Total War: Warhammer

With the mod that allows me to recruit Legendary Lords and immortal generic Lords from destroyed factions (I love that mod since I don't have to worry about confederating that much), I might have Settra and Khatep in my army if I got lucky (or they got unlucky).

Anyway, regarding my Pirates of Sartosa campaign. I decided to end it and soon start Khalida's Mortal Empires campaign. I almost conquered entire Ulthuan (which, was on it's way to become Malekith's property. Idiot declared war against me, despite me giving him lots of gold).

But you can't confederate Tomb Kings, so it's kind of against the spirit of the thing to do that. Definitely if it's to get a subordinate Settra...

Yeah, the whole point of the Tomb Kings is that they're all so arrogant that they can't stand working for somebody else XD

Oh, Khatep would happily work for Settra if he was allowed home again, and Khalida could probably be persuaded, but Settra won't serve anyone and they all hate Arkhan.

I know. This mod is the only way to have Settra and Khatep in my faction as Khalida. Also, the Numas lord, due to Mixu's Legendary Lords mod.

That discussion came up a lot on Reddit back when the DLC was announced.

My proposal was that if you try to confederate Settra, he actually confederates you, meaning your faction switches to Khemri and your faction leader to Settra.

Alternatively, somebody suggested that the Confederation button should instead make Settra immediately declare war on you.

Because Settra doesn't serve. Settra rules.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Mar 1st 2021 at 12:51:18 PM

I love that

Okay, game has entered a whole new level of hectic. Tehenhuanin, Nakai, and Morathi have all invaded the Southlands to try and smash me. Thankfully most of my cities are stupidly well-defended, but there's still a ton of enemy armies in my territory suddenly. My two main armies are going to be busy for the next few turns, provided they can win.

So I've started my Khalida campaign. Mortal Empires, Very Hard/Hard. Things went off to a pretty great start. I invested in chariots right away, and as expected they were cleaning house around the Devil's Backbone. The vampiric White Host was the first obvious target, holding the capital of the province my settlement was a part of. I first snagged the their other minor settlement, spend a few turns gathering strength, and attacked Lamia. It was a little scary to attack a capital settlement that had a full stack in addition to the garrison defending it, but it turned out to be mostly Crypt Ghouls. If there's anything chariots love, it would be light infantry in loose formation, so when they sallied out, they had no chance. With the Devil's Backbone fully secured, I quickly went south to mop up the final remnant of the White Host.

Easy fight, but just before I could finish them off, they called Hag Graef into the war as a final "fuck you". This put me in direct conflict with emo boy band leader Malus Darkblade, who had Melee Attack of nearly 90, Melee Defence exceeding 70, 40% ward save and an ability that's basically better regeneration without the fire weakness.

CA, what the flying fuck?

Luckily, he didn't have his mount yet, so I could limit the damage by having my Necropolis Knights push him around while he fought some skeleton spears. He'd eventually run away after I routed the rest of his army, after which I could pursue and wound him. I was also fortunate (and smart, if I do say so my self) to be able to recruit three characters with the "Trustworthy" trait, which gave me a combined +15 general opinion, in addition to a random event that gave me another +10. This was enough to get non-aggression pact out of both Queek Headtaker and Kroq-gar. So after beating back the initial Dark Elf invasion, I felt secure enough in my borders to set sail and launch an invasion of the Dragon Isles of my own.

My army at this time was Khalida (specced down the Blue Line for additional Ambush Success Chance, plus Lighting Strike even though it never seems to come up), a Priest of Nehekhara lore (random roll, but happy to be able to try it out for real), two Nehekhara Warriors, four Skeleton Archers, four Skeleton Chariots, one Sepulchre Stalkers, one Necropolis Knights, and six Skeleton Spears. Not exactly world-beaters, but Malus' armies were mostly Corsairs and Darkshards, with some Shades thrown in. Fodder for my chariots. If I made it to him before he got his hands on some surprise elite units, I would probably win.

The first settlement I arrived at did not put up much resistance, but had a special building that would produce 60 units of Gems, which is nice if I ever find someone willing to buy that many. I wanted to take out the other minor settlement before moving onto the capital, as that was where the infantry recruitment buildings were, but since there was no direct path I'd had to sail there, and a severe storm had broken out. So I went for the capital.

This too, turned out to be really lucky, as they had just finished the building required to recruit Hydras. Dancing around Marty Darkblade was difficult enough, but add a pair of Hydras in the mix, and things could go south real quick.

I laid siege, but a recovered Malus reinforced with half a stack and forced me in retreat. This left him isolated in forced march right within my reach, so I took him out (again) and resumed the siege. The defenders, a garrison that included three units of Black Guard of Naggarond, as well as half an army stack of corsairs and darkshards, sallied out again by themselves. It was a tough fight, but my chariots did great work cleaning out the rest of the army while Khalida and some spears kept the Black Guard busy. They ran away, got cut down and I took the city the next turn. Two turns later I could take their final settlement in auto-resolve, making me the victor of this war.

48 turns in, and I got three whole provinces, made friends with Korq-gar, and put Malus Darkblade in the ground, giving Khalida an additional 35 armor-piercing damage. Not exactly a speedrun, but a satisfying result. I think I'll break my non-aggression pact with Queek so I can work my way west towards Nehekhara, where I will find potential trading partners and the regions I need for the campaign victory. But first, a little raiding and developing the settlements I already have. Queek is ranked #4 in power currently, and is likely a more difficult fight then Malus, despite a lack of Everything-Proof Shield nonsense.

