If you're new to the game and hoping to learn some tricks of the trade to avoid totally embarassing yourself, or you've been playing a while and feel like you might have forgotten some things from getting too set in your ways, this handy guide aims to give you a solid understanding of all the basic materials of the game and some valuable information to understand the way to be a valued member of any group you join!
no matter how much of a failure that group might be!
this guide will be seperated into easy to navigate chapters describing
1:the game's overall objective, tasks, and grunt work you'll be stuck doing.
2:the verious ratlike monsters that will interfere with everything in chapter one!
3:the equipment of our five heroes and the invaluable supplies they might (hopefully) find in the execution their mission!
4:that sweet, sweet reward you gain for saving the day.
5:handy basic tips to keep in mind to help you work alongside your sometimes flighty companions!

In Warhammer: Vermintide, your goal in each level is to 1:accomplish the mission objective and 2: survive long enough to escape at the end. these objectives vary by map as follows.
Story missions are missions that directly lead towards the finale of the game, dealing with tasks that must be completed to stop the vermintide. all story missions have tomes and grimores, save the final mission which only has the single grimore. more details on those later!
Horn of magnus: Dashing through the narrow city streets to alert the town to danger, your goal is to reach the horn atop the guard tower that's used to alert the town before the ratmen swarm you to maintain their surprise attack!
Supply and demand: You must work your way through the ransacked market quarter to the markplatz, where there's a stockpile of vital foodstuffs to recover! You can't fight if you aren't fed and Skaven are infamous for their hunger!
Morr's garden: Out in the depths of Morr's great graveyard the ratmen are brewing up a poison to taint the city's water supply, and you have to stop them before they have the chance to use it!
Wizard's tower: The spells that protect your hideout from the armies of ratmen are coming apart, and you need to get the city's wizard up in his tower to restore them before it's too late!
Engines of war: The skaven are rumored to be assembling war machines out in the woods, and it falls on you to put a stop to it!
Enemy Below: With the Skaven offensive halted, a well-timed strike deep into the enemy's maze-like home will turn the tide of this war and with a little luck it may even seriously damage the Skaven forces!
The White rat: The ratmen's warlord, a grey seer has revealed himself after your considerable efforts have thwarted his schemes to win the city without risk, go smash the rat-faced mage head in in his own stronghold. The fate of Ubersriek is decided here and now!

Side missions are mostly concerning tasks that don't directly affect saving the city so much as supporting the resistance effort, and as such provide no real progress to the storyline itself. these missions are generally shorter and do not have tomes or grimores.

Smuggler's run: Head into the sewers and open a pathway for smugglers to bring supplies in for the resistance forces. Hopefully there's time for a bath after.
Black powder: Sneak into the docks along the river to collect a supply of gunpowder for your weapons. Guns won't fire off happy thoughts, you know.
Wheat and chaff: Head out to the farmlands around the city and collect more food. Any war runs on it's stomach after all.
Man the ramparts: Climb the walls defending Ubersriek from invaders (well, that didn't pan out) and destroy the skaven's magical screaming bell before it can destroy the city!
Waterfront: You've found the skaven's main outposts for staging their army in the dockside warehouses. Go cave their entrances in and bring the caverns in on their heads!
Well Watch: The skaven have been caught bringing in poison to dump into the wells. Go and protect them until the poison supply is destroyed!

While it's possible for me to provide you with a detailed walkthrough, it's honestly more effective for you to play the game and learn the maps on your own (or read one of the giant pile of guides for exactly that, lazybones). Additionally, the maps feature a difficulty scale to give yourself a better challange while imporing your victory rewards. the difficulties work as follows:
Easy: What it says on the tin. any enemies encountered will have a sharp penalty to their health and inflict less damage than normal. You'll be able to dispatch almost anything in a few swings and you'll find the biggest challange actually getting to the point you might fail.
Normal: Where the game was initally balanced. Enemies have alright health, and do enough damage that you notice it now. A good place for decent players to learn the game and still get a fair challange without feeling like they're getting beaten on unfairly.
Hard: Still what it says on the tin. the skaven are now actually able to kill you if you aren't putting in a good effort and watching each other's backs and will stand up to enough punishment to make it interesting. A good place to play, difficulty wise.
Nightmare: Hey, did you think hard was way to predictable? Well in nightmare you get friendly fire! Your ranged attacks will damage teammates and inflict whatever status effects they have if you hit them and those three pub players you joined at random can do it to you as well! And hey, why not just pump those ratmen's stats way up too so that if you drop your guard for a second they can bring you down.
Cataclysm: You have less health now! And your allies do more damage to you! And the skaven to more damage to you! And they can take an enourmous beating now! You're totally ready for this one champ, don't even worry. Dive right in!

Over the course of your mission, your primary objective will be to reach and perform certian tasks to aid the city's beleagered defense in their fight against the ratmen. While the details of these tasks tends to vary, they can be consolodated into three broad catagories: collection, destruction, and survival.
Collection: Grab a number of large containers, like barrels, and bring them to a specific spot to be extracted or used to aid you at your location. If you're currently tasked with collecting it's best to stay in pairs or a single group, with part of your team carrying barrels and the rest keeping any ratmen from intercepting your pack mule. Should either you or the ratmen strike a gunpowder barrel it will explode in a few seconds, which can be useful as an impromptu bomb but if you're carrying it is just a sudden serious hazard. You should also remember you can push enemies while carrying your load with your right mouse button.
Destruction: Smash some rikety Skaven war engine or other structure before the skaven can put it to better use. Whenever you have to smash something, the weak points of the structure will be highlighted, to ease your ability to spot what you need to do. They will also display a handy health bar! while they will, as a rule, not collapse on you when they fall, it's still wise to get a good distance away from them once you finish the job rather than admire your handiwork. This goes double for the times you use gunpowder to do the dirty work.
Survival: Don't get killed before you're able to reach your exit point and escape the pursuing horde of ratmen. Either because your ticket out of the map hasn't finished their coffee and ham hocks or because you're waiting for some bridge or gate to slowly move into position, you're stuck waiting around before you can move on. Luckily there's few enough enemies that this is easy.

LOL i'm just jerking your chain on that last line, there's going to be oceans of rat monsters trying to kill you.
the city of ubersriek is in the middle of being overwhelmed by the skaven, a race of naturally evil ratmen who think they deserve to rule the world because of reasons.
Those reasons aren't important or intelligent, but here's some details that are important!
1:The ratmen are faster than you. More than anything else, you have to remember you cannot outrun skaven. They can just flat out outrun you on open ground. Never plan for just trying to escape them, and if if feels like you have check to make sure there's nobody you have to go rescue.
2:The ratmen will stab you in the back. Skaven are weak little sissies and know it, so they only attack you head on if they panic or think they've got you outnumbered enough it won't matter. However, if your back is turned they will gladly rush and murder you with no problem so you have to get in the habit of checking behind you every so often just to make sure it's clear.
3:They don't care about each other. If it means they get the credit of killing you, ratmen will fire, stab, or press through any number of their kin without any consideration for the safety of their kin. While this makes getting stuck in a mob of ratmen incredibly dangerous, if you're lucky and aware of your location, you can use this to get your enemies to thin each other out trying to get you.
4:They cheat. Skaven can climb up walls, shimmy through holes and scramble across rooftops you can't use to ambush you if you manage to avoid them and often seem to magically appear behind you. Never assume they can't get somewhere just because it looks secure.
In other words it pays to be a little paranoid when you're fighting a geurrela war against an army of evil rat monsters occupying your city.
Now, if you ran out into the streets blindly slashing at every beast in sight without any idea what to expect it's very likely something will murder you so let me brief you on the different types of ratmen you'll encounter on your missions.

