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Total War WARHAMMER II |OT| The age of dwarf is over. The time of the Waagh! has come!
- Thread starter karnage10
- Start date
I beat Cylostras campaign, that was fun and a change of pace! I really enjoyed the Necrofaxs. Now who to play next..
Have you tried the vampire counts (specially kemler)? The bloodlines + revamp of the red tree + new techs makes the campaign very differently.
VC continue to have a slow start but once you get them going they can snowball really fast, due tot he new techs specially the -100% upkeep for zombies/skelies. The bloodlines also really spike things up and rewards the use of agents.
Kemler start is also interesting as you will face bretonnia instead of the usual VC and empire. also from here you can invade either athel loren or ulthuan which allows you to evade fighting the usual empire/dwarf forces that the other 2 VC factions have to deal with.
IMO this latest update brings the VC very close to game 2 quality; they still lack cool unique animations but in terms of mechanics as well as " the feeling" of playing a powerful vampire/necromancer this faction is on par with game 2.
I hope once game 3 is launched CA adds new animations to the game 1 races. Seeing krog-gar and Malekith's animations never gets old, it is sad that chars like Vlad, grimgor, archeon and kholek don't get a single "epic" kill animation.
I remember when dwarfs conquered everyting in the badlands and the WE were unstoppable killing machines by confederating everyone in the early game. Fun times when archeon arrived and the world would have been destroyed by WE.
Have you fought them with the new races? WE are still the best ranged faction but their lack of strong line infantry and flankers make them a relatively easy target for the game 2 races.
tomb kings and skaven sheer number can swarm them and stop them from using their ranged firepower. HE and DE have such powerfull units that as long as you can make WE fight you 1 on 1 then you win easily. The lizardmen struggle a bit if you bring too many sauros but if you have a couple of Dinos+ teradons you can push the fight against them, as long as the enemy doesn't focus fire your high HP units should be able to soak a lot of damage from ranged fire.
This thread in the OT deserves some cross-posting:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/as...ammer-were-real-whom-would-you-worship.90990/
https://www.resetera.com/threads/as...ammer-were-real-whom-would-you-worship.90990/
Do not worship Chaos, y'all. It won't end well.
Though, it's been a while since I got into a really deep Mortal Empires campaign. Keep getting distracted by other stuff. I will waaagh in due time.
By the time I'm conquering the Old World I'm autoresolving 95% of my battles, so generally no. The one time I fought them outside of autoresolve they absolutely mauled my poor Skaven. I'm really bad at manual battles so I generally try to overwhelm my opponents, whenever I can.
Though, it's been a while since I got into a really deep Mortal Empires campaign. Keep getting distracted by other stuff. I will waaagh in due time.
so I have a question about 'Control Large Army' in the pre-battle screen. it says it allows me to take up to 40 units at once without waiting for reinforcements, but even though it's checked on, I still have to wait for reinforcements?
^ Yes, that's how it works. I never tried it without that option though. I guess you will only control 20 units and if one routs or dies you a reinforcing unit?
Alongside kafeemann i want to add the following:
1) if you have a garrison + army they will deploy at the same time if you are defending
2) this tickbox allows you to have direct control of special armies such as wagghhs and breyherds
3) If you are attacking your renforcemnet army will appear right after the battle starts according to their campaign map position.
I haven't ever unticked that in warhammer; the battles are so cool I would never think of having less units under my command. That said i did mess with it in rome 2.
In Rome 2 It usually works like this:
If you tick the box you control 40 units, If you have more units you received them after one of your units is either shattered or withdraws from battle
if you don't tick the box the AI will control your reinforcement army. if you have extra units they will either reinforce your AI ally or you whenever a unit shatters or withdraws from battle.
My experience in Rome 2 is that the AI reinforcements is completely useless as they usually charge the enemy with no regards to "global strategy" (as in if you are behind the enemy they should wait until you engage before joining the fray). This,in my experience, leads to the reinforcement army taking severe losses as well as you having to join the battle early with a weird formation to try and make sure your reinforcement army isn't completely destroyed ( in rome 2 some units are hard to recruit, such as elephants).
