I'm a long time Total War player, and always the historical titles. I love the series, have spent thousands of hours playing virtually every title since Med2 (I did skip Rome 2 and Britannia which I have yet to buy). The mix of turn based strategy and real time tactical battles is a winner. One thing I always have found appealing is a sense of asymmetry. I love a faction system that gives each one it's own unique bonuses or advantages. Not only does it give the game better replay value, it makes for more interesting battles. Shogun 2 was probably the best example of this in a Total War title. Gunpowder and swords made for good gameplay to me. Other notable examples might be English Longbowmen in M2, or Carthaginian War Elephants in Rome 1. These units give those factions something entirely unique, not only fun to play with, but an interesting challenge to overcome when fielded by your enemy. Atilla to me was a nice step in this direction, with more distinct faction mechanics. Playing as WRE is a far different experience than say the Ostrogoths or Atilla even.

But I've long wished for this to be more distinct. Let's face it, by making games based on history, you're constrained by what you're recreating. Prussian infantry might be the best, but by how much? The difference between my great swordsmen and your average swordsmen might be a simple +1 morale, +1 attack or -1 armor. The asymmetrical aspect is there, and evident in battle, but the difference is still fairly small. This concept carries over to the strategical layer as well. Historical TW titles don't have a great degree of it. Sure, maybe you research tech faster, or gain more through trade or diplomacy than another faction, but it's still more or less a level playing field, with all factions capable of the same strategical plans.

None of this is to say that historical titles are subpar, far from it, but I've always wished for a more singular faction experience. Which brings me to this thread. For a while, years in fact, I've ignored fantasy versions of TW. Even back in the Med 2 days, when I was a big fan of the Stainless Steel mod I ignored the Middle Earth mod, Third Age. It was (is?) immensely popular and I assume, quite well done. When Warhammer was released I took notice. Not only are reviews and player comments largely positive, it seemed to hit that spot, with distinctly asymmetric factions, unchained to the constraints of history. With Warhammer, CA was free to imagine units and factions. Now, I'm no Warhammer fan, honestly I know little about the lore and universe, and surely even here, the devs were shackled to a certain degree. But in a general sense they were far more free than before.

But I didn't buy it.

Then Warhammer 2 was released. Great reviews, player comments and seemingly even more factionality, which is a word I just made up, but seems to fit the point I'm making. Now I was seriously thinking about getting this game. I mean, I play lots of fantasy games, just never a Total War fantasy game. But why not? I really couldn't think of an answer, aside from the spyware Redshell. CA bowed to public criticism and recently removed Redshell. And that was the final straw. So I bought it (marked down slightly in the Steam summer sale for what it's worth). I had planned to wait a few days before posting about it. I wanted to get a feel for whether it was good, or even if I'd like it, though deep down I already knew these answers I think. With some time under my belt I could more objectively critique the game.

But screw it. I liked it straight away. The tutorial is really good. As a veteran of the series I could have figured it all out, but the tutorial has the opening moves covered and explains most of the basic mechanics. I'd reckon Warhammer 2 is the most accessible TW title for someone new to the series.

I chose to start as High Elves and played 12 or 20 turns, who knows. Fought some battles, took some territory, improved my towns, all standard TW stuff. But the new setting and completely new units are awesome. I have an army made up of spearmen, bolt throwers, some sort of cavalry which I still don't know what they are, and dragons, well actually a Phoenix, but dragons are coming. Assymetrical, indeed.

Time will tell whether I grow to like it more, or if I find it lacking. But early returns are quite positive and I've really enjoyed it so far. As mentioned I was a fairly steadfast historical guy for a long time. But I'm glad I moved past that and gave this one a go. It's both the same beloved Total War, but entirely new at the same time. Now, to find some Dark Elves to impale.

Glad you are enjoying it, DBond. I don't know anything at all about Warhammer so I haven't even considered buying those titles. I am a huge fan of the TW series but to be honest the fun kind of left it for me starting with Attila. That, and an update broke my far-in-progress saved game in Rome II, so I haven't touched any of them in a while now.

I really liked Attila, the campaign was great I thought. As mentioned I never did get Rome 2. Came close a couple of times but ended up skipping it, though that isn't forever necessarily. I may still do. I take long breaks between titles like you, and some I've revisited a few times, especially Medieval 2 which is easily my most played Total War game.

And yes, I am enjoying Warhammer 2. It is the same TW formula, but way different at the same time.

The campaign is a departure from usual. The one included with the game is called the Vortex campaign. The goal isn't necessarily domination, although you can go for that, but the game can also be won by completing rituals, which would make playing a tall faction viable. It is also very mission driven. Missions have become more common through each version, and quite heavy in this one. The rewards are great however, and most are not timed, so you get it when you get it. There is a second, downloadable free campaign that I believe does not have the alternative ritual type campaign goal.

One big difference here is that city-building is simplified. There's no squalor type mechanic to worry about. All buildings give bonuses only..

I don't know what to think about the tech system. As a noob, I found that I didn't have the right buildings to unlock anything other than the starting Military group until turn 50 or so. So for all that time I made no trade or economic or any other sort of tech progress. Just +3 melee attack sort of stuff. After you've played through once you would know which tech you'd want to rush, and rush that building line. I guess. Not a fan so far of how it works in Warhammer 2.

One of my favorite aspects of the series is character traits, retinue and so forth. It's a lot of fun in this game.In Warhammer 2, generals are Lords, and the agents are Heroes.They gain traits in a similar fashion as always, but they also have various skills, items, objects and followers. These are acquired through battle, quest/mission rewards and 'treasure hunting', not unlike uncovering those shiny gold locations in Civ 5. You gain magic swords, armors, talismans, banners and followers that can be freely assigned and swapped between your characters.

Earlier I was talking about 'factionality', and while it's still true, the many factions are one of four? races.So all of the High Elves clans are more or less the same, but the races are strikingly dissimilar. There are also 'rogue' factions, not unlike the hordes in Attila. Some wacky creatures for sure.

The battles are awesome. I've gotten my butt kicked a few times. Tactically it's probably the most diverse TW title I've played. The units are so varied. Flying units have a big impact on how it plays out. Monstrous units too. Battlefields are good, but be careful of sallies. When you maintain a siege you are said to encircle the town. I had one sally battle where I was given a glorious, commanding ridge from which to rain pain upon my enemy. down in the valley. When the enemy reinforcement arrived they were a full stack which emerged from the forest right behind me. Caught in the pincer I lost this battle, and my only Phoenix too. Ugly stuff, but lesson learned.

In all, I give Warhammer 2 high marks. Very engaging campaign play, and a neat end-goal mechanic that allows the player to play a bit taller if desired, and to eschew the standard TW blobbing that always turns the end of the game in to a tedious slog where no one can possibly rival you while you paint another 20 provinces to reach the victory conditions.

I'm really happy for Creative Assembly that Warhammer was a huge seller for them because I want the developer to stay in business but I never bothered buying the game. I'm just not into the fantasy stuff when it comes to strategy games. I'm all about the historical stuff.

I guess you can say I'm a big fan of the Total War historical series.

Hours played according to Steam:

TW Attila 3,539

TW Rome II 2,681

TW Thrones of Britannia 126

TW Shogun 2 1,514

TW Napoleon 478

TW Empire 285

I hear ya. That was me, before. I bet I could find a post I made saying the exact same thing. But I softened the stance as I no longer saw the reason why. It's FUN to play with these units. It's Total War: Refreshed. It helps that it's a good game of course.

Wizards and monsters and magic and goblins. There was a time when this didn't appeal to me. Now it does. Go figure

Those things appeal to me as well but in movies, tv shows and even PC shooters like the LOTR games from Monolith. I just don't care for it in a strategy game.

Still playing Warhammer 2, and I gotta say I am feeling like it's the best Total War title of them all, but these sorts of things are tempered with time. But it's really polished, interesting and fun. I played the Vortex campaign as the High Elves up to the fourth Ritual. I've set it to Hard/Hard as I've done with every one since Med 2. Upon reaching he 4th (of 5) Ritual I put that on hold as I wanted to try the Mortal Empires campaign that I saw was a free DLC.,

Without reading about it I downloaded it and went to play it. A message popped up saying that Warhammer 1 must be owned to play the ME campaign. Well if that ain't a kick in the pants, but entirely understandable if not forseeable. So I went to the Steam store and lessee, Warhammer 1, that will be sixty freakin' bucks! Whoa there pardner, that's a bit steep for the old game. I really wanted to play it though, but not for 60. So I searched and found it was that expensive virtually everywhere. Except for Fanatics. I bought a key there for $13. It doesn't even need to be installed, just owned. And that was all it took.

The Mortal Empires campaign is essentially both maps and all factions from both games stitched together. That results in one HUGE map and 117 factions. 117! Total War Battle Royale is what it is, and it's fun. Epic, even. I chose the Empire, a human faction loosely based on I guess Prussian or Holy Roman Empire armies. Swords, knights, artillery sort of stuff. A bit of an odd choice I thought with so many weird, wonderful races and factions to choose from, but they are far from the strongest faction and I liked their starting position and units and mechanics so stuck with them. My campaign is going well enough, but it's the tasty part early in the game when you are stretched to the limit and every decision feels so important to your survival and success. As an "Old World' faction (from Warhammer 1) it maybe isn't as fleshed out as the New World factions, but still I am having a blast, in some cases literally (mmm, artillery)

Despite doing well enough, I feel like at any moment it could all be lost, such is the state of affairs in the world. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, and whatever those things are?

Warhammer 2 Mortal Empires campaign is awesome. Great game!!!

Yes it is! Which factions have you done in ME Airdrop?

My Empire campaign is going well. I have access now to most elite units, though affording to field them is another matter entirely. I've essentially unified the Empire lands through conquest, diplomacy (confederations) and alliances. Now we are staging to attack the Vampire Counts for control of Sylvania. That corruption is a serious deterrent though. It's like marching your armies through Russia in the winter.

After about 50 turns or so I had grown to 10 provinces, which put me in the top 3 to 5 in strength. This fluctuates as armies battle and towns fall and are taken. Early on I wanted to attack my neighbor Marienburg, mainly for their port. But other matters kept taking priority and I never did launch the attack, and they began growing, essentially matching my pace. Eventually I saw that it might makes sense just to be friends, since they could at least protect my western borders.

I've read some threads about Empire campaigns, and virtually all of them say attack Marienburg early on. But now it didn't make sense for me to do so. And it nagged at me. I wanted that territory. And that port.

Every few turns I run down the diplomacy screen and check each faction to see if any new deals can be struck, and dutifully clicked on Marienburg and saw that Confederation was green. Well now. In a single click I essentially doubled in size, and got that port I wanted haha. One thing I do not like about this title is that when you capture a town through conquest, you capture it down a level from where it had been, and the good buildings the enemy had there are gone. I saw this in my High Elves Vortex campaign. One of my enemies had a library that gave tons of good bonuses including 12% research rate. But when I took the city all of that was gone. Wasn't pleased about that.

But when you confederate, you get everything intact, and the AI has plenty of money to burn on buildings it seems, so gaining all nine Marienburg towns was a big shot in the arm for my campaign. You also get their armies and agents, but a few had to be sacrificed as the upkeep was crippling. I was surprised to see that another faction that was essentially my equal was willing to confederate, but they were indeed.

So now we turn to the east and the Vampires. Sylvania is a victory objective and there is a gold province there. If successful, it will put us in a good position to prepare for the Chaos Invasion, which I assume is still a thing? Not sure exactly what to expect as it seems CA has tweaked it a few times and maybe it's not so strong any more. But I want to be prepared.

I play as Empire. I just started a new one. I decided to go for Marrienburg as soon as I got rid of the secessionists.

In the past, I’ve gone straight for the vampires. I hate that corruption. But the units I need to beat them cost a ton. And the vampirism is brutal to deal with. I’m going to see if the other states can mess with the.

Given my cancer and chemo, I now have a ton of time so I should be able to spend a good deal on this.

I’m color blind. How do you tell if they’ll accept confederation?

Chaos is tough but if you have say two full strength armies in the northeast, you can hold them in check. It puts a cramp on expansion though....

Cool thanks man, and I'd be interested in any thing you'd care to post about your campaign, especially as we are the same faction.

The icon to the right of each diplomacy option is color-coded, which you cannot differentiate I imagine. It's reddiish-brown for low chance, beige-brown for moderate and green for high chance.

I already killed one Vampire faction, Von Carstein, but the territory was occupied by Averland. So just the VC left for Vampires as far as I can tell. They have about 6 towns, but are listed as 5th strength, so I think their units must be quite strong. I have arrayed 3 stacks along the border and will invade tonight. I have a few untainted traits/items/followers, but invading provinces with such high corruption will prove a big challenge I think. I see it taking 40+ turns to wade through while maintaining sufficient troop counts. Untainted buildings do not seem to give adjacency bonuses like other titles (like similar buildings since Shogun 2 I think. Even Vortex has adjacency. Maybe I've just missed it so far. Maybe it's a legacy from the Old World) so it is hard to overcome and has such a debilitating effect.

As for my run, the first move was to squash the seccessionists, like you said. That took about 5 turns, and then had to repel a couple of stacks from Skullsmasherz. Once i was ready to expand I invaded Middenland and through time made it my main cavalry-recruiting province. A muddled war situation saw us eventually occupy Hochland, and I confederated Marienburg after that. Of course this was the most pivotal event so far, doubling my size, economy and military. I then confederated Talabecland, who were down to a single region. Ostmark held the other Talabecland city and they DoW'd me and we took the Talabecland capital, which tidied up the lines to the east. Eventually got a peace with Ostland, but they just got attacked by Kislev and I don't think they will be any trouble from here on out. In the end I decided to let Ostland live, even though they have a gold province sitting right across the border. I reasoned that with the gold they might actually be able to field good armies, and would make a good buffer state to the east. I believe that direction is where I can expect the Chaos invasion to come from? Or at least one part of it?

So it's about turn 90 and we hold 20 or so regions. I just finished waiting for the diplomacy timer to tick down after breaking treaties with Bretonnia, and will attack next turn. This will further shorten my lines and give me some peace of mind. It will also complete control of two provinces that Bretonnia and I have shared since we incorporated Marienburg. I'm allied with (the quite strong) Tyrion, but we haven't helped each other yet. But it's one more friend to the west which is a good thing. Knowing what I know now I think if I did it again I would move south against Wissenland rather than north against Middenland. North is Norsca and south is Greenskins so I guess it's a pick your poison sort of thing. In the end it may not make a difference as I should have all of it confederated at some point down the line.

Dwarves and Wood Elves I have good relations with at the moment. So it's the VC to the east and Bretonnia to the west as the next moves for my Empire. I recently got called to war with the Greenskins who are very strong in this run, but there is quite a buffer standing between us (since I didn't invade Wissenland I would reckon lol). For what it's worth I started with Franz, in case there had been a choice

That didn't go well.

As mentioned I invaded the Vampire Counts and Bretonnia simultaneously, one on each flank of my realm. I sent my two best armies against the VC, easily took two settlements in a single turn, and then got crushed in the counterattack, when the VC brought three full stacks of foul creatures against my stacks who were understrength due to attrition and combat losses in the taking of the town and castle.

It's a standard tactic of mine to run two armies together, supporting, and I imagine many players do. Here, I had my Emperor's army in the castle-town, and the other army encamped just behind, within the reinforcement range.But the AI was smart. During their turn they sieged the castle with one army, then send a second and third around the back to attack my encamped army. Of course this meant my besieged army could not reinforce and it all went to hell, and each was defeated in detail.