Your average murderous spawn of chaos.
Appearance: A ratman with dirty clothes, brandishing a knife or other stabbing impliment.
The bulk of the skaven army, the clanrats are underhanded inhuman monsters intent on unsurping humanity as the dominant species. They're also undisiplined and lazy, and have mostly taken to loitering about the streets following their initial takeover of the city's major buildings. Weak and cowardly on their own, with numbers or the advantage of surprise they become aggresive and much more of a threat. Caught off-guard or without allies to support them, they tend to cower or beg for mercy in the hopes they can get away and come back to kill you later, so finish them off if you can get to them.
Threat level: Weak. Unarmored and using poorly-made, often makeshift weapons the average clanrat cannot defend itself effectively and will fall to a well-placed blow or two at all but the hardest of difficulties. Strikes from the average clanrat won't be strong enough to penetrate a block except in large numbers. Cut them down or push them away to give yourself some room to fight.

And you thought you had it bad.
Apperance: a mostly naked, malnourashed ratman.
The weakest and most expendable of Skaven, slaves are used to do any and all menial labors the other ratmen have argued they're above doing (that is to say, almost anything) because if they don't they'll probably be eaten. This means that usually you won't see many of them wandering around not doing their jobs, but when the Skaven sound their ambush horn they'll push the slaves out front to absorb your attacks so they can attack you from behind or while exhausted. Since killing you is pretty much their best chance to get promoted to "not a slave", they'll charge blindly into your attacks. On lower difficulties, they my be mixed in with the idle ratmen in the streets, probably snitching on each other to gain favor.
Threat level: Minimal. A skavenslave is about one stiff breeze away from keeling over in starvation and will likely die to a single attack from any weapon. They're also entirely unprotected and using the weapons regular clanrats threw away. Their only hope of success is that you're too busy fighting the larger threats or their fellow rats you don't spot them flanking you, so watch each other's backs.

That rat you love to hate.
Appearance: Ratman wearing leather armor covered in skulls, brandishing a large hooked polearm.
Your likely "Welcome to vermintide!" greeter, the packmaster dashes through the level looking for players off by themselves to capture and run off with. they do this by means of their "hook", which is actually a spiked collar on a long pole they snap around your neck so they can pull you away from the group. If they manage to get far enough away they will stick the hook into the ground and go off to capture another player, so it's in everyone's best interest to kill one as soon as possible. Thanks to the reach of their weapon, they can hook a player from behind several lesser skaven, something they'll frequently try to angle for.
Threat level: Serious. By themselves, a packmaster can drag you merrily about the map until your teammates save you, with you helpless and taking damage from the spiked collar the whole time. also nearby enemies will stab you too, 'cause free hits. In conjunction with a pack of other enemies, getting hooked is almost a death sentance unless your teammates are VERY on the ball, and thanks to their light armor they can sustain more blows than the average skaven. As soon as you can hear the clacking of the skulls they wear, look around and try to shoot them before they can reach you. If they hook a teammate, try to kill the packmaster then, as he's unable to defend himself and kill your teammate at the same time.

Thank you for dying air Skaven.
Apperance: A small hunched figure cloaked in dark robes and brandishing neon green punching daggers on their hands for some reason.
Where packmasters are randomly wandering about for people to snatch, the assassins of clan Eshin are looking specifically for you and your party. Once they spot one of you not being too closely watched by your teammates, they leap out with lighting speed to knock you down and start stabbing away at you until you're dead. Once they succeed or get caught, they will toss down a smoke bomb and run away until the chance to do it again happens. They particularly enjoy jumping you in the middle of a fight with other enemies, trapping you and leaving whatever you were fighting free to overwhelm their enemies. For whatever reason, when they pounce nearby people and skaven are knocked away from the target which means you don't want to go too close to any cliffsides when you can hear them snickering to themselves if you can avoid it.

Threat level: Severe. Gutter runners deal huge amounts of damage over very little time, and because of their skill at rolling out of reach of attacks and that they're also wearing leather armor under their cloaks they can take some damage before dying. The best way to deal with gutter runners is to dodge their inital leap if you spot them, or push them off their target, Then attack them while they gather their wits (and smoke bombs). You can also shoot them if you manage to spot them before they spot you, but it's not to be counted on. When they leap on a teammate, you should push them off and then alternate between attacks and pushes to keep them from dropping a smoke bomb.

Leading the way in ragequits!
Apperance: A ratman in thick, full body robes and mask, with a massive brass backpack leaking green fumes.
The poison wind globadiers do one thing, and one thing only, and that's make your life miserable. Lurching around, they look for pockets of humans to kill with their poison globes. and since your team fits that descrption, you can expecting them to hurl some of their green death clouds at you. Since they're carrying a bunch of fragile gas bombs, they don't engage in hand to hand combat and just hang back chucking bomb after bomb of death, counting on the poison and any skaven in your way to be enough to finish you off. If they realize they're going to die, they make a final suicide charge to take you out.
Threat level: Absurdly high. The poison gas clouds inflict both a bigh chunk of damage on impact, noteworthy damage over time, and blur your vision for several seconds when exposed to it, making it the single biggest problem in a fight. Considering the globadier can throw them in rapid succession before you actually spot them, it's vital to hunt them down and beat them to death as soon as you hear them wheezing through their gas mask. The only upside is the gas will kill the other skaven as fast as it will you so it can make a good obstacle if you can trick them into throwing it where you want.

Because who doesn't love to get shot at!
Apperance: heavily armored ratman carrying a metal barrel on their back and wielding a gatling gun.
Wearing metal armor and carrying a gun that's really meant for a two-rat team, the ratling gunner's clanking walk will mean you hear them long before they get close. Unfortunately, they don't plan on getting close, they plan on grinding up their gun and shooting you at a distance. Once they get what they think is a good vantage point they'll rain birght green bullets down on their target and anything/everything in their general direction. Fortunately for you their gun is 1:Inaccurate and 2: Capable of damaging their fellow ratmen so you can put other ratmen in their way to slow down the rate at which you're eating bullets.
Threat level: Serious Ratling gunners have enough firepower to put you and anyone trying to help you down if they get in a good range band, and their armor proects them from many of your attacks. Your best bet is to spot them while they set up and snipe them before they get into a good position, or to wait for their gun to jam then pile in on it as they're unable to hit you using the gun as a club. But be careful, because if you mistime it you're going to be shot at a range even they can't miss at.....

The money doesn't make itself, you know
Appearance: A small, terrified ratman hefting a big bagful of loot on its back, looking hopefully for a way out.
The only Skaven not currently trying to murder you, the lootrat has been ordered to collect the valuables of the city for the skaven leader. If it fails in this task, it's been promised a long and painful death which is the only reason it doesn't just drop the money and run away faster! This desperate need to save its ill-gotten belongings drives it to sustain all manner of blows without stopping to fight back or defend itself, and if it can get out of sight and to one of the ratmen's tunnels it will leave the level entirely with all the loot!
Threat level:It's getting away with all your stuff! Once you get anywhere near it, the loot rat runs and takes away with it two or three chests worth of goodies you can use along with the sackful of gold and silver, which should be plenty of motivation to kill it as fast as you can. Unfortunately, it has much more health than most skaven and is still fast enough to evade you if you let up at all. If you're lucky, you can spot it before it sees you at which point you can shoot it in the head before it starts running.