I've had the first game for some time but never got around to playing it, and I purchased the second during the winter sales. Is there any reason to play the first if the second gets some of the races carried over or is the first still worthy to play for its own stories as is the second. Any must get DLC?
The first game's campaign has a different feel compared to Mortal Empires (e.g. the Chaos invasion feels a lot more climactic), but you'll lose out on a lot of the enhancements added in Total Warhammer 2. Even still, I'd recommend Mortal Empires (the combined campaign) over it. The scale is just so much fun IMO.
As to DLCs, it's up to you. The two base games' factions should last you a loooong while, so unless you feel compelled to play a very specific faction, just wait for a sale. One thing to keep in mind is that the Warhammer 2 DLC factions, Vampire Coast and Tomb Kings, are a lot more fleshed out vs. the first game's DLC factions; so dollar-to-dollar you'll get a lot more out of them compared to the older ones.
There are no storyline in the sandbox campaign in game. Only game 2 "basic" campaign (called vortex campaign) has a storyline.
What the game 1 has:
- Regional Territory (for example empire can't conquer greenskins provinces)
- Races are very balanced (as in every race has more or less an equal level of depth in their mechancis)
- Game is very polished
- A lot of QoL changes like better UI, able to individually configure the camera motions during the end turn (for example seeing only the enemy armies and ally agents), End turn reminders (if you forgot to move an army the game will remind you before ending the turn), Stats and tooltips are better (for example you can see if a unit is considered "big" or "small"; in warhammer it is hard to know what isn't affected by "bonus vs large" stat)
- More types of battles such as elven gates, chokepoint and, the most important ,island battles.
- Rogue armies - weird "rebel" armies which have a composition based on a theme instead of a race
- Climate occupation - each faction (not each race) has different climates they like, on the cities they don't like they get a penalty in PO, time for building construction
- Game 1 races have been touched up - VC and dwarfs have received new mechanics; norsca and bretonia have received new tech. All races have had the red tree upgrade to be more in line with game 2 races
- Game is "highly" unbalanced, game 2 races specially the DLC ones have much better and more meaningful mechanics than game 1 races.
- Mortal empires loading time is HUGE if you don't have a SSD.
- The graphic engine is much more colorful instead of the "washout brown" that was warhammer 1.
In terms of DLC, imo, it is better to think like this- do you want to play as a certain faction? or do you want to expand the roster of a base game faction?
If yes i'd recommend you buy those DLCs. If you don't care about DLC races and/or are satisfied with current races then you should skipp all DLCs. Do note that you don't need the DLCs to fight against DLC race, which means you get "all the content" when just play the base game.
Let's say you like the game and want all DLCs but don't want to buy all of them right now. The order i'd rank the DLC in terms of how much fun i had (remember to read the OP if you want a more in depth look at the races):
- Tomb kings Race (game 2 DLC)- 4LL, one of which is a hybrid faction; Units with 0 upkeep; Extremely powerful constructs with incredibly weak infantry. this race makes the movies "the mummy" feel like a cake walk. Units such as ushtabi and LL like setra and khalida are incredibly fun to use.
- HE vs DE lord pack (game 2 DLC) - the new LLs as well as their unique mechanics make both the HE and DE feel fresh again. The new HE Lord has mechanics to hold ulthuan as HE while the new DE LL has an unique mechanic where by using slaves she spawns a free AI army that attacks ulthuan. The new units fulfill some niches in the roster but RoR are very underwhelming.
- Vampire Coast (game 2 DLC) - Extremely cool mechanics as well as extremely cool units. High ranged firepower supported by powerful and sturdy monsters. Lacks flankers.
