OH, yeah, The Huntsmarshall's Expedition (henceforth abbreviated as THE) has chariot units. It's may not be well known, but I have an unreasonable disdain for chariot units. But, this War Cart unit basically saved my campaign. In the very first battle, my tiny starting army had to take on a lizard army with a stegadon. My units are way too squishy at this stage, and that dino could have wrecked me. But I sent he war cart out on a flanking maneuver as the enemy formation approached, which aggro'd the stegadon. My war cart I think was the same exact speed as the dino so I kept kiting it, with the dinosaur being fired on by the war cart. While the dino was chasing that unit I could deal with the rest of the army. And the war cart killed it!

So I like chariots a little more today.

Here's the blurb from Steam about part of the THE's campaign

"Emperor’s Mandate
As Markus Wulfhart expands Imperial interests in Lustria, his stature in the eyes of the Emperor grows. As a result, he receives a broadening range of increasingly advanced Empire units to aid in his expedition. As new territory is captured, his building options also diversify. In the Eye of the Vortex campaign, Markus will ultimately face the Spirit of the Jungle himself, Nakai the Wanderer, to decide who holds dominion over the jungles of Lustria.

Wulfhart’s campaign progress is measured by how effectively he fulfils the Emperor’s Mandate. Expansion, successful military operations and other campaign activities increase his acclaim, which is tracked on the Emperor’s Mandate bar.

The Emperor’s Mandate also dictates the quality of units available to Wulfhart via the Imperial Supplies system, which dispatches better units for him to recruit from time to time. As the Mandate bar fills, he will also unlock bonuses to further improve these units, plus new recruitment buildings.

In the Eye of the Vortex campaign, filling the Emperor’s Mandate bar will cause Nakai the Wanderer to issue a final, do-or-die challenge to Markus Wulfhart – a call to battle that will become the stuff of legend!"

This is proving to be an excellent campaign. Fun faction, and I like the unique mechanics. I've hardly recruited any units at all, with my field armies being filled out by the units provided by the Imperial Supplies mechanic and Regiments of Renown. As a result I've built military buildings in exactly one province, just in case they are needed. But they won't be.

It's a pretty free-form campaign, with no real objectives other than to increase acclaim to 100 in order to trigger the final battle. This is done by capturing territory and winning battles, raiding and so forth. So the player is free to expand as he sees fit. There is an alternative military objectives campaign, that requires eliminating certain factions, but I am not pursuing this. This is the Vortex campaign. Not sure where Wulfhart starts in Mortal Empires, but in Vortex the start is Scorpion Coast, along the northern shore of Lustria. This means Lizards, and lots of them, as we are essentially sandwiched by those factions such as Itza and Hexoatl (who would go on to confederate later on and have me surrounded). And to the east it's the vampire pirates of The Awakening, with all of their corruption. Or, it was

Lizard armies are some of the toughest fights in WH2. They are well-armored and have the very strong dino units, which are a b!tch to deal with on the battlefield. AP and anti-large units are key to counter them. Lizard ranged options are limited and cavalry too, but their melee/infantry stuff is some of the best in the game. It makes for classic WH2 asymmetric matchups since my infantry options are weaker, but I have artillery, good archer and handgunner units (armor piercing) and good shock, melee and ranged cavalry.

It's a campaign that has a nice narrative to it. One of the objectives is to 'locate' the Empire's hunters, special agents that are unlocked when performing certain tasks or entering specific provinces. They are strong and have cool backstories. Four in all, it's another recruitment that costs nothing (aside from upkeep of course), like the Imperial Supplies.

As you do battle and take territory you raise hostility with the jungle factions. It rises quickly and when it hits full, a full-stack top tier Lizard army is spawned nearby and beelines for your nearest city. This army is no joke and you have to stay prepared for its incursion. I don't have a robust economy, so can only field a few armies at this point, and they are spread thin covering too much ground. So when these enemy armies spawn it's a mad dash to intercept before they take down my settlements. Eliminating this army resets the hostility counter until it reaches full once more.

It's a cool faction with a fun campaign, even if to some extent it fails to bring the enemy diversity the game usually dishes out. Lots of lizards. But it also has the effect of conveying well the sense that your faction is really a expeditionary force of the Elector Counts. On your own in a foreign, hostile land. The 'support' you get from the homelands, in the form of new units, money and other assistance adds to the narrative.

Finished this campaign on turn 172. I'll add this faction too to my approved list

Good fun, this one. As mentioned I didn't get a shot at fighting many different races, it was almost entirely battles and war against lizards, but the vibe is cool, and I liked the unique mechanics of the Huntsmarshal's Expedition.

