Hello everyone. In this guide I will cover:
- Victory conditions, faction and climate;
- Starting location;
- Diplomacy and outposts;
- Mechanics of the race and faction;
- Province edicts and army stances;
- Buildings and research;
- Lords and skills;
- Army compositions;
And give you my final notes on the specific faction. Hope you enjoy it.

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If you prefer to read, here it goes:

VICTORY CONDITIONS:

Short victory:

- Destroy the Lahmian Sisterhood (Vampire Counts) and Kraka Drak (Dwarfs) factions.
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 35 different settlements.

The reward is that you get Major Relic missions available, and the workload for raw materials is diminished by 15%; you also consume 15% less raw materials per turn by buildings.

This is a rather short victory, and the reward is very good and thematic as well. You will be able to have a much easier time going into the long victory. Should be noted that it does force you to expand into two directions, but there is always the chance that one of those factions is destroyed by someone else.

Long Victory:

- Achieve the Short Victory;
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 80 different settlements;
- Hold the settlement of Zharr Naggrund;
- Destroy the factions of Karaz-a-Karak (Thorgrim), Karak Kadrin (Ungrim), Grimgor's 'Ardboyz (Grimgor).

The reward is three very unique items, all very good to ensure your characters have a much easier time on the battlefield and also give good buffs to their armies.

This is quite a time consuming campaign. It will take a while, specially to destroy those factions, even though they are relatively near you, they can become powerful if you leave them alone for too long.

Astragoth is the High Priest of Hashut, gaining the following benefits:

Conclave Influence from all sources +10%;
Research rate +10%;
Control +2 (all provinces).

All of these are great campaign buffs, ensuring that you have an easier time when playing with Astragoth and making him a great lord to start first with the Chaos Dwarfs.

Climate is not an issue at all for the Chaos Dwarfs, one of their strengths, and it allows this faction to be one of the easiest to achieve world domination or full map completion with.

STARTING LOCATION:


Your starting province is a three settlement one, and you do start with the capital. It is a decent location to have everything you need for the early game, both economy and military wise.

However, given the number of buildings you need for full military and the unique buildings at your capital, you will definitely need to split up your recruitment into more provinces.

Typical expansion would be to go into the south area, dominating over the Greenskins and taking out the Lahmian Sisterhood. You will at one point have to go north to deal with Kraka Drak if they are still alive to complete the Short Victory, remember. However, you may go into the West or East mountain ranges, but I would not advise to expand both ways until you are a bit more powerful.

DIPLOMACY:

In terms of diplomacy you are aligned with Chaos, so Norsca and other Chaos factions should be more welcoming to your faction.

You are also in the weird situation that you are hated by both Evil and Order aligned, such as Greenskins and Dwarfs. By focusing on one group, who knows if you may gain a friend from taking actions against their enemies? Skaven and Ogres may become your friends in time, but they do have some aversion towards you.

Outposts will most likely come from Norsca, Chaos factions, or Skaven. In terms of units you do not lack much, but maybe there is some use for Skaven weapons teams and artillery, monsters from Norsca, or some fast units from Slaanesh if you manage to.


MECHANICS OF THE RACE AND FACTION:

First, we have the three unique settlement types - Towers, Outposts, and Factories. Towers are only allowed in your province capitals.

We have the four unique resources:

"Labourers" are acquired mainly via battles or convoys, and are required to give you raw materials, working on the mines.
Raw materials are mainly produced via the mines and are used to construct buildings, convert into armaments or even treasury.
Armaments are generated via Raw materials at the Factory settlements and used mainly at the Hell-Forge, for increasing the unit caps or to improve your units for a maintenance cost.
Conclave Influence is gained via settlement buildings and is used to occupy seats at the Tower of Zharr.

Every different settlement type has its own building tree, so you should familiarize yourself with them in order to be certain of what you wish for a specific place. Remember that most advanced units can only be built at the Tower settlements, and that some resources may provide buffs to either Outposts or Factories.

Labour economy allows you to shift your Labourers among your province, in order to ensure maximum efficiency. Basically, it tells you when you need to have more labourers in any given place and to manage it.

Buildings can cost gold, raw materials, or armaments to complete. A steady flow of everything is required, and you can always spend some labourers to rush the work, allowing you to quickly grow your settlements if you wish.

Speaking of Growth - there is none. The Growth mechanic is instead replaced by different costs for the evolution of your settlement. Fighting to obtain more laborers and produce more raw materials is therefore key to ensure a healthy and growing province.

The Hell-Forge allows you to increase your unit caps for your better units, similar to how the Beastmen work. It also allows you to upgrade you units, giving them specific abilities or attributes, by paying a maintenance cost per unit.

The Tower of Zharr allows you to use Conclave Influence to gain seats or steal others'. Controlling all seats in a district will unlock the reward to ALL Chaos Dwarf factions. All of the seats and specific districts confer some nice bonuses, so plan wisely. You will further progress in the tower until you are later given the opportunity to claim a seat to confederate other Chaos Dwarf factions.
Labour actions allow you to spend labourers to gain Conclave Influence, gold, or control in your province. Quite simple, similar to the Dark Elves or Slaanesh mechanic.

Finally, Military Convoys are similar to Cathay caravans. You send out a convoy to exchange one currency for another, so you should check what you are in need of before proceeding. As the Convoy moves to the location, there will be events requiring your attention and decision making, including battles.

PROVINCE EDICTS AND ARMY STANCES:

Edicts:

Rush construction Labor cost - 10% and construction cost - 10%;
Recruit cost reduced by 20% and recruit rank +2;
Income from refinery buildings +10%, Armaments +10%;
Control +2, chance of plague spread reduced by 25%;

Overall they are quite thematic and help your economy in one way or another. Make sure that you are making the most of them depending on the current circumstance.

