To be fair, they're not very good at siege cheesing that most of the other good races can do, which is how you keep tempo up and have a good campaign.
Eh they have trebs, decent enough archers, lords that can take punishment, and good flyers later on, they can cheese sieges just fine.
Look at Legend of Total War’s first 20 turns Bretonia guide for an example of how just Loen’s starting army can straight out demolish an ai garrison.
Their trebs aren't very good and they can't outrange with their ranged units after that. Doing it with flyers is okay but not that good compared to bringing actually good artillery and longer than bow range units and taking 0 damage.
She seems a bit OP. I wonder if she'll have negative modifiers or other events leading to conflict with neighboring Brettonians, since her whole pro-peasant thing is kind of against their ideology. Plus, that's how Jean d' Arc's arc went.
Worth bearing in mind that most of her bonuses only apply to peasant units, and peasants suuuuuck. Which is probably why I could never get a handle on Bretonnians, you're supposed to use the peasants to pin the enemy in place while your cavalry flanks, but peasants simply cannot hold the line against anything. Offensive sieges with Bretonnians are a nightmare for similar reasons, they simply have zero effective infantry. Hopefully Repanse's bonuses will mitigate this somewhat.
I never really had that problem. I use mostly battle pilgrims and foot squires once I can afford them, and put a grail reliquae or hero on any spots in the line where things are going to get hairy. They hold fine.
The grail reliquae aren’t optional though which is where I think people mess up. It gives immunity to psychology which is pretty much required against undead or anything monstrous.
Battle Pilgrims and Foot Squires are also not good. They're slightly better than swordsman quality
She seems a bit OP. I wonder if she'll have negative modifiers or other events leading to conflict with neighboring Brettonians, since her whole pro-peasant thing is kind of against their ideology. Plus, that's how Jean d' Arc's arc went.
Worth bearing in mind that most of her bonuses only apply to peasant units, and peasants suuuuuck. Which is probably why I could never get a handle on Bretonnians, you're supposed to use the peasants to pin the enemy in place while your cavalry flanks, but peasants simply cannot hold the line against anything. Offensive sieges with Bretonnians are a nightmare for similar reasons, they simply have zero effective infantry. Hopefully Repanse's bonuses will mitigate this somewhat.
I never really had that problem. I use mostly battle pilgrims and foot squires once I can afford them, and put a grail reliquae or hero on any spots in the line where things are going to get hairy. They hold fine.
The grail reliquae aren’t optional though which is where I think people mess up. It gives immunity to psychology which is pretty much required against undead or anything monstrous.
Battle Pilgrims and Foot Squires are also not good. They're slightly better than swordsman quality
They beat every empire infantry but greatswords and are better than a lot of other infantry focused factions basic infantry (bleakswords, dwarf warriors, marauders, nehekara warriors,regular and savage orc boyz, etc). About the same as gors - not going to tear the world up but fully capable of holding a line while cav tears things up or climbing walls in a seige against standard garrison infantry without embarrasing themselves, especially backed up by grail reliquae or morale buffing heroes.
I mean you are never going to run an army like chaos or lizardmen as bretonnia where you can get by with just dumping a bunch of infantry on the board with a couple of artillery to draw the enemy charge and let them break on your line, but they can do mid game infantry tasks like lineholding and wallclimbing just fine (and late game when stuff the foot squires and battle pilgrims really can’t handle pop up like full lines of chosen or blorcs, Bretonnia has other units like grail guardians and elite fliers that can take up those roles)
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Arrrrrrgh. Was just spamming turns in a Durthu game to finally try out Wood Elves since I had a short window (man this campaign seems slow as fuck for the first 30 turns). Dec'd on Parravon, took the province capital and then was going to head to Montfort to open the trade link with the Empire.
Like, okay you guys, you asked for this. I must have my goddamn borders. Hopefully I can just take these two provinces and then peace and relations will eventually normalize...
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
edited December 2019
Preview of the new Skyre workshop upgrades because they weren't busted already
They beat every empire infantry but greatswords and are better than a lot of other infantry focused factions basic infantry (bleakswords, dwarf warriors, marauders, nehekara warriors,regular and savage orc boyz, etc).