- Norsca (game 1 DLC) - only 2LL but holy crap is this race fun. Mammoths, icy wolves, werewolfs, fimirs, vikings that get stronger the more time they spend fighting, and icy trolls. Unique mechanics such as which chaos god to worship alongside monster hunts makes this an incredibly fun faction. It feels like being a chaos lord.
- Wood elves (game 1 DLC)- only 2 LL, the best ranged faction in the game. Its isolationist mechanics don't work too well in SP, but this race is incredibly fun in co-op multiplayer . The design and animations are outstanding! from the deer to the archers fighting in melee with their bows legolas style as well as the
entsforest spirits. - dwarfs VS GS lord pack (game 1 DLC)- this pack feels like a new race pack. the new dwarf lord is the hardest campaign ever in a total war. Took me around 500 turns to achieve "victory", it is that hard! The GS lord forces you to use gobbo only armies, which didn't work too well in game 1 without using the red skill tree to buff them but in wh2 the fact that expendable units now work and the fact that magic is much stronger it makes these gobbo only armies extremely deadly. The new units allows you to expand the strategies available, the GS get AP units earlier while the dwarfs get more mobile units for more mobile armies. The RoR are game changing from a NOK queen spider that spawns small ones to a dwarf bomber capable of droping dozens of powerful bombs.
- beastmen (game 1 DLC) - A cool idea and horde gameplay done better then WoC however this race re uses a lot of mechanics from other races. Interesting to note that the steam store isn't up to date in this race. It has received a lot of units from a LL to harpies taht are fun to use and meke it a less monotonous. The small roster + the lack of new mechanics make this a DLC for those that really want to burn the world. This said in battle the units have good animations and are a very offensive style which rely on speed as well as high charge bonus. Any meatgrinder type of battle is a defeat when using this race (due to their low MD and low armour)
- Empire vs VC lord pack (game 1 DLC)- 2LL that are very meh and provide very little new. The new units while have cool designs are not really usefull. The only good part of the DLC is the ROR which are absolutely bunkers. Skeleton warriors with poison, a zombie group with 200 models and graveguard with regeneration, because yes when you have a strong line infantry unit that is unbreakable in a race with healing it is totally fair to have that unit regenerating. The empire gets FMC with AP, handguners with magical damage , helmstrom battery with increased fire rate and number of projectiles,etc.
- warriors of chaos (game 1 DLC) - 3LL, which are the shine of this DLC race. Archeon is a melee powerhouse AND a fire mage, kholek when leveled up can solo armies of tier<4 units (for real, he hits really hard and everything the opponent throws at him just tickles) and sigvald stands alongside vlad as one of the most resilient melee lords on foot. The roster is ok with units such as dragon ogres and chosen. All that said this DLC feels like a prototype... why? because of the lack of mechanics/features; the only unique mechanic it has is that when 2 armies are together your armies get attrition. That's it. Norsca feels like a better version of chaos then chaos is. well this faction never gets that feeling you are the apocalypse and are going to destroy the world... it feels like you are killing the world with a thousand cuts, you never ever get that " I'm an unstoppable" bad guy like you should. This faction is the only DLC that i feel like it shouldn't exist. It feels like it was made because most of the units were done for the "end game boss". I reiterate, the campaign part is blander then the empire.
Thanks guys! Only really got Chaos Warriors and Bretonnia along with some of that free character ones so I'll have to hit up a sale when it happens.
So it's confirmed that there will be no DLC until after Three Kingdoms.
Guess that will be another three months without new content :(
Guess that will be another three months without new content :(
Just want to ask if you got the FLC that added RoR for WoC and the brets. If not go to total war access to get the cd-key.
I had hoped it would be earlier. It is good to have confirmation.
I have very high expectations for 3k! I want to play and know more about china. Ever since i played dynasty warriors that i think this time period could be really good for total war.
Still i doubt CA can make historical combat as fun and unpredictable as fantasy one, so it all hinges in making 3k characters feel "alive".
