That plan worked magnificently. Greenskins are fun in a smash-em-in-the-mouth sort of way.

The waagh mechanic is very powerful indeed. For those unfamilair, Greenskins build a fightiness meter by fightin' and razin' and sackin' their way around the map. Once full, a Waagh can be inititated. This creates a free second army for every stack in your faction. The bigger the stack, the bigger the additional army is. Composition is mixed, and varies according to the lord leading the stack and the terrain, for example you'll get certain units when done near a volcano that you won't get elsewhere. So the quality of the second army varies a bit. But still, it's a second free stack for every army, nearly doubling the combat weight of each.

In this one I waited until I could position four stacks on the border with the Border Princes, who had abused the other greenskins factions and had expanded to 13 settlements, rising to number 4 on the faction strength chart. But we just swept them away. My four armies were closer to eight in terms of combat capability and long before the 20 turns the waagh lasts for we had eliminated them from the map. Greenskins, or Grimgor at least, can grow powerful with confederation mechanics, and an AI Grimgor usually does really well with this. But I've found the greenskins to be a great offensive faction and haven't bothered with confederation aside from saving Wurzag from elimination. Strong armies, the underway, the raiding stance and the waagh mechanics all make for a good faction on the march. Goblintide!

Greenskins Mortal Empires run is done and dusted on turn 150, short campaign victory. Honestly, that was one of the easier runs I've done in Warhammer 2. Partly it's due to how greenskins play and partly due to the AI enemies never really getting their sh!t together and putting any sustained pressure on me. Only Tomb Kings liked us, but it didn't matter. Grimgor is da best!

The interesting thing was that Reikland had 83 fookin' settlements last I looked. That's insane, and I don't think I've ever seen an AI faction grow that big in WH2.

Next up, Bretonnia, one of the last I have yet to win a campaign with. I chose Carcassone, and it looks like this is a turtle faction. Let's see how it plays.



That would do it. Don't need that dude roaming the badlands.

I got it in my head that I'd pursue some achievements in WH2 and then did that.

I still had all of the 'win campaign on very hard or legendary' ones to get. Hard/Hard is my usual jam, giving me the right sort of starting challenge. But honestly, even that is a little too easy past the first 30-50 turns. Very Hard is much more frantic, and the early game is much harder. But if you can get past that then it evens out. The AI still can build a lot of full stacks, and have gobs of money it seems. So I play more reservedly at the open, more defensively, because you have to be able to absorb the endless stacks that descend upon your lands. But eventually that can be overcome. In each case I identified a faction to play that had certain advantages that I thought would help get the harder campaigns over the line.

A few of those

Itza -- Mortal Empires VH run. If you've never played the lizards and used Lord Kroak, you really must. This caster hero is like having Ikit Claw's doomrockets. Kroak's spells are devastating against massed formations. Gor-Rok starts with Kroak in his faction, while other lizard lords can get him later through a quest chain. Advantage Gor Rok. Eventually took all of Lustria for the objectives, and went 262 turns in order to get the achievements for researching 50 techs and having ten geomantic loci. Standard lizard fare with this faction, not much special, -20% Saurus upkeep I think. Kroak is the shiny part here. Having him at the start is OP, and helps get this run going fast.

Slaughterhorn -- Legendary Vortex run. Not finished. But I knew if there were one faction I could win legendary, this would be it. And so it is proving. The Melee-centric vibe is good in restricted combat, far less micro than cav, ranged and casters demand. And his campaign mechanics mean that the AI struggles to really get going with lots of stacks. Taurox never takes times off.

Chevaliers de Lyoness -- VH Vortex run. I just can't seem to get on with Bretonnia. So I thought I'd give Repanse a go. I seem to fail to see the good stuff, or these just aren't for me. Shelved it after 40 turns. Might be back. I'd like to win a campaign with any of the Bretonnia lords. Had fun playing in Araby, so....