Harder, faster, stronger
Apperance: the biggest, blackest Skaven, wielding a heavy-shafted halbred and wearing thick ribbed armor.
Every bit your equal in a fight, the stormvermin are every bit the last thing you want to run into in numbers and the most likely thing you will. Unlike clanrats, they're well armored enough to take a lot of punishment, and well armed enough to deal it out. On top of all this, they've got the ability to block your attacks and push you around to keep you from manuvering around them with ease and they travel in packs to boot! Fortunately, they care for the other ratmen even less than you do, so you can avoid them entirely just by staying out of sight. Once you enter the higher difficulty levels, they start idling in the streets with the other ratmen, making them a constant threat.
Threat level: high/ threat level in packs: suicidal. Even a lone stormvermin is able to beat you in a straight fight if you're slow or unlucky, and their armor will resist most of your attacks. The fact they travel in packs up to eight* strong means that your entire team can get slaughtered in short order if you don't have a good plan for dealing with them, and sometimes the best plan is to hide from them.

(*Did I say eight? I meant twenty. That's still fair odds, right?)

Appearance: you'll know it when you see it.
The most dangerous thing you'll fight. Dodge it's attacks, remember it can jump huge distances, and hit it with literally everything you've got.

Threat level: Be glad they don't show up in pairs.

Against a vast army of evil ratmen with dark magic and giant monsters on their side, the hopes of the city rest on these scant few heroes. Hopefully their great skill will overcome the sheer numbers and treachery of the Skaven onslaught. And since you're running them you'd better get good in a hurry!

A native to Ubersriek and skilled officer in the imperial army, Markus formerly lead a troop of swordsmen until they were slaghtered by the terrible magic of a necromancer, both costing the empire the battle and killing many of Kruber's friends in the unit. After being denied leave, he finds himself employed by the witchhunter Victor Saltzpyre to accompany him as a guard as they take a wizard to trial.
Why should you play the soldier:
-you want to have the versatile selection of weapons for any map
-you like wearing fancy hats
-you're a friendly sort
-you enjoy being the biggest target in the group
-you like getting used as a personal shield by the other players
-you know you're just going to get abandoned anyways

Kruber's armory:
Melee weapons: Melee weapons all work similarly in Warhammer:Vermintime. the primary attack button atttacks (surprise!), with short clicks running through the weapon's normal set of attacks, and holding it charging up a different, ususally much more powerful strike. The block button raises your weapon/shield to defend against attacks, so long as you have stamina, represented as a line of shields shown while blocking. While blocking you can also use the attack button to push back enemies, but this must be used carefully, because it both drops your guard briefly and cost stamina.

Arming sword/shield: A single-handed sword with a double edged blade, this weapon is Kruber main weapon. Its normal attack is a left-right pattern finished off by a stronger downward blow, giving it the ability to damage multiple enemies for crowd control while still having some power at the end. When charged, it makes a single, stronger slash that alternates from left to right, and penetrates armor. The sword alone posseses a reliable three stamina to block with. with the addition of a shield, Kruber enjoys a full five stamina to block with, the ability to block projectiles and a stronger blocking and pushing ability at the tradeoff of a weaker charge attack using the shield and the turninging sword's attack pattern into a flattish diagonal left-right-left pattern.

Flanged mace/shield: Kruber's alternate single handed weapon, the mace trades attack speed and power for the abilioty to hit more rats, and throw them around for more effective crowd control. Like the sword, its normal attack pattern is a left-right combo followed by a up-down mixup, but the extra weight of the mace allows it to knock your target into other nearby opponents to keep them off-balance. Additionally, the charge attack is a powerful downward blow making this weapon more suited to quickly dispatching more powerful enemies than the sword. When paired with a shield, the mace's three stamina is increased to a full five and gains the various defensive advantages of a shield, but loses part of the normal attack pattern for a slower, shorter, left-right-down combination and trades the more powerful charged blow for a weaker shield bash.

Zweihander sword: A more offensively minded weapon, the two-handed sword Kruber employs trades the option of a shield for greatly improved damage and crowd clearing abilities. The sword uses a simple left-right diagonal swing pattern in both its normal and charged attacks, but the charged attacks give it some ability to penetrate armor while greatly improving its already effective ability to cleave through enemies. While larger, the blade of the sword isn't suited to blocking any better than a normal sword and retains the three stamaina of the single handed weapons. It's important to remember that blade is swung in a shallow diagonal swing, and Kruber's height means that the high point of the swing can travel over many of the usually hunched over ratmen.

Great hammer: Kruber's weapon of choice for heavily armored forces, this two-handed hammer penetrated armor with each swing, and the usual overhead blows of the normal attack inflict heavy damage to whoever recieves it. Its charged attack is a great sideways swing better suited for clearing crowds, and even enemies not damaged will usually be flung aside by the battered bodies of their fellows. Being two handed, it cannot be used with a shield, but retains the three shields used by most of Kruber's weapon selections.

Ranged weapons: Ranged weapons differ in a number of ways. Most obviously, they fire a projectile and thus are poorly suited for close-range work in most circumstances, but more importantly, they do not have any ability to block. The alternate button used for blocking is instead used to zoom in, activate an alternate fire mode, or other option that varies from weapon to weapon. Paring a ranged weapon to compensate for the limitations of your melee weapon is a key part of developing an effective fighting style.

Imperial Harquebus: Kruber's handgun is, like most blackpowder weapons in the game, a single-shot firearm with a massive damage and armor penetration per shot at the cost of a slow rate of fire. Using its alternate fire to zoom in allows you to take out almost any opponent in a single well-placed shot to the head and the stopping power of the shot will allow it to travel through multipule weaker enemies. It is not, however, intended to be used on the move and suffers from a heavy accuracy loss if fired while moving or being struck which limits it's effectiveness at close and midrange. The handgun's ammo pouch allows for 24 shots to be held normally.

Blunderbus: A more primative gun than the harquebus, the blunderbus is a large, single-shot widebarreled shotgun the sprays a hail of small pellets when fired. Each shot unleashes about tweleve shots into the general direction of your target, potentially inflicting massive damage to any unarmored enemy while retaining a minor amount of armor piercing. When its alternate fire button is used, the blunderbuss lets you smash nearby enemies with the rifle butt inflicting moderate damage and more importantly pushing them back from yourself and teammates as needed. This push attack is both relatively fast and costs no stamina, making the blunderbus an effective close range weapon, although it has very little effectiveness at range. The less complicated reloading of the blunderbus means it can fit an additional round in it's ammo pouch compaired to the harquebus for a total of 25

Imperial repeater: The repeater handgun is a multi-barreled carbine weapon, retaining the harquebus' armor piercing and most of its stopping power at the cost of long ranged accuracy and penetrating multiple enemies per shot while also gaining an increased rate of fire and higher accuracy while moving. While not able to down a more powerful enemy with a single headshot, the bullets fired by the repeater are powerful enough to put down most weaker enemies in a single shot in all but the hardest game modes. Able to fire eight shots per clip before needed to be reloaded, and able to fire even faster when the barrel is spun up in its alternate fire mode, the repeater is the most balanced midrange weapon in kruber's arsenal. Kruber is able to carry 64 rounds for the weapon on his person normally, or eight clips.

A tall, cheerless man, the witch hunter called Saltzpyre is something of an outspoken sort in his order. While dedicated to fighting the forces of darkness hiding among the empire's people by executing traitors, heretics, and witches, Victor is preoccupied with the rumored existance of Skaven, a supposed race of rat-men after losing his eye while confronting a cultist. Now in the middle of bringing a imperial wizard and suspected heretic to trial, Saltzpyle has commendeered a soldier by the name of Kruber to accompany him to Ubersriek.
Why should you play as the witch hunter:
-you like being able to shoot your gun at any time
-you want access to the most reliable crowd-clearing weapons possible
-you want to be rewarded for accurate blows
-you enjoy being tall enough to get catch every stray round
-you have no sense of humor
-you refuse to play videogames that don't let you wear a long leather coat

Salzpyre's armory:
Melee weapons:
Rapier: The weapon of choice for witch hunters, the Rapier is an elegant, well-balanced sword with a narrow blade intended for decisive thrusting blows, but also suited for disorienting slashes. The normal attack pattern of the raiper is an alternating left-right-left series of slashes, while its charged attack is a precisely aimed thrust capable of landing headshots and possessing a longer reach than the normal attacks. Saltzpyre wields his rapier with a flintlock pistol in his off-hand, and using the third mouse button will allow him to fire it in between slashes to hold the skaven at bay. This combination has its own reserve of 16 shots that is kept seperate from the rest of saltzpyre's ammunition, with the shots having the usual high single-shot accuracy and armor penetration of a handgun shot. The rapier has the usual three stamina for defense and has no unusual properies in this regard.