In seriousness, yeah 3K looks good. I'm hoping the wuxia mode or w/e has combat as fun as Total Warhammer's.
Still a little uneasy about it having a historical/fantasy switch, though; I feel like that could compromise the game balance and make one style the "definitive" mode.
If I get it I'm totally going Lu Bu or bandit lady first. WUXIA MODE.
Bummer for lizard/rat fans. Hopefully though that just means it'll be a larger update and/or DLC. With the game effectively having finite content I'm okay with them taking their time if they really nail it and/or include additional stuff that wouldn't normally make the cut.
good stuff here through, knowing the AI of previous game , I am very skeptical it will work so well. The ability to sabotage an AI faction seems like it will either be extremely OP or too weak.
What really popped out in the video was the UI and the artstyle, they really impress me.
My 3 greatest fears are:
1) non LL animations seem to be very subpar when compared to warhammer and attila. I hope CA manage to get them better.
2) the AI might not be able to handle all this new stuff!
3) With only 40 unique chars I'm hoping for a TON of DLC. I'm hoping CA announces what the future plans are because I'd really like enough "lord packs" so that there can be 100s of unique chars. Dinasty warriors has around 70 chars, I hope CA reaches at the very least that number.
I'll probably be buying the game day 1 as long as this isn't a rome 2 situation. I hope i never have to suffer through that again.
All look and sounds awesome. Loving all the new features.
This is my only fear right now.
I think their AI's in battle have significantly improved and i'm optimistic for that. However they've not been as succesful with campaign map AI. They do get to a decent place eventually but they've had a hard time nailing it at release. I'm pretty certain the AI will struggle with these mechanics at release.
That said, i prefer them being more ambitious with campaign mechanics and needing to patch the AI a few times than doing a tried and true formula. And I think CA thinks so too.
That said, i prefer them being more ambitious with campaign mechanics and needing to patch the AI a few times than doing a tried and true formula. And I think CA thinks so too.
I have been doing an averlon vortex campaign. the game is so much different now ! from vampires raiding your chores to norsca being fun to fight against!
Lustria still is like a forgotten continent and nothing ever happens there. Also Malakeith always takes nagaroth in my play through, I'd like he would ahve some challenger there, khatep and trecth barely slow him down.
how have been your playthroughs?
Lustria still is like a forgotten continent and nothing ever happens there. Also Malakeith always takes nagaroth in my play through, I'd like he would ahve some challenger there, khatep and trecth barely slow him down.
how have been your playthroughs?
I'm going on my Clan Angrund playthrough of ME. I've got Karak Eight Peaks. The Dwarves have confederated all the other minor dwarf factions - the only one on our continent that did not survive was the one to the far north. Norsca and skaven have destroyed Kislev and the other northern factions. I'm headed off to them and to take Skavenbright soon. Most of the undead are...dead.
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What are/were your favorite campaigns? I haven't played with all LL and i'm finishing averlorn vortex campaign so i'm up for starting a new campaign.
how difficult is clan angrund in ME? i remember it being super hard in the old game, with taking around 200 turns for me to be able to reach karak 8 peaks. I imagine in ME with the new climates the campaign is even harder, specially with sartosa now being a major faction.
I haven't gotten too far yet but killing sartosa is the first thing i did since they are your direct neighbours. I can't imagine the campaign being possible without doing that.
Difficulty wise it's been ok so far but i imagine it's going to become more difficult once you need to field higher tier units and more armies. The economy is definetly tight. Coming fresh from a VC campaign it's a pretty big change of pace.
I've started using it a couple days ago because the vanilla auto resolve likes to kill off units too much. Didn't notice any major impacts on the campaign balance so far.
Honestly, I enjoy most campaigns. What race do you want to play?
The only races that i'd prefer not to play are HE, vampire counts, lizardmen and skaven. The first 2 are my last 2 campaigns and the last 2 are the ones being updated on the next DLC, so i'll replay them then!