The campaign culminates in a final battle against Nakai the Wanderer, who it turns out is an ancient Kroxigor, or bad-ass dinosaur. This battle is like several others, such as the final battle in a Tomb Kings campaign. It's a huge mash-up. A couple things to note, and may help anyone who gives THE a run. The most important involves the Hunters I talked about earlier. There are four, and each of them brings a special ability to the final battle, such as ammo reloads or reinforcements. If all four are in your army, you get all the bonuses. I could see on the Hunters' unit cards that they had these effects. But it didn't say anything about whether these agents actually needed to be present in the final battle, or whether their special effects apply regardless. I guessed the former, but took two. I didn't want to sacrifice any of the units already in Wulfhart's army, so I split the difference and just took the two. The final battle was hard and I could have used the other two bonuses, but I made it anyway

The enemy forces were composed of four armies, three on the map at the start and a reinforcement army. This army is the one that poses the most threat, as by the time it arrives your forces are battered and probably have lost cohesion, as they chase routers, get pushed back or get separated in to individual pockets of battle across the map. Crucially, these enemy armies have many lords and agents, mostly bad-ass dinos. And interestingly they all bee-lined for my leaders. Usually they will get occupied by the infantry line, but here they all pushed right through and focused on my characters. It was a close-run thing in the end. It's easy to get lulled by the usual patterns of AI behavior, but here I was thrown a curveball which disrupted my carefully laid plans as well as occupied the units I count on to provide support through abilities and spells. Even still, after over 1000 hours of playing Warhammer 2 I got the achievement for using at least 10 different abilities in a single battle. This was because I had the two hunters, and I rarely have more than one agent in an army. And I needed every one of them to prevail.

Cool! I love your writeups, DB, even if I don't always respond, I am reading them!

Thanks kindly, JC. I appreciate the comment.

Every year it seems I go on a TW kick for about a month or so. I'm in it now, having played through a couple campaigns in Rome 2 and now those in WH2. So last night I thought I'd look in to player base reaction for the Wood Elves overhaul. I entirely disliked the old mechanics, the campaign sucked. But the comments I read made the changes sound great, so I bought yet another DLC when I saw that it was still on sale. The Twisted and the Twilight has Throt the Unclean for Skaven and the Sisters of Twilight for Wood Elves. The Sisters are a missile and mount faction with unique campaign mechanics that should fall right in my wheelhouse. At the very least the comments on Steam convinced me to give it a go. Steam says I have 28 DLC

The Twisted and the Twilight

When I loaded WH2 I decided I would clean out old saves, free up some space. I noticed my old save with Harkon of the Vamipre Coast wasn't ever finished, so instead of starting a new campaign just yet I fired Harkon up and played a number of turns. But this is a long-haul campaign due to the unique objectives and I'm still some way from finishing, even past turn 200.

But maybe tonight I'll take a dive in to the Wood Elves and see what they are all about.

Funny you should mention Wood Elves - I too picked up that DLC with the intent of give the faction a try.
I haven't had much of a gaming urge of late, WH2 is only one that is garnering any of my interest.

Well, if you're interested in my take on this DLC I am sure to provide it

I love ranged units, archer type especially in this game. This faction is good for these units, plus a dragon, good cav. Plus it has access to the underway which I like. And to top it off they have a crafting mechanic which I like in WH2 with the other factions that have a similar mechanic. Looks good, but I'll wait until I've racked up some turns to know for sure what I think.

I did indeed start this campaign in Eye of the Vortex. Too early to know how I will feel about it over a longer haul, but plenty to like so far, and maybe signs of a few things I don't. The campaign is very different, and it's the first one in Warhammer 2 I've played where playing tall is an actual thing. This isn't an expansion faction/campaign, but a defensive one.

The roster looks interesting. Some excellent archer units, and flying units, the Hawk Riders in particular are fantastic. I bet I could compose my armies of the lord and 19 Hawk Riders and never lose lol. But I like more balanced armies

Infantry is not very strong, at least not in the traditional melee attack/melee defense/armor ways. It's more about stealth, vanguard deployment, stalk and that sort of vibe. Battles are more fluid in terms of engagement and positioning, withdrawals and feints. A very different sort of thing than what I am accustomed to. Armor levels especially are quite low across the board. And I have seen no siege weapons or artillery in the building browser.