Army Stances:

Underway is great, not just by itself, but the fact that you are in between mountains makes it so valuable for the Chaos Dwarfs. In addition, underway battles will definitely be a powerful tool for you.
Encamp costs 50% movement and allows replenishment and immunity to most attrition, as well as global recruitment.
Raiding costs 25% movement, and it also gives you labourers, so do not neglect it.
Ambush costs 25%;
Forced march.

Typical bunch, but raiding giving you some laborers and the underway are of particular importance here, allowing some good strategic options.

BUILDINGS AND RESEARCH:


You have three types of Settlements: Towers, Outposts, and Factories. Quick resume on all three.
Towers:

Required for your advanced military buildings, that also cost Armaments;
Infrastructure:

1- Lord recruit rank and hero recruit rank (Factionwide); casualty replenishment rate;
2- Income building (a lot);
3 - Control, control in adjacent provinces, campaign movement range;
4 - Raw materials consumed per turn diminished (interesting one);
5 - Conclave influence per turn; winds of magic reserves to all armies ; Diplomatic relations with Chaos Dwarfs; Recruit Rank +3 to Bull Centaurs.

In general good choices, if you do not require military buildings in that specific Tower, it still gives you something in return.

Speaking of military buildings, you require 5 buildings for full military, but remember you can only go to tier 4 and beyond precisely at Tower settlements.

Outposts:

Main source of raw materials;
Has only basic Hobgoblin unit recruitment options;

Infrastructure:

1 - Raw Materials per turn and Workload increase;
2- Income and Income from post-battle loot (adjacent armies to the region);
3 - Campaign line of sight and control;
Overall, you will mainly use Outposts to have the mines and income there.

Factories:

Main source of converting Raw Materials into Armaments;
Has 3 military buildings, only going to tier 3;

Infrastructure:

1 - Armaments per turn at the cost of Raw Materials, chaos corruption;
2 - Income at the cost of Raw Materials, Chaos corruption;
3 - Raw materials output for the local province.

Special note that you can have a Hero unit, the Infernal Castellan, recruited in Factory settlements. In addition, the Raw materials output increase building may imply it is a good idea to have at least one factory per province, specially 4 settlement provinces.

Construction costs range from gold, to raw materials, to armaments. Be prepared to juggle among all three as necessary.

In terms of Research, it is divided into three:

Industry, helping your economy mostly;
Sorcery, helping with magic, army abilities, and campaign buffs, for the most part;
Military, buffing your troops, and some campaign buffs throughout. They do get quite some decent upgrades to units there, so ensure you do not neglect these.

It is quite important to balance the research, or to try and beline specific technologies to ensure good synergies. You are heavily rewarded with this faction for having a plan and learning to adapt to that plan.

LORDS/HEROES/SKILLS

Blue line has replenishment and reduced attrition right at the start, which is excellent. However, Chaos Dwarfs do not suffer issues with climate, so it may appear redundant. You also have a skill to increase battle loot and laborers per battle, which may interest you.

The Redline is quite good and efficient, granting good stats that complement the forces and correct some weaknesses, such as giving melee attack for most infantry. It is still quite expensive in terms of redline skills to field varied unit types. At the same time, you have both low and high quality troops of the same type together, so this helps ensure you can use it early and still benefit from it for your elite troops.


None of your heroes provide replenishment, but your lords all do in a great amount. Your heroes are instead focused in improving their combat capabilities or your army capabilities, be sure to check their possible uses.

ARMY COMPOSITIONS: (check below images).

Nearly all of their unit types have amazing success in battle, so you can field quite a variety of different armies, either focused on artillery or ranged, or even just a melee powerhouse, or combinations of both.

Astragoth buffs Bull Centaur Renders, so it make sense that you will have some different choices around it. Here are a couple of possible combinations:


First around infantry and ranged infantry, with Bull Centaurs for the punch;
Second without ranged infantry but with artillery to weaken the enemy before your Centaurs strike;
Third more of a rush or ambush based build, with infantry and Centaurs combining with some single entities for greater power;

Then of course we can have a few more possibilities, like a Dwarf style with Heavy infantry, missiles and artillery, or instead of the artillery some mobility with the bull centaurs again.


It is important to note that the unit caps system will incentive you to have some spare armies using the initial units, instead of only fully elite armies. Therefore, some options are required for those too.
Should you wish to have a more traditional army with units of every role, including infantry, missiles, cavalry and artillery, it is possible, but note that it may require a lot of redline skills to buff them all up.

As always, you can have great sweeper armies, including some with just Chaos warriors or even Hobgoblin based armies. Don't send against top tier enemies, but they will do well vs minor ones.
Special note with the Lamasu's ability to negate magic attacks and the K'daai physical resistance, which gives them quite the synergy. Keep them together for the best use.


There are nearly endless possibilities, making this faction lots of fun to try out something new every time. I recommend at least one caster hero and one melee hero, but feel free to bring whatever you prefer.

FINAL CONCLUSION:

Astragoth has a nice position to expand into the South, without too many threats from the North. It is quite a straightforward campaign and a good one to test out the Chaos Dwarfs in Immortal Empires.

Their economy and mechanics are impeccable in doing one thing: rewarding you fro your decision making. It is a great campaign to see the results of your decisions on the campaign and battle map, and you will have plenty of opportunities to test every weapon in your arsenal.

Your army consists of:

Strong Holding infantry;
Great missiles and artillery;
Great cavalry;
Good Monstrous infantry;
Great single entities and flyers;
Lacks some speed;
Requires some time to build up.

Replenishment is great, no issues with Climate, lords have good access to replenishment, even though you lack a hero gifting it.

I believe that is it. Let us Follow Hashut with Astragoth Ironhand.