Meanwhile..... in the west, I attacked two-settlement Bretonnia with two stacks of my own. Their two settlements were fairly far apart, so I planned to take the first with both armies, and then move to the second. There was little they could do. Or so I thought. On the first AI turn after I sieged, Bretonnia began confederating. Each turn they grew bigger and stronger to the point where I realized that I might have bitten off more than I could chew. Instead of a quick conquest I got a slog. In the end I took the two provinces, but Bretonnia was actually bigger after the peace deal than before the war started.

I'm about 150 turns in, holding 26 settlements. Both Wissenland and Averland are willing to confederate, but doing so would put me close to 40 settlements. Doing just one would put me around 33. As I believe imperium is the trigger for the Chaos invasion I am holding off doing so while I continue to prepare. Not ready for that just yet.

I don’t have 2 yet, still playing through 1....but I love the battles in this game. The various factions and units look amazing and are a blast to watch/see what they do.

Agreed. I wish now that I had played Warhammer 1 first. I'm sure I will give it a go at some point. For me there is lots to like about this game, but as I alluded to earlier, the 'factionality' is one of the most appealing aspects. The sheer variety and asymmetry from one to the next is awesome. And it's not just the units, but virtually all aspects of the faction. Bonuses, abilities, tech trees -- it's all different. Empire is only the third faction I've tried so far, and I'm looking forward to trying more. The ME and Vortex campaigns are also really fun, the mechanics are interesting, how it plays out is fun to watch. Having a lord dedicated to do nothing but treasure hunt the entire campaign is great too, as it essentially keeps me afloat I think haha.

In my Empire run, after taking Sylvania from the VC and more of my west coast from Bretonnia, I attacked Moussilon (spelling? the Vampire dudes) who were adjacent to the territory I just took. They had two settlements, and both with ports. Won that war, taking me to 28 settlements and must have hit the imperium trigger, and the Chaos invasion began. In no Total War game is there a more sweeping geopolitical shift than when this happens, I don't think. Suddenly, everyone's in it together, and united (for the most part) against the forces of Chaos. Once it triggered, I no longer needed worry about imperium and immediately confederated Wissenland, as I wanted that gunnery school they have. And then peace treaties were signed, alliances made, and trade agreements with factions that wouldn't consider it for the first 150 turns. Shogun 2's Realm Divide was the first thing of this sort that I recall in a TW game, and for the most part I don't like how it was handled. The Chaos invasion though is pretty cool, and we will see if I feel the same after having battled them.

It caught me off guard, I thought I would need closer to 35 settlements, but imperium is not just territory, but also army number and strength and how well developed your settlements are among other factors I suppose. So when it triggered, most of my armies were down south, arrayed against the Greenskins, so they are being rushed north and new armies are being drafted as well. If we do hold them off, I wonder though about the game afterwards, with all of this good will as we fight a common foe, will peace simply reign in it's wake? We shall see.

A few years ago I started a thread asking folks to rank the TW games.My original list had Medieval 2 at the top. As time went on I played more titles and first Napoleon, then eventually Atilla claimed top spot due to it's polished mechanics and interesting campaigns, and of course the 'factionality' thing I keep going on about. Having now played Warhammer 2 for many hours I dare say it now tops the list. It's a close run thing, but I just find the game compelling in ways that the historical titles are not. In a sense it's like deciding on your favorite Ferrari, they're all good and it comes down to personal preference or taste I suppose.

I've played as a few different factions, in both the Vortex and Mortal Empires campaigns. A couple days ago I started a ME run as Dwarfs, not knowing much about them, aside from the stereotypical Dwarf stuff. But what a fun faction to play. I can't recall which factions I may have played in TW that didn't have cavalry. It's a core facet of my tactical approach. I have purposely avoided non-cav factions before, like the Danes in Atilla. I mean, who is going to run down all those routers? Certainly not Dwarfs with their stubby little legs.

But that is part of the appeal. Finding a new approach, solving the tactical dilemma with different rules. In the past, I would wipe armies, because once they routed, my cav would clean them up, leaving not enough stragglers in most cases to maintain the force and they were gone. As the Dwarfs, some always get away it seems. The upshot is there is a follow up battle against the remnants, leading to more experience and better generals, or Lords in this case, and better units.

The start for the Dwarfs (not dwarves, as it seems to be in Warhammer) I found very challenging. You start with a single settlement, a Karak carved out of a mountain, as Drawfs do. The remaining two settlements that make up the Silver Road province are not too hard to take, and that was accomplished in a few turns, giving me three settlements, or one province. So far so good. But you also start at war with five Greenskins factions, who hate you. By turn 40 I finally captured my fourth. By turn 50 I was back to three haha. It's a seemingly never-ending procession of stacks from all directions. If I dealt with two stacks from one faction this turn, it's two more from another faction next turn. It was fun, all these battles, hanging by a thread, patching armies together to meet each new threat. But I was making no progress. Economy was stagnant since I had to keep armies in the field capable of defending my little corner of the mountain range and I continually spent to my limit.

Another challenge is that movement range is poor in the mountains as you'd expect, and stubby Dwarf legs don't gobble up much ground do they? So it's difficult to parry each thrust. But the Dwarfs have a trick up their sleeves. They can move underground, bypassing enemies or unpassable terrain, and ignoring terrain movement penalties. It's an awesome ability that's really fun to use. Further, armies using the underground passageways can be intercepted, and the battle is fought in a huge underground cavern, with the loser wiped out. Epic battles in a confined corridor that is just smash-mouth, with no subtlety or hint of maneuver.

In the first 50 turns I fought 37 battles, to give an idea of the pace in the early game for this faction. Of those, I fought 35, only auto-resolving twice. I had the most experienced Lords in the land at that stage that's for certain. Since virtually every one for these battles was fought at a disadvantage, playing them in real time was my only hope of survival. I lost a few of course, but the Dwarfs are steady men. They fight to the death, and are heavily armored. No cav as mentioned, but excellent archers and artillery. Did I say no cav?

Yes, no cav, but Dwarfs are ingenious and industrious, as is their nature. To solve the lack of mobility they have.... gyrocopters! Oh yeah. It takes a while to get them, you need the correct buildings of course, and I now even have an 'airport' at my capital. Sadly, I had to work today, so had to shut it down last night before I could deploy them in battle as it was way too late to be playing games. But tonight. Tonight I will unleash my whizbangs against mine enemy! They have been recruited and distributed to the field armies, and only await a battle. It won't be long in coming. Finally, I will be able to counter the enemy's artillery, which have spent many battles firing with impunity from afar. Little do they know, Dwarfs have gyrocopters!

Reading through this post got my curiosity aroused and grabbed it late last night,,,mostly I play Rome II and Shogun II,and think a break from historical to Fantasy would be fun...I've played Medieval II ,,Empire and Atillia to me all good games ,,once I get fully awake and walk the dog and eat I'm settling in to a solid day of Warhammer 2...Good thread here with a lot of useful information

Awesome, happy to hear it. Which faction will you start off with? Which campaign? The Mortal Empires one is free, but you have to download it. Let me know how it goes or if you have any questions.

In the end, the gyrocopters turned out to be useful, but not the death machines I had envisioned. They are a bit squishy, despite high armor. Perhaps those were armor piercing arrows the enemy was shooting. Still, it's a way to counter their artillery which was needed.

DBond not really sure where to start..From your post might give the high elves a spin..From what I've seen so far decided to go ahead and get the first Warhammer ..just a bit worn out on the old Nazie's and Japs thing and being a long time fan of LOTR which i read once a year and never get tired of it..Fills a need to escape for awhile..the great grandson was over last night and he got very absorbed in it ..got him flying EAW and now he is grabbing Warhammer and moving away from the X-Box..If it sticks we might do some MP good way to make a connection with him..His comment was "Didn't know old dudes like you are into this stuff" LOL Hey old but not in a coma

High Elves are a great choice, maybe even the best one for a first run. They were the faction I tried first. They are fairly traditional in their roster, the best cav, great infantry and archers, a bit weak on artillery and dragons! Public order is no issue due to buildings bonuses. And the Sea Guard, which are excellent early to mid game troops. They are a bit like the dismounted Jinettes from Med 2.

High Elves also have a good starting position. I'd go for Tyrion, Teclis has a much harder start. Alith Anar is good too but in a more perilous starting position. Tyrion is awesome, one of the best Lords in the game, he can grow to become a melee god if you take that path.

Quite possibly their most powerful advantage is the influence mechanic, called Intrigue at the Court. High Elves can spend influence to manipulate the political environment. You can make nations like you, hate you, or do it between two AI factions. I found this ability extremely powerful and effective.

So, great starting position, roster, King and abilities. A really good choice in my opinion.

I'm about 200 turns in to the Dwarfs campaign. We are the strongest faction in the land, though both Lothern (High Elves) and Empire (humans) are close. I have all requirements done for both a short and long campaign victory, aside from cleansing the land of the Chaos invasion. They just keep coming. Wipe out one wave, and another spawns. We are strong enough to deal with them, but it's a bit of a slog.

It's been a fun campaign, and particularly notable for the success we've had co-ordinating with allies. The war goal mechanic has been seen before, but never have I seen it work so well. Especially so with the Empire and our war against the Vampire Counts, who had grown very strong, and their corruption a blight on the land. Using the war goal I was able to direct Empire forces against specific towns or armies. It was due to the Empire being strong enough to have the armies available to respond and mobilize on the selected target. In this way we were able to strike from both sides, Dwarfs from the east and Empire from the west. And we systematically eradicated the scourge.

Same with a war with the Greenskins and a Drawf ally. Not as machine-like due to this Dwarf ally having less means and resources, but it still worked quite well.

I'm at the stage where we are strong enough not to worry about anything, and I've about had it, but I want to claim a campaign win. The Chaos have other plans though it seems.

I either own or am allied with virtually the entire map, so we 'see' everything. As a result, the AI turns are taking 13+ minutes if you can believe it.

DBond, what is your makeup,for empire armies? I usually get bogged down with the vampires and the relentless corruption. I use a Lord, a general or witch hunter, and maybe 6 greatswords, 4 crossbows, 4 arty (hopefully he’ll storm but sometimes I’m stuck with mortars) and four reiksguard or, if I’m later in the game, demigryph halberd knights.

Thoughts? Maybe it’s my current game bad luck because the Dwavres are about dead, which is pretty much left me alone against vamps from east and west, (Moiusilon) and Greenskins from south. I’m lucky no chaos yet....

Each army is slightly different, but on the main you've got the same sort of setup I used in my Empire run.

I prefer indirect artillery, so mortars and rockets, not cannon. My late game armies usually had a steam tank too.

I really liked the Reiksguard, great bang for the buck, especially with the buildings in Middenland, but in some armies I mixed in light cav. The grenade Outriders are auto-resolve stars.

Ranged was usually both crossbows and handgunners for the AP.

Franz for example was like this at the end

Franz
Empire Captain
7 x Greatswords
4 x Reiksguard
2 x Handgunners
2 x Crossbows
1 x Mortar
1 x Steam Tank
1 x Helstorm

The corruption is difficult, and I opted for attrition bonuses if I could for armies that would fight Vampires and Chaos I also had lots of Untainted bonuses and followers, so that when my armies were in those lands the corruption would be falling, which helps over the course of a long war.. I tended to invest fairly heavily in the blue tree for my Lords. Encamp stance is a life saver of course. And I ran armies in tandem, supporting.

The handgunners/crossbows were paired up on each flank, one of each type.

I shelved the Dwarfs run. I played a few more turns, and killed a couple more Chaos waves, but more came in their place. With little to do other than fight Chaos and watch long AI turns I decided to put it on hold, and I rarely return to finish these. I want to actually 'win' one of these campaigns though. I need to figure out how to move from Doomtide waves to the final one.

A few notes about the Dwarfs, who proved to be one of my all-time favorite TW factions. Their tech research is insane. I got so many +10% research followers I couldn't use them all. At the end, we were getting 400% research rate. I had almost done every tech, and if I played a little longer I would have. A huge advantage over other factions.

The Dwarfs, for whatever reason, get crap for battle loot, With Elven factions, I often get 3000-5000 in post-battle loot. Dwarfs get 300. Not sure why, but that is a huge handicap.

Dwarfs have a mechanic called Grudges. They even have a huge Book of Grudges, where every slight is recorded and must be avenged, lest the people think the leader is not up to snuff. So if Dwarf lands are raided, or tresspassed, or if a settlement is sacked, razed or otherwise sullied, this affrontery is recorded for all time. If allowed to go un-avenged, order begins to fall and bad things happen.

I went all-in on this haha. If another faction even looked at me wrong I would say out loud, "That's a Grudgin'!" in my best Dwarf-Pirate voice. And it would NEED to be avenged lol. Fun stuff.

I had a great time with this faction. Their infantry are amazing,and I loved the whole underground passageways thing. It was fun to fight for a change with no cav and so little mobility on the battlefield. A nice change of pace. It's a difficult start, but once I made the choice to launch the assault to capture the second province and it's port (so important) things began to snowball. The economy took off and we ended up owning, or being allied to, the world. Highly recommended faction.

For Airdrop..... you mentioned the Dwarfs have been mostly killed off and aren't helping from the east. When Warhammer 2 was released, evidently the Dwarfs were OP, there was even a name for it, Dwarftide. CA made some tweaks, and the result is that Dwarfs are now probably underpowered in auto-resolve, and no longer are strong enough to do much in the campaign when controlled by AI.

Even though I shelved this Dwarf run, I am still really liking Warhammer 2, and began another campaign, this a H/H Dark Elves run (Malekith) in the Vortex campaign. It's awesome how different each faction is. These guys are evil, but that's worth a go and we got off to a good start. H/H makes for difficult starts for me, but once you've gotten a foothold I think that's the sweetspot for the AI for me.

I LOVE this game. It’s probably my favorite Total War game so far...and I’ve had em since the beginning.

I feel the same, though I also realize that novelty is a factor and may be part of why I feel this way. I haven't been in it since the beginning, Rome 1 was my first TW game, but that's still most of them, and Warhammer 2 is right at the top of the list. What do you like about it?

As to your Empire- VC thing, have you tried pulling back and see if they will come to you? Of course the corruption attrition works both ways and if you can get the VC stacks to enter your lands you would benefit. Maybe try setting a couple armies on ambush and see if they will come for your frontier towns. Or use a half-stack bait army with full stacks hidden nearby. A combination of attrition and Assault Units could melt the vampire stacks and open the door.

A questionable tactic I use on particularly tough enemy settlements, like one with a huge garrison and a full stack army is to hit it with Assault units and Assault Garrison and maybe hit the walls and then siege the town. Next turn, break the siege, hit them with the agents again and encircle once more. This prevents the enemy from replenishing. After a few turns you can essentially waltz right in. They might sally of course so be sure you can handle it if they do.

As to my Dark Elves run it's all going well. Dark Elves have some good units and abilities. Their archers-- Shades and Darkshards-- are excellent, probably the best archers in the game. Infantry isn't the greatest, especially I suppose having come straight from a Dwarfs run. Melee defense in particular is not a strength. They are all about hitting fast and hard. The ability called Murderous Prowess is awesome, And they have Dark Arks, a ship that acts as a mobile base, to allow recruitment and replenishment (and bombardment ala Shogun 2) anywhere. An amazing thing when invading faraway hostile shores.

Learned something new yesterday, to my consternation I must say.

My Naggaroth was at war with the high elves of Nagarythe. I launched an invasion of their territory and took 3 of their four settlements. The fourth was a port city, called Slaver's Gate I think. I sieged this last town with one full stack army (Malekith) and had a second supporting in reinforcement range as per usual. I then moved my Dark Ark, which I had spent tons of money and dozens of turns building up, to a position adjacent to the port. This would provide bombardment support during, and reinforcement after, the battle.