I am not so sure they do.
In terms of 1 on 1 they will beat some of those units but in terms of holding a line they will not last as long. And they dont scale as well with unit skills due to their balanced stats. So while they will beat shielded spears they will lose the war by being held.
Plus, comparing them to basic basic infantry is a mistake. Theyre 600 and 700 cost units. You should be comparing them to tier 2 infantry. Like black ark corsairs. Which have more attack and anti-infantry on top or crossbows... and corsairs are not typically considered particularly good infantry.
Savage orcs (550 cost) with their massive 26 charge bonus, 35 damage, 9720 HP, Frenzy, and 30% DR.
So battle pilgrims at 32 atk, 32 dmg, and 65 armor do 16.05 damage per attack to savage orcs who have 16 MD. And the Orcs at 28 atk, 35 dmg do 10.92 dmg/atk. But the savage orcs win the charge pretty hard and have 17% more HP. So BPs best case scenario maybe ties them with the cheaper unit.
Longbeards are also 650 cost units and pilgrims or squires arent going to beat them. Either to hold a flank or to kill things.
So in the end they neither hold a line like a proper tier 2 line unit nor do they do they kill like a proper tier 2 murderizer.
I still don’t get this hold the line thing. Battle pilgrims start with 80 leadership, 14 more than greatswords, They have a support unit that brings them up to 96 leadership and immune to psychology. They have decent physical stats and are 120 men. They hold. Any of the weaknessess they have greatswords (lower leasership and man count) and (lower physical defense stats) also have, and no one is talking about the empire frontline not holding.
If you are fighting a line of fimir warriors or minos or swordsmasters that will legitimately tear up battle pilgrims (which is usually going to be by a high damage unit killing them outright rather than breaking them) then you have grail guardians to hold against those units.
And if your battle pilgrims are wasted on the frontline against basic spears or hallys - great! Because that’s an anti-large unit that your knights won’t have to charge head on and unengaged. It’s fine to use a 600 gold unit to hold a 400 gold unit when it lets your 1200 gold units actually get out and do their jobs. Most of my Brettonia kills are from cavalry (and heros/lords/fliers) by far, and that’s ok - its Brettonia.
Edit: also should note I’m talking single player multiplayer is a weird land where everyone is cash-strapped because of cost limitations, but last time I paid much attention Brettonia did fine there, and the tiers seem to shift a fair amount patch by patch.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Does Bretonnia still get the flat 20% physical resistance to every unit in its army so long as you've won a few battles and haven't retreated?
If that's still a thing, Foot Squires are still great at holding lines.
Blessing of the Lady; yes. You cannot retreat and have to win something on the order of 5 battles.
EDIT: Also, all the infantry that Brettonia brings to the field are fodder. They are primarily there to pin units in place so the cavalry can do their work.
Death Runners: +19 health per entity, -28 entities (-28% unit size), -4 melee attack, +10 bonus vs infantry
O_O. Those are some big changes for Deathrunners and I can't say if they just murdered the unit or if they buffed it.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Reducing the size by almost a third makes it a lot harder to effectively surround an enemy unit. Not as important for rear/flank chargers as it is for hold the line infantry but still a consideration.
Steam / Xbox Live: WSDX NNID: W-S-D-X 3DS FC: 2637-9461-8549
I still don’t get this hold the line thing. Battle pilgrims start with 80 leadership, 14 more than greatswords, They have a support unit that brings them up to 96 leadership and immune to psychology. They have decent physical stats and are 120 men. They hold. Any of the weaknessess they have greatswords (lower leasership and man count) and (lower physical defense stats) also have, and no one is talking about the empire frontline not holding.
If you are fighting a line of fimir warriors or minos or swordsmasters that will legitimately tear up battle pilgrims (which is usually going to be by a high damage unit killing them outright rather than breaking them) then you have grail guardians to hold against those units.