Clan Eshin -- Skaven are my favorite race, and I've done a lot of runs with the various factions. I did try Deathmaster Sniktch once in ME. But I didn't stick with it. Didn't care for the start, or the fact that my go-to units cost a fortune. 'Eshin' units suck. Or that's what I thought. But I gave Eshin a go in a VH Vortex run and had a blast. The start shifts from the eastern edge to the sands of Araby, surrounded by Tomb Kings and Bretonnia factions.This time I embraced the Eshin vibe, making stacks of gutter runners and playing kite the bad guy. At the end I had a single artillery piece, the RoR warp cannon in my entire faction. My units were super squishy rats, against much stronger foes. But through bonuses, both inherent and boosted, these trash units were untouchable. 70+ foot speed (as fast as most heavy cav), stalk (they are hidden until they fire) and the ability to fire on the run made for a very different sort of playstyle, with my ranged rats kiting slower, stronger units around the battlefield until they melted away. Good fun. Queek was always my favorite Skaven lord, but Sniktch might just have topped him. He's a fantastic duelist, and his armies fight in the most skaven way possible. His schemes in campaign too, very skaven yes-yes, but I didn't use them all that much. Once I had secured a snug tract of the desert it was a rather chill campaign too.

Heralds of Ariel -- Sisters of Twilight VH Vortex run. I knew from playing this before that it could be another chill run, playing tall and minding the forests. And so it was. Pretty easy campaign on higher difficulties. Fantastic roster for me as I love ranged units, especially archers.

Dreadfleet -- A Noctilus VH Vortex run. Again chosen for his ability to play tall, which works well on the higher difficulties. A pretty remote and defensible home, no need to expand and pirate coves fuel the campaign. Still ongoing, but near the end.


It had been interesting to see how these various campaigns play out among the AI. I had mentioned earlier a run where the Empire had over 80 provinces. That's nothin'. In one run the leading faction had 150+ settlements. And each campaign is seeing a different faction and race emerging as top dog. This variablity is one of Warhammer's best things. In the current Dreadfleet run it's Clan Rictus of all factions that are kicking ass all over the map.

You can now play the Immortal Empires campaign by only owning Warhammer 3. You get the full map and all the factions. However, you'll only be able to play as the WH3 factions unless you purchase more.

Smart move from CA. Immortal Empires has a good rep, but I'm sure there are folks who don't want to buy all three games. This should get those people over the line and playing WH3.

And the DLC evidently from the earlier games can stlll be purchased so players can play those WH1/2 factions even if they don't own the games, which will spark even more revenue.

Good move CA.

I got a little angry at WH3 last week. I had an update queued and since I haven't been playing I ignored it but it finally came up for auto install I guess. And it was over 100 GB! What the hell? I had to uninstall another game just to fit it on my drive. That is far too big for something I don't even know what it is yet haha. I wonder if it made it better? Not that I didn't already like it. But man what a massive update, bigger than virtually ever other game on my drive.

My DCS folder clocks in at 462 GB, with another 12 GB in the save games folder (though there are a lot of add on missions and mods in that one!).

New map for Immortal Empires maybe?

Yeah, I should check out what it actually is lol.

How's things JC?

The Steam download was over 60 gigs, but then it had to unpack or install 100 gigs and it took an age. So I said screw it and paused it thinking when I'm ready to play again I'll be in the mood to wait it out. But then it auto-installed again the next day and had started over. What the hell? So i had to do it twice but the second time I kind of had to or maybe it would start over again. Good grief, what we don't do to be PC gamers.

Which reminds of something I was thinking about the other day... I never ever defrag anymore so I guess it all comes out even.

Hi DB!! This is my busy time of the year, but the light is at the end of the tunnel. A couple more weeks and things calm down significantly, which is nice.

I hate seeing those giant downloads. Sometimes I'll run them just before I go to bed or before I go to work so it doesn't get in my way.

I think defragging is not as essential as it used to be, in fact I think its a no-no for ssd's.

My storage drive is 2 TB and it's been full forever now. I have to cull out a rarely played game every time I want to buy a new one, and now, with updates like this one, sometimes when I get a patch! Nuts. My first hard drive was like 250 megs.

Defragging used to be a ritual. I would defrag every time before a new game got installed, and once it was installed I defragged it again to sort everything nice and tidy like.