Clicked end turn and the Nagarythe army that was in the town simply sailed out the backside and sunk my Black Ark! What the?

I don't know that I've ever seen this. The siege of a port city does not close the port and the enemy can freely leave (or arrive?) to a sieged city by sea. There is no blockade mechanic any longer so no way to close it off. What a kick in the teeth that was, to lose this ship that was so central to my invasion plans. Not a problem to recruit another, but it's losing all that progress that stings.

(Edit) Actually this may have also happened in Atilla now that I think about it

I fought another battle, early in this campaign. The battle was tight, I took some heavy losses, but eventually broke them and they ran for the exits. I gave chase on foot and with some volleys of bolts, but most routers escaped. In the after-battle screen I looked at the enemy who survived and thought how great it would have been to have had cavalry to run them down.

Wait a second.... I'm not the Dwarfs. I had two full units of cav that I had hidden behind a hill and then completely forgot about them. Duh.

After playing a couple of Mortal Empires campaigns (on the big map stitching both games together), this Dark Elves run is in Vortex. I decided I would send a raiding army and a Dark Ark to the old world and sack, pillage and plunder my way about. So I set sail and roll back the fog and err, hit the edge of the map. There is no old world in Vortex. Duh.

I managed to finish one of these campaigns, this one a H/H run as Dark Elves (Malekith) in the Vortex campaign. It was the best Total War campaign I have ever played. With the amount of discussion going on, I reckon few folks around here will do the same, but I will refrain from spoiling it, just in case. But I will say that the campaign is highly engaging (to me), throws a big plot twist, and really ramps up the challenge as you near completion of the Rituals.

As mentioned earlier, there are two campaigns, Eye of the Vortex and Mortal Empires (ME). The ME campaign stitches together all factions and both maps from Warhammers 1 and 2. It is a grand campaign in every sense. It's like most of the grand campaigns that have come before, and plays out in much the same way, aside from the Chaos Invasion near the end.

The Vortex campaign is quite different. I imagine that CA was looking for a way to keep the challenge level up throughout the campaign. Lets face it, in any Total War title there comes a point where you are steamrolling everyone, usually by mid -game. The last part of the run is academic, as you fill in victory objectives. Or at least that's been my experience throughout the series,

The Vortex campaign seeks to correct this late-game humdrum. In the campaign there are four playable races, Dark Elves, High Elves, Lizardmen and Skaven (Rat men). Each race is divided in to a large number of factions. The leading faction for each carries the Vortex torch for their race.

So what's the Vortex? It's a big blue and green swirling maelstrom above the High Elves island of Ulthuan.designed to drain magical energy from the world. Each race seeks to control it. The Vortex campaign is therefore a race between each, err, race, to gain control. The winner will be the first one to complete five Rituals. Do so, and the power of the Vortex is yours, or so the legend goes.

To perform a Ritual, ritual currency must be gathered. It has a different name for each race --Way fragments, Warpstones, Scrolls of Hekarti and Ancient Plaques -- which, when enough has been accrued, allows that faction to kick off a ritual, which lasts for 10 turns. During the ritual you gain bonuses, reduced upkeep, increased public order and so on, but the forces of Chaos will take exception, sending armies to stop the Ritual. These are not so strong early on, but grow in number and power with each successive Ritual.

Ritual currency is gained through settlements, missions and buildings. Scattered about the map are special Ritual currency sites, settlements that have unique buildings that yield far greater amounts than a normal settlement. These strategic locations transform the game. Their importance is obvious, and each faction needs to control as many as possible, to generate currency for themselves as well as to deny it to their rivals.

Instead of the creeping border tide that we usually see in TW games, this mechanic leads to surgical strikes, invasion of far away places. It adds urgency, encouraging the player to take risks. To get out of your comfort zone advancing and protecting your borders, and instead rolling the dice with a a military expedition. If a faction clear across the world is leading the race, you feel compelled to try and stop them, and that means capturing or razing their Ritual sites.

And it is a lot of fun, for me at least. I loved the whole thing. It shakes up the standard TW gameplay. For others maybe not so much. With so little discussion here at Sim HQ, I've been reading other forums and many players complain about the Vortex mechanics. Some gripes are legit, but for the most part I see it as jaded douchebags who need things to complain about. At the center of their complaints is the fact that the 'race' isn't really one at all. It is possible to win the campaign while ignoring the race altogether. When an AI faction wins the race, the player has a chance to fight a battle against them, and if the player wins, that leading faction is removed from the list of contenders.

Do this against each race and you win, and wouldn't need a single fragment or Waystone. These folks use this as 'proof' that the Vortex campaign sucks. Phooey.

You know, you could finish a marathon by running to the end of the first block, ducking in to an apartment and watching TV and eating Cheetos for four hours, then running the final block of the race and across the line. Marathons suck.

So, because it's possible to win by ignoring the rituals, the ritual race itself is invalidated. CA put this in I am sure so that these same people wouldn't complain that the "AI always beats me to the final ritual, this game sucks." Sheesh.

For me, I enjoyed every minute of it, and felt a distinct challenge all the way to the final battle. The campaign was strategic on a level that all others are not. I could go on sprinkling praise or a critical eye over what I think is the best Total War title of them all. And will do so if asked. But for now, I just wanted to share a few thoughts on the Vortex campaign so others might get a feel for what it is.

Here's a shot showing Malekith's army as he returned from the final battle to take control of the Vortex, which you can see the bottom of in the center of the shot (looks like a tornado).

The city at the bottom of the screen, Lothern, is the capital of the High Elves. Or it was. I sniped it while the HE armies were away, mostly.

Winning the final battle raised all Lords levels by 5, though I stopped playing at this point. In Malekith's army are several Executioners (green unit card), which are the top anti-infantry infantry unit for the Dark Elves. The Shades (blue card) are excellent ranged units, also having greatswords and do a nice job in melee when called upon. All Dark Elves archers have armor piercing, which is fabulous.

Purple cards are Regiments of Renown, special upgraded versions of regular troops that are unlocked as your general gains levels. Also in the army are cavalry and mounted bows, plus a dragon and two Hydras, which are 5-headed beasts that just wreck sh!t. A few units of Executioners were lost in the final battle, because it ain't easy.

A weekly Warhammer update! Yeah, yeah, I know. Hey Russ, what ever happened with your solid day of Warhammer/? Did you play? What did you think?

Since the last post I've played a couple more campaigns. After completing the Eye of the Vortex as the Dark Elves I messed around with a few things, including an abortd run as Bretonnia in Warhammer 1, then chose Grombrindal the White Dwarf. A really strong Legendary Lord and lots of fun. I fought through the difficult start to emerge strong on the other side and grew quickly. After confederating several Dwarf clans I stood poised in the mountains to invade the Vampire Counts. Just as Chaos emerged from the wastes to the north, we launched an invasion with 5 stacks. Upon capturing the first settlement I saw I had only options to sack or raze, no occupation. In Warhammer 2, settlements are either suitable, partially suitable or unsuitable, but all can be occupied, with varying levels of bonus or malus depending upon suitability.

In Warhammer 1, it's far more blunt. You cannot live here, the game tells you. And with it, the entire strategical plan I had coiled was undone. I would be left to play out the remaining turns defending, sackin', raidin' and razin'. Not enuff grudgin'! So I lost my enthusiasm and decided to go a different route. There are some things I grew accustomed to in WH2 that are absent for WH1 and while it's still a great game, the Mortal Empires campaign means I won't need to play WH1, regardless of faction. Glad I gave it a go though, and ticked one more title off my 'played' list.

In Warhammer limbo once more I debated the various factions. As I've mentioned a few times, the factionality in this game is fantastic. Each race is so different. and I've only played a few. One I had not tried are the Skaven, the rat men. At first glance they weren't too interesting, a bit repulsive to be honest. They live underground, their settlements appearing as razed cities to the unwary. They have a mechanic that requires a constant food supply which can put the brakes on expansion. They rely on plagues and pestilence. And, well, they're rats.

But as I played other factions and fought the Skaven they started interesting me. They could wreck me with their artillery. and sheer numbers. They have slave units that are meat shields and you sort of take on a different view. These troops are expendable. They are dirt cheap. Like mob the enemy and then hit the whole blob with your awesome artillery. You can always raise more rat slave units.

Furthermore, they have fantastic agents, and their high-tier military units are quite good. And they have some really good abilities. One is called "The Menace Below". It's a battle ability that lets you spawn a unit of low level rat warriors anywhere on the battlefield. So many uses, but spawning them in the center of a group of enemy archers is hilarious. Or in front of a fleeing unit to slow them down. Or in front of their main line advance, causing the enemy to stop and deal, while that awesome artillery rains destruction. So much fun.

On the campaign map they have an ability that grants a chance that your attack is an ambush. So you can move to attack, and get an ambush. Not just ending your turn in ambush stance. This is so amazing.

With my current DLC soup I have three Skaven Legendary Lords to start as.

Strolk is in Lustria (South America) in the jungles. He is full-on plague lord, and this is central to his playstyle. This region remains the only one I have not played in. There are minor factions there that I have yet to meet, let alone fight, since by the time I can see this region in previous games, these minors are gone.

Tretch Craventail is in the NW part of the ME map (North America). He is a backstabber extraordinaire. His faction actually gains public order for each diplomatic treaty he breaks. LOL. But I've played extensively in this part of the map (Dark Elves) and wanted to go somewhere different for this run.

So that leaves Queek. Of the Skaven LLs, he is the most melee-centered. And unlike most Skaven, he is loyal and brave. A real character, yes-yes, kills me some dwarf-things, yes-yes. He starts way down in the SE corner, amongst Lizardmen and Vampires and Tomb Kings. And he is the only Legendary Lord with a start labeled as Very Hard in this campaign. So yeah, that sorta seals the deal right there,

So sure, another 'awesome faction' according to me, but hey I'm easy to please. This post is longer than planned so I'll end it here. I just want to reiterate once again (talk about redundancy!) how amazing this game is with each race being a complete new experience. New techs, units, abilities, handicaps. With each one I play I feel like it's an entirely different game. Really enjoying it.

Another week has gone, and with it, an astounding 260 turns of a Skaven campaign. Can't recall the last Total War campaign that I've played as long.

This is a Hard/Hard Mortal Empires run, and as mentioned in the previous post, it's the only start in Mortal Empires labeled as Very Hard. And it is, or at least, it could be. I felt that in the early turns things broke well for me. I see the potential for disaster, but avoided it, or it avoided me perhaps.

In the very first turns I cleared out the Greenskins from my starting province and began slowly expanding. There is no time limit in this campaign, no need to rush. The primary threat for me at this stage was the presence of the lizardmen to my east. They clearly didn't care for my ratmen. Early units for Skaven are quite squishy, and the lizards are not. They have armor and monsters and dinosaurs. I had little to counter this. So it forced me to play differently, and to approach army composition with specific guidelines and a change in both strategy and tactics..

I came to see my armies as hard-counters. That is, ensuring I have the correct unit types to counter the specific threats in the enemy's armies. Does the enemy have a preponderance of armor and monsters? Then I need to have armor piercing and anti-large units to deal. Sending a few units of clanrats with swords against a few charging dinos is sure to end in a pell-mell race for the exits.

I also came to see the Skaven roster as awesome. But it takes a while to unlock it all of course, so the early game was a series of skirmishes, raids, sacking and plundering. Complicating matters is the food mechanic that Skaven have, Each army and each settlement you have costs one food. If you fall low on food reserves you get order and leadership penalties. So expansion, both in territory and in military strength, is tempered by the need to balance the food reserves.

So I went slowly. 100 turns in I had just 15 regions. The leading factions had over 50. But by taking my time I was able to build a solid base, tech up and fill out my armies with the units I needed. After clearing out the lizardmen and settling this corner of the map,I insulated my entire starting area behind a huge wall of allies. Potential enemies would need to travel through many provinces owned by my allies before they could even get to me, and even then my cities appear as ruins and the AI is programmed to be fooled by this, or so it seems. So more than any other TW faction I've played, I came to realize that I could venture further afield, and leave my homeland mostly undefended by mobile armies. This was supported by the fact that Skaven have really good, strong garrisons, and I could take on any single-stack army at the walls, if it came to that.

But this sort of locked me in. I couldn't expand my little corner of the world without going to war with an ally. So a distant target was needed. I took Queek's army and another and began the long trek over land and seas to Lustria. Usually in a TW run I will start sending agents off in all directions to roll back the fog, discover other factions and hopefully get some trade partners out of it. But in Warhammer I've more or less stopped doing this. New trade agreements are valuable of course, but there's also a chance that the faction you discover says something along the lines of "Oh there you are. We hate you. To war!" And they declare on you on the very first turn you learn of one another. That's not too good. So I began keeping everyone on a short leash. just rolling back the fog enough to keep an eye on anyone encroaching my borders.

But this also meant I had yet to discover any other Skaven factions, who would make good allies and potential confederation targets. The skaven lord Skrolk is in Lustria and as my first agent touched down on his shores I began trying to butter him up. Not only did I want to be allies, I also needed somewhere for my two armies to encamp. The long journey through deserts and open ocean had caused serious attrition. So I did things like give gifts and use my agents against his enemies to curry favor and get military access. This was done and my armies made landfall to find he was down to 3 regions, and a second lizardman faction was sweeping down to crush him. My two armies added stiffness to his defense and together we fought them to standstill. The High Elves were also a problem, but by using the underways and ambushes we started to roll them back. Skrolk was so happy about this he agreed to confederate and now my Clan Mors had a second homeland and a second Legendary Lord as well. Skrolk is a caster and a nice complement to Queek's melee-centric abilities.

Now it was on. The entire western side of the map was nothing but me and enemies and a shrinking Dark Elves enclave up north. I was at the extreme southern end with my rear secure and one direction to fight. And as luck would have it, another lizardman faction as enemy with my stacks tailored for this particular foe.

We now have 40+ regions and are the strongest in the land. Sadly, my allies suck big time and can't do anything right, so I'm on my own as I watch them do stupid sh!t every turn as their cities are taken by the enemies. When the campaign starts I think there are 117 factions, plus a number of emergent and rebel factions that pop up. Now, 260+ turns in, it's down to the last 23. Battle Royale, Total War style!

That's right folks, another week has gone. I decided to snap some pics and put them up for SimHQ consumption, then basically forgot to take any, so that was a fail.

Can hardly believe it myself, that I am still playing this game. It's been a couple months now and I am still finding new and interesting stuff. The factionality thing continues to pay dividends. Each faction or race I choose is like an entirely new game. So far I've played as

High Elves (twice, in each campaign)
Empire
Dwarfs (two times, each with a different Lord)
Dark Elves (Twice)
Skaven
Bretonnia (briefly)

Each of those plays so differently, it's awesome. And now I've gone and bought the Tomb Kings DLC. I'll keep it brief as there's little interest, but it's another great faction. These dudes are all undead, skeletons and stone monsters 'living' in the desert, with a decidedly Ancient Egypt theme. Entirely new mechanics than any I've tried so far. For example, their armies have no recruitment cost nor upkeep. Recruitment is capped by research (for new Lords) and buildings (for higher tier units). Lots more unique facets.

Infantry is a weakness, but maybe the most powerful monsters in the game, a unique tech tree mechanic and in the Vortex campaign, they have objectives separate from all other races that are doing the Vortex thing. I'm playing on Hard/Hard as per usual, and frankly it's been the easiest start I've done so far. It got more challenging after 50 turns, but a fairly easy start. I'm finding that fighting other Tomb Kings is difficult.