The main idea of the campaign is to heal your magical forest in preparation for the arrival of your god queen or whatever she is. I have not grasped the lore angle here yet. You heal the forest by winning battles within it, occupying the surrounding 'heathlands', performing tasks and completing missions. One of the most interesting of these is dilemmas that spawn within your borders, or just outside. If you move your army there you have the chance to fight among other options. In this way you can continue to heal the forest through battle, but without needing to go on the offensive. In essence, the game brings the enemy to you. This is handy for playing tall and defensive.

The tech tree is really nice, lots of good bonuses, with some techs locked behind an amber currency. The start is on the west side of the map, west of Kar Karond. It's forbidding terrain, mountain ranges and volcanoes, narrow passes and chokepoints. In contrast to my comments about the Huntsmarshall's Expedition's lack of diversity, the SIsters are surrounded by many races, including Tomb Kings, Dark Elves, Greenskins and Skaven.

I mentioned the underway earlier. I really like this mechanic, which is shared by a couple other races such as Dwarfs, Greenskins and Skaven. The ability to bypass terrain and jump past enemy armies is fun and versatile. It opens so many options and is especially useful in terrain with so many mountain ranges. But beyond that, this faction (and maybe all Wood Elves since the rework?) have the Worldroots system, which allows armies to travel between any magical forest on the map, with an ability cool-down timer. A fast-travel system if you will. Pretty cool.

To win the campaign you must heal two of these forests to max, and then face a final battle against Throt the Unclean. Most of these later DLCs have two factions, and in the end they face off against each other in a final showdown. Same deal here.

One little quibble I have is that the agents and armies fly about the strat map. That's cool yeah, but it also means that when idle they bob about, making clicking on them more of a struggle than I'd like. Too easy to miss and click the settlement behind. Minor, like I said.

Overall my early impressions are good. Throughout this thread I have praised what I call Warhammer 2's factionality, or how unique each and every faction is. With the Sisters of Twilight it goes farther, where not only is the faction unique, the entire way of playing is changed, from the campaign objectives, to expansion to even how I fight on the field of battle. And while in the end they may not prove to be my favorite, this sort of dissimilarity and deviance broadens the scope of play even more than it already was and that's good stuff.

And if you get tired of ranged units, try Throt the Unclean's monsters. 1 DLC, two totally different factions. Those differences in the factions and gameplay what I like about WH2.

Skaven's my jam, so I will probably play Throt at some stage, maybe even in Mortal Empires for WH3, which, I guess is coming out soon. Did you enjoy Throt's campaign? What's the scoop?

Some of the shine has come off my Sisters run. I'm 40+ turns in to it and things seem to be going well. But a couple of things are bugging me. The first of these is that I can only develop the magic forest. The bordering heathlands settlements I took can only have a level 1 main building and one other minor building it seems. They are 'Forest Lookouts' They provide a small buffer for my heartland, and give enemies other targets. But it means that all important buildings must be by necessity built in the magic forest settlement. There simply aren't enough slots to get what I want. So you might say 'get another magic forest DBond'. Well, I did. But the fast travel system has a long cool down, nine turns. So if I wanted to say recruit infantry and archers in one, and cav and monsters in another, it takes too long to return due to the cool down. I could put all recruitment in one, but then it makes no money or imparts other bonuses.

The second thing bugging me is when I took my second forest, (by colonisation; the little island in the top center of the sea in the center of Ulthuan) I was immediately hemmed in by Averlorn to the north, which hold the heathlands for this forest. They are neutral to me. Which is fine. But the 'forest encounter' thing that brings the enemy to you is spawning in those heathlands. Averlorn won't agree to any deals, in particular military access. So to get to this encounter I need to trespass, which in turn would sour relations and railroad me in to war with the High Elves, which would be bad, seeing as this location is surrounded by them, and with it would go all of those trade and alliance opportunities.

I'll keep going for a bit and see if I can get past this.

I mentioned the Worldroots system above. But I had it slightly wrong. Worldroots is the Wood Elves version of the underway. The fast travel system is actually called Deeproots.

I had been thinking about my next post, writing about how this campaign was the fastest and easiest of any I have played in Warhammer 2. I gotten past the things mentioned in the last post, including just blitzing Avelorn to claim those heathlands. I healed the forests, performed the rituals and had arrived at the final battle with Throt on turn 125, which is probably 30 turns faster than any other campaign I have played in WH2. And I don't think I did anything special or optimal, it's just a (potentially) short campaign if things go well.

