Total War: Warhammer - Page 90

On November 23 2017 03:51 Archeon wrote:
Why does your game sound like so much fun while my Morathi game feels like it's over in turn 70 after I conquered Ulthuan? Am I calling quits too early? Or is it just the narrative?

Hell my game was a giant snowball since I got my second province and it was almost as late as in my Skaven campaign.

On November 23 2017 16:05 xDaunt wrote:
It's now turn 188. My campaign has gotten a little weird. I decided to send three stacks into the Southlands and then get ready to push into Ulthuan with three more stacks. What followed was a systematic dismantling of my alliances through bullshit DoWs. First, Mousillon decided to attack my ally, Bretonnia. I dutifully sent a couple stacks to wipe the vamps out and seize some fine Bretonnian lands. Then, some bullshit rogue army faction decided to DoW on me. I called on my allies to help, and lo behold, that cowardly fucker Leoncouer actually broke his alliance with me. Even Clan Moulder stood with me. I was kinda floored. A few turns later, Clan Moulder DoW'd on Bretonnia, so I naturally joined in and kicked Leoncouer out of Couronne and sent him into exile in Norsca where Tyrion was hanging out, doomed to battle forever against Clan Moulder (I'm kinda interested in seeing whether Tyrion and Leoncouer survive up there with such crap lands). Next, the various dwarf factions started getting uppity and declaring war on my Wood Elf allies. Karak Hirn, the main Dwarves, and Karak Azul all attacked the Wood Elves for god knows what reason (Wood Elves dwarf all of them in power rating), forcing me to join in on them as well. I'm sieging the last Karak Hirn settlement and will be sending a couple stacks to Karaz-a-karak shortly. Meanwhile, Franz, Volkmar, and Toddbringer have been blitzing the Southlands, and now hold everything west of Karak Zorn. I'm going to keep pushing West and wipe out Clan Mors, the Last Defenders (yay, I'll finally get to fight some dinos), and the Silver Host, at which point I'll turn north and put Karak Azul in their place.

While this has been going on, the Wood Elves and Dark Elves have been going at it on Ulthuan. The Dark Elves sent like 4 stacks to invade the Old World, which I wiped out. The Wood Elves then sent like 5 stacks to Ulthuan. I really thought that they were simply going to roll the Dark Elves. And at first, it looked like they had the Dark Elves on the ropes. The Wood Elves seized a bunch of settlements on the east cost of Ulthuan and even took Lothern, pushing into the inner sea. Then the Dark Elves dropped the hammer and took everything back. And at the same time, the Dark Elves invaded Lustria and seized Hexoatl and other core territories from Mazdamundi after Jabba declared war on the Dark Elves. The Dark Elves are definitely some bad motherfuckers in this campaign.

On November 24 2017 08:15 Biff The Understudy wrote:

Thing is, if you nerf Norsca (I assume you do, they are unbearable), DE are pretty much unchallenge in notnorthamerica. So they are bound to do better than most other factions, and be a powerhouse mid-late game. In my run, they were also basically unchallenged by chaos, which is seriously bs when you see the beating HE / old world faction are bound to take. Expect them to be mean mofos every run with the current state of ME.

On November 23 2017 18:30 B.I.G. wrote:


Honestly it's about finding the narrative. I once got intrigued by a guy who made such epic write ups about his Skyrim adventures (to the point that you were it actually started reading like an exciting story) so I looked up an accompanying article on how to do such role playing games properly. It advised the player to add their own story - not just the one that the game presents - to their character. Think a hatred for dwarfs because they cheated you at cards once and bankrupting you, or a crippling fear of spiders. With that in mind I started naming settlements after places that meant something to me and started naming lords and heroes after family and friends (those orc bastards killed my cousin Timmy!). Now that the hierarchy of the Empire is pretty much all "my" crew (I'm supreme Patriarch haha) and combined with some lore of Dark Elves raiding Warhammersterdam (Marienburg) the choices you make actually start to have motivation behind them. Karl Franz is the boss and he just wants to expand but if he wants support he's going to have to take revenge on the Dark Elves eventually.

Stupid, I know but if you simply go through the motions of going back and forth then yeah it becomes boring very quick.