I've dropped a ton of time in to this title, far more already than Atilla which I liked. The replayability factor with all the different factions is extremely high. And there are still a few factions that I have yet to try.

Check up in the community War hammer 40000 Space Marines is free at Humble Bundle for a bit..I got a steam key from them and no issues signing onto Steam and getting it in my library..The price is right
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/warhammer-40000-space-marine

Well it's Warhammer, and a reply, so I'll take it. Thanks man. How did your solid day with Warhammer that you mentioned go? Did you try it?

A few times I've referred to 'monsters', but that's just me being lazy. Monstrous units is more accurate, if the point isn't too fine.

Man, I just had a weird experience...I got destroyed as Empire in a game. I had ports, etc. Vamps and chaos just killed me!

I'm gonna have to have a go at that again. That was weird!!!

What difficulty are you playing? I've had the VC afflict a few heavy defeats on me as well. They are tough, especially once they have their roster teched up. The key as I see it, and easier said then done, is to snipe the Lords as quickly as possible. I began embedding an Empire Captain who was heavily invested in the yellow line, to exclusively go after the enemy Lords. Knock the Lord out and the army crumbles. Not always possible though and the Vampires have some excellent Legendary Lords.

It was on hard. But I’m stupid in that I basically let them get too established and didn’t do what you said and take out their lords soon enough. Good news is with my health condition, I’ve got loads of time to give it anither go....

It seems in about half the campaigns I play the Vampire Counts become one of the top factions, usually at the expense of the Empire. On the others, the Empire rolls over the VC.

Here are a couple of shots, just ones I happened to have

This is a Skaven ambush of the dastardly High Elves just as the Plagueclaw catapults unleash their first salvo




This is the map at one point during a Mortal Empires campaign as Skaven. Yellow is my territory, and as you can see I took over certain strategic locations, not just a creeping border tide. This was a very fun campaign, one of the longest I've played. Starting location was in the southeast corner.



This shot is of the Skaven armies standing victorious at Karak Eight Peaks, one of the more important settlements in the campaign, and the objective of several factions. We just happened to win the race



The Araby desert, home to the Tomb Kings. These shots, I think, fail to really capture how gorgeous the map is.

Finished the Khemri campaign with Settra. That was fun, and was over in 155 turns. The final battle was epic. For much of it I thought I would lose, and I came about as close as can be.

A few notes about the Tomb Kings, then some pics. Like the Dwarfs, the Tomb Kings have a crafting mechanic. The more trade resources you have access to the more items you can make. Some of it quite powerful, on par with any of the purple items from quests. The absence of recruitment cost or upkeep seems OP at first glance, but it isn't. Armies are capped through tech and infrastructure. At the end I had 6 armies, which is more or less in line with what I've done with other factions. Income is far less for Tomb Kings, which plays it's part in the equation as well. For me the main advantage here is that no recruitment cost means you have little objection to using global recruitment. There is still the extra recruitment time, but with no monetary cost you'll use both queues and therefore can recruit an entire army in 3 turns. Losses are quickly replaced, and new Lords are up and running in no time.

The start for Settra is pretty easy as I mentioned. Other Tomb King lords have more difficult starts. Settra himself is a beast. I put him on a warsphinx mount and he just crushes. As monstrous units became available I focused on them, and had several in every army. The sphinx and the titan especially were vital. In the final battle even Settra went down, but there was a single titan that won that battle at the end. Epic stuff. With fairly weak infantry, the monstrous units are the key for victory on the battlefield for Tomb Kings.

Another interesting thing is I won this campaign having held only 20 settlements (7 provinces). It didn't require massive conquering, and that's cool since it's all a bit more manageable and streamlined. I'll add Tomb Kings to the long and growing list of fun WH2 factions.

So the idea in the campaign for Tomb Kings is to ignore the Vortex race and search for the Books of Nagash. They are scattered about the map, some held by armies, some tucked away deep in the recesses of various cities. Nine in all, but only five are required for the campaign. Once I had found the fifth one, the final battle arrives. It pits Settra's army, along with two half-stack allies, against two full stack enemies. As the battle unfolds, the enemy gets reinforcements, and they come from all directions, which is always the thing that rips my tactical plan to shreds and makes for a chaotic mashup. In this battle they received FOUR FULL STACKS of reinforcements! Sorry for the spoilers, but that is insane! And they all came at the same time. Are you kidding me? When I saw this I was sure that the battle was lost, I wasn't certain of the outcome before this happened, let alone with this massive influx of fresh troops with their own titans and sphinxes. Somehow we managed to win. But only just.

This is the setup at the start, there is no deployment phase and I have no control over the allied armies.




And this is the final tally. Epic,ain't it?



The Tomb Kings stand Supreme!

After 3 months, and err, hundreds of hours, I finally burned out on Warhammer yesterday. I ended up playing as every race aside from Vampires, Beastmen and Chaos, which leaves me with a few reasons to return. If they release a Skaven DLC, which is in the works, I will give it another go. In the end I only found a couple of factions to be not my thing, most were fun and interesting.

I will now say for certain that Warhammer 2 is my favorite TW title. I like most of them, but WH2 stands above for me.

My favorite faction was Clan Mors, Queek Headtaker. Going in I would have picked any other one, but in the end it's the faction I enjoyed playing the most.

This is a great game. I had hoped to generate some discussion, but it wasn't to be. However, if anyone down the line gets in to it don't hesitate to crank this thread back up.

Clearly a man of my word, I am back

CA did indeed release a Skaven DLC, The Prophet and the Warlock ($9) that adds new mechanics and new Legendary Lords for the Skaven and the Lizardmen. Since the Skaven proved to be my favorite faction to play I bought this one and fired up a Mortal Empires campaign as Ikit Claw. He is the Skaven engineer/technocrat lord. His schtick is gadgets and technology. Excellent ranged weapons, including the 'Ratling Gun' lol.

So new units and weapons, new tech abilities and all Skaven factions get a new 'underworld' campaign mechanic, which allows them to build a subterranean lair beneath other factions' cities, to siphon off resources or raise armies unseen in their midst. The ratmen are fiendish. Anyway, a good addition to the game, new Skaven stuff is very welcome for me. Perhaps even a bit OP, but not every campaign needs to be a struggle

And Ikit Claw has tactical nukes, called Doomrockets. I fired one off in my first battle (they are limited, about one produced every four turns) and it sent 6 or so regiments hightailing it for the exits, they were shattered, and some just gone. And it partly missed as it's the first one I fired, and I didn't yet know the on-call delay, and the moving mob moved out from under it a bit. Still, a devastating weapon to have in the arsenal.

The Skaven are my favorite race to play, in what I feel is the best Total War game, so picking up this DLC was just a matter of time. I'm interested in Three Kingdoms, but not at $60, so picked this up instead.

RIP Airdrop, you were about the only one here who played this game.

Well, easy it was not, I misjudged

I played a Mortal Empires campaign as Clan Skyre (Ikit Claw) on Hard/Hard as I always do. The start position for this campaign is tough. I started well enough, capturing the whole neighboring province. But the food mechanic put the brakes on and for the next 100 turns I essentially fought off enemies while developing my infrastructure and expanding my web of undercities.

The undercity thing is really cool. Using agents an undercity can be established below any city. There are four building slots, which can be used for a large number of things. Food, money, and more can be gained. It can be used to spawn a strong army right next to your target, which is very Skaven. But each building increases the detectability so you need to balance what you build against the risk of being found out. Fun to play with.

I reached number 4 strongest faction, but eventually humans declared war and their extensive alliance snowed me under. The Dwarves were their allies and the strongest faction by far, and in the end I could not fight them all off and I quit the campaign. My main issue was everyone hates the Skaven and I had no worthwhile (and nearby) allies and no trade partners.

The faction is a lot of fun, the units and weapons are great. I simply got snowed under by an alliance too big to resist. I was too cautious early on, didn't expand enough and in the end the four armies I could support were too little.

Another installment of my Warhammer 2 series. If you've read through the thread you'll know I've played as most of the races, and many of the factions. But there are a lot, and it would take a long time to get through them all. One race I've dabbled in, but never really got too far off the ground is the Lizardmen. They lack a certain appeal for me, but I like mixing it up and experiencing as many of them as I can. Plus, they were fleshed out a bit in the DLC I mentioned in the last couple of posts. So why not? Let's give 'em a go.

This race has four playable legendary lords, as well as a number of factions that cannot be played. Lizards are 'good', defenders of order within the Warhammer world. Start locations are varied. Militarily they feature strong early-game infantry, poor ranged options and fairy strong cavalry. They lack a strong late-game infantry like many factions have. But the start is always so important in a Total War campaign, so they are well positioned to get off the ground quickly.

The main strength of Lizards are the monstrous units, in this case dinosaurs! Stegadons, Bastiladons and Carnosaurs, which simply wreck sh!t. Of the two lords I started with, each has a dino in the starting army. Lizardmen also have a nice selection of flying units. The fact that they have access to their second strongest infantry at tier one (Saurus warriors) and tier 2 (shielded Saurus) gives them a big advantage over most of the enemies you'll face in the early going. A half stack of these can roll through a stack and a half of Skaven clanrats and slaves without much trouble. This means you don't need to turtle or take it slow while teching up, and can go on the offensive right off the bat.

As with all factions, the upper-tier units require buildings, and that will take a while. In my current campaign it took more than 50 turns to recruit my first dino, so it's very important to preserve the ones you're given at the start. Of course I managed to lose mine in an auto-resolve battle, didn't even notice and then played 40 turns without one. Don't be like me

Carnosaurs are the apex, but also require a tier 5 building. If you haven't brushed up on your dinosaurs recently, a Carnosaur is a bi-pedal like a Tyrranosarus. Very fast, very strong. Crashing one of these in to the flank of engaged enemy infantry is a delight. The carnosaur will flip enemy soldiers in to the air and grab them with it's mouth. It's awesome. By the time your infantry is being outclassed, you're adding these dinos to your armies and they more than make up for it.

Ranged options are limited and fairly poor compared to other factions like the Elves for example. Javelin units are the mainstay early game. As with all TW jav units, range and ammo are very limited, but they do OK in melee once they've run out of ammunition. But considering other factions have awesome archers, artillery and the like, the ranged options for the Lizards are rather weak. Battle style with these guys is smash mouth, not surgical. You won't have the ability to focus-fire targets like many others can do.

The first lord I tried was Kroq-Gar, who leads the Last Defenders faction. A very strong melee lord (he gets a Carnosaur mount at level 18!), he is hamstrung by his start position. He starts in the extreme southeast corner of the map. This is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because things are often chaotic in a WH2 start. But Kroq-Gar needs to just defend and fight in one direction, with no threat from the back. A curse, because once you've taken the starting area, you can get boxed in a bit with few options for expansion. Very few trade options as well.

That's what happened to me. I blitzed though the first 50-70 turns, taking town after town, wiping out my enemies. But then I found I was hemmed in by both the terrain and allies. I could have migrated, or sent expeditions out like I did in my Queek (Skaven) Vortex campaign, but instead I decided to try a different lord on the other side of the world.

And that was Mazdamundi, a big fat lard-ass toad who floats around on some sort of magic carpet or something. He is a caster, not a melee lord. While he doesn't appeal to my usual style, his start position does. He starts in the jungles of Lustria (South America), which is much better than the corner that Kroq-Gar starts in. A lot of trade and expansion possibilities. Nearby potential enemies are Dark Elves, Skaven and Vampires. Of course this also means you are more vulnerable to attack.

The start is difficult, or I found it so. I did a bit of reloading before I got it right. But once I did the campaign took off and I've been the strongest faction for most of the game (about 75 turns in, Hard/Hard settings). Corruption (Chaos/Skaven/Vampiric) is a big challenge at higher settings, but on the battlefield I've had a lot of success with these armies. As a 'good' race I easily get alliances and trade deals with high elves factions (and others) , the exact opposite of my runs with the Skaven factions. This is a shot in the arm militarily (war-co-oridination mechanic) and financially.

I won't say that the Lizardmen are among my favorites, but they are interesting, and as always in this game, different. I love ranged weaponry in TW, and that's a weakness here, but it's fun to get out of my comfort zone and try new stuff and hunt a few achievements along the way.

Edit: The top-tier foot infantry, Temple Guards, are strong. Not equal to the very best infantry in the game, but now that I have played with some I see they are better than I had indicated. They do require two top-tier buildings to recruit, so it takes time to get to them, and recruiting provinces will be limited as a result.

I was going to post an update on my campaign, but it's over already

Slow, difficult start, being assailed from all directions. It's difficult to get traction when you're in constant battle from the off. But once I did get a handle on it, things snowballed. Aside from the first 20 turns maybe, I was ranked #1 throughout the the game. I swear, CA programmed something like this

if (isAlly){
// then:dumbass mode

As an order faction I could easily get trade agreements and alliances with the High Elves, which included Lothern, which, in every run I've done are always right at the top of the heap, usually the strongest faction, and often by far. But here -- since they were my ally and I was counting on them -- they did one stupid thing after another. I had to send a rescue operation repeatedly to save their butts as they kept losing provinces and especially their amazing capital. Fun on one hand, annoying as heck on the other. At one point they had the second most provinces (largely through confederation) but were ranked #62. Because they had no armies. Good grief. I've played a lot of TW2 campaigns and never saw them do anywhere near as poorly. They were eventually confederated by a faction with two provinces. Weird.

My Lizardmen though were steamrollers. They crushed everything in the way and were easily the strongest faction when victory came around turn 155. The AI just isn't much of a match for a good player, too easy to exploit them I think. If you can establish your faction, the AI is in trouble. Getting the high tier units, especially dinos, meant that the AI doesn't stand much of a chance on the battlefield. But that's true of most factions. High tier armies in the player's hands are hard to beat. If you're going to lose one of these campaigns, it'll be in the early going, or getting rolled by an uber-alliance, like in my Ikit Claw run.

I had read lots of comments that confederations were nigh-on impossible as Lizardmen, but I was able to, so maybe something was changed in this regard.

I had a good time with the lizardmen, I like the area they are in. But on the field of battle I prefer other races. Dinos are cool, but the whole vibe doesn't really suit my style. Nice change of pace however. So I want to try another, and would ask for recommendations, but err, yeah, no one here

Vampire Counts are one I have yet to do. No appeal really. Their corruption makes the map look sh!tty, and well they are nasty. But I didn't think I'd like the Skaven either, and they turned out to be my favorite. I'll bounce it around and pick a new one. Haven't tried Greenskins yet either.

Not so fast.... So I didn't actually win the campaign. It was late, and an achievement popped and I didn't catch which one it was. Assumed it was for filling the final objective. But it was not. There is still one faction that I need to kill off, Cult of Pleasure (Dark Elves) led by Morathi. They are directly north of my territory and we've been skirmishing throughout the campaign. Her schtick revolves around Chaos corruption, so it is difficult to invade due to the high attrition this causes. Encampment stance can be used to nullify it, but that cuts your movement points in half, so it's slow going. But she is down to her final settlement now, we've razed all the others. I thought I had won at turn 155, but now it's turn 175.

In the mean time, the Doomtide arrived, seemingly endless waves of full stack Chaos armies, who spawn just off my southeastern coast and attack relentlessly. It is quite the challenge, and a bit annoying after you've dealt with the first 3 or 4 waves of six to eight fullstack armies. I had conquered and confederated the entire Lustrian continent, and this invasion has so far razed five of my coastal settlements and cities. The armies I am defending with are battered and in need of refit. Not sure I could do much about another wave if it comes. But I will cobble them together best as I can and meet them on the field of battle until only one of us is left standing.