And then I got absolutely crushed in the final battle. I laughed out loud at my futility, my utter destruction. It was the worst beating I've gotten, and by some measure. My forces numbered around 1400. The enemy was 3900. It was so bad in fact that I struggle to imagine a way to re-approach it. A different composition, or different tactics isn't going to put this right, A defeat so bad in fact that I think I'll just give it up as a bad job. Shame that, as I wanted to finish a campaign as Wood Elves. But that was an epic beat down, and Skaven stand supreme

I can't go down like that dammit

So instead of allowing Throt to have the final word on this one, I got to thinking about how I could achieve a more favorable result. What stood out is what I pointed out, that this campaign was over quickly. Well, not quite over, but at the end. And because of this, and the fact that as a defensive oriented faction, I hadn't developed the various bits and bobs that compose it. The Sisters are the lord for the final battle, and they were just level 20 or so, and I hadn't dropped a single point in to the red line (which buffs the lord's army). And Ariel, the god queen or whatever she is, had hardly been leveled up at all. As I saw in the final battle, she is the real key. And because I reached the end fairly easily, I hadn't even bothered to build all my recruitment buildings, and had no monsters, monstrous infantry or dragons. It seems that these things could help lol. Because the whole campaign was basically a defensive one, I fought fewer battles perhaps, and this means fewer points to level the agents and lords, and limits the XP gain and ultimately the veterancy of my troops.

And then I read a comment on reddit where someone posted his method for tackling this battle, and step four or whatever was "Now I summon the dragon"

Wut?

I would have liked to have summoned a dragon the first time 'round haha.

It turns out that the ease of this campaign saw yet another example of my suboptimal play, and I didn't pursue the Sisters quest chain. Didn't need the cash nor the fancy gear really, so I ignored it mostly. Well, at the end of this quest chain is a freakin' dragon you can summon. And if I understand correctly, can be swapped with the Sisters hawk mount, making the hawk a summon. That sounds like it might kick some Skaven ass. Problem is it requires occupying Karond Kar, which is owned by a massive Dark Elves faction, number one on the strength chart. Maybe some subterfuge is in order. Try to use my agents to destroy buildings and use untainted to drop their public order (it is Cult of Pleasure so they need Chaos corruption). Maybe spark a rebellion and snipe the city out from under them. I'd rather not go to war with them, the forest encounter spawned enemies come fast enough. Don't need to seek more enemies.

So if I want to finish this campaign it seems the way to do it is to play more. Fight battles, finish my building and recruitment chains, finish the quest. I'll have a stronger army with more buffs, a much better Sisters and Ariel (this one is especially important, and I'll go in to the final battle -- take 2 -- with her having far more spells and effectiveness). And hopefully, a dragon I can summon. CA clearly tuned this final battle for a more seasoned army than what I attempted to use the first time.

The deal with Throt is he has a mutagenic resource that's acquired by sacrificing your units and winning battles. These are used to mutate your units adding a small bonus to it. You can add as many as 10, but once you get go past the first mutation there's a chance it'll add a disadvantage mutation as well as the beneficial one. That chance goes up after each mutation applied. There's a couple new monsters added as well as the packmaster, an anti-large hero which buffs nearby units and can be leveled to summon more units to harass and delay the enemy. One of Throt's perks is reduced upkeep for the monster units, this combined with the mutations lets you field some crazy monster armies or just buff up regular skaven armies.

I can attest. There were many monstrous units in this final battle, and I was wholly unprepared to deal with them. When I return to it, soon, I will have units better equipped to deal with the enemy composition. Anti-large, charge defense and something that I think is called masterful charge defense, whatever that does. But it's a trait I picked up once I decided to season my army more. I will return with a much stronger force. I got beaten so bad that I never even saw the Chaos army that arrives later. But Ariel is the key. She will be far more capable for the rematch.

How did you like Throt's campaign wormfood?

I only play mortal empires so I cannot comment on the regular vortex campaign.

I still would have been interested in your impressions. It's cool.

I did the final battle rematch last night and it was easy. The massive increase in capability and strength in composition easily won the battle, and I lost about 150 soldiers in total. Throt himself led the charge and was melted by my Waywatchers before he got with 100m of my lines. He was the first to die and the rest soon followed.

Wood Elves/ Sisters have a number of excellent units. Infantry is a distinct weakness, at least toe to toe with most other factions. But the archers are very good, and even more so when supported by leader buffs. My Waywatchers for example had a range of 209 and missile strength of 66 for the final battle. That is really strong. But even so my shorter ranged archers called Deepwood Scouts with Swiftshiver Shards were much more lethal in the final battle.