And if your battle pilgrims are wasted on the frontline against basic spears or hallys - great! Because that’s an anti-large unit that your knights won’t have to charge head on and unengaged. It’s fine to use a 600 gold unit to hold a 400 gold unit when it lets your 1200 gold units actually get out and do their jobs. Most of my Brettonia kills are from cavalry (and heros/lords/fliers) by far, and that’s ok - its Brettonia.
Edit: also should note I’m talking single player multiplayer is a weird land where everyone is cash-strapped because of cost limitations, but last time I paid much attention Brettonia did fine there, and the tiers seem to shift a fair amount patch by patch.
Melee defense is what holds. Spears hold with 40 MD and charge defense.
Greatswords kill with 30 MA and +8 Anti-infantry. (Their armor is also no joke)
If you need a supoort unit to add leadership then youre missing out on another line or dmg unit. Single player when cost isnt an issue you still have army size limitations.
But saying “well i get my kills with cavalry” is besides the point considering were talking about a peasant infantry focused lord...
Which is to say that her buffs will be nice but dont expect her infantry to be top tier all of a sudden. They can win 1v1s with some non-infantry focused factions but theyre almost universally worst in role across the board
Repanse-led Brettonian infantry will be craycray though with their flaming weapons, frenzy, immune-to-psychology, bonuses to all ze stats and banners on top of that.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Clan Pestilens has received a few nuggets of plaguey goodness to spice up their campaign…
Clan Pestilens now unlocks the Rite of Pestilence when constructing a Pox Cauldron instead of a Pestilent Nave
-15 turn cooldown on the Rite of Pestilence
Clan Pestilens now enjoys uniquely large benefits for spreading plagues to their own forces and cities, granting growth and economic benefits for cities and powerful combat bonuses for forces
Clan Pestilens now has access to a special Under Empire building that continuously spawns a plague in the settlement above
New faction effect: Chance of a plague spreading +50%
This really is a good QoL patch. Teclis, Morathi, Generic Slann plus Maz and Kroak get Greater Arcane Conduit. More sacrifices for Sotek. Hidden items now visible on the skills screen and available in ME and Vortex. Black arks now have skill trees, level up and can blockade ports or attack coastal cities.
The public order vision change is also good if they're intent on keeping vision based on difficulty. High PO grants more vision of a province, low PO less. It's tough to get PO in control on Legendary so it's kind of a natural effect. That said it's not clear if there's still a vision penalty on higher difficulties or if it all comes from PO. Only seen it mentioned by one streamer so far and it was just an aside.
I mean... They'll be OK. Battle Pilgrims already have Frenzy. Flaming Weapons do not bypass physical resistance(only magical weapons) and so only provide bonuses against regenerating enemies. (which is nice). And Frenzy AND bonus attack on Foot Squires will not make them top tier infantry. They'll be fine, (and very cheap for their power) but not top tier.
You're not going to be pre-nerf Wurrzag(double red tree infantry, triple red tree cavalry, magic damage, 40% DR, +25 charge bonus savage orcs) or even post nerf Wurrzag(kinda double red tree infantry and cavalry, magic damage, +25 charge bonus, 45% DR savage orcs) for that matter.
Edit: As an example Wurrzags current stats for Savage Orc Big'uns is 56 melee Attack(+8 anti-large), 47 weapon damage (32/15+8 anti large), 71 charge bonus, who fucking cares melee defense, 45% physical resistance with 10,800 HP and Frenzy. Regular Savage Orcs are 44 MA, 39(29/10), 63 charge bonus, 45% physical resist, and Frenzy. And they have roughly the same upkeep as swordsmen.
Death Runners: +19 health per entity, -28 entities (-28% unit size), -4 melee attack, +10 bonus vs infantry
O_O. Those are some big changes for Deathrunners and I can't say if they just murdered the unit or if they buffed it.
In general i would say buff
1) smaller unit size makes it easier to maneuver when in box formation
2) smaller unit size generally does NOT inpact total DPS unless you hit a situation where you are less than 2-3 deep at enemy unit width. (Second row is generally able to be engaged but the third row is usually not)
3) smaller unit sizes (with more HP) are generally more resilient in combat and across battles for a variety of reasons
The exception is if they make the unit spacing larger.
