.
As such monster hunters are best used when faced against the armies of Arch Druids and Sorcerers, who relay a lot on summons,animals, monsters and giants (horned god) and also deal elemental damage (Sorcerer).
its important to note, that when a druid for example, summons a horned god, the monster hunter (assuming he has the summon slayer trait) can deal up to +6 on each attack (+3 because its a giant, and another +3 because its a summon), some of the sorcerer units are also summons and monsters/animals like the Watcher, wisp and even Eldritch horrors.
Monster hunters are also good at creeping, since a lot of the creep camps consist of non-humanoid creatures, the unit can easily clear them without taking much damage or a risk of dying (especially in auto combat).
Monster hunters can also swim, which can be effective when playing on island/continents map types, they can be sent to harass the opponent early in the game and in general makes them more mobile then berserkers.
The only real setback of the monster hunters is that they can not climb walls, and such are less effective in city siege battles without another unit that can break walls/gates for them.
Monster hunters , even though only tier II, can stand their ground versus higher tier units with the support of some of the warlords upgrades and spells, and can dish out respectable damage if those units are in their "slayer" list.
Monster hunters are useful throughout most of the game, up until the the opponent begins mass producing tier 4 units.

Mounted Archer

Tier II 50 36 10 9
Cost 100 20

• Shoot Bow 10
  
• Melee Attack 10
  
• Sprint
  
• Walking
  
• Mounted
  
• Archer

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Strategy:
Coming up after the monster hunter is the mounted archer, the only dedicated archer class unit for the warlord.
The mounted archers are a very big leap from their tier I race equivalent archers. with an extra ranged damage, better defense values and a very big boost to hit points and mobilty, the mounted archers serve as the primary damage dealers of the warlord armies throughout most of the game, and especially during siege battles.
The biggest strengh of mounted archers is that they don't come with the regular weaknesses of the archer unit type in age of wonders.
With a value of 36 move speed the mounted archer can move very quickly in the tactical and world map, and outmaneuver any ground units which attempt to get close to them in tactical battle.
On top of that the mounted archers have a solid melee attack and the sprint ability, which can be used to get them out of melee range without suffering attacks of opportunity or simply to get to a suitable firing position faster and even squeeze an extra attack if needed.
Mounted archers can also take a great deal of punishment due to their high hit points and better defense values, that means they can easily "Trade" shots with other ranged units and emerge victorious.
Mounted archers are best deployed in pairs, triples or more, due to their very high mobility they have easy time flanking targets and can bring down even the toughest units.
While strong, they aren't unstoppable, mounted archers are countered by almost any tier II / III cavalry/flying unit type such as Orc black knights, Goblin beetle riders, Human knights, Draconian flyers and so on...
Considering all that said above, mounted archers are excellent at any circumstance and there is no reason not to field them, they are especially useful when attacking city walls in combinations with flying and infantry units, and as such they remain a very dominant unit throughout the entire game.

Phalanx

Tier III 65 32 12 11
Cost 140 30

Melee Strike 16

Walking

Inflict Crippling Wounds

Pikeman

First Strike

Polearm

Pike Square

Armored

Shield

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Strategy:
The fourth unit in the research order and the first tier III class unit available to the warlord is the phalanx.
While all the other classes has acess to low tier pikemen units from the race they choose, those "Stock" tier I pikeman become obsolete very quickly against even tier II cavalry/flyers.
The warlord, however is the only class which has a high tier pikeman unit to deal with high tier flying/cavalry units and it comes with some additional traits as well.
This makes the phalanx a very specialized unit, with decent defense values and a respectable melee attack, the pikeman is nothing extraordinary against units which aren't mounted units, and for those cases, there are other units that can get the job better.
However, against the units the phalanx is designed to counter, they are second to none.
With the regular pikeman trait, of +5 (polearm) against mounted units, and +5 (shield and pike square), and the addition of the "Inflict Crippling Wounds" trait, the phalanx becomes a lethal solution to any army that fields a lot of mounted units, a single phalanx unit with no warlord upgrades can take on at least two tier III mounted units and emerge victorious in direct combat, with the warlord upgrades it gets even better.
The irony in the story is, that the class that fields the largest amount of mounted units in the game is no other then the warlord himself.
This makes the phalanx a very strong choice when fighting other warlords who field mounted archers, tier III racial mounted units and manticore riders.