Hand Axe: A somewhat less elegant choice than the Rapier, Saltpyre can use the handaxe when the situation requires the penetration of armor above handling crowds of enemies. Saltzpyre weilds his handaxe with a simple left-right combination, and as a charged attack can bring it down and a powerful overhead strike. Unlike most weapons the hand axe has no capacity for striking multipule targets, which means that it must be used carefully for maximum effect by striking enemies down with its powerful blows before they can strike you. It retains the standard three stamina of most weapons.

Great Sword: Saltzpyre utilizes his flamerge sword in an virtually identical fashion to Kruber's own two-hander sword. The diagonal left-right-left swings in both his normal and charged attacks are the same, the stamina is the same, the reach and impressive ability to cleave apart many lesser vermin in a single blow is the same. However the difference in who wields it is important because Saltzpyre is so tall that he has to either croutch or angle his swings downward or else risk missing entirely! Becase of this, saltpyre either loses some reach or is forced to remain mostly stationary while swinging his blade around.

Missile weapons:
Flintlock pistols: Saltzpyre's missile weapon of choice is a brace of flintlock pistols. Normally these guns would have a long reload time, but the witchhunter instead chooses to carry a massive payload of them and load them all beforehand! As a result not only are his flintlocks powerful enough to pierce armor and put down most enemies in a few shots, but he can fire them without worrying about having to stop for reloading. When the alternate fire is used, the witch hunter draws another pistol with his free hand, and can fire quickly enough to empty his entire supply of shots in seconds, but doing this causes the recoil to become a serious hamper to your accuracy. Somehow, Saltpyre carries 56 flintlocks under normal circumstances, which makes him very strange and gives you plenty of ammuntion.

Crossbow: the recurve crossbow is Saltzpyre's longest-range weapon, capable of dropping most enemies in a single blow if you can land a bolt to their head. Unlike blackpowder weapons however, the bolt flies slowly enough that it's possible for a target at range to move out of the way through luck or effort. This can be an impediment to picking off distant threats compared to a handgun, but it makes up for this by being notably more accurate while moving and quiet enough that the shot doesn't alert other enemies of the danger they're in. Use of the alternate fire for the crossbow will allow you to zoom in for more precise firing. Saltzpyre can carry a healthy 30 bolts for the crossbow with him normally.

Repeater pistol: The repeater pistol is a multibarreled handgun of similer design to the repeater handgun employed by Kruber. Importantly, it differs by being much smaller and better crafted, and is capable of firing much more rapidly. It does not currently suffer greatly from accuracy loss, making it a fine weapon for clearing idle hordes. The alternate fire spins up the barrel, but the greater craftsmanship means that the entire eight-shot clip can simply be fired in a single hail of shot. While the gun's ammunition is compact enough that saltpyre can carry a full hundred shots for it in twelve and a half clips, it also can't punch through the metal armor of some of the skaven's more elite troops unless you were to pile all the shots into the same spot in some sort of burst of fire.

While some people turn to the study of magic for wisdom, or power, or even destiny, Sienna sought out the collage of bright magic for a more simple reason: She really likes to watch things burn. Now a fully trained and long-experienced wizard of the bright collage, which specualizes in magic pertaining to flame, Fuegonasus has burned orcs, armies of darkness, and countless other enemies of the empire, as well as an uncountable number of innocent bits of lumber or disused housing when bored. Probably because she burns people's stuff she was siezed upon by an angry mob and was to be executed when a passing witch hunter took over the affair, declaring she would stand trial and executed in the proper fashion if a witch she was. As a result, she finds herself in Uberscriek with her captor, Victor Saltzpyre, as the skaven assault the city. Fortunately, she's getting a trial by fire in that if she saves the city she will be immediately found innocent, and all she has to do is burn an army of ratmen to death. Which she probably would have done even if they weren't attacking.

Why should you play as the bright wizard:
-you like to burn things.
-you never want to say "i'm out of ammo".
-you like to burn things.
-you think friendly fire is the fault of the person that gets hit by it
-you didn't expect this game to be so melee-heavy when you bought it
-you like to burn things, even if the thing is you.

Sienna's armory
Melee weapons:
battle wizard long sword: Seinna's ritual long sword is used in largely the exact same way as Kruber's, since she was probably trained in the same fighting style with it and all being imperial troops. The usual attack patter is a left, right, down sequence that's good for attacking multiple opponents, and the charged attack is a more powerful strike alternating left to right that grants sienna some armor piercing. The sword has the usual three stamina to defend with.

Flaming sword: Anyone can use a sword. but can anyone enchant a sword to be ON FIRE at all times? Probably not, but that's just the sort of thing seinna likes. The flaming sword looks cool and has an attack pattern of left-right swings, followed by a forward lunge. A charge attack is a more powerful, armor piercing lunge like the long sword, with the added benifit that the flames light your victims on fire, which is very much the point of having your sword on fire. It has the usual three stamina for defending and pushing enemies, which is a waste since it means not stabbing people with a flaming sword.

Mace: Apparantly a staple weapon for the empire, seinna employs the mace to gain some additional crowd control potential. Her control over the weapon is a bit bad however, so her attack pattern is a downward strike paired with an upward blow that follows with a right-left sideways combo that is awkward to use in a swarm due to enemies resetting the patter if they damge you enough. Her charged attack is another heavy downward strike that improves her ability to penetrate armor and as usual, the weapon has three stamina to work with on defense.

Ranged weapons: Sienna doesn't use ranged weapons because she is a wizard. She uses her bright magic to burn enemies instead. As a result she does not ammo, but can overcharge her body with fire magic, monitored by an expanding bar near the bottom of the screen. At any time you can hold the reload button to vent this excess magical power, but once the bar is wider than the first set of brackets such venting will cause damage to you every second. Venting also slows your walking speed to a crawl and leaves you unable to defend yourself, but is an important part of your arsenal because if the bar expands past the second brackets, Sienna's magic explodes with her at the Center! Controlling your overcharge is the key to using bright magic effectively. Additionally, all her staves use the alternate fire button to power a secondary spell which is more powerful but often more dangerous than the normal attack.

Asquy staff: The basic fire staff, using this gives Sienna a slowish, fairly damaging fireball attack that travels in a slight arc. This ball of magical firey death penetrates armor, remains fairly accurate at mid range even while moving and can stop most common enemies in their tracks, whille generating a small bit of magical charge. Charging the alternate fire button creates a larger explosive fireball that will damage and immolate anything in its area of effect (even your pesky teamamtes, who will also catch fire), With stronger charges doing more damage over a greater area at the cost of building a heavy magical charge in the process. This magical grenade is visible as it's charged and can be used as a rough guage of how charged the attack is. It can also be dismissed by releasing the alternate fire button without firing it to avoid generating the overcharge.

Flame river staff: A more crowd-oriented staff, the primary attack of this staff is the same fireball used in the asquy staff. Where it shines however is in its charged attack. Once you trigger the alternate fire button, a magical circle visible only to sienna will appear over the ground. When fired, the conflagration of doom will erupt under the feet of everything in the circle striking your enemies to an impressive height. Fully charging this weapon increases the size of this circle as well as how damaging it is at the edges, even leaving a patch of fire on the ground to immolate rats that charge into it. The overcharge of the conflagration of doom is slightly affected by the number of targets it hits, so care must be taken not to overcharge yourself with rapid successive uses of the charged attack.