Losing these five cities means that previously completed objectives (own certain provinces) are no longer met, so they will need to be recolonized once more if I want to get a victory. I won't rush this until it seems the invasion is over. Colonizing a razed city costs about 3/4 of the soldiers in the stack, so they are very vulnerable until they can replenish. Best to wait for the storm to blow over. Doing so also means the invaders would be compelled to move inland to keep attacking me (or further north along the coast where my cities are better developed (walls) ), giving me a better chance to trap them, ambush them and defeat them in detail or at the walls, Or such is the plan

The territory I hold is so vast that it is a massive challenge to defend it all against seaborne invasion of elite doomstacks. This mechanic provides a stiff late game challenge, but it is a bit annoying. These waves spawn in the same locations over and over, meaning most of the world's factions never have to deal with them. But since I hold the territory adjacent to this one spawn location, it's left to me to deal with it again and again. My lords gain levels, item and followers, and the pay is good. Plus it gives me something to do with all of my late-game armies.

But I'd much rather the challenge come from powerful AI factions than a scripted mechanic that repeats ad nauseam with cookie-cutter enemy stacks of elite units. I'm ready to move on to a different faction, but I want to achieve a victory. I'm still motivated, but wavering

Not sure who I am talking to, just sharing my thoughts and experiences. Thread's gotten some views, so someone's reading it. Unless that's just my clicks

The invasion of the final objective-faction (Cult of Pleasure) went well, until they were down to their final settlement, at which point they confederated another faction, which meant killing them just got longer. Next turn they were themselves confederated by Malekith and with that they were 'dead'.

My chaos wave rant was a bit of a short-runner as the next wave I killed was the final one. Once Archaon the Everchosen spawns, then the waves seem to stop. That allowed me to recolonize my razed lands. So now, all objectives are met save one. Archaon himself must be killed. But he is very strong, and his armies too. And he has decided to await developments by encamping in the Chaos Wastes way up north (instead of blitzing the world as he should). I've set him as the war coordination target for all of my allies and half the world has mobilized against him. But until we can hit him with successive armies he'll just shrug it off. He's too strong to be killed by AI stacks one at a time. So I have also mobilized, sending my leader's army and another all the way across the (huge) map to add to the assault. When, and if, he dies the campaign will be won. It has all come down to this. I hope I get a crack at him myself.

Victory! Many armies were converging on Archaon's position, including mine, on turn 195. During the AI turn, three stacks from the high elves hit Archaon's stack and killed him. I would have reached there the next turn, but in the end my assistance was not needed. With that, all objectives for the campaign were met.

The lizards are a good faction. Strong roster lacking good ranged options. They need to fight like the VC fought in Vietnam, grab 'em by the belt. Get in close straight away to nullify the enemy's range advantage, or at least make them hit their own troops too.

I'm not a big fan of the legendary lord for Hexoatl. He's a caster and although I've had success with other caster lords, with Mazdamundi I felt I struggled to get the best out of him. Never felt like I used him effectively. In the end I had ten armies, and the other lords were split between magic and melee. With melee lords I feel more comfortable, far less micro, just wade him in to the fray and let him swing his weapon. WIth casters, it's constantly checking cooldowns, and there's a miscast chance, a mana pool, and overall I like the simpler melee lords. Fully-specced casters are probably more powerful in the end, if more difficult to use well.

But for example Mazdamundi has a spell called Net of Amyntok. This locks the unit(s) you hit with it in position, making a follow-up cav charge devastating while the enemy can't react. But it makes the player a lot busier coordinating it all. The other lizard lord I played, Kroq-Gar, is a melee lord, and I would prefer him over Mazdamundi except for their start positions. The dinosaurs were a lot of fun though. A nice assortment of them to choose from, and they were the difference makers in a number of battles, especially the more difficult quest battles. On hard/hard settings the AI isn't terribly strong, but a few battles could have gone either way if it weren't for the strength and staying power of the dinos.

Another campaign victory with yet another faction. The lizards don't really fit my style, but were fun to play. I love the asymmetry that each faction throws at you in this game. Each one play very differently, and keeps it fresh and interesting.

I've started a new H/H ME campaign as Lothern (high elves). This was my very first WH2 faction, and I noticed I quit that run before victory to try other factions. So giving them another go to tick that one off the list. This faction has a lot going for it, good roster, great start position. useful campaign mechanics and bonuses. Not a hard one, but as I hadn't actually won a campaign as them I decided to give them another go. Kinda wished I had made it a Vortex campaign, but it'll do.

I'm blowing through these campaigns. Haven't finished it yet, but the Lothern campaign is going very well.

This high elves faction has a lot going for it.

Roster is well balanced. They have tier 1 spearmen, but those are quickly outdone by the Sea Guard, which are hybrid missile/spear troops that are very useful early to mid game. Their late-game, high-tier infantry is a match for any.

Archers are a strength, not only are they good, but they have a range advantage over other archers. Dark Elves get AP on their archers, which high elves do not. But that long range is highly valuable, and even more so as you tech up.

Cavalry is excellent, and they have phoenix and dragon units, which, while not as strong as other monstrous units, are absurdly cool. The only roster weakness is artillery. High elves get a bolt-thrower, which is OK, but nothing compared to the artillery options of the Skaven or Dwarfs for example. It's most useful for compelling the AI enemy to charge you and your arrow rain..

So they play traditionally, with a good balance, hammer and anvil works great. The legendary lord, Tyrion, is a melee beast. Once he is high level I think he could eventually chop down entire armies on his own. Lothern also gets special choices for additional lords, ones that are better than a typical generic one.

In the campaign, Lothern gets a cool mechanic that lets you spend influence on diplomatic relations. You can increase or decrease relations between any two factions. Want two nations to go to war? Make 'em hate each other. Want to get a trade agreement with a reluctant faction sitting on the fence? Butter 'em up a bit and they might agree next turn. Lothern also has a good start position. They start as the Gatekeepers of Ulthuan, which is the island in the center of the ME map. With just one settlement, and enemies at your doorstep, the opening moves must come off. But once you've taken control of the province, things start to look much better indeed.

Confederations are fairly easy to get, and with the influence mechanic you can bend them as you see fit. By turn 100 I had confederated all surviving high elves factions. This easy expansion, combined with a good start position, plentiful trade agreements and strong, balanced roster makes Lothern one of the very best factions in the game. I'd recommend them as a good choice for a new player's first campaign.

High Elves campaign done and dusted.

I feel like I should bump the difficulty to very hard, but the penalties and AI bonuses bother me. It's the age-old complaint that difficulty should come through better AI rather than stacking bonuses or maluses like most games do. As much as I like this game, I see the AI doing stoopid sh!t all the time. Better AI would be so nice to have.

One of my main complaints would be that 'order' factions have a terrible time dealing with corruption, especially vampiric and chaos corruption. They never get a handle on it, I'm guessing they don't build or gain untainted bonuses like the player will. So they take terrible attrition. Here's an example of what I see all the time.

Bretonnia is at war with the Wood Elves. The Wood Elves' home forest imparts attrition on any army that enters their lands. So Bretonnia, who are very strong, want to attack a settlement that's a short distance beyond the border. A player will stop at the border, so he ends his turn outside of the attrition zone. The AI though goes just over the border and runs out of movement points, meaning they cannot use encampment stance to avoid attrition and they suffer the effects at the end of the turn. Now weakened by the losses, the stack moves to the target but realizes I guess that they now lack the strength to attack. So they sit taking attrition for another turn. Then the defending stack comes and crushes them. A player would have taken the settlement, the AI fails.

A second issue I have, and one that would give the AI a big boost, is that the AI doesn't have a good plan when it comes to which buildings they build. The player can plan it out so their full roster is recruitable, and they get the buildings that give faction-specific bonuses or other goodies. So, AI stacks are often low or mid-tier troops simply because they didn't build the right stuff, and can have some silly compositions, like 16 crossbows and three agents.. Large empires seem to do OK just because with so many towns they have a better chance of getting the right buildings. Small or tall factions don't.

This is standard TW level stuff. All of the games suffer from these sorts of things. CA build great games, but I feel with a little more attention to the details they could be far better.

This 'having my own thread' thing is awesome

Hard to believe this game gets so little love 'round here. But even the historical titles are hardly discussed. Panzer and F/O talk about the games, but that's about it now that Airdrop has passed. Warhammer 2 is really an excellent TW game. I wish folks could put aside the fantasy aspect and give it a go. WH2 is 50% off for the Steam Summer Sale. If you've been on the fence, now's a good time to give it a try. I took advantage and picked up the Curse of the Vampire Coast DLC on sale.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/835670/Total_War_WARHAMMER_II__Curse_of_the_Vampire_Coast/

A few new, completely different factions to try!

I started a new save, this one as the Dreadleet on Very Hard. Actually I started on Legendary, but had forgotten that means no orders can be issued when paused, actually nothing can be done while paused, like scoping the battlefield, zooming out to take it all in, checking morale on enemy units and so on. While I like the challenge, I also value the ability to pause and look around, so I restarted on very hard. Things happen too fast on legendary for me, and it Iacks the sense of control needed to both fight well and enjoy myself while doing so.

So these new factions are vampire pirates. They have unique campaigns and mechanics, completely different from any others. In essence, they are hybrid hordes and normal factions. The faction leader gets mechanics very similar to hordes in Attila. You build up your ship, which allows recruiting and other bonuses in the same way any city does. But it's mobile. So if you want to spend the campaign pillagin' and plunderin', sackin' and razin', you can do it easily. There is no need to ever settle or occupy.

I played Dreadfleet in the Vortex campaign, and the objectives are different from most races, the ones that are racing to control the Vortex. The Vampire Coast factions instead are attempting to control an ancient seamonster. In order to do that the player must complete missions, such as obtain a weapon (win a battle), and defeat various pirate captains to obtain their sea shanties. When all have been gathered, a final battle is fought to win the campaign.

What this means is that the player can really do anything he wants. You can conquer and expand, or simply sail your fleet around doing piratey things. Like the Skaven's undercity mechanic, the Vampire Pirates have a Pirate Cove mechanic. Using agents, or through battle, pirate coves can be constructed on any settlement. These can be used to siphon money, or other benefits for the pirates. In this way, you can maintain an income without ever actually conquering anything. Sack, raid and cove your way to riches.

There are a host of other new mechanics and features, new units, agents that hunt for treasures and tech trees. There are 'Offices' you can assign your generals to, like the Empire have, but with better bonuses. Vampire Coast factions have a cool roster. They are similar in some ways to the Vampire Counts from WH1. They have the raise dead ability for instant recruitment, and their troops never break. Cause they're already dead I guess. But unlike the VC, these new factions have gunpowder! Great artillery and missile units. Infantry isn't the best, but with strong ranged units and monstrous units the infantry isn't as key as with some other factions.

I enjoyed the first 100 turns of the campaign. I chased objectives, raided and pillaged and eventually took a province to give me some territory. Battles were fun. But after a while I felt like I had little aim. It wasn't strategic like I want it to be. No plans for conquest of distant targets, few enemies to defend against. Maybe a pirate's life's not for me. I plan to try another campaign with a different faction and treat it more like a conventional campaign, with conquest and expansion, while having the pirate ship to aid in these endeavors and still do pirate stuff on the side to gain infamy, money and experience.

After a year of playing this game off and on, time to take stock. I've played campaigns as the following factions, though some were never completed, and some played more than once.


Clan Skyre
Clan Mors
Khemri
Naggarond
Dreadfleet
Vampire Coast (starting tonight!)
Last Defenders
Hexoatl
Lothern
Loremasters
Von Carstein
Bretonnia
Dwarfs (Thorgrim Grudgebearer)
Dwarfs (Grombrindal)
Empire

I think that's it? Plenty more to go....

As mentioned, I decided to try a different Vampire Coast DLC faction, oddly enough it's the Vampire Coast

Another pirate faction, but this one starts with a settlement, The Awakening, on the northeast coast of Lustria. Having a province capital as the starting town is quite useful. Instead of playing full-bore pirate, I'm doing a hybrid sort of run, conquering and expanding ashore, while ploughing the high seas in search of riches and scurvy dogs to fight.

Roster is the same as the Dreadfleet I played first. Units offer a nice mix of ranged, melee and monstrous, but lack cavalry. The legendary lord, Harkon (shown above) is awesome. A lot of work goes in to these Legendary Lords, for their skills, spells, unique traits and so on. But most of them I develop little affinity for. They are just the sharpest tool in the drawer. However a few I take a real shine to. Queek Headtaker, the skaven lord for Clan Mors, is one. I loved his whole act, from the voice acting, to the 'personality', his abilities, his bring-it-on attitude. My favorite one so far.

Harkon is another. He has a 'fractured mind' ability, if you can call it that. His madness means that at random times a different personality will take over, changing his unique skills and traits. "The Mad", "The Coward", "The Bad", "The Narcissist". This occurs with no warning, always keeping me guessing, and adapting to the new guy in charge. Fun. This has it's own quest chain, and eventually if you meet all the requirements, you'll reunite his mind. I have yet to achieve this so don't know what benefits this imparts.

He carries a pistol, and it's awesome watching him take aim and firing a devastating round that rips through the enemy ranks.

On the battlefield I rely on the artillery to weaken the enemy. Good gunner units help too. Infantry is not a strength. The high-tier units, called Depth Guard, are awesome. But their unit count on ultra is just 60, whereas most other factions have 80 to 120 in theirs, and with all armies capped at 20 units, every swinging deck matters. And there is no shielded version so they are vulnerable to missiles. The lower tier infantry, called Zombie Deckhands, have a unit count of 160, but they aren't very strong. I keep a few in the army to bolster the Depth Guard. Overall, the infantry is underwhelming. The aces up my sleeve are units called Bloated Corpses. They are literally suicide bombers. You can walk them in to an enemy unit and they explode, using up the unit, but dealing high damage. Properly timed, this is a battle-changing ability.

The units are also Aquatic, meaning they don't suffer penalties from fighting in shallow water, so that is a key terrain piece on any map when playing these factions.

Monstrous units tend to be the decider in many battles. With middling infantry units, having strong, tanky monstrous units is good. Giant crab-like creatures called Rotting Leviathans are devastating to closely-packed infantry lines. But my favorite is the Necrofex Collosus. See the thing in the shot above that looks like a cross between a ship and a titan? That's the Necrofex. It has ranged attack, massive melee attack, causes fear and is armor piercing. Awesome.

Like the Skaven, this faction has become one of my favorites despite the fact that before playing them I wouldn't have thought they would be for me. The Vampiric Corruption mechanic is great for helping defend your lands. Non-vampire invaders suffer terrible attrition to it. Allowing the enemy to come to you, then counter-attacking after a round or two of attrition works so well. I really enjoy the campaign play, the ability to play the hybrid style, and the feasibility of playing tall. The pirate coves mechanic lets you support a growing army, without needing to expand your territory along with it.

It's to CA's credit that they keep coming up with interesting, unique factions. I now own every DLC made for Warhammer 2 (and some from WH1 which can be played in the Mortal Empires campaign alongside the WH2 factions), which says it all really. I've enjoyed a lot of Total War titles. Atilla and Napoleon probably my favorites, with honorable mention to Shogun 2 and Med 2. But none of those games are anywhere close to WH2 in the sheer variety and scope of what they have in Warhammer 2. The replayability is sky-high as a result. I listed the factions I have played in the last post, and it's as many as I've played in any three historical titles probably, Medieval 2 excluded. In those games, switching factions means some differences, but in many ways they are very much alike, aside perhaps from the hordes in Atilla. But in WH2 every one is very different. I've been harping on this 'factionality' as I am calling it. But it's what makes this game so compelling, and so much fun to try a new one.