Basically you’re probably going to be able to get the same number of rats attacking and they will do more damage and have better resiliency.
Clan Pestilens has received a few nuggets of plaguey goodness to spice up their campaign…
Clan Pestilens now unlocks the Rite of Pestilence when constructing a Pox Cauldron instead of a Pestilent Nave
-15 turn cooldown on the Rite of Pestilence
Clan Pestilens now enjoys uniquely large benefits for spreading plagues to their own forces and cities, granting growth and economic benefits for cities and powerful combat bonuses for forces
Clan Pestilens now has access to a special Under Empire building that continuously spawns a plague in the settlement above
New faction effect: Chance of a plague spreading +50%
This really is a good QoL patch. Teclis, Morathi, Generic Slann plus Maz and Kroak get Greater Arcane Conduit. More sacrifices for Sotek. Hidden items now visible on the skills screen and available in ME and Vortex. Black arks now have skill trees, level up and can blockade ports or attack coastal cities.
The public order vision change is also good if they're intent on keeping vision based on difficulty. High PO grants more vision of a province, low PO less. It's tough to get PO in control on Legendary so it's kind of a natural effect. That said it's not clear if there's still a vision penalty on higher difficulties or if it all comes from PO. Only seen it mentioned by one streamer so far and it was just an aside.
Those Pestilens changes are pretty awesome! I get what they were going for with skaven corruption by having it be bad for Skaven but worse for everyone else -- we already had Chaos and Vampire so let's try something different -- but it was in general just less fun. I love Vampire Counts in part because spreading vampiric corruption everywhere is cool! Bonuses to me, penalties to them -- tons of incentive to turn the map into an undead wasteland. On the flip side I found myself very rarely spreading Skaven corruption -- there were some uses, but I would never build a building just for the corruption. Letting Pestilens go all out and have incentive to turn the world into a horrible plague world sounds like a great idea.
Witch Elves mounted on the Cauldron of Blood now throw knives at enemies when in melee combat
This makes those chariots a LOT better
Free Company Militia: Fire while moving
FUUUCCCCKK!
Organ Gun: Made projectile 1.5 times as accurate.
This might actually be a nerf
Razordon Hunting Pack: changed trajectory to dual_low_fixed, allowing the unit to choose a higher trajectory if obstructed
This will make those units good deal better since they will now be able to hit the rear of units even if an enemy attempts to block them
Black Coach: +1050 mass
Might make it a bit harder for the coach to get stuck. Should be good
Hexwraiths: +2 melee defence, +3 AP melee damage, +1 base melee damage
Chillgheists (Hexwraiths): +2 melee defence, +50 cost, +3 AP melee damage, +1 base melee damage
Cairn Wraiths: +6 melee defence
none of these units needed to get better(MP maybe?) but ill take it
Grave Guard (Great Weapons): +50 cost, +2 melee attack, +1 AP melee damage, +1 base melee damage, +3 bonus vs infantry, -1 charge bonus
The extra attack and bonus vs infantry should go a long way to making GW GG's not worse at killing infantry than regular GG's, which they currently almost are
Rebalanced all abilities that modify melee attack or melee defence, reducing their effectiveness by roughly 10%
Rebalanced all abilities that modify melee base damage or melee ap damage, increasing their effectiveness by 20%
not sure what to make of this
For the purpose of streamlining some unclear communication in the battle layer, we’ve updated all projectiles spawned by abilities to be unblockable. This applies to bombardments, magic missiles and more. It was clear after an internal discussion that our current implementation didn’t really communicate to the player when they could rely on a shield to block or not block a magic missile. Shields still block regular arrows as normal
Good. This was annoying
Snare Net (Gutter Runners): changed implementation, now a passive ability with a 40m radius that reduces speed and charge speed by -12%
that is a big change hidden in the minutae
I think the Fire While Moving on FCM is going to be ridiculous. Theyre already really high damage as it is. And now they can shoot as they chase units doen.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
I mean... They'll be OK. Battle Pilgrims already have Frenzy. Flaming Weapons do not bypass physical resistance(only magical weapons) and so only provide bonuses against regenerating enemies. (which is nice). And Frenzy AND bonus attack on Foot Squires will not make them top tier infantry. They'll be fine, (and very cheap for their power) but not top tier.