Embercage staff: Where the other staves focus on area of effect damage, the bolt staff puts its emphisis on precisely destroying enemies. The normal method of fire is a fast-moving magical shot that penetrates armor and is capable of doing extra damage if it strikes the enemy's head. while comparitively weak and generating little magical charge, Sienna's traning lets these shots be fired quickly and accurately enough to do large amounts of damage and overcharge in a short time. Using her alternate attack charges a firebolt spell that will seek out an enemy and inflict heavy damage to them. This bolt is entirely visible while being charged and can be used to judge how powerful the bolt will be when it strikes, with a fully charged bolt being powerful enough to kill nearly anything in a single blow. Like other charged spells, the bolt can be dismissed without firing it to avoid the magial overcharge by releasing the alternate fire button before firing.

Shrieker staff: Unlike the other staffs, the beam staff doesn't fire a projectile as its primary attack, or charge its secondary attack. The primary shot is an instant blast of fire at close range, which lacks the range and armor penetration of other attacks, but will ignite enemies. The main draw of the weapon is the alternate fire. Firing this projects a long-ranged beam of firey energy that damages the first thing it strikes and continues to strike as well as make an enemy explode by pressing the primary fire button if the beam is on it. This lets it constantly hold an ememy in place until it dies, immolate a teammate that's being too stupid to live, accurately pick a high value target off at range by pressing the pirmary fire to detonate the beam and soften up hordes of weaker enemies without the wasteful charging or risk of a projectile going off to one side and missing, making this attack idiot-proofed and therefore the weapon of choice for you. Its primary fire however generates massive amounts of overcharge so use caution.

One of the rangers that scouts the areas outside of dwarven holds for possible threats to report before they can properly threaten the hold, Bardin has seen his share of battles and found more than his share of trouble in his duties. However after a chance discovery of a forgotten mine, Bardin has found something a little more interesting to his dwarven sensibilities: A treasure map! Not able to decypher the ancient script explaining the map however, bardin has come to the city of Ubersriek on the rumor of an old book that is written in the same dialect which he could use to better understand how to follow the map, and woe to anyone that stands between a dwarf and a mountain of gold!

Why should you play as the dwarven ranger:
-you like having the most armor piercing weapons in your weapon selection
-you enjoy a lively chatter
-you want your teammates to shoot over you instead of through
-you want to see the skaven's disgusting faces in close while you chop them apart
-you like having your enemies focus on you out of the rest of the group
-you're happy when your team fails to see where you are and leaves you to die.

Bardin armory:
Melee weapons:
Axe/shield: Bardin's sidearm of choice, and indeed the reliable backup weapon of most dwarfs, is a solid, widebladed hand axe. The weapon is capable of dealing a decisive blow to their victim regardless of armor but falters in crowd control, only able to deal a blow to a single enemy in a swing/ bardin swings his axe in high diagonals to the left and right, followed by a flat swing to catch anything that might have dodged out of the way, and his charged attack is a powerful overhead blow. Bardin can also pair his axe with a shield in the traditional style of dwarf warriors, which lets him block missile attacks, improves the strength of his pushes and blocks and gives him a much more comfortable five stamina at the cost of replacing his charge attack with a weaker shield bash that can knock more enemies about and ending his attack pattern with a downward blow instead of the wide sweep.

Hammer/shield: The common alternative to the Axe for a dwarf, the hammer trades armor piercing for the ability to control crowds better by knocking them about. The sheer weight of the Bardin's hammerblows can send lighter enemies flying and stagger nearly any foe. It is however less capable to dealing damage to a single target as a bludgeon and so falters in single combat with tougher vermin. Bardin swings his hammer in a left-right-up-down pattern, that has the added bonus of launching the occasional slaverat into the air like a drunken bird but can a handicap if you forget to time your blows around it and uses a typical downward blow for his charge attack for when he needs to kill an enemy that's heavily armored. When paired with a solid shield, the hammer drops the upward strike in it's attack pattern and uses a weaker shield bash for the charged attack, but gains the various defensive bonuses, including increasing the hammer's three stamina to five.

Great Axe: The main armament of rangers in times of war, the double handed axe grants Bardin unbeaten stopping power in close combat. The normal attack a simple downward blow, capable of smashing through armor, bone, and complaints of being unimaginative with ease, supported by the use of a wide sideways swing for a charge atttack, alternating in a left, right pattern for clearing crowds of enemies efficently. The drawback to this weapon is the lacking two and a half stamina with witch you defend yourself, making its use a matter of careful positioning.

Great Hammer: Useful in times you want to try not to get skaven blood over everything within five feet of you, bardin's great hammer is every bit as potent a weapon as his axe with even more ability to handle crowds. Using the same downward blow normally and wide swings for the charged attack, the hammer has the added benifit of tossing skaven around with enough force to knock anyone hit with their dead friends over! The penalties of this however are that the hammer's charged attack is both slower and weaker than a similer axeblow, and that you run the risk of flinging a skaven behind yourself or an ally at an inopperutune moment unless you pay careful attention to your swings. It is, however, better defensively than the great axe and provides a reliable three stamina to protect yourself with.

Ranged weapons:

Dwarven Handgun: A single-shot blackpowder rifle, the handgun is basically just a scaled-down dwarf cannon and as such boasts the strongest single-shot firepower in the game. The tradeoff is it takes a long time to reload, has terrible accuracy while in motion, and firing the thing will alert rats to your presence from a long ways away. Using the alternate fire lets you zoom in for highly accurate long-distance shots, letting you kill enemies from far enough off they cannot even find you to retaliate! It punches through armor like butter and deals additional damage on a headshot, with the ammo pouch holding a solid 24 rounds normally.

Ranger Crossbow: Bardin's ranged weapon of choice, the Crossbow serves almost the exact same function, and is also a single shot ranged weapon with high damage, armor piercing, and deals fatal damage to most things with a well-placed bolt to the head. However, the crossbow deals slightly less overall damage per shot and the launched bolts have a noticable flight time that can cause it to miss, making it slightly less suited for long range sniping of dangerous targets. It compensates for this by have a faster reload, making almost no noise to attract nearby ratmen, and being significantly more accurate when in motion allowing the crossbow to serve as a powerful "first strike" weapon that can reliably headshot enemies before they get into melee range. Bardin's ammo pounch can usually hold 30 bolts.

Grudge-raker: A dwarven shotgun weapon, the Grundge-raker holds a two shot clip that fires nine pellets a shot, allowing hit to rapidly clear out swarms of lesser rats in very short order. its alternate fire lets you slam nearby skaven with the butt of the rifle that both damages and knocks them down, giving the raker massive crowd control ability and a safe friendly fire option. The drawbacks are that this is bardin's only ranged weapon that can't pierce armor, and the recoil from the weapon means that firing too quickly sends the second shot into the air. Care has to be taken when deploying the grudge raker, as the reload time is only slightly faster than the handgun, which can leave you unable to reload safely in the middle of a fight, and the weapon's 28 rounds can quickly run out if you fire it wastefully.

Drakefire pistols: The strangest weapon in bardin's collection, the drakefire pistols are some manner of pressurised fire spitter that shoots projectiles of liquid incendiary ammunition at the target. As the two pistols hold enough of this fluid to fire for the duration of the map effectively, the guns do not have to track ammo, but instead track heat in the same manner of Sienna's fire magic, with venting the excess steam pressure damaging bardin if it passes a threshold and risking the weapons explosively venting unstable fuel if you're not careful! The normal fire of the weapons is a fairly inaccurate ball of armor pirecing flame that slowly arcs to the target that produces a managable amont of heat. Holding the alternate fire primes both funs to eject a large volume of close range fire that is (for some reason) not subject to friendly fire while still doing substantial area damage and immolating enemies. Between this and the general inaccuracy of the weapon, the drakefire pistol is best at close-mid range.