Edit: Errata correction: I do not own the Beastmen DLC, oops

Hey DBond! I just started playing WH TW quite recently. Bought it during Christmas sale. I'am during my first campaign with the Empire. I have to say it's guite difficult and i had to restart couple of times. Little money, only one army to afford after taking first province, Beastman, Greenskins, problems with public order and vampiric corruption. Just another day at the office:)

After the Empire i really would likr to play as Norsca and of course Vampires. When i'am done with those, then i will get Warhammer 2.

Cool mate, Empire was the second faction I played with, although I bought WH2 first, then picked up WH1 in order to play the Mortal Empires campaign, which stitches together the maps from both games and is an epic campaign with all of the factions on the map. I played a couple of WH1 campaigns, but mainly bought it to have those factions playable in ME.

If you like Warhammer, I reckon you'll love Warhammer 2. It's better in a lot of ways, subjectively, and the ability to still play whichever 'old world' factions you want is a neat bonus. Plus, WH2 has the Vortex campaign, which shakes up the traditional blob-fest type campaign play that the TW series is known for. I really like it, though not everyone does.

Beastmen are one faction I've yet to play, and I never did pick up their DLC for WH2. I have almost all of the rest of it.

From WH1 my favorite faction was the Dwarfs. From WH 2 the Skaven, but on both games there are so many options, the replayability is high. Each faction is so unique, and as I've gone on and on about in this thread, this factionality has a huge appeal for me, as you never feel like switching factions is more of the same, ya know?

I picked up the Shadow and the Blade DLC, but for now at least I am skipping the Hunter and the Beast.

As mentioned, there's been a massive improvement in the turn times in Mortal Empires. Very nice.

New Skaven faction, Clan Eshin, is cool. The other three LLs in the above mentioned DLC don't hold much appeal for me at the mo.

I was thisclose to having someone to discuss Warhammer with when Cheyenne made his post. So close, and yet, so far

I played Clan Eshin in Mortal Empires. They are a pretty cool Skaven faction, with stealth and subterfuge their calling cards. But the starting position is pretty poor. A one-province start on the east coast near the lizards, goblins and dwarfs. Proximity to Queek is nice, and the two of you can team up to cause mayhem. Eshin's drawbacks though are hard to overcome at the start, particularly the fact that non-Eshin units cost double, which hurts until the economy is banging. And Skaven economies never quite bang like the best of them, since most of the world hates you and won't agree to trade deals.

I noticed I had not gotten two achievements, one for winning a WH2 campaign with an Old World faction (from Warhammer 1) and had not won a WH2 campaign as Dwarfs. So two birds with a single stone and played as Grombrindal, conquering and confederating my way to victory on turn 160 (Hard/Hard). That was cool and all, but what really jumped out at me was how powerful both Queek of Clan Mors, and Franz of the Empire became. Far better than in any of the previous dozens of WH2 campaigns I have played. Not sure what was changed through DLC or patches that would benefit them so much, but clearly it did.

One more note, not only are CA pumping out DLC, with new mechanics and legendary lords, they are also expanding the Mortal Empires map, adding additional territory to accommodate these newcomers. Seriously, anyone who likes Total War games has to play this campaign. It's epic. There has to be 150 factions on the map at the start, and others can emerge through the course of it. Battle royale, TW-style.

With the recent up-tick in Total War discussion around here lately, it got me thinking about it and I fired up Warhammer 2 once again. No new DLC since February that I can see.

The hard part is deciding on which faction to play. My DLC soup gives me 45 legendary lords to choose from. Some of those are free DLC, but most are paid, either through the game or paid DLC. There are a few DLCs I have not gotten, like the beastmen, so there are several more LLs I don't have. 45 is a lot though, and gives plenty of range of choice. So which to play?

I fired up the last campaign I was playing that I didn't finish, the Clan Eshin Skaven run. I had mentioned the struggle I had economically in that run in my last post, but after loading it up I noticed it was on Very Hard, and that would explain it. For me to have any hope for success with VH campaign difficulty I need a faction with clear opening advantages, like Tyrion, Malekith or Kroq-Gar. Very Hard is OK once I've gotten 50 turns in. But openings at that level are difficult for me, and it often all goes to sh!t, requiring save-scumming or restarts and that's not how I want to play.

Hard/Hard has always been my sweetspot, but I wanted to get the achievement for winning a Skaven campaign on VH or Legendary. It's not impossible, but I don't think Clan Eshin is the right one to do it with. Their starting location in Mortal Empires is bad. Cool mechanics and I want to give them a proper go, but at lower settings to make it less of a chore. This new DLC faction is all about subterfuge and back stabbing and have a Shady Dealings mechanic to do it. They also have a +200% recruiting premium on the types of units I want to field which is a drawback. I think if I give them another go I'd do it at Medium/Hard because otherwise the AI will always have superior stacks since I can't afford to match their better infantry units. Skaven have excellent ranged weapons, but their infantry is sub-par, so it's important to at least have the best ones.

Another run I had aborted was also Skaven, as Ikit Claw of Clan Skryre. This faction is one of the coolest in Warhammer. They have a Forbidden Workshop mechanic that lets you built weapons and improve them, including a weapon not unlike a tactical nuke. It is devastating and a bit OP, though how many you can build is restricted so you only have them now and then. Skaven are rats, and even though it probably would have been my least favorite race coming in to the Warhammer series, it became my favorite after playing them all. And as rats might do, they can burrow underground. They can travel across the campaign map, using the Underway, ignoring terrain like mountain ranges, and bypassing enemy armies unable to do the same. A devious and fun mechanic that adds a whole new aspect to map movement. Dwarfs and Orks can also travel this way, and this leads to some interception battles in huge underground caverns with no retreat option. Like TWs version of a cage match.

And aside from the campaign map, the Skaven also have a mechanic called the Menace Below, which can spawn a unit of slaves anywhere on the tactical battlefield. It's easy to see how this can be used, raising them in to an enemy artillery battery, or stand of archers. Mayhem ensues. Now, imagine using a Menace Below on and advancing army deployed in line abreast, who both outnumber you and are much stronger. Every unit nearby decides to get their licks in on this unfortunate mass of wavering rat-slaves that have appeared in the midst. That makes one very unlucky unit of shattered rat-slaves ground zero for the tactical nuke strike. The aiming point, if you will, now surrounded by the ill-disciplined enemy infantry.

Boom, chaka

And the odds are now a bit more even. That's how the Skaven play, expendable fodder backed by overwhelming ranged firepower, and supported by a web of undercities, siphoning food and money from the unsuspecting factions above. And that's a lot of fun.

I took a flyer on this one in the Steam Sale. It's not that I'm a Warhammer guy, the best I can say is that I'm aware of the existence of the franchise. But I've always been intrigued by the Total War series. I have a good friend who is a big fan of it, and hearing him talk about it has made me curious. I picked up Napolean in a Steam sale ages ago (~$5 for the "Definitive Edition" which includes all DLC), but never really gave it a go. I tried the tutorial a couple of times but never really did much more than that. I've also picked up Shogun 2 (it was a giveaway at some point so I nabbed it) and Rome II Emperor Edition (not sure how that one wound up in my collection, but there you go.)

From what I've read online, Warhammer 2 is considered by many to be the high water mark of the Total War series. I've been keeping an eye on it, and gave into temptation late one night during the sale and promptly lost even a few more hours of sleep to it. I am finding the tutorial to be much more approachable, I feel like I have a handle on the campaign, at least the strategic layer. The tactical is what is killing me. I'm in need of a good lesson or video series on battle management - not just the initial deployment, but what to do with my units during the actual engagement.

So any good tutorial videos or guides out there you can suggest?

Which faction are you playing? There are very distinct differences from one to the next, and how I approach the battle depends on what my faction's strengths and weaknesses are.

Early on you won't have much of your recruitment unlocked. At this stage it's standard TW fare, form a line of infantry, with ranged units deployed close behind them. Cav out on flanks, maybe hidden in some trees. Once the lines are in contact, slam the cav in to the rear of the enemy units and keep cycling, don't let the cav get bogged down in melee, their strength is in the charge. Army composition is important too.

Once the enemy infantry is engaged, I will try to work my ranged units around the flanks to shoot more bad guys than good guys. Flanking is powerful in TW. I might keep a couple of infanty units in reserve, using them to either stiffen wavering units, or if things are going OK, work them around to surround one or more enemy infantry units. Morale breaks can chain down the line, so if you can get one enemy unit to rout, it can snowball down the line. Killing or wounding the enemy leader is the best way to break the enemy, but that can be difficult depending on who that is.

Sorry I can't recommend any videos, not sure I've ever watched one.

Artillery is important. Not only for the damage it can do, but because it tends to compel the AI to come to you.



Not around here, as there is a decidedly historical bias. I get it, but I think people are missing the best TW title of them all as a result. A few years ago I gifted a copy of WH2 to someone who as far as I know never played it. That was a disappointment. I've played most TW titles, and like all of them, but for me WH2 stands above, for reasons I have outlined in this thread.

As for videos on WH2, I would watch Legendoftotalwar's stuff. He exclusively streams WH2 for the past year, and made a ton of WH2 content before that as well. There are tons of battle tips for pretty much every faction to find there

Thanks, Vaderini. I'll check him out.
I'm playing the High Elves with Tyrion. So far I've had mixed results in battle, albeit one battle I had was using the garrison at a city rather than my main army. They didn't stand much of a chance but we gave 'em a bloody nose at least!

Good choice. That's the faction I recommend for a first go. Your strengths are your archers, which have longer range, your cav, which you probably don't have much of at this point, and the Sea Guard, which are a ranged unit that is good in melee. Skirmish mode can make these units retreat as the enemy approaches so I turn that off. Mix spear and sword units until you can get a lot of Sea Guard. Your weakness is the bolt thrower, but it will still get kills and compel the enemy to come to you. Eventually you'll have dragons and pheonixes (pheonixii?), which are mid-tier as monstrous units go, but very cool. Chariots can be effective, but I am not a big fan.

Eventually you'll get some high end infantry, but that's much later on.

So I'd look to make something like 8-10 infantry (sword/spear/Sea Guard), 4-6 archers, two bolt throwers and the rest cav for a good balanced composition. In the early going this is difficult of course, but once you have consolidated the starting province you'll be in better position economically to field full stacks.

As High Elves, alliances are easy, and trade partners and confederation too. Look to form strategic alliances with a few others to protect you from strong enemies until you get your feet under you. This is the Vortex campaign correct?

I've got a better handle on things now - I think I'll restart the campaign and see how I do. I've gotten a better handle on combat, unit usage, and army composition (at least at first). I also have a better sense of the campaign.

The campaign is interesting. You're in a race, except you're really not. It might seem that you need to get going and keep up with the rituals, but you have time and can take it slow, waiting until you've built up your forces. I don't know which difficulty you are playing, and much depends on that, but when you do start a ritual Chaos stacks spawn and come for you, so you have to be prepared for that.

The key is to identify and capture the way-fragment sites whenever possible so that you are generating it and not your rivals. It makes the campaign more strategic than other TW campaigns in the sense you are encouraged to conduct raids and surgical strikes, targeting and taking those sites or at least stopping the rival rituals, rather than a running a creeping border tide.

Tyrion can be a monster of melee, depending on your choices when upgrading him. Get him in to battle as much as possible so he reaches the highest levels.

If you end up liking Warhammer, the ultimate TW campaign in my view is the Mortal Empires campaign, which is a free download, but does require owning WH1. It stitches together the maps from both games as well as all of the factions. It's epic.

You might already be aware, but there are a number of free DLC on the Steam Store for WH2. You can get a few Legendary Lords this way

Yes, I made sure to get all the Legendary Lord freeware they had. I also grabbed a couple through the Total War dashboard.
I have to confess - my initial reaction to the game was positive enough that I grabbed WH 1 and a couple of DLC for WH2 before the Steam sale ended. I felt that way when I wanted to play that expanded campaign the price was about the same as a DLC addon. Plus you get the built in WH 1 campaign and all the factions. The DLC I grabbed were the Vampire Coast and Tomb King ones - both of those races sounded quite interesting (and c'mon - skeleton soldiers!!) so again I figured grab it while the price is good.

If you ever read through this thread you'll see that both Tomb Kings and Vampire Coast were factions that I really enjoyed. They are cool too because they are not part of the Vortex race, but have different campaign objectives. All of this points to the thing I've gone on about endlessly in this thread, and that's the 'factionality' as I call it, or the uniqueness of each and every one that gives WH2 more replayability than other TW titles.

That's great you have WH1. While it's worth a go on it's own, I really like having those "Old World" factions available in the ME campaign.

I do remember a mention of the Tomb Kings (that's what led me to look into it) but I don't recall the Vampire Coast. I'll have to go back and check your impression on it. I do recall reading you rather enjoyed the Dwarfs as well. I look forward to playing more of this title.

I also went and fired up the other TW titles I have just for laughs and I have to say for the 15 minutes I gave each one of them, Rome II is the one that sticks in my mind. I'm not sure why, but that is a title I plan on checking out sometime soon as well.

I also plan on grabbing Troy for free on Epic when it comes out.
Because free.

haha honestly I've enjoyed virtually all of them. So I reckon there's little to learn from my testimonials

Vampire Coast is cool because it is a hybrid nation, where you have normal landlubber type gameplay, but also a mobile base that's your pirate fleet. It plays sort of like the hordes from Atilla. The Dreadfleet is another of those factions but have no land-based territory, though you can of course capture some. But you can also play tall, pillagin' and plunderin' the whole way through.


Tomb Kings are cool with some very unique mechanics, including no upkeep for their armies. Dead guys don't get paid I suppose. Instead, your force limits are dictated by your buildings and tech.

Even though I like most of the races/factions in WH2, if I had to pick a few that did not light my fire it would be Wood Elves, Greenskins, Beastmen and the Bretonnia factions. But that's the appeal, so many to try, and with a very different experience.

Well I can see this becoming quite a time sink!

I've dropped over 1000 hours in to it so far over the years. Not quite EU IV level, but I say that any game I play for more than 300 hours is a classic. Whenever a new DLC drops I give it another go.

Wow. I can't think of a game I've got that kind of time into - maybe Elite Dangerous, certainly Eve, but other than that nothing comes close.

Yeah, it's my shame

I'd say I've dropped that much time in to all of these titles

Grand Prix Legends
Falcon 4
MiG Alley
TW Med 2
Warhammer 2
EU IV
Elite Dangerous

Ooh Falcon 4 - add that one to my list as well!
And IL-2 1946.

if i extend that to series, it would be more. Civ, Football Manager, Deus Ex, Silent Hunter and more would hit that mark combined.

i had a look at the latest WH2 DLC and might have to pick it up. That free Imrik one looks cool. A high elf dragon lord.

And i have never given Greenskins a proper go, I keep waiting for a DLC to flesh them out, and the Warden and the Paunch DLC looks to do just this. Might be time for a new WH2 run.

Well if we are going to go back even more, I'd have to add the original Civ, the original Elite, Elite:Frontier (2nd one), and a shareware title called "MechForce." Battletech is its spiritual successor.

I restarted my campaign. I'm only 4-5 turns in and I've taken over the Lothern province. I'm thinking I'll hire a 2nd lord to just run the map and chase down goody huts. Eventually I'll build him an army when it fits the economy. Good idea?

yes, I do that often. if you can afford the additional maintenance you can make a boatload of money plus some buffs that way. Many of those pay a lot better when you can fight the battle, but even just sailing around with a lord on his own can bring in big money.