You're not going to be pre-nerf Wurrzag(double red tree infantry, triple red tree cavalry, magic damage, 40% DR, +25 charge bonus savage orcs) or even post nerf Wurrzag(kinda double red tree infantry and cavalry, magic damage, +25 charge bonus, 45% DR savage orcs) for that matter.
Edit: As an example Wurrzags current stats for Savage Orc Big'uns is 56 melee Attack(+8 anti-large), 47 weapon damage (32/15+8 anti large), 71 charge bonus, who fucking cares melee defense, 45% physical resistance with 10,800 HP and Frenzy. Regular Savage Orcs are 44 MA, 39(29/10), 63 charge bonus, 45% physical resist, and Frenzy. And they have roughly the same upkeep as swordsmen.
Savage Orcs are just nuts.
Might be interesting to look at Skarsnik's Night Goblin Squigs with their double red + Skarsnik buffs. IIRC they were vaguely comparable, if less durable.
She seems a bit OP. I wonder if she'll have negative modifiers or other events leading to conflict with neighboring Brettonians, since her whole pro-peasant thing is kind of against their ideology. Plus, that's how Jean d' Arc's arc went.
Worth bearing in mind that most of her bonuses only apply to peasant units, and peasants suuuuuck. Which is probably why I could never get a handle on Bretonnians, you're supposed to use the peasants to pin the enemy in place while your cavalry flanks, but peasants simply cannot hold the line against anything. Offensive sieges with Bretonnians are a nightmare for similar reasons, they simply have zero effective infantry. Hopefully Repanse's bonuses will mitigate this somewhat.
I never really had that problem. I use mostly battle pilgrims and foot squires once I can afford them, and put a grail reliquae or hero on any spots in the line where things are going to get hairy. They hold fine.
The grail reliquae aren’t optional though which is where I think people mess up. It gives immunity to psychology which is pretty much required against undead or anything monstrous.
Battle Pilgrims and Foot Squires are also not good. They're slightly better than swordsman quality
They beat every empire infantry but greatswords and are better than a lot of other infantry focused factions basic infantry (bleakswords, dwarf warriors, marauders, nehekara warriors,regular and savage orc boyz, etc). About the same as gors - not going to tear the world up but fully capable of holding a line while cav tears things up or climbing walls in a seige against standard garrison infantry without embarrasing themselves, especially backed up by grail reliquae or morale buffing heroes.
The thing is though they're not basic infantry, they're bretonnia's equivalent of elite infantry. Their infantry gets no better than "slightly above average". I'll admit I never tried using a grail reliquary because I find the whole concept a bit silly, but I guess if all my peasants were unbreakable they might be serviceable to hold the line at least.
She seems a bit OP. I wonder if she'll have negative modifiers or other events leading to conflict with neighboring Brettonians, since her whole pro-peasant thing is kind of against their ideology. Plus, that's how Jean d' Arc's arc went.
Worth bearing in mind that most of her bonuses only apply to peasant units, and peasants suuuuuck. Which is probably why I could never get a handle on Bretonnians, you're supposed to use the peasants to pin the enemy in place while your cavalry flanks, but peasants simply cannot hold the line against anything. Offensive sieges with Bretonnians are a nightmare for similar reasons, they simply have zero effective infantry. Hopefully Repanse's bonuses will mitigate this somewhat.
I never really had that problem. I use mostly battle pilgrims and foot squires once I can afford them, and put a grail reliquae or hero on any spots in the line where things are going to get hairy. They hold fine.
The grail reliquae aren’t optional though which is where I think people mess up. It gives immunity to psychology which is pretty much required against undead or anything monstrous.