Hailing from the ancient and mysterious elven wood of Athel Loren, Kerillian has left her home for reasons known only to her, to complete some unknown magical demand for some secretive reason. Hasn't stopped her from being rude to everyone and gossiping about them all the time. I mean, even the dwarf is being nice and they're known for rudeness! She could make an effort, you know?

Why should you play as the elven waywatcher:
-you like to attack quickly and precisely.
-you like having the most accurate and skill-rewarding firepower in the game.
-you like being able to block attacks and still move quickly.
-you like making smartass remarks about others.
-you need to look edgy and mysterious to compensate for being a spaz.
-you think that the best way to tell someone to clear your line of sight is to shoot them

Kerillian's armory:
Melee weapons: whenever Kirillian is dual weilding her weapons, she uses a special two-stage push manuver. the first push attempt is a normal push, but if repeated quickly enough she'll make a quick headstab at the target in front of you while they're still reeling from the push. additionaly, she doesn't have to slow down when running and blocking at the same time.

Anaereth war blade: Kerillian's sword, wielded alone trades the speed advantages of her normal dual weilding stance for a more controlled and predictable style. With an attack pattern of if diagonal right-left swings followed by a forward thrust and an charged overhead swing able to smash through armor, the one handed sword is on it's own a reliable enough weapon for when her usual endless poking style is too complex. Defensively is has the usual comfortable three stamina.

Dual war blades: Keillian's sword, wielded with her other, identical sword provides a more offensive, if unbalanced style using patteren of two alternating left-right diagonal swings followed a pair of much higher angled upward diagonal swings, requiring careful aim to reliably strike with all attacks. The charged attack consisted of a wide, crossing swing of both swords flled with a horizontal double slice that covers a wide area and can penetrate armor to supplement the usual attacks. as a wood elf Kerillian is well adapted to this style and retains her three stamina to defend with.

Paired hunting daggers: These lethal daggers suffer first and formost from having the shortest melee range in the game, forcing you to get in close rather than simply striking the skaven as they charge you. Once you get past this handicap they provide you with the fastest attack speed available, with the normal attack pattern two swift left-right slashes going on endlessly without any reset. Even better, her charged attack of a double overhead stab is both powerful and incredably fast to charge and attack letting you rapidly stab larger enemies to death before they can react. They're not suited to blocking enemy attacks however and have a pitiful two stamina.

Lilieth stance: Kerillian's preferred fighting style is a balanced combination of a sword and dagger. Functioning much like the paired swords, the last attack is traded in for a final stab ot the face, for a resulting pattern of left-right-left-poke, and the charge attack of a wide double-blade swing followed by a double downward stab to penetrate armor comes out slightly faster. Like most paired stances, Kerillian's natural ease with the lilieth stance lets her maintain the usual three stamina for blocking with while retaining the push-stab mechanic.

Ranged weapons: As with all Wood elves, Kerillian's skill with a bow is unmatched, and as such she only uses bows. As a result all her missile weapons have the same properties of being fast to fire, needing no reload times, and having a flight time before they hit a target at range while dealing extra damage on a head shot. she also uses a varaity of exotic magical arrows for added utility.

Hunting bow: The lighter of Kerillian's two bows and her weapon of choice, the hunting bow is fast, highly accurate both as rest and in movement and has a reasonable stopping power. In alternate fire it zooms in, and Kerillian fires slower and with pinpoint aim to ensure that she deals full damage and her shots strike through armor by seeking out the tiniest gap. Her quiver holds an impressive hundred arrows for this bow normally.

Hagbane/Hunting bow: the strongest choice in sheer killing power of Kerillians ranged arsenal, the enscorcerelled hagbane arrows technically deal less damage on their own compared to her normal wide-bladed shots. The main source of their leathality is the magical poison effect the arrows release on impact. Once struck both the target and nearby foes will be sticken by the toxic cloud of poison that rapidly saps their health, leaving them to die a pathetic choking death. On alt fire she not only zooms in and gains improved accuacy with her shots, but the cloud of poison becomes larger and lasts slightly longer alllowing her to effectively wipe out swarms of lesser vermin in short order. One has to be much more careful with this weapon on higher difficulties however, as the poison's damage is not reduced whatsoever for your team mates or yourself! Due to the instabality of the hagsbane magic, Kerillian only carries half as many arrows to make sure they do not damage each other, leaving her with 35 shots in her quiver normally.

Longbow: Kerillian's option for when sheer instant stopping power is the concern, the longbow does nearly twice the damage compaired to her hunting bow and penetrates enemies. The trade off is it is much harder to accuratly fire rapidly and generally just slower to fire but a headshot all but guarantees a kill on even the toughest vermin. As with the hunting bow, her alt fire allows her to zoom in for a more accurate, focused shot caapble of dealing even more damage than normally at great distances while penetrating the crude armor of the skaven easily. The larger longbow arrows leave Kerillian room enough for 54 shots in her quiver.

Trueflight/Longbow: when using her longbow, Kerillian favors the enchanting of her arrows with a magical spirit that allows the arrows to seek their own target. Functionally identical to the longbow in all other ways, the enchanted arrows shine with Kerillian's alt fire, allowing her to pick out important targets for a magical homing shot to the head or fired allowing the arrows to seek out targets of their own accord. This magical assistance means that even with meagere 24 shots her arrows will ensure a good many skaven meet their death.

Even with such an impressive armory at their disposal, it's still only our five heroes against more rats than there are in new york. Fortunately there is additional equipment available out here to help them out.
In addition to carrying a melee and missile weapon, each player has three item slots, these hold expendable items like healing supplies and magical potions and are separated into three catagories: Medical supplies, Magical supplies, and Engineering supplies. These supplies cannot be equipped, but rather are found over the course of the map either in chests or out in the open. Unexpended supplies are not retained between missions, however on some difficulties you may start the map with supplies.

Medical Supplies: The most valuable of items, medical supplies that allow you to heal your and your teammates wounds are held in the first item slot. It goes without saying that making careful and effective use of them is in your best interests. They come in two types, and share the category with the magic tome, a special item that provides you with better rewards after a map.

Healing draught: A wonderful drink in a fat green bottle, the healing draught heals you for 50 health points. You can't use it to heal someone else, but you can pass it to them with the use button if you hold it in front of them and they have an empty healing slot. When you're very badly injured, the draught will only recover part of your health unlike the medical kit, but it's also the only one that can restore you to 100% health in most circumstances. In normal difficulty missions, you are each provided with a healing draught before the mission begins.

Healer's kit: A faded green pack of ointments, banadges and other stuff, the medical kit has one use and heals either yourself, or a teammate for 85% of their current lost health. this makes it a good item to have when you're badly injured, but is wasted for topping off small injuries where most of the potential value is lost. It also has a two second use time before you're healed that ratmen can disrupt by attacking the person using it, and during this time the user is stuck in place, unable to dodge or block making it far less useful during combat than the draught. Also unlike the draught you can't pass it to a teammate, if you wish to do that. In easy mode, you are each provided with a medical kit before the mission begins.

Magic tome: The magic tome is not a healing item, but rather a reward item that improves your chances at a good item for clearing the mission while having it. It's listed here however for a simple reason: It occupies the healing slot, so you have to carry this thing from its hiding place all the way to the escape route at the end of the level to benefit from it. You can set the tome back down though by picking up a healing item, allowing you to heal with found items, then pick the tome back up and move on, but you'll have to leave any currently unused healing behind to take the tome with you. On the plus side, when you select the tome as an item it can be used to block while moving at your normal speed, and you can even push with it! This gives it some tactical use to carry over healing in the right situation.