As I am sure you noticed, each army raises the upkeep costs of all other armies by a few percentage points. So while a new lord is affordable I'm sure, it also raises the upkeep costs of your first field army. The treasure lord should easily cover those costs though.

I did end up picking up the free Imrik DLC along with the paid Warden and the Paunch DLC.

Imrik is really cool, but his start locations are bad. You have this kick-ass dragon army but terrible terrain, lands and economy. Grom the Paunch is also really cool, but I started a game as him and didn't like the way he is voiced, his dialog. But his campaign could be fun. And the new high elf lord Eltharion or somesuch is cool too, starts in a good spot and has some fun units and mechanics, but his game consists of waiting 150 turns for Grom to arrive. I played a few turns of this campaign and I'll see how it goes. Maybe I can confederate the other elves before Grom gets here.

I'm really enjoying this game! Here's my campaign progress so far - I've finished off Cult of Excess (no real trouble there) then turned toward Saphery and took them out. That was a bit more challenging. After taking 3 of her 5 cities, Harrieth got much more difficult. She wasn't fielding a full stack, but had units more advance than what I had available (Silver Helms, White Lions of Chrace, and Swordmaster of Hoeth to name a few). I managed to get her down to one city, one of the minor settlements (Tor Finu) on Saphery, but I couldn't finish her off. Her city garrison and her army were too much. I even recruited a second army (though not a full stack) to attempt to crack it but couldn't.

Finally I decided to try and lure her out. I left he area, and she promptly grabbed Shadow Peak away from me. I stayed away for a bit, and she moved back to Tor Finu. This time, I sent one army (Tyrion, my main army) between Tor Finu and Shadow Peak, and the other army (now almost a full stack) sat just south of Tor Finu. Harrieth came after Tyrion to stop me from grabbing that city back, and this time I smashed them, killing her in the process. I quickly grabbed Shadow Peak and had both armies hit Tor Finu. The garrison was no match for what I had. Saphery was eliminated and the province was mine!

During the war with Saphery, Broken Axe Yvresse and then declared on me. They hit one of my cities while I was taking care of Saphery, and I've mixed up with them a couple of times since Saphery was defeated. I'm creating a 3rd army now (still have really good cash flow) and will start working on conquering them and driving them off the continent.

Nicely done. Any good confederation targets? Nearly half of Ulthuan is yours already.

One ritual done, good economy. Looks great JC. Who holds Caim Thel, is that greenskin rebels? Which units are you favoring?

Do you have access to regiments of renown? A lot of that is DLC locked so not sure what's required or if you have it.

Caim Thel is held by Broken Axe, a greenskin horde. I'm trying to confederate Avelorn and Ellyrian, but they aren't going for it yet. They like me a lot, and I've used Influence to tip the scale more my way, but they won't budge. I may have to throw some cash at them, but I've been building pretty heavily and I haven't got much in the coffers for bribes.

I don't have any regiments of renown, not sure if I have access to them or not.

UPDATE - ok, I looked into it, and I don't have any of the DLC that unlocks them for HE. Yet.
OH and I happened to notice in my previous post I meant to say that Broken Axe eliminated Yvresse and is now coming after me. IT got a little garbled.
Serves Yvresse right, though. I offered to confederate them a number of times and they turned me down!

Yeah I looked it up and they come from the Queen and the Crone DLC. They are not so amazing you need to get them, but they add something to recruitment and are fun to have in your armies. Perfectly fine without them too. They are just copies of existing units with some boosted stats and purple on their unit cards. And you only get one of each type, unless they are destroyed in which case you can recruit another. Nothing game-changing.

I tend to have one very high tier army at least, usually the one led by my faction leader, and I like to put these regiments in that army, 'cause it looks awesome lol. Other armies tend to have more pedestrian units due to upkeep costs. High elves though also tend to have strong economies, compared to some others like the Skaven, where it's not uncommon to have a few armies of low and mid-tier fodder.

Found that one on sale (~$5) so I grabbed it. I'll check into those Regiments and see what all the fuss is about!

The Greenskins on the east coast are giving me trouble. I can't quite seem to get a handle on how to take care of them in battle. Any tips?

Greenskins got a boost with the last DLC and seem a more difficult foe now, especially if their army has Black Orc units, which are strong. I think the key is your archers, how many do you field in each army? Are you up against one or the Legendary lords, and if so who is it? If the greenskins have a Waaagh it is quite difficult to beat them with a single stack.

I would look to try and bait them. Have a single stack within reach of their army, with a second stack right next to them in ambush. If the ambush works (not spotted) the enemy might attack, but find itself against two of your stacks. If they won't bite, try a half-stack as bait, with two armies in ambush.

My main goal when fighting difficult opponents is to incapacitate their lord. Focus-fire him with your archers and Tyrion. If you've gone down a melee path for Tyrion he is a good lord-killer. With their lord knocked out the rest become brittle.

I like to use mobile units to draw off some of the enemy, get them to chase, leaving a smaller portion to engage at first. If you have light cavalry or chariots they are good for this. Move them early out behind the enemy and off one flank, see if the enemy will go after them. Kite them away from your front line.

Flanking is especially useful in this game. Keep a reserve if you can and work them around the flank and envelop enemy infantry at one end of the line. They will suffer a couple of different modifiers (flanked, hit from behind) and will be much faster to waver and break. Low leadership units are especially vulnerable to this. Once both armies are engaged in melee, move your archers forward on the flanks to hit the engaged enemy from behind. And of course use your heavy cav to cycle-charge engaged enemy infantry and to disrupt enemy ranged units and artillery.

I'm up against Grom. I've killed him once, but he came back. I like the multi stack idea - the lord that killed Grom did so as a follow on attack after Grom tangled with Tyrion. For killing Grom, that lord now has a "causes terror in Greenskins" ability, I'll have to use that. I had put Tryion on the offensive with the idea that he is a superior fighter, but I'm going to have to go multi stack.

My problem has been their army comp is less on melee more on cav/ranged/monsters. I haven't figured out how to tackle that comp. I'll try your suggestions though, hopefully that will be more successful than I've been.

Grom's tough yes. He gets a cauldron mechanic which grants him and his army some nice buffs.

Grom's Cauldron

Bait and ambush works great in this game, if you can get the AI to bite. If the ambush army is placed between the bait and Grom, you'll even get an ambush battle out of it and then clean up. Of course terrain affects ambush chance so this isn't always possible to put the ambush army in front. Make sure the armies are within reinforcement range of one another of course.

When you click on an enemy stack it shows their movement range. Place your bait stack inside the edge of this if you have any other armies in range. When Grom attacks, retreat from the battle. Grom will not have the movement points to follow. Next turn hit his stack with all you've got.

Sisters of Averlorn make good anti-large units as they have AP damage, which your other archers do not (Dark Elves do). The magic arrows used by the Sisters ignore physical resistance, do extra damage to regenerating creatures (which some monstrous units have, like the trolls), and pierce armor. Spears (or Phoenix Guard) and Sisters can tag-team effectively against the monstrous units. Do you have dragons yet?

Do you have any allies in the war? Use the war co-ordination mechanic to hit them from two directions, or at least get your allies to fight where you need them to. Give them one of Grom's settlements as a target, or Grom's army itself. Distract or gang up.

Greenskins can use the underway, which can make them hard to pin down when and where you want to. If you can get an ally to hit them, even sacrificially, your army can clean up the remnants.

Avelorn and I managed to take out the Greenskins, and I never did run into Grom again so I didn't get much of a chance to try any of your suggestions. My battles have been either sieges or settlement battles I autoresolved because there was a very small garrison and and I didn't want to waste my time. After dealing with them a bit, I must say I look forward to play as that race at some point, if for nothing other than the flavor text of some of their units! There seems to be a quite a bit of "personality" to that faction. (Full confession, I picked up the Warden and Paunch DLC for the HE units and the opportunity to play Greenskins at some point when I found it on sale.)

My new nemesis is Skaven (I think, not quite sure). They took over a couple of my Saphery settlements, but I got one back. I'm currently reinforcing my army to get the second one back as well. They have two small-si stacks plus the garrison, I'll want 2 armies to take them on. I will try and bait the armies out of the settlement if I can to make the siege a little better but I am still rebuilding somewhat. Still, two stacks would seem to be a good way to go.

I've added Sisters of Avelorn as a replacement for depleted Lothern Guard units, and I'll upgrade my spearmen as well for a better front line. I'm waiting for some buildings to complete to be able to grab a dragon as well. I'm thinking I'll want to add a good Mage as well, I feel like I'm missing out without the ability to do some magic damage. I'll need a couple of Nobles to help out with my income too for the upkeep these new and improved units will bring with them.

I'm thinking Avelorn and Ellyrian have become too poweful for me to be able to confederate. I may have to take one of them on directly, which will hopefully make me strong enough to confederate the other. If I go that route, I'll use Influence to weaken their relationship to each other so they don't wind up allying against me, or better yet, one of them allies with me.

So far the game (or at least this particular run) seems to be one of constant warfare. In the ~100 turns I've got into this campaign, I may have spent at MOST 10 not in a war with somebody. Then again, the francise is "TOTAL War" so I guess that's to be expected!

Good work. I'd be interested to know if it actually is Skaven on Ulthuan. I have to say I don't think I've seen that in all my runs. I find one of the Norsca factions is likely to invade in that region, but maybe it is Skaven. They've changed so much, and added new factions and lords so things are constantly evolving. For what it's worth the Skaven are my favorite faction to play.

I started a Grom run when I picked up the DLC a few weeks back to see what his deal was. He is strong, and the cauldron mechanic is powerful. There are a number of GS lords to choose, but I think he is the top dog. Grimgor has good potential, but the others have much more challenging starts in both Vortex and Mortal Empires campaigns.

Sounds like you're having a good run full of action.

If you're anything like me you will eventually have virtually all of the DLC. I think there are only two I do not own.

Yeah, I'll get them all eventually. Probably as I play a race that gets stuff unlocked that way. Norsca has hit, briefly, on the NE shore of Ulthuan. They didn't bring much and the garrison was able to fend them off. It was actually a fun battle - 2 axemen and a Lord vs. the garrison of 3 spearmen and 2 archers. I killed off the Lord and ran off the axe units.

Double checked and its Morrslieb's Howlers, a rogue army. Has some greenskin units, but the lord/leader looks like rat - those are skaven, right?

OK, yes, the rats are Skaven. But that particular army, being a rogue one, is a mixed composition, fielding units from Skaven, Empire, Bretonnia, Greenskins and Chaos. Quite an eclectic mix I'd say

Oh joy. Well, I guess I get to see a few different units in action.

You sure will! They should have a doomwheel

Oh that sounds promising.

It's the "doom" part, right?

No, it's the "wheel" that gets me all squishy.

Morrslieb's Howlers are no more. I was able to reinforce Tyrion with another Lord (whose job seems to be chasing down goody huts and bringing reinforcements where they are needed) up to a full stack. I added some Silverin Guard as well as more Sisters of Avelorne. The rest of the army is a Lion unit (not the infantry, the actual lion unit whose name escapes me), Eagle Claw, Silver Helm, Heralds of the Wind, as well as Spearmen and LSG w/ shields.

I used Tyrion to bait Scalpake and another small army into a battle outside of Shadow Peak. Scalpake and friend had about 21 units, Tyrion was a full stack and his reinforcement was 14/20. Needless to say, much damage was done, and very little was left.

The following siege was one I probably should have just auto-resolved but it was close enough that I didn't want to lose anything important. After taking out the tower guns with my arty, my archers rained devastation upon any units on the wall. much of their army was routed before I entered the city. The artillery took the gate out, and I sent all my calvalry and infantry into the town square to capture it. There were some small skirmishes but nothing of note, and the city as well as the province of Saphery were once more safely in the grasp of Eataine.

My settlements in Northern Yvresse are dealing with some public order issues, as well as Norsca just across the sea, so that will probably be my next area of focus once I've tooled up my military (again.) I may fire off a ritual first though and deal with that first.

Yeah, the bait tactic works nicely to get the enemy away from their city and their garrison. Defeat the field army, then face the garrison on it's own.

I'm sure you know, but worth a mention, that you can disable taxes in a region temporarily to slow the public order drop after taking a province. If you can afford the drop in income it's quite useful. Then again, rebel armies make good field training, provided you can get to them quickly.

Yep, figured the taxes thing out already, though it didn't lower it enough to make a big dent. I went from -5 to -2 and I was at -95 in the province, so I bought myself a couple of turns but it will still rebel. And I will crush them.
But they are on the NE of Ulthuan and I am on the inner ring (inside of the mountains) so I have to go the long way to get to them, and it will take 4-5 turns, so they will be able to create a little havoc before they are crushed.

That's the sort of situation where the underway is so useful. You can simply burrow under those mountain ranges and pop up on the other side Dwarfs, Skaven and Greenskins can do this. Hella useful.

How many rituals have you completed?

You mentioned Heralds of the Wind. What are these?

That does sound awfully useful! I haven't done any rituals yet, which I may have to rectify soon I guess. I'm around 100 turns in.

Heralds of the Wind is a Regiment of Renown, basically a slightly buffed Ellyrian Reaver Archer.

My current army comp of choice is 6 Silverin Guards, 8 Sisters of Avelorn, 2 Silver Helms, 1 dragon, 1 Eagle Claw, a mage and lord.

Arrow rain!

Thanks for the info.

I thought I saw in one of your screens you had completed the first ritual?

No I have the way fragments to do it, but I haven't actually done it yet.

The first ritual has been started. I've got a few more turns until it's completed. So far I've had one Chaos army invade. After they razed one of my cities (almost losing to the inferior garrison in the process) Tyrion wiped them out with a full stack. My understanding is that the first ritual only spawns one invader - right? So i guess I can go about my business and let the ritual finish?

Meanwhile, I wound up confederating two HE factions - Nagarythe and Avelorne. I was surprised to get Avelorne, but I did. It cost me ton of cash though. I'm pretty much abandoning Nagarythe's former holdings - the Dark Elves are too powerful and it's too far away at this point to make a big push for it. I'll just bring Alith Anar to Ulthuan to help Alarielle and Tyrion take out Ellyrion. Once I have all of Ulthuan I may start looking to hit Naggarond.

I was thinking the first ritual was three armies, but it may be dependent on settings. I play on Hard/Hard. It may be one army either way, not certain.

No additional armies spawn after the start, but some could be hidden from view I suppose as they make their way there. Each successive ritual spawns stronger stacks. It's been a while since I was involved in the ritual race. I've been either playing ME, or factions that have alternative objectives in Vortex.

I'm on Normal/Normal, and it looks like only the one army will be spawned.

So Skaeling is screwing up my plans with Ellyrion by declaring war on me and getting all hostile. I had just put my armies in position for a multi-vector attack on Ellyrion holdings too. It was going to be glorious, but I don't want to give up my eastern holdings to those Norsca, so I'm pulling back and reorienting for an all out offensive against the Norsca.

Then on to Ellyrion.

Smash the Norscan swine! Those dudes are a royal PITA. They just keep coming until they are dead.

Sounds like you've taken nearly the entire starting island? Do you hold the volcano province just to the west of Lothern? I'm sure you do but that is a great dragon recruitment settlement of course.

Once done, you can jump across the seas to the west where there are more ritual currency sites. Either raze them to deny, or take them to boost your generation of the currency. Dark Elves are strong late game if they have not imploded. Their AP archers are not to be trifled with. Skaven and Tomb Kings in that direction as well, but maybe they've been killed off by now?

