Total War: Warhammer

Yes, exactly

Patch notes for the Rakarth update are out.

Loads of mechanics change for the Dark elves to make them less annoying to play, plus a major change to Skaven corruption.

Edited by Resileafs on Mar 17th 2021 at 11:23:18 AM

And right after I did the Sisters of Twilight too.

Hellebron still can't avoid the whole "at war with all of Ulthuan" problem.

Forget the Skaven corruption changes, they've nerfed warp bomb and cellular instability. Oof.

Good thing I finished my Skaven campaign before then XD

Really disappointed about the change to Lokhir's black ark - what a lot of people wanted was the black ark being integrated into the LL, similar to how Vampire Coast works.

Heck, there's at least one mod that actually does that.

Instead we got a special hero (which at least guarantees that his fancy black ark won't just vanish from the game, I guess).

I don't really get the thought process that led up to this change, to be honest.

Those changes to Lokhir are looking very good. Those skills kind of make Corsairs more worth it at later stages of the game.

I have a serious issue after downloading the patch. I have redeemed from Total War Access Rakarth and wanted to test him out. But, when I tried to start a new campaign, Rakarth was not available at all on the Lord Selection. He was nowhere to be found. Does the same happened to any of you?
I'm not sure if I should be asking this question here, but I'm not sure where to ask for help.

I'm trying to download the update still. Every time a new thing comes out it always takes so long for this to update... Why is that >.>

Have you synced your steam account with your TW Access account?

My Steam was synced with TW Access. Otherwise, I wouldn't have Skaven Chieftain, Black Orc Big Boss nor Glade Captain. But, the issue got resolved and finally I got to test out Rakarth.
I quickly realized he's not as good with dueling Lords as I first thought when trying to conquer all of Albion. He didn't die, but he lost a hefty chunk of his life when fighting a Norscan Lord (he got decapitated when my Sorceress blasted him with Amber Spear. His head went flying).

So, had my first encounter with Malus Darkblade tonight. He is so fucking tough. Even Gor-Rok, as high-leveled as he is, can't beat him one-on-one! The one time we got his health down he immediately let his demon take over and got all of his health back.

Anyway we've been at war with Hag Graef for a while, mainly fighting over the Volcano Islands, though so far we've managed to hold onto them.

Lords like that you just ignore and kill everyone around them (ditto for basically every Dwarf Lord because they just won't die) until the army breaks and routs.

Problem of course is when the Lord is unbreakable. Entire army may be gone, he's gonna stay in there and fight until he dies.

Yeah, but then they have no army and you can gank them. If you've won the battle and don't have enough for swarming (or shooting to death) one person, something has gone quite wrong. Even if it's like Ungrim.

His health drains when he's shifted into his demon form. All you need to do is run away or pin him with a cheap Meat Shield infantry until he's dead.

I had to fight Malus as Cylostra once when he was level 30. Shot him to pieces when he approached, obviously, but then he transformed. I was like "okay, I remember this, his health will be draining and it's just a matter of endurance".

But then it didn't. I never played him, so I wouldn't know, but I assume that Malus gets a high-level skill that stops his demon form from draining his health.

That battle cost me an awful lot more than I anticipated.

Been playing a Vlad campaign with a mod that rebalances things towards the tabletop (not that I have a clue what it is, I just thought this would make a change from the other Vlad games I'd done) and some sort of unit cap system, though that didn't come into play. I decided to make a beeline for Altdorf because... uh, because.◊ Fellbats actually being capable of killing something feels like a strange feeling.

Though I'm also throwing three armies at everything, even if two of those armies are "Isabella+Starting Vampires" and "One Blood Dragon". Disturbingly effective.

Vampire Count armies are best when you use sheer numbers, much like Skaven.

Edited by theLibrarian on Mar 20th 2021 at 8:06:11 AM

Playing the undead quantity game is fun in it's own way. "My, that is one very cool-looking elite unit you got there. I wonder how it stacks up against the ten units of skeletons I just res'd for the same price just now. And all of their mates, of course, and the occasional buff spell."

Honestly, not a fan of that Vlad redesign, though - it just doesn't look like Vlad.

Huh. He does look a lot more... handsome than I remember.

Though I guess he did stick out like a sore thumb, being the only vampire rocking the full-on corpse-look.

That's because Vlad doesn't need to put on a show for anyone - he and Isabella love each other regardless and everyone knows he's a vampire at this point.

The reason a lot of vampires (in the lore) look handsome is because they're basically putting up a glamour to fool mortals - there's also some vanity involved. Heck, the reason Mannfred shaved his hair off was apparently as a sign of having outgrown vanity (didn't make him less of a turd, of course).

So giving Vlad a prettied up model (that barely even looks like him) is Comically Missing the Point, if you ask me.

If there is anything Vlad needs in the game, it's having mortal levies integrated into his own faction/skill tree more closely.

Von Carstein bloodline vampires' unlocking of mortal levies is directly based on Vlad actually having fielded mortals in his armies, so him not getting early access to them via his own skill tree is rather weird and a missed opportunity.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Mar 20th 2021 at 5:12:54 PM

Ah, okay. I'm not that closely familiar with lore stuff.

...Maybe they're making a movie and got Orlando Bloom to play Vlad?

Eh, I think giving Vlad early access to mortals would dilute the Vampire Counts identity. They're supposed to be an undead horde, hence the universality of crumbling and why they're all undead/undead-adjacent mutants. Giving him mortal levies would directly undercut that aesthetic.

Furthermore, gameplay-wise their playstyle is defined in large part by the lack of ranged options. If any of their levies are ranged units that would seriously hurt their distinctiveness.

It's far better to have limited numbers of levies that mostly cannot be gotten immediately.

Eh, but Vlad was also the handsome one in older editions and art? Being the only VC Legendary Lord looking super ugly is just weird in that light.

Now, I don't have a mod on hand that makes him look like Bela Lugosi for the more traditional option, so I just went with that one.

I thought the fact that they don't look like walking corpses, most of them, is because that's what happens when the source of your undeath was obtained as a way to grant immortality. Like yeah, if you look at the bloodlines that don't look super gonk it's the ones that still associate with humanity in some regard rather than being crazy dark magic nerds or consumed by bestiality but that doesn't necessarily go straight into glamour.

Technically, I wasn't winning the numbers game, though. The AI was just being pretty dumb and I actually had magic and terror.

Edited by RainehDaze on Mar 20th 2021 at 4:50:03 PM