EDIT: ooooh, and I took control over an entire sea! I should sail around a bit and pick up all the random events. That's going to be a lot of free gold and experience.

Edited by Kayeka on Mar 2nd 2021 at 8:58:45 PM

Tanky Lords are best dealt with by ignoring them, unless you have a duellist lord of your own. The Tomb Kings don't. Therefore, tarpit and break the army and it doesn't matter what their stats are. Or sufficient ranged firepower to overcome the AI's lack of micro and break it before the regen can work. Same tactic if the dwarfs get down there with Grombrindal? Not sure if there's anyone else that hard to kill in the area.

You should be glad that Malekith didn't confederate him.

So something I've learned recently: Skaven strongholds get bonkers when you fully max them out. Not just the garrisoning units, but the towers. After the usual arrows and stuff, you get lightning cannon blasts and missiles.

Yes, you get warp lightning cannons in the towers. It helps because Skaven defensive units are bad.

Yeah, so that's what I did. I looked at his unit card and thought "Okay, step one: do not actually fight Darkblade". Very glad he didn't have his mount yet, since I don't think I would've been able to stop him.

Don't think Malekith even knew he existed. We're on the other end of the map, after all.

Don't forget the clanrat summons, warpbombs, a warlock engineer with Warp Lightning, and plagueclaws. Still haven't figured out how to take Skavenholds without serious losses.

Malus also starts with Hag Graef (hence the faction name), back in Naggaroth and only gives it up in like the second turn (unless they made sure the NPC version only starts down in the islands). Therefore the other Dark Elves do know about him.

Artillery to destroy the towers and dance with a lord or hero as bait until it's destroyed?

Edited by RainehDaze on Mar 2nd 2021 at 8:36:35 PM

Well, mixed success tonight. I managed to take out a good number of Lizardmen armies (Morathi seems to have mucked about for a while here and then pissed off somewhere) so all I have to deal with is the Cult of Sotek, along with the normal Ritual armies. A lot of my smaller settlements are vulnerable to that sort of thing, but thankfully none of the ritual sites are in my smaller settlements; they're all in the stupidly-fortified province capitals.

I am putting more armies together to use to in the future, though. I made a Plague-themed army (Plague monks and censer bearers, globadiers, plagueclaw catapults, lots of poison units) and am making another more conventional one as well. I even managed to wipe out a few armies with an army entirely composed of Skavenslaves. The Warpbomb ability is very useful, especially in conjunction with the Skaven summoning ability.

Edited by theLibrarian on Mar 2nd 2021 at 10:44:38 AM

Warp Bomb cheese is ridiculous.

It definitely helps, yes XD Unfortunately summoned Clanrats break pretty much immediately so you gotta be on the ball with it.

That's mostly what you're going to be using them for anyway, since they're useless chaff.

Yeah xD

A quick question. What army would you recommend for Khatep? I was thinking to maybe play as Exiles of Nehek. I wanted to play as his faction, because he gets Casket of Souls as a mount.

He doesn't buff any unit beyond Tomb Guard (who're just there to hold as normal) in his unique line, so whatever, really? He's really good at giving you some more liche priest capacity, so if you want one Tomb Kings faction to stick multiple in a single army, probably his and use that initial Hierotitan or more.

Then, I might just go Settra and hope that Exiles of Nehek gets destroyed, so my mod for recruiting defeated L Ls allows me to get Khatep. And, maybe Khalida later on if Lybaras share their fate. For story reasons, I would let Arkhan get killed off completely.

Edited by ArcticDog18 on Mar 4th 2021 at 1:43:04 PM

Finished my Khalida campaign. Queek was indeed a pretty tough fight, but eventually I managed to kill his armies just a little bit faster than he could build them. Gave me a bit of a shock when he confederated Clan Eshin, opening up a new front on the Dragon Isles, but then they got crushed under the Dwarftide.

So I made it to the desert, where I found no Tomb Kings, because the Brettonian crusaders killed them all off. I guess Settra got served by a bunch of minor factions. For shame!

Now, making war on them wasn't the hard part. The problem was that they were all allied to each other, and one of them was allied to the Dwarftide. Now, I earned a lot of brownie points with the the dorfs by taking out Queek, but that only lasts for so long while I'm waging war on their friends.

So I had to take my objectives as fast as possible, and then hold on for dear life while I build all the pyramids I needed for victory. Step one was, as mentioned, quite easy, but then the dorfs had enough of my bullying of their buddy, and started sending the hordes down. Now let me tell you, dealing with triple stacks filled with rank 9 Ironbreakers, Giant Slayers and Organ Guns on multiple fronts is quite hectic, and not the fun kind. The whole thing went very back and forth, but eventually I managed to hold onto the lands I needed long enough to finish all my pyramids. Gaze upon my works, ye stunties, and... be mildly impressed, I guess?

Feels kinda bad to declare victory when the dorfs are still so much more powerful then I, but I guess that's just how it is. Trying to actually beat them at this stage would be another campaign in itself, and I'm kinda done with this one.

Think I'll go for an Azhag campaign next. Should be fun trying to make it South, allying with Vampires and nipping the stunties in the bud along the way.

Welp, my Queek campaign turned out to be a wash. We failed to stop Tyrion from taking control of the Vortex (him and his fucking FOUR DRAGONS). And I was doing well, too, which sucks. Oh well. Now I can move on to another game. Maybe Lizardmen this time.

Itza is my favourite because you start with Kroak.