I've decided to hit the Ellyrion hard and fend off Skaelen as well. The force slider you see with the relative strengths of factions show both of them to be far inferior to me, so I think I can take them. Ellyrion has some settlements on the continent to the east too, but I'll hit them last. I'll divert a couple armies to Skaelin - I've got 6 or 7 since I confederated Avelorn and Nagarythe, and I'm still pulling in decent cash per turn. Once those insolent fools have been dispatched I'll take turn my sight toward the Druchii.

To answer your question, I do not have the volcano province yet - I have taken the northern city (Caledor's Repose) but not the Vault (which is the way fragment source). I should take that soon, as in when I sit down to play again. I'm not sure about factions much to the west of where I am (or to the East either for that matter). I will have to be a little more aggressive, as one of them just lit off their 3rd ritual.

Skaelen peaced out, but the Dark Elves are making their move. I think my best choice may be to see if I can end the war with Ellyrion and focus on the DE. They are hitting me hard in NW Ulthuan, and have a couple of armies on NE shore as well. I've had a couple of battles where I was outmatched but inflicted some heavy damage. I need to upgrade my armies a bit to put up a better fight - I'm recruiting Phoenix Guards for melee and Sisters for archers, along with some cav and artillery. I like to put a dragon in there as well.

This is going to be quite a war.

Yeah, that's my preferred composition too. I ignore Chariots beyond the one you start with. But PG + Sisters is strong. Add some Dragon Princes, a couple of Dragons and the lame but necessary Bolt Throwers and you have an army that is a match for any.

I like having a mage with my melee lords too. A little magic can go a long way it seems.

Yes, that is a combat multiplier. Good shout.

It's looking like I'll have to stick a fork in this campaign - I'm pretty much done. Peaced out with Ellyrion, but now Skaven is hitting me with 5 full stacks from the south, in addition to the Naggarond hitting me from the North and East. I just don't have the firepower to handle all that. I'll let it run a bit longer and see what happens, but it ain't looking good.

No worries, I've had a few campaigns where I threw in the towel due to massive alliances against me that would just make it a slog. It's a good opportunity to try out a different race in a different part of the map if you're so inclined. If you do and want any opinions on the other races and campaigns I'd be happy to help.

My very first run in WH2 was as Tyrion, and I did not finish it either (until I did another one much later on).

You had a good run and saw what the game's all about so a new run should go even better depending on who you pick maybe.

I'm thinking about playing as Grom....

As good as any I reckon, but he is one I have yet to really play. As I said earlier I started it but only played a few turns to see what he was all about. He looks strong, and the cauldron mechanic seems powerful. That would be a huge shift from High Elves and you'd get a taste of the factionality as I like to call it, or the singularity of each one. He also has alternative Vortex campaign objectives, which is a nice change as you'll need to invade Ulthuan and the High Elf faction included in the same DLC. And don't forget Mortal Empires, which is worth a go if you like huge TW campaigns (you've not seen anything like it in terms of scale this franchise). Plus you'll have a chance to use the underway. Armies using the underway can be intercepted, which results in a cage-match, with no retreat option. So I advise only using the underway with your strongest field armies unless you can be sure there's no chance of an interception.

FWIW, start positions (and the entire map really) change from Vortex to ME, so this as a good way to mix things up even if playing the same faction twice.

I wound up going Tomb Kings instead, but I get what you mean about the 'factionality.' I've only gone a handful of turns in but they play different, they tech differently, their endgame is different, their "management" if you will is different as well. I like the fact that even the interface has a different theme too. Nice little touches, the one thing they missed (and I'm really nitpicking here) is that they could have used faction specific lore on the load screens rather than the tutorial stuff. I don't particularly care about Warhammer lore, and until this game I couldn't have named a single WH race, but it would have been a nice touch.

Cool choice. I've just done one TK run, as Settra in the Vortex campaign. I really enjoyed that one. No recruitment or upkeep costs seems OP at first, but money was really tight so it sort of evened out. Great monstrous units. One good side effect of the no cost is that it's the only race where I use the global recruitment as much as local. New armies can be raised in just a couple turns. I also like factions/races that have a crafting mechanic like TK does. Fun to play around with.

The final battle of the campaign was a real b!tch, and I won it with a single Titan left standing. Those things are awesome. Even Settra went down, but the lone Titan was all that was left standing. Good stuff. Which faction did you choose?

I'm playing Settra - I'm seeing the money thing, it seems tight for the TK. I'm also thinking there's no reason to not have a full stack for any lord I run.
I've still only got the starting monstrous unit - a scorpion I think - but wow is it powerful! I beat the snot out of a few GS units all by itself.

It's been a while but as I remember it my early infantry were pretty poor, so the monstrous units were essential to win battles.

I agree, no reason not to have full stacks, and with lords limited by tech/buildings it's not like you have the luxury of lots of armies.

The alternative campaign objectives are cool since you can go at your own pace, not in a race like the Vortex factions.

Your recollection is spot on - the early infantry is really squishy, I did most of the heavy lifting with Settra and the monster. Archers were helpful too.

I'm thinking I may alter my approach - run a bunch of turns as TK and then move on to another race and go through all of them that way. Then I'll do the same with the ME races not in Vortex to get an idea of what they are like too.

Then I'll try to complete a campaign. Since this is the first TW title I'm give some serious play time too, it may be a better way to go than to just try and slog through a campaign. I'll have a little better idea of the opposing units after I play them for myself a bit too.

To be honest, the actual combat is what's giving me the most trouble. I'm getting the hang of it, but I tend to lose track of some units or get bogged down micro-ing others.

My first reaction is don't do that, as playing them all in short order would leave you with nothing new to look forward to. But then again, there are so many to choose from (I think my DLC soup gives 45 LLs) and there is new DLC regularly, and until that stops, there will always be new LLs to play. And with two campaigns to choose from, the replayability is high. So yeah, why not, right?

I'd be interested which one ends up being your favorite after you've tried them all. For me it was a surprise, as my favorites were ones I would not have guessed beforehand. I've played nearly all of them now, and frankly there have been only a couple that I didn't care for. Easy to please I reckon

A good point, but like you said, there are so many to choose from, esp with 2 campaigns. I'm eager to try a bunch of different ones and see which I find most interesting.

I will say I'm enjoying the TK so far. I'm finding the unit limitation an interesting mechanic, esp now that I've unlocked a second army. All of a sudden I can't get enough archers. And I've recruited a Legion of Legend - The Flock of Djaf, a flying war beast. I haven't been able to use it in combat yet, but hopefully soon.

If you do I'd be interested in your thoughts on each.

If I were to name a top ten factions for me to play, it might look something like this

1. Clan Mors
2. Clan Skryre
3. The Awakened
4. Karaz-a-Karak
5. Naggarond
6. Reikland
7 .Khemri
8. Eataine
9. Clan Pestilens
10.Hexoatl

Yeah, I like Skaven

What is it about Skaven that you enjoy so much?

Skaven are cool for a number of reasons. Their monstrous units are lame, but everything else is good, especially the ranged options like the Plagueclaw Catapult, Ratling Guns and Jezzails. Infantry is an interesting mix of solid heavy units (Stormvermin) and clanrats/slaves. The lower tier units are dirt cheap, and expendable really. It's not uncommon to just light up the whole mess when these units are engaged with the enemy infantry. You can always buy more slaves. The ranged units are pretty devastating.

No real cavalry, but there are the doomwheels which while not as strong as a full heavy cav unit, are great at harassment and have good staying power. Skaven infantry is faster than most races, giving you the mobility advantage, and most units can kite the enemy, and the Skaven have a few archer units that can fire on the run. Kite while firing is effective. Skaven's mobility gives you the ability to gain tactical position more easily.

They have a battlefield ability called The Menace Below, which will spawn a unit of rats anywhere on the battlefield, which is very cool in a number of scenarios. Like raising them in the middle of a stand of archers or an artillery battery. Lots more uses as well.

In the campaign they have some advantages as well as some restricting mechanics. Expansion is tempered by the food mechanic. Each new settlement or army costs one food, and if you go below the food threshold you suffer penalties. Stay above and gain some buffs. Some players don't care for it, but for me it adds some more strategy to the campaign which I like. One of their best campaign abilities is they always have a chance to get an ambush battle, from any stance. So you can attack another army and have it be your ambush, not just waiting in ambush stance for an enemy army to wander past.

And I also like the undercity mechanic. Skaven can build an undercity beneath any settlement. This can be used in a number of ways, to siphon gold, generate food, spread corruption or even to raise an army in the enemy's heartland. Vampire Coast factions have Pirate Coves which work in the same way.

I also like almost all of the Skaven roster. Aside from not having cav and good monstrous units, they have a very diverse and effective roster, with plenty of armor piercing and specialized units. Their best infantry is not among the best in WH2, but they fit in the fireteam concept I tend to roll with, and their mobility helps to even out their stat disadvantage. When the full roster in unlocked, a Skaven army is capable of taking on any composition due to the variety of damage and skills they have. Queek Headtaker of Clan Mors is my favorite. I dig his vibe, the bring it on attitude. No one really likes the Skaven, so you don't expect much in the way of allies,confed targets or trade agreements. But in the campaign and on the battlefield I find them the most fun to play. Us against the world, if you can find us.

Sounds cool, maybe I'll make them my next stop on the whirlwind tour! I'm still enjoying TK, but I see the mistakes I've already made in the campaign, so maybe it's time to move on to another faction.

I would be interested to see what you think if you do. I think there are currently five LLs to choose from, all with different characteristics and starting positions of course. I think the best ones to play are Mors, Skryre and Pestilens. Eshin I didn't care for too much, they have doubled costs for many of my favorite units, and Rictus starts in a poor position.

Queek's Mortal Empires start is labeled very hard. I didn't find it so (maybe some luck), but you do come up against Last Defenders (lizards) and a dwarf faction early on, before you've unlocked your roster. That is a challenge since they are much stronger at the start. Lizards and Dwarfs both have strong early armored units, which is difficult for the Skaven's squishy low-tier units to counter, and I try to rush Plagueclaws to help offset this. A good challenge

This sort of assymetry is a large part of Warhammer 2's appeal for me. Different opponents present entirely different problems, and effectively countering their compositions is one of my favorite parts of the game.

I'm seeing that with just hitting a couple of factions. TK plays way differently than Eataine did. The campaign priorities are different, and the mindset is different too. I don't mind whelping an army when I can just go and recruit replacements at no cost, esp if I can do a lot of damage to my opponent in the process. With Eataine, I was very conscious of my losses and tried to avoid situations that I didn't have a clear advantage. I also don't have a problem with recruiting a full stack as soon as I get a new lord unlocked. Again with Eataine, it was more of a gamble in terms of how much army can I afford - both recruitment costs and unit upkeep.

Odd thing is, money is no problem for me right now. I'm making pretty good cash per turn, whereas it seemed I was always scrounging with Eataine. I had a lot of income, but most of it was eaten up by my upkeep costs.

Yes, agreed on all points. And this is why I go on endlessly about the replayability

Empire is the most traditional (Warhammer 1, or "Old World" faction). They play more like a historical-title type faction. I've only played Reikland, but have done several times as I like their starting location.

Speaking of the historical titles, I'm also getting the urge to jump into one of the historical TW games I own just to get a different flavor of the series, but it's hard to put down WH.

Still cranking along in my TK playthrough. I've gotten most of the northern half of my starting continent. Along the way I eliminated a couple of Bretonnai factions, a couple other TK factions, a Dwarf faction (who was sitting on a city housing one of the Books of Nagash. Taking that city gave me the book. I gained another when I defeated a particular rogue army to the south of me. As it stands, the primary landholders of our continent are me and Clan Mors.

I'm going to have to go after them, as they have a city I need to conquer for another book. I'd like to clean them off completely, as the corruption is giving me headaches. I've had a bunch of rebellions pop up - easily handled but annoying. It doesn't help that I had an event fire in which I could either take a -10 diplo hit with all factions and a +8 public order or take a -8 public order and +10 diplo bonus. Since I was/am in the process of trying to get some allies to go after Clan Mors I took the public order hit and have had to deal with that.

Clan Mors has done some pretty heavy confederation, they've joined with at least two other Skaven clans. Fortunately, they just went to war with Eataine, who are currently #1 in the game (I am at 3, not sure where Clan Mors is right now). As my public order hit has just finished, I'm finalizing a couple of my armies (I've got 5 now) by upgrading some of the units. Once that is done (1 or two turns at best) I'll ally with the other groups at war with Clan Mors and do some war target coordination while I start my campaign. Hopefully the multiple fronts they are finding themselves on will keep them from focusing on me while I begin laying siege.

Watch out for Queek, he's a sneaky bastage

Have you used the war coordination thing? You can assign targets to your allies at war with the same faction. They don't always respond, but it's a good way to get your allies hitting the targets you want them to.

I'm sure - but he's been busy too. He's at war with practically all the top 10 factions. So naturally I'm going to take advantage of that! Of course that doesn't mean he's actively engaged with any of them I guess.

So far I've only been able to ally with one other faction who is at war with them. Apparently the enemy of my enemy is NOT necessarily my friend. I tried the war coordination thing a couple of times before with mixed results. I'll do it again just on the off chance it actually works.

If the faction you are trying to coordinate is strong with multiple armies they seem to respond most of the time. Smaller factions tend to ignore the request.

That would explain it.
So far the war goes well. Clan Mors is not making much of an attempt to defend their cities on this continent, so I figure their main territory is elsewhere. I've only had a single invading army show up, and most of the city battles are so one-sided I just auto-resolve.

The one army they sent did some damage though, they took out 2 of my lords and armies - those little buggers pack quite a punch. Both times my armies were ambushed while in March stance. They didn't stand much of a chance. I've built myself up to 7 full stacks, so this was more of an annoyance than a setback. All are back up and running now.

I've got a handful of cities to clear on this continent, and one more book available here as well. That will put me at 4 books. I'll bling out a few of my armies while travelling to get book five and then have the boss battle. Looks like I may see the end of this campaign after all.

Unless I get sidetracked by Troy...

Ah you're so close to victory! Don't get sidetracked too much until you've won. I want to see what you think of the final battle. Just one more book and then victory is within your grasp

The last battle is going to be ridiculous, isn’t it.

Yep.

Or, I thought it was. It was all going well, and then they got reinforcements and it became chaos. It's the one where I said at the end I had a single Titan left standing.

Skill cranking along agains Clan Mors. Man, that ambush ability Skaven has is deadly. I've lost multiple armies to him in a turn a few times. I've almost evicted him from the continent, there's only a few settlements left.
I'd love to just peace out from here and move on, but they aren't having it.

Skaven misbehavin'!

Yeah, that ambush ability is one of my favorite things about Skaven. When playing AS them anyway. Starting a battle with the enemy all bunched up for the march is perfect when you have such awesome artillery. Does Queek have your last book? Just one more to go right?

Still sitting at 3, though the rogue army carrying the 4th book is in the neighborhood of this nice Skaven city I've had my eye on. While I'm in the neighborhood, I figure I'll nab it.
I gotta get out of this Skaven war though. I've taken all the cities I want, now I have to get them off my back and out of this constant ambush thing. I'm not going to wipe them off the map (at least that's not the current plan), so it's time to move on. They're holding a grudge, though, and won't peace out.

Diplomacy in TW games sucks. In some titles it sucks not as much as it sucks in other titles. But overall? It sucks

Skaven have no friends. So they probably figure what's the point in striking a deal.

Imagine that Total War had diplomacy like EU IV. That would be cool.

You'd think they would want to cut their losses at some point though. Oh well, more exp for my lords, more conquest for me I guess.

I was thinking that adding the TW tactical layer into EUIV would be incredible.