Warbreed

Tier III 80 36 12 10
Cost 160 40

• Melee Strike 20
  
• Regrowth
  
• Wall Crushing
  
• Walking
  
• Monster

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Strategy:
The warbreed is the follow up unit to research after the phalanx and comes to play in the late game.
The warbreed has the same defense values of the monster hunter, but packs a big punch in melee combat, as well as an excellent move speed value of 36, (that of a cavalry!) to quickly close the gap and get into melee range.
Although the warbreed defenses are somewhat lacking for an end game expensive tier III unit, especially in the magic resistance department, the unit make up for it with it's regrowth trait, which has two functions:
1)The warbreed regenerates 20% of hes maximum hit points every turn in tactical combat.
2)The warbreed regenerates all of hes hit points every turn in the world map.
That dramaticlly improves its survivabilty in combat and it scales really well when it gains ranks as the unit's maximum hit points are increased, this also allows the warbreed to quickly traverse across the world map with the warlord's "Dead March" spell with little regard to the units hit points reduction.
All of this togather makes the warbreed an excellent front line unit to absorb and deal damage, while mounted archers provide covering fire.
Although the warbreed isn't the best choice for attacking fortified cities (espacilly if they have city enhancments casted on them, such as Dragon Oil, Regenerate walls, Thorns...), since it has to break the walls down in order to attack the defenders, the warbreed is truly a terrifying opponent in open field battles, where its move speed allows him to quickly reach the opponents ranks and start bashing them to death.
Although very durable, its important to remember that the warbreed's defense values are medicore at best, and he can get focused down quickly, especially by elemental damage dealers, if charged directly into a cluster of archers/support casters or city gates, instead, approaching from the flanks (open field combat) or from the far sides of the city walls (when attacking cities) gives the warbreed a better chance to get into melee range without suffering critical damage.

Manticore Rider

Tier IV 85 30 13 12
Cost 260 60

Melee Strike 23

Mind Control Immunity

Inflict Crippling Wounds

Cavalry

Charge

Mounted

Flying

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Strategy:
Manticore rider is the final unit in the research list and is the warlord tier IV class unit.
The manticore rider is an intresting unit, right of the bat, just by looking at its stats, 85 hit points seems like a joke compared to tier IV units of other classes, in addition to that, unlike them, the manticore rider doesn't have a lot going for him when it comes to versatility, he doesn't have any secondary ability like the juggernauts "Fire Broadside" or the horned god "Call lightning".
But that, is only in theory.
Because the manticore rider is designed for one purpose: Brute force melee combat superiority.
This is the only tier IV unit in the game that is tied directly to what race you picked when choosing a leader, this gives the manticore rider different racial traits depending on your choice.
Manticore rider is also the only tier IV class unit that can fly and therefore is very mobile in the world map and is a perfect choice to assault fortifed cities in the late game.
Since the manticore rider comes really late into the game, a lot of the warlord empire upgrades are already researched, including the warlords upgrade to give all mounted units +15 hp and martial arts.
This put the manticore rider in line with other tier IV units, further enhances the unit's melee superiority and puts him far above any other unit when it comes to who comes victorious in a melee fight.
This renders certain tier IV class units like the juggernauts and shrines of smiting hopeless as they require to be at range to be most effective, and has no hope to deal with a manticore rider at melee range.
With mind control immunity and inflict crippling wound the manticore rider has little to worry about when it comes to attacking units that can mind control, and crippling wound gives a definite edge against other tough units.
As mentioned before when it comes to assaulting cities in the late game, the manticore does an excellent job replacing the now out-dated tier III racial units and can quickly get on top of city walls, and cause havoc, while able to sustain large amounts of punishment.
The biggest counters to the manticore rider are the phalanx and the rogue's shadow stalker, both of them are tier III.