Battle Pilgrims and Foot Squires are also not good. They're slightly better than swordsman quality
They beat every empire infantry but greatswords and are better than a lot of other infantry focused factions basic infantry (bleakswords, dwarf warriors, marauders, nehekara warriors,regular and savage orc boyz, etc). About the same as gors - not going to tear the world up but fully capable of holding a line while cav tears things up or climbing walls in a seige against standard garrison infantry without embarrasing themselves, especially backed up by grail reliquae or morale buffing heroes.
The thing is though they're not basic infantry, they're bretonnia's equivalent of elite infantry. Their infantry gets no better than "slightly above average". I'll admit I never tried using a grail reliquary because I find the whole concept a bit silly, but I guess if all my peasants were unbreakable they might be serviceable to hold the line at least.
Brettonia’s equivalent of elite line “infantry” is grail guardians, in the same way vampire coast’s elite line “infantry” is armored prometheans.
At the time other factions are switching over to things like greatswords or chosen you should be replacing battle pilgrims with grail guardians and building one dedicated siege army with a few foot squires and a lot of pegasus/hippogriff knights and artillery.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Some of the Early Access streamers are saying XP for Heroes from battle victories has been buffed. This is good, it was a bit silly hitting 40 on Lords very quickly, and barely being 40 on most Heroes by victory turn.
Well. After Repanse gets "everyone gets flaming" most of her victories will probably be "Henri le Massif uses his hippogryph and flaming talons/sword to murderize the enemy undead lord. They're on a monster? Even better"
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
She seems a bit OP. I wonder if she'll have negative modifiers or other events leading to conflict with neighboring Brettonians, since her whole pro-peasant thing is kind of against their ideology. Plus, that's how Jean d' Arc's arc went.
Worth bearing in mind that most of her bonuses only apply to peasant units, and peasants suuuuuck. Which is probably why I could never get a handle on Bretonnians, you're supposed to use the peasants to pin the enemy in place while your cavalry flanks, but peasants simply cannot hold the line against anything. Offensive sieges with Bretonnians are a nightmare for similar reasons, they simply have zero effective infantry. Hopefully Repanse's bonuses will mitigate this somewhat.
I never really had that problem. I use mostly battle pilgrims and foot squires once I can afford them, and put a grail reliquae or hero on any spots in the line where things are going to get hairy. They hold fine.
The grail reliquae aren’t optional though which is where I think people mess up. It gives immunity to psychology which is pretty much required against undead or anything monstrous.
Battle Pilgrims and Foot Squires are also not good. They're slightly better than swordsman quality
They beat every empire infantry but greatswords and are better than a lot of other infantry focused factions basic infantry (bleakswords, dwarf warriors, marauders, nehekara warriors,regular and savage orc boyz, etc). About the same as gors - not going to tear the world up but fully capable of holding a line while cav tears things up or climbing walls in a seige against standard garrison infantry without embarrasing themselves, especially backed up by grail reliquae or morale buffing heroes.
The thing is though they're not basic infantry, they're bretonnia's equivalent of elite infantry. Their infantry gets no better than "slightly above average". I'll admit I never tried using a grail reliquary because I find the whole concept a bit silly, but I guess if all my peasants were unbreakable they might be serviceable to hold the line at least.
Brettonia’s equivalent of elite line “infantry” is grail guardians, in the same way vampire coast’s elite line “infantry” is armored prometheans.
At the time other factions are switching over to things like greatswords or chosen you should be replacing battle pilgrims with grail guardians and building one dedicated siege army with a few foot squires and a lot of pegasus/hippogriff knights and artillery.
archers are pretty useful in all stages of the game; except maybe not against chaos warriors.
Yeah the archers are great, especially pox arrows.
The guys I really remember fearing and having to be careful against on my Brettonian campaign were dark elves - malekith happened to take some of norsca, black guard are nasty, often spammed by ai, and they are backed up by spammed ap ranged. Ended up avoiding him a lot because he was distracted by HE.
I imagine a temple guard lizardman force would be tough, or an elite infantry focused HE as well... Chosen halberds should also be an issue, though I don’t remember them being too bad - maybe chaos AI just doesn’t spam them because they have so many other good options.