On November 24 2017 10:47 Archeon wrote:

Thanks, that's pretty good advice. I sometimes roleplayed in RPGs before, but never really in RBS yet. And I agree that it feels too schematic else, that I can't keep my lords apart tells a lot.

Now I need a reason Morathi wants SA though. I guess the drug cartels in Middle America aren't producing enough to keep the cult of pleasure "floating". Prolly the reason Teclis moved there in the first place and why he isn't bothered by my genocide.

On November 24 2017 08:15 Biff The Understudy wrote:

Thing is, if you nerf Norsca (I assume you do, they are unbearable), DE are pretty much unchallenge in notnorthamerica. So they are bound to do better than most other factions, and be a powerhouse mid-late game. In my run, they were also basically unchallenged by chaos, which is seriously bs when you see the beating HE / old world faction are bound to take. Expect them to be mean mofos every run with the current state of ME.

On November 24 2017 13:40 boon2537 wrote:
So does Chaos invasion ever stops in Mortal Empire? I destroyed 3 factions that instantly beeline me. But for some reason, warrior of chaos faction decides to fuck up Bretonia's settlements in Norsca first (I love how AI settles in useless settlements, making me think twice before confederating with them). Warrior of chaos comes straight to me like 25 turns later and after I destroy them, it triggers" Chaos is like a wave" message or something, I didn't read too carefully. Then all 4 chaos factions spawn again. Will they ever stop spawning, or I absolutely need to get a mod to disable that.

On November 24 2017 14:35 xDaunt wrote:


Yeah, I do have one of the Norsca nerf mods going just because they are so miserable to play against otherwise. Still, I kinda like the idea of fighting hordes of Dark Elves as an end game challenge. They are probably the toughest faction to go against. They also have a lot of interesting and diverse units. They are already starting to send multiple armies at my Bretonnian holdings, which I am holding off with Gelt while I finish up my Southlands campaign. I pushed through the Clan Mors territories and the valley leading to Kroq Gar's lands. I was slowed up a little bit fighting Clan Mors when they ambushed my Volkmar doomstack, outnumbering him 4 to 1. I pulled out the victory, but his army was fairly trashed afterwards, requiring 4 turns of replenishment and recruiting. I just started attacking Kroq Gar and will finish off Karak Zorn, Clan Moulder, and the Silver Host (Lahmia) in the process, at which point the Southlands will be completely under my control.

Elsewhere, the Dark Elves are still taking Mazdamundi to the woodshed in Lustria. The Wood Elves are exterminating Dwarves in the Badlands. The main Dwarf faction only has Karaz-a-Karak. Karak Azul still has a half dozen holdings or so, but I doubt that they'll keep them for long. Tyrion seems to be single-handedly whipping Clan Moulder in the north. Leoncouer is still up there, too, but I'm not sure that he's going to last.

On November 24 2017 14:35 xDaunt wrote:


Yeah, I do have one of the Norsca nerf mods going just because they are so miserable to play against otherwise. Still, I kinda like the idea of fighting hordes of Dark Elves as an end game challenge. They are probably the toughest faction to go against. They also have a lot of interesting and diverse units. They are already starting to send multiple armies at my Bretonnian holdings, which I am holding off with Gelt while I finish up my Southlands campaign. I pushed through the Clan Mors territories and the valley leading to Kroq Gar's lands. I was slowed up a little bit fighting Clan Mors when they ambushed my Volkmar doomstack, outnumbering him 4 to 1. I pulled out the victory, but his army was fairly trashed afterwards, requiring 4 turns of replenishment and recruiting. I just started attacking Kroq Gar and will finish off Karak Zorn, Clan Moulder, and the Silver Host (Lahmia) in the process, at which point the Southlands will be completely under my control.

Elsewhere, the Dark Elves are still taking Mazdamundi to the woodshed in Lustria. The Wood Elves are exterminating Dwarves in the Badlands. The main Dwarf faction only has Karaz-a-Karak. Karak Azul still has a half dozen holdings or so, but I doubt that they'll keep them for long. Tyrion seems to be single-handedly whipping Clan Moulder in the north. Leoncouer is still up there, too, but I'm not sure that he's going to last.

