Age of Wonders 4: all Transformations

In Age of Wonders 4 you’re not just building your own civilization to play with at the start of the game, you’re continually refining and adapting your people to your practical or narrative needs. What your faction looks like, what it can do in battle, and how it works on the campaign map is reflective of your journey with it – a dark overlord following the Shadow Affinity might in the end transform his people into unliving nightmares that serve for eternity, others might fall or ascend, becoming Fiends or Celestials.

All of these Race Transformations have a big impact on the visuals and practical gameplay of your Age of Wonders 4 faction and you should definitely know which Tomes of Magic to pick or avoid if you have a specific theme for your next game in mind. Naturally, you can just wing it and pick whatever is best in a given situation. These powerful spells give you remarkable flexibility when it comes to adapting your people.

You can transform your faction by researching one of these spells and then preparing it on the campaign map. Once you have enough Mana and Casting Points, you can unleash the spell. Every race can be affected by as many Minor Transformations as you want and one Major Transformation. However, some of the spells are mutually exclusive.

Here are all Age of Wonders 4 Race Transformations including new ones added via DLC.

Astral Affinity Race Transformations

• Magical Wards (Minor) – Tome of Warding, Tier I: +2 Lightning, Fire, and Frost Resistance.
• Astral Blood (Minor) – Tome of Amplification, Tier II: Fortune Attunement.
• Astral Attunement (Major) – Tome of Astral Convergence, Tier IV: Pass Through, +1 Mana and +1 Knowledge per Population in cities.

Astral Blood is excellent if you’re planning to play a magic-heavy game, while Astral Attunement is phenomenal in any case, allowing you to pass through obstacles on the battlefield to flank the enemy at will.

Chaos Affinity Race Transformations

• Spawnkin (Minor) – Tome of the Horde, Tier I: Increased number of units in formation, 20% damage.
• Reveler's Heart (Minor) – Tome of Revelry, Tier II: +50% Morale from all sources.
• Vessels of Chaos (Minor) – Tome of Pandemonium, Tier III: +10% damage for each negative status effect on the target (stacks up to 3 times).
• Scion of Flame (Minor) – Tome of Chaos Channeling, Tier IV: +4 Fire Resistance, Vengeful Flames, Fiery Wake, and Immunity to Burning.
• Demonkin (Major) – Tome of the Demon Gate, Tier IV: Fiend unit type, Flying, and Frenzy.

The path of Chaos Affinity is perfectly tailored towards swarm-heavy builds: Spawnkin, Reveler’s Heart, and Scion of Flame together are pretty lethal, allowing you to field huge formations of units that won’t lose heart and are extremely annoying to deal with.

Materium Affinity Race Transformations

• Earthkin (Minor) – Tome of Rock, Tier I: +1 Defense, Rock Walk, and Rock Camouflage.
• Steel Skin (Minor) – Tome of Transmutation, Tier III: +2 Defense, +2 Blight Resistance, and -2 Lightning Resistance.
• Goldtouched (Minor) – Tome of the Golden Realm, Tier IV: +2 Resistance, +1 Gold per Population in cities.

Materium is all about defense, but not too essential overall. Goldtouched is certainly nice, as it boosts your income and allows you to maintain additional units.

Nature Affinity Race Transformations

• Animal Kinship (Minor) – Tome of Beasts, Tier I: +10% damage and critical hit chance when adjacent to friendly Animal or Cavalry unit.
• Leafskin (Minor) – Team of Glades, Tier II: +1 Resistance, Forest Walk, and Forest Camouflage.
• Supergrowth (Minor) – Tome of Vigor, Tier III: +10 HP, +1 Retaliation Attack, and decreased number of units in formation.
• Gaia's Chosen (Major) – Tome of Paradise, Tier IV: Charge Resistance, +3 Status Resistance, and +20 HP.

Supergrowth is the opposite – and thus incompatible with it – of Spawnkin, allowing you to build armies of high-quality troops, which you should buff as much as possible.

Order Affinity Race Transformations

• Anointed People (Minor) – Tome of Sanctuary, Tier III: +3 Status Resistance, +3 Spirit Resistance.
• Angelize (Major) – Tome of Exaltation, Tier IV: Celestial unit type, Flying, and Faithful.

Angelize is not bad, allowing for more maneuverability and decreasing your army upkeep costs.

Shadow Affinity Race Transformations

• Joy Siphoners (Minor) – Tome of the Doomherald, Tier II: Steal 3 Morale per hit.
• Frostling Transformation (Minor) – Tome of the Cold Dark, Tier III: +3 Frost Resistance, Immunity to Frozen, +10 Morale on cold terrain, and Arctic Walk.
• Wightborn (Major) – Tome of the Great Transformation, Tier IV: Undead unit type, Life Steal on attacks.

Joy Siphoners is devastating, especially when you’re using units with multiple hits per turn, while Frostling Transformation is obviously of massive help on arctic maps. Wightborn don’t suffer from morale penalties and heal themselves as they attack, making this a very potent – if somewhat unsightly – Transformation.

Mixed Affinity Race Transformations

The Dragon Dawn DLC is required for the following Race Transformations:

• Draconic Vitality (Minor) – Tome of Evolution, Tier I: +3 HP per Unit Rank.
• Draconian Transformation (Major) – Tome of Dragons, Tier III: Dragon unit type, Natural Regeneration, and Immunity to Burning.

Draconic Vitality adds up to 18 HP to the health of your units, which is a pretty good bonus. The Draconian Transformation is pretty strong as well, allowing your units to rapidly regenerate on the campaign map to sustain an offensive. Dragon units benefit from Draconic Rage if they’re wounded in battle, boosting their damage and making them dangerous foes even on low HP.

This offers some great synergy with the Chaos Affinity's swarms in particular: They remain effective in battle for longer and you can wage war even more aggressively thanks to the quicker heals – terrifying.

The Empires & Ashes DLC is required for the following Race Transformation:

• Linked Minds (Minor) – Tome of the Construct, Tier II: Units gain Hyper-Awareness next to Constructs or other units with Linked Minds.

This is a fantastic direction to take for a Construct-heavy play style, allowing your living troops to work better with their artificial counterparts on the battlefield. This Transformation is powerful in battle and adds to the flavor of commanding a relentless and unstoppable force.

The Primal Fury DLC is required for the following Race Transformations:

• Feytouched (Minor) – Tome of Fey Mists, Tier II: Units gain Fey Guile and ignore vision and accuracy penalties from mist.
• Naga Form (Major) – Tome of the Stormborne, Tier IV: Units gain Fast Movement, Amphibious, Slip Away, Immunity to Electrified, and +2 Blight and Lightning Resistance. They won't be able to use mounts anymore.

The Naga Form is excellent if you want to create a slippery fighting force that frustrates the enemy to death. Slip Away allows units to get out of harm's way whenever they're on low HP, while Fast Movements ensures that they can flank vulnerable units with ease.

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