Magical supplies: These potions provide temporary benifits to your abilities, allowing you to survive situations that might otherwise overwhelm you. However the boost is short-lived and shouldn't be employed wastefully. There are two magical potions for your beneift, as well as the skaven grimore, which improves your rewards at a steep cost. Magical supplies are kept in the second slot.

Strength potion: A square vial with a nondescript label covered in unreadable formulae, the strength potion thankfully is clearly labeled in the user interface and once used will quadruple your damage for about five seconds. Thanks to this drastic improvement of your might, all your melee attacks also gain the ability to penetrate armor, if they did not already have this ability. The strength potion cn be passed to another player that doesn't have a potion with the use button while holding it in front of them to ensure the potion is used to maximum potential. In easy difficulty, each character is provided a strength potion at the beginning of the game.

Speed potion: Identical in apperance to the strengh potion, and thankfully clearly labeled in the game's user interface, the speed potion easily doubles your attack and reload speed and triples your movement speed, allowing you to briefly tear through a huge amont of targets or outrun everything else in the game for about five seconds. You can pass this potion to another player in the same way as other potions if they can make better use of it than you.

Skaven Grimore: Like the magic tome, the grimore improves your odds of getting better loot. unlike the tome, it is guaranteed to give you an improved roll on the reward list instead of just improving the chance of a better roll. This bonus comes at a high cost. To recieve the benefit you need to carry the grimore to the end of the level, occupying your magic supplies slot, and unlike the tome, you cannot set it back down. The only way to drop the tome is to hold it out and throw it away, destroying it and costing you its benefit. Even worse, every grimore picked up reduces the maximum health of the entire party by 33% making the entire matter of surviving even more difficult. The grimore also cannot be passed to others, used to block, and really should not be looked at directly. That sound it makes is breathing.

Engineering supplies: the third item slot is reserved for tactical explosive devices, which is to say bombs. Where the previous two item catagories are intended for you to use to your own benefit, this third catagory is best applied to your enemies with the maximum amount ot Prejudice possible. There are two types of engineering supplies, which do the same thing in different ways. Which is to say, they both kill Skaven very well.

Bomb: A large metal sphere with a fuse on top, the bomb is filled with gunpowder. Attacking with a bomb causes the player to light the fuse and throw it in an arc toward the target, although if you press the attack button again fast enough to can extinguish the fuse and save the bomb for later. Once lit and thrown, the bomb will explode on impact, Inflicting massive amounts of damage to everything in the area, making it ideal for quickly removing tough targets that happen to be surrounded by lesser foes as protection. as a projectile weapon, bombs can damage you and your allies as well when friendly fire is active, so care must be taken at higher difficulties. At lower ones though, feel free to toss them right at a team mate to clear them some room!

Incendiary bomb: Different from the usual bomb in that it's a squat metal cone with a fuse in the tip, the incendiary bomb explodes into a carpet of alchemical fire that inflicts much less damage than than a blackpower bomb but affects a wider area and persists for several seconds, denying the area to advancing ratmen and burning those who dare to try crossing it anyways. Naturally, a firebomb tossed into the center of an oncoming horde is quite impressive to see! The firebomb's friendly fire is damaging to teammates both on impact and the resulting carpet of fire though, making this bomb exceptionaly hazardous to use on higher difficulties as you can both kill your allies and render them too dangerous to go revive or block off your path of escape against an incoming rat ogre.

In the shattered wreck of the town of Ubersriek, our five heroes fight for the imcomperable reward of glory, honor, and the knowledge they've stood up against the forces of evil and cast them back into the darkness. We're pretty sure you're nothing near that noble though, so the game gives you rewards for every map you complete and a way to trade them up for better loot over time.

Ranald's bones: After every map, you're given a roll of the dice to see how good your loot is. specifically, seven dice are rolled and the more that come up a face the higher the item you take on the list of rewards on the right. Normally, each die has 2 faces or a one in three chance to imporve your loot but there are several ways to improve this roll.
-Luck dice: Found in any level, luck dice might appear in any chest if you're very lucky, and replace a normal die with a luck die that has three faces, or an even chance to roll a face side or not. You can find up to two dice in every level and their effects as shared for the group.
-Tome dice: Found in the main story levels, magic tomes occupy your healing slot and reward you for bringing them to the map exit with a die with four faces for a two in three chance to roll a face. You can find three of them in a level and each one brought to the end improves the entire group's roll
-Grimore dice: Taking a grimore in the main story levels places a serious toll on the party, but rewards them at the end by replace a die with a six-faced warpstone die (Well, we assume it's sixed faced because it glows too much to read!) there are two in a level, and the entire party gets it's benefits (and handicaps)
This prize list scales up to rarer goods as it goes further up the list and difficulties, with normal white rewards, then green, blue, orange, and most rarely red items appearing in the list randomly according roughly to difficulty. The list changes every roll and two rolls on the same difficulty and map might vary wildly!

The prize you recieve include improved weapons, special trinkets to grant you special improvements, and decorative hats. I should've lead with the hats, we know that's what you all want.

HATS: They look awesome. hats impress people when you join a game, making you more important, and therefore better than them. Hats come in two rarities, exoitc(orange) and veteran(red).
Really, you totally want these. You know you deserve to look good and hey, who doesn't want that? They're a sign you're both good at the game because you've won hard fights and lucky because you rolled well after, so they objectively mark you as a better player than those chumps playing with starter hats. Screw them, the hats should belong to you!

Weapons: The bulk of the prizes you will recieve, weapons can be recieved of any kind, for any character, and at any rarity. Depending on rarity the weapon will improve in damage and abilities, with whites being the default, greens having slightly more damage and a special trait, blues improving on the green damage and having two special traits and oranges & reds having the best damage and a grand total of three special traits. Reds, which are the rarest have a unique set of traits only found on them but all other weapons have a random list of traits for you to unlock later.
Weapon traits include things like healing damage on hitting an enemy, improving or regenerating stamina, allowing stronger pushes or even more unusual effects that can benefit your entire team, and finding the ones that work for you is an important part of the game. Try them all and find new ways to combine them!


Trinkets: Special charms you carry with you, trinkets have special effects, like not expending items like potions when used, or reducing damage, or many other useful effects! Unlike the special traits on weapons, trinkets usually provide benefits for the entire gorup and so are valuable beyond their personal benefit in that they allow your entire team to benefit from one player's trinkets. Trinkets can come in different rarities like weapons, with green, blue, and orange trinkets being possible.

The number of trinkets you can use is initially limited to a single choice, but as you play the game you'll upgrade to carry three seperate trinkets, which will become vital to success on higher difficulties as their benefits become invaluable in survival. Most trinket effects are availible in multiple rarities, with the harder to obtain versions being signifigantly more potent, but there are a number of trinkets exclusive to each rarity. Trinkets aren't exclusive to a character, so always look at what they offer your playstyle with each of the characters availible!