I'm tempted to exclude greenskins, empire and Wood elves as i feel one of those is getting updated in the next patch however i haven't played those since WH1 so feel free to chose them.
I have already done at last 1 campaign with most races, what i haven't done yet:
- Vortex campaign with DE
- ME campaign with empire, bretonnia, GS, vampire coast, wood elves and beastmen.
I'm going to start the last ritual on my averlorn campaign in a dozen or so turns, so hopefully i'll be done in 2-3 days.
Wood Elves and Beastmen have fun armies but their campaign mechanics kind of suck imo. They feel very restrictive.
I like Bretonnia and Empire but mostly for the beginning. The campains loose steam towards the end and a lot of it feels like cleanup.
Dark elves are fun, but if you've done the Vortex campaign a lot their campaign mechanic is not that interesting. You can almost entirely ignore the slaves.
Vampire Coast ist probably their best campaign to date imo. Lots of variety due to the starting locations too.
Variety is also why Norsca is pretty good. Due to their position on the map you can attack pretty much any faction - and laying waste to their lands is much more fun than say, as chaos, due to the units you unlock while doing it.
I like Bretonnia and Empire but mostly for the beginning. The campains loose steam towards the end and a lot of it feels like cleanup.
Dark elves are fun, but if you've done the Vortex campaign a lot their campaign mechanic is not that interesting. You can almost entirely ignore the slaves.
Vampire Coast ist probably their best campaign to date imo. Lots of variety due to the starting locations too.
Variety is also why Norsca is pretty good. Due to their position on the map you can attack pretty much any faction - and laying waste to their lands is much more fun than say, as chaos, due to the units you unlock while doing it.
If you haven't played a Vampire Coast ME campaign then I definitely recommend that. My Noctilus ME campaign was lots of fun. I'd recommend destroying the High Elf faction that you start at war with quickly. Bribe Lothern and avoid starting a war with them at all cost because else you will be fighting High Elves for the rest of your campaign. Then you can just raid and establish pirate coves in the Old World and do whatever you want.
I think most of the success I had in taking Eight Peaks - on normal - by about turn 100 had to do with luck. I consolidated the Vaults early on, teamed with Karak Norn to throw ourselves at Skarsnik, and then....panicked. The grudges were pilling themselves up. So I marched my army across the wasteland, took one Iron Rock. Then raised one additional army. In the meantime, Sarsota took 2/3rds of the Vaults. I happened to catch one of the Mutinous Gints in the underway while coming close to Eight Peaks. And one of their other armies decided to move far enough west not to engage in a city battle. And then sadly autoresolved the Eight Peaks battle. Had just about an even chance, but I felt I wouldn't do well with the siege battle. Took Eight Peaks with all my heroes intact, but lost most of my army.
I'm on the last few turns of the ritual and i'm fighting skaven stacks.
My question how do i kill abominations with a garrison? Am i just unlucky or are they virtually impossible to kill without high end units?
(the image is just to show that the abomination manage to reach the regen cap).
While i could go with norsca but i think i'm going to try the vampire coast in ME. their mechanics are fun and i wonder how the world will change when you can just pirate around.
I'll save the norsca playthrough when the next lord pack comes!
VC with noctilus in ME sounds interesting. I'll give it a try!
My question how do i kill abominations with a garrison? Am i just unlucky or are they virtually impossible to kill without high end units?
(the image is just to show that the abomination manage to reach the regen cap).
DE i haven't done a vortex campaign. I really like the black arks and the slaves mechanics as it allows me in ME to push farther safely then i could most other factions. I did malekith twice and helebron once.
While i could go with norsca but i think i'm going to try the vampire coast in ME. their mechanics are fun and i wonder how the world will change when you can just pirate around.
I'll save the norsca playthrough when the next lord pack comes!
VC with noctilus in ME sounds interesting. I'll give it a try!
I'm on the last few turns of the ritual and i'm fighting skaven stacks.