I did not in the end finish the Sisters' quest so had no dragon summons, but did recruit one dragon. I recruited two tree kin and two treeman monster units to stiffen my weak spearmen and hold the line while my archers, cav, flying units and characters dealt the damage. It was a slaughter and that's one more faction and race with a completed campaign. With WH3 soon to be released? this may be my last one in WH2. Not sure really, but I think that means that beastmen and chaos are the only ones I never played.

Overall I had fun with this campaign, but it is a bit of a one-off. Most battle was artificial in a sense, just a never-ending parade of spawned enemies that beeline for the Witchwood and where I can just sit and wait for them to arrive (in ambush of course) before swatting them aside to await the next one. I held maybe 10 settlements in all, and even some of those were unnecessary. The tall aspect is cool, and this would make a great starter campaign for someone new to the game. Earlier I made a comment that this was the first real tall faction I've played, but on second thought that's not exactly true, as the Dreadfleet run was also a tall one, just my pirate ship. I'm glad I gave it a go and had a chance to try the new mechanics. It is vastly improved over the way it was in my view, but still not the most compelling campaign in Warhammer 2. I don't think I would play it again.

I didn't finish the Throt campaign (yet), but what it did was make me play the Skaven a bit different. Normally I'll play as clan Skyre or Eshin and use superior ranged units/weapons teams with some chaff to hold off the enemy or split them up so the ranged units can finish them off. With Throt and clan Moulder I find myself making mutated monster doomstacks. Put maybe a plague priest, a couple packmasters and then some broodhorrors or you're prferred skaven monster and go smash through armies.

Starting location for t he first couple turns is a bit easy. You're up North with only those Kraka Drak dwarves and Kislev to worry about. I'd recommend blitzing the dwarves as they can e a real pain to wipe out if you let them build up.
After that, you're options are to go after Norsca or the Empire, neither of which is an enticing option. Norsca is such a slog for worthless territory. And the Empire can be tough if you're not prepared. Chaos also seems to have a bias against the player and may choose to try to wipe you out when they show up at your doorstep.

New units are mutant rat ogres a bigger, meaner version of the rat ogre. This one is a single entity unit with armor piercing, anti-infantry and frenzy. Wolfrats, which are really reskinned Chaos hounds, coming in both regular and poison flavors just like their Chaos counterparts. The last unit are brood horrors these are very fast single units with armor piercing, very fast speed, deathblow and they cause terror. The brood horrors with the right mutations are down right scary. As I mentioned earlier, there's a new hero type Packmaster who provides buffs and can summon wolfrrats. They're not too bad to throw into melee in a pinch either.

Like many other DLCs those new units can also now be recruited into the other skaven factions on their campaigns. Those packmasters can help to tie down units when in Skyre weapon team armies.

Thanks and yes I saw each of those new units in the final battle. They gave me trouble, the first time But for the rematch I had really stacked the deck and these units were focus-fired and gone in seconds. The difference between my first attempt and second was amazing. Dark Elves and High Elves always were vying for archer supremacy in my mind, High with the range, and Dark with the early AP. But now Wood Elves stand at the top, especially with a high level lord and points in the red tree. Very strong. Waywatchers are AP and stalk to go along with that awesome range and missile strength. For the final battle I had just the four spear units as far as conventional infantry.

Not sure Throt is my jam. I'll probably still try him eventually. He seems sort of like Grom, which I had a look at but didn't play past a couple turns. You mentioned Eshin and I gave them a start or two but it didn't click. I think the fact that non-Eshin units are double cost gave me fits. I dig the subterfuge angle though, very Skaven. Wasn't crazy about their start location in ME, but it was close to Queek which can work out well.

Queek/Mors is my favorite Skaven, then Skryre, then the rest. I dig the Skaven vibe, love their versatile roster and awesome ranged options. Menace Below is an awesome tool. I recently downloaded a free DLC, Skaven Chieftain? But I have yet to use one.

Eshin could be fun, but they're in such a lousy start location in a zone you can't move very well in and two other skaven factions practically next door. I do like his bonuses to night runner and gutter runner units. Normally they're trash, but the warp damage and armor piercing mixed with their speed and low cost makes them scarier than they have any right to be. I loath fighting against them.

Exactly. That corner of the map can be difficult. I've gotten sort of hemmed in there as Queek in past runs, so much so that I just decided to migrate Queek to Lustria and start a second homeland there with some confederation. The terrain, allies and strong enemies can limit the options in a corner start. Eshin's a little to the north, but still at the edge with few directions to turn. I want to see what changes WH3 might bring and maybe I'll give Eshin another go.