Ore: given as a booby prize or salvaged from unwanted items, ore is used to improve your weapons in a number of ways.
1:Unlocking weapon traits. The traits on weapons won completing missions start locked, and must be unlocked using ore one rarity lower than the item itself. Unlocking a trait costs more for rarer items, and the price goes up with each additional trait already unlocked on that weapon as well so you have to sonsire which traits you need most even when unlocking them.
2:Changing weapon traits. Sometimes you might receive a weapon with traits you do not like, or are too similer to an existing weapon you prefer to be worth keeping. Using some ore of the same level as the weapon, you can roll a new set of traits and decide to choose the new abilities or keep the old ones. New abilities will be locked though, so don't go unlocking every weapon you have when you might not want their traits.
3:Improving weapon traits. Sometimes, a trait will be unlocked but at such a low instance of happening you might as well not have unlocked it! In this instance, ore can be used to try to improve the chance of the trait occering. Naturally this is less effective the closer to maximum the trait's chances already are.
4:Rolling for extra weapons. Need a weapon for a particular character that's been neglected? maybe you salvaged all the other character's weapons to improve the traits on your favorite? well now you can use ore to roll for a new weapon for those poor unfortunates so you aren't a drag on your team when someone picks your character before you! The amount of ore is dependant on the rarity of weapon you roll for, and how exact you want the roll to be.
While lower-quality is easily obtained enough to spend freely, the most quality stuff will only come at great cost and so shouldn't be used without good reason to trust you'll get something useful from the results.

Finally, here's some general advice about the finer points of playing the game to improve you chances of success and enjoyment.

Dodging and blocking: Dodging is a valuable defensive skill that can give you an edge in combat but is highly situational. Used by pressing jump and moving to the sides or back at the same time, a dodge is a very short ranged way to reposition yourself out of the way of enemy attacks and friendly fire when you are unable to block an attack. In a crowded fight however, it's likely that your path of dodging will be blocked by the body of an enemy.

Dodging more powerful enemies is often tricky as many of them can adjust their attack until they actually begin their swing. in these cases you have to learn to spot the enemy's tell that they've commited quickly enough to make the dodge, but once you have it will frequently give you the drop on them. if you're unable to isolate these enemies (like a packmaster) you should generally try to shoot them down before they can close with you.
Blocking on the other hand should become your standby for defending yourself, and with good reason. Unlike dodging a block protects you from attacks from all directions, so long as you have the stamina to hold against the attack. A block also can be brought up much faster than most attacks making having your melee weapons readied when you are fearing ambush a wise choice.

The downside to blocking is that most every weapon will slow you down while you hold your block up. This leads to the very real risk of getting divided from your allies if they don't notice you're under attack. There's also the limitation that if you push enemies away, you have to drop your guard a moment in the process, and only players using a shield can push in all directions. as a result, you should generally only start blocking attacks once you're confident your team isn't going to run on you! in a pinch a quick push out of the way can get you space enough to get back to your group so they can help you fight.
an important thing to remember is that you can't block explosions or gas at all (obviously, bit hard to knock a cloud back with the blunt end of your sword!) and that you can only block missile attacks with a shield. Otherwise, the bullets are moving too fast to block!

Teamwork: It is no exaggeration to say that success in vermintide depends on your ability to work well with your teammates. If you and your friends wander around without thinking of how your friends can get to you, or you to them you're almost assured to get beaten into submission until you learn to cooperate.

The hardest part of cooperation for most people is learning how to work with their teammates instead of getting their teammates to always work with them. There's plenty of people that run off ahead and get killed complaining their team is too slow to do their job, not realizing the whole mess is their fault! It's a matter of great importance to learn how to keep what your group is trying to do in mind instead of assuming they will get the best benefit from doing what you want. It's a good policy to check where everyone is every few seconds if you aren't busy fighting, and even in a fight giving a quick glance at your team to make sure you're all on the same page can be the differance between winning and losing.

Another important part is knowing how to cover your teammates in a fight. While Ideally you should be able to fight every enemy you might run into, in practice you'll invariably have to sacrifice one advantage or another. One player might focus on killing special enemies at range and use their melee weapon to deal with armored foes, but need help dealing with swarms. another might have massive area of effect damage, but has trouble with specials. these two will operate much more effectively if they work together to ensure each player is able to do their preferred job. If you can, you should always try to tool your gear to compliment your team between missions where you can.

Finally, you should let your team know if you have a weapon or trinket that will benefit them if they help you improve your use of it. If you can force an enemy to take more damage when you block or you can spread the effects of potions, this will only help the team if they're aware of it! Knowing what you can do to help your teammates is as important as your teammates knowing how you can help them so you should always inform them of advantages they can help to benefit from as soon as possible.

Communication as your teammates are likely not playing in the same room as you are, it's helpful to know how to relay useful information to them. Using the voice chat by pressing the G key is the fastest method, although you may not hve the ability to speak to them and would rather communicate with the textbox, which is bount to the Y key. Additionally you can tag both items and special enemies with the T key, which will both highlight them and cause your character to relate a voiceline about the item (expect in the cases of tomes and grimores, which have no lines to annonce them). Some people's keybindings may be different, so be sure to check your option settings now and then!

Healing: Heaing is obviously important in that you don't want to die. but it's more important to the team as a whole for you to make sure the team has the most effective healing possible. while in the middle of a heated combat, it might simply be better to make sure you don't fall and put the whole team at risk in most situations you should try to make sure healing items go to the person that is most badly injured. You also have to consider that you can only "go down" to skaven attacks so many times before you're out of the game. healing items reset the number of times you can be brought down as well as healing you, so a player that has been knocked down a couple of times should have priority over one that hasn't gone down yet if they're both about to drop.

When you recover a teammate that's been brought down they will gain gray, temporary health. This health will normally slowly bleed away over time, but if a healing item is applied quickly the gray health will be added to the total. It's important to note that while healing items and certain trinkets can heal you or nearby players, weapons that give you health do not count as healing and any health regained attacking enemies will be added to this temporary health if you are bleeding out.

Tomes, while valuable, are something of a risk in regards to healing as they prevent another player with a healing draught from handing them to you. As such you should consider carefuly if you're going to be able to carry it without getting beaten by every skaven from here to the mountains like their pet whipping boy before grabbing it and running off.

Bots: If and when you cannot get a full group of four people to play with you, the game will replace the empty slots with AI-run versions of the cahracters to even the odds. This AI support will follow you, fight alongside you, and frustrate you. Unlike players, AI bots will show no understanding of the mission in a given level, meaning you will have to complete all the objectives yourself which will get very tedious in a hurry. They also do not count as being able to complete a level so if you go down, the game will end without the bots trying to recover you.

Bots do not use potions or bombs, but pick them up of their own accord if you already have your hands full. You can manually hand them potions as well, and if another person joins the game they will inherit the gear that bot was holding. Bots will pick up and use health however, although they only pick health up when the players are holding health items/tomes already. bots will heal the players if they are holding a health kit, but are likely to drop a tome the second a health item is sighted so properly using health items around bots is a complicated matter.

Bots are capable of fighting reasonably well against clanrats. However, they are unable to alter their tactics much against various special rats and are likely to die quickly to stormvermin. More importantly a ratling gunner will cause an AI bot to go nuts and chase them across the map, sometimes running back to spawn so they can let the ratling shoot at them to distract it for you. This need to eat bullets for you will override all other logic in the AI and mean you have to carefully listen for gunners so you don't find yourself abandoned by a team carrying valuable gear and slowly letting themselves be shot to death.

Luck: Luck is a nebulous, untracked ability in Warhammer: vermintide. While you can gain it and you can have a general idea how much you have, nobody knows for sure what it does. There are a few things most players agree it does however.
Luck affects the ability to get loot dice. Loot dice can be found in chests and loot rat sacks. normally, a chest only has a small chance of holding the loot die, but improved luck noticably improves the chances of finding a luck die in a given chest. Luck dice are already common in rat sacks, but having luck improved the odds of finding double luck dice considerably. The player with the highest luck has to open the chest/kill the sackrat to see the benefits.
Luck also has an unknown effect on the items generated throughout the map. this is harder to judge, but as the game spawns the map, the collective luck of the team is used to select the items in chests and left in the open. This includes health, potions, and ammo supplies among other things.

In conclusion, there's many small things you can do to improve your chances and have a fun time fighting the ratmen. So get out there heroes and save the city remembering my handy hints!