My question how do i kill abominations with a garrison? Am i just unlucky or are they virtually impossible to kill without high end units?
!
Dragons or phoenixes are your best unit to kill hell pits yeah.
The problem with a guarrison situation for HE is that the thing is really strong in long sustained combat due to it's regen and HE units are significantly weaker once they loose their martial prowess.
You can focus it down at the start of the battle, it's armor isn't too high, so archers work pretty well. However it being a siege, you can't run after it once it breaks and the damn thing is likely to come back and regenerates...
Basically you need some kind of burst damage to kill it. Spearmen alone, especially without martial prowess, truggle to get rid off it completely. That or you isolate it from other troops and focus it down.
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The vermintide continues to push into my territory so i moved one of my closest armies to try and stall them long enough for my elite armies defend the ritual cities.
My army + garison of a small city against 4 skaven armies (i'm so glad there aren't able to field more armies)
this is the result
I still can't believe i won. The moon dragon and the swordmasters killed half an army each! obvious almost all archers got 100+ kills.
Also the sisters are really good at killing hell pit abominations. Actually i think they are really good at killing everything.
If it wasn't for the skaven magic damage i'd have survived with much more forces. The artillery also gave me a lot of damage, had to sacrifice my cavalry garrison to get them.
If you anyone wants i can upload the replay save so you can try to stem the vermintide (and give me a few tips if you can do better)
My army + garison of a small city against 4 skaven armies (i'm so glad there aren't able to field more armies)
this is the result
I still can't believe i won. The moon dragon and the swordmasters killed half an army each! obvious almost all archers got 100+ kills.
Also the sisters are really good at killing hell pit abominations. Actually i think they are really good at killing everything.
If it wasn't for the skaven magic damage i'd have survived with much more forces. The artillery also gave me a lot of damage, had to sacrifice my cavalry garrison to get them.
If you anyone wants i can upload the replay save so you can try to stem the vermintide (and give me a few tips if you can do better)
IMO to truly appreciate the graphics we have to use the replay feature. Whenever i get these big battles like with at least 4 armies fighting i usually save the replay and then watch the battle unfold.
I was surprised to find out the amount of animations big units and LL have that I didn't usually see because I was focused on wining the battle. From krog-gar holding someone in his magic arm to the bretonia king jumping and stabbing the heart of a crypt horror, or the thane triping a chaos spawn.
Also i really like that in WH2 small models can be pushed "out of boundaries" when they die, like getting thrown from walls, into ravines, etc. IMO it really adds to the immersion.
Like you say ME is amazing, i just hope they don't cut corners for warhammer 3 and try to reduce the number of factions. I want the trilogy end map to be bunkers, even if the end turn timer takes like 10 mins.
I actually really like what we have seen of the campaign from 3k. I think the map looks gorgeous and the new mechanics will be a lot of fun assuming the AI uses them as well. The battles on the other hand more and more they feel much less entertaining than warhammer. The combats between lords/heros is great but the rank and file look "soulless")
You don't need to hope. Demon chaos, ogre kingdoms and chaos dwarves have all been confirmed as races that CA will add.
We just don't know if the chaos dwarfs will be in the base game or will be DLC.
ogre kingdoms are a blast from the past. Werent' they phased out of Fantasy even before the End times were a thing?
Huh, guess I just never noticed them? Or they weren't super popular..
When warhammer 1 was being announced in one of the interviews they were talking the objective of their trilogy was to make justice to all 15 8th army edition books + chaos dwarves, culminating in a map with 16 different races.
After WH1 launch there was a datamine that shows exactly that plan. (google russian datamine if you want to see it)
CA, after the success of WH1, decided to expand their plans so the datamine has been completely outdated. For example the WH2 was suposed to only have 3 races, norsca and vampire coast weren't there and in ME ulthuan was supposed to be much smaller.
I'm so glad it was a huge success for them and hope it continues being so.
To me, the games bring the tabletop game to life in a way I never imagined. So fantastic.