Damn! This is the second DLC in a row they're releasing right before/after a new Path of Exile league starts. Can the UK reacquire New Zealand to get this stuff in order? Stagger those dates!
Repanse because you want to see a Joan of Arc expy burn down the undead and all of the southlands with them?
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Speaking of burning down, it’s odd that they’re choosing the fire theme against Tomb Kings, the guys that are 99% made up of stuff that doesn’t burn.
Against Vampire Counts? Sure, nearly everything is super flammable. Tomb Kings? You just want to give your guys blunt force weapons. Stop trying to be fancy.
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Someone gave me advice for siege cheesing the beginning of the skryre campaign.
It did not work out well for me.
Eh they have trebs, decent enough archers, lords that can take punishment, and good flyers later on, they can cheese sieges just fine.
Look at Legend of Total War’s first 20 turns Bretonia guide for an example of how just Loen’s starting army can straight out demolish an ai garrison.
Battle Pilgrims and Foot Squires are also not good. They're slightly better than swordsman quality
They beat every empire infantry but greatswords and are better than a lot of other infantry focused factions basic infantry (bleakswords, dwarf warriors, marauders, nehekara warriors,regular and savage orc boyz, etc). About the same as gors - not going to tear the world up but fully capable of holding a line while cav tears things up or climbing walls in a seige against standard garrison infantry without embarrasing themselves, especially backed up by grail reliquae or morale buffing heroes.
I mean you are never going to run an army like chaos or lizardmen as bretonnia where you can get by with just dumping a bunch of infantry on the board with a couple of artillery to draw the enemy charge and let them break on your line, but they can do mid game infantry tasks like lineholding and wallclimbing just fine (and late game when stuff the foot squires and battle pilgrims really can’t handle pop up like full lines of chosen or blorcs, Bretonnia has other units like grail guardians and elite fliers that can take up those roles)
Naturally, Bretonnia confederates Parravon immediately after.
Like, okay you guys, you asked for this. I must have my goddamn borders. Hopefully I can just take these two provinces and then peace and relations will eventually normalize...
https://imgur.com/a/dJXDgrz
Sample:
WITNESS ME
I am not so sure they do.
In terms of 1 on 1 they will beat some of those units but in terms of holding a line they will not last as long. And they dont scale as well with unit skills due to their balanced stats. So while they will beat shielded spears they will lose the war by being held.
Plus, comparing them to basic basic infantry is a mistake. Theyre 600 and 700 cost units. You should be comparing them to tier 2 infantry. Like black ark corsairs. Which have more attack and anti-infantry on top or crossbows... and corsairs are not typically considered particularly good infantry.
Savage orcs (550 cost) with their massive 26 charge bonus, 35 damage, 9720 HP, Frenzy, and 30% DR.
So battle pilgrims at 32 atk, 32 dmg, and 65 armor do 16.05 damage per attack to savage orcs who have 16 MD. And the Orcs at 28 atk, 35 dmg do 10.92 dmg/atk. But the savage orcs win the charge pretty hard and have 17% more HP. So BPs best case scenario maybe ties them with the cheaper unit.
Longbeards are also 650 cost units and pilgrims or squires arent going to beat them. Either to hold a flank or to kill things.
So in the end they neither hold a line like a proper tier 2 line unit nor do they do they kill like a proper tier 2 murderizer.
If you are fighting a line of fimir warriors or minos or swordsmasters that will legitimately tear up battle pilgrims (which is usually going to be by a high damage unit killing them outright rather than breaking them) then you have grail guardians to hold against those units.
And if your battle pilgrims are wasted on the frontline against basic spears or hallys - great! Because that’s an anti-large unit that your knights won’t have to charge head on and unengaged. It’s fine to use a 600 gold unit to hold a 400 gold unit when it lets your 1200 gold units actually get out and do their jobs. Most of my Brettonia kills are from cavalry (and heros/lords/fliers) by far, and that’s ok - its Brettonia.
Edit: also should note I’m talking single player multiplayer is a weird land where everyone is cash-strapped because of cost limitations, but last