On November 24 2017 23:11 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I am thinking of starting an empire play through with typical stacks along the lines of 2 GS, 2 halleberds, 2 flaggelants, 2 reiksguards, 2 demigryphs, 2 heros, a lord, a couple of artillery pieces and maybe 5 handgunners. That should be affordable and if i understood the changes from the first game, very efficient.

On November 25 2017 00:47 xDaunt wrote:
Empire in WH2 is more range-oriented than in WH1. Basic empire line infantry was pretty badly outclassed by all of the other factions in WH1, which is exacerbated in WH2 by the nerf to honest steel (it caps out at 8/8 instead of 18/18). If anything, I think that Greatswords are more important in Empire armies now that they benefit from honest steel. On the flip side, artillery is far stronger in WH2 than it was in WH1. All of the pieces are useful now. Hellblaster volley guns, which are my favorites, are killers and function like super handgunners. It also bears mentioning that magic is far stronger in WH2, making battle wizards even more important in your armies. You're going to need them to apply buffs and debuffs so that the rest of your stuff holds up. Light wizards are particularly useful given that you will be using net a lot, their unit buffs are really good, and banishment is one of the best damage spells in the game. Empire cavalry is still comparatively strong. Demigryphs are still your best option. Reiksguard can work and they are good at holding a flank, but you can't count on them to kill armored opponents by themselves. If you don't want to use demigryphs, go with outriders instead. The outriders with grenade launchers are particularly brutal against infantry masses.

You can still build highly effective armies around handgunners in WH2. Microing them is a little more difficult due to the wonky unit AI, but they are still one of your best damage options as Empire. I think that the best way to use them is to create a hard locked group as a spaced-out skirmisher line and let them retreat behind your spaced-out main line. This will make it easier for their to be gaps that the handgunners can fire through. The handgunners are also less likely to drop orders if you control them this way.

With all of that in mind, my typical Empire doomstack has been 4 handgunners, 4 greatswords, 4 demigryphs with halberds, 4 hellblaster volley guns, 2 steam tanks, and 1 light wizard. If I really wanted to supercharge the doomstack, I'd replace the 4 greatswords with 4 demigrpyhs with lances, and substitute out a hellblaster volley guns with a jade wizard, but that would be overkill. My non-doomstacks have been more along the lines of 6 halberdiers, 6 handgunners, 4 hellblaster volley guns (notice a pattern here?), with some combination of outriders, reiksgard, and other heroes to round it out. The sheer strength of gunpowder units lets these "bargain" stacks handle pretty much anything that they'll face.



Something like this can definitely work. I'd probably drop the flagellants and replace them with more halberdiers. I'd also consider dropping a handgunner and adding another artillery piece. If you're going hero-heavy, consider adding a rocket battery. Just dive your heroes into the enemy force and then have your rocket battery ground fire right on top of them. I did this with the sunmaker and Franz early on in my current campaign, the sunmaker would routinely rack up 500+ kills by itself. It topped 1000 in one battle. Later on, you you can use big vortex spells (banishment, chain lightning, firestorm) to get the same effect.

On November 25 2017 05:19 Biff The Understudy wrote:

Thanks, interesting stuff.

Thing with flagellants is that if you go so heavy on skirmishers and artillery, it’s quite nice to have unbreakable units who might get dumpstered but won’t run away. They are also quite cheap and can be insanely efficient against light armor troops. But maybe greatswords are the voice of reason.

That being said, i think full halleberd frontline is not optimal under any circumstances. They are quite expensive and really, really, really suck against most infantry units. I would consider swordmen or flagellants and just keep 2-3 halleberds to hold the flanks and massacre any monster, cavalry or chariot that may make it to your lines.

I have problem against certain chaos stacks that camp elite infantry while raining hellcanon volleys on you. Had some really frustrating battles in my HE run against those. I guess trying to outtrade them with cannons means less hellstorm and is not worth it, but with the army you field, being pushed to attack while getting your already thin frontline hammered seems like a nightmare. Not that i have a solution....

In any case, good to know that the mass handgunner-into-gg tactics doesn’t work as well as it did.

On November 25 2017 07:54 Jerubaal wrote:
Can we all agree that Hellcannons are the most annoying artillery in the game?

@Archeon By Heir of Aenarion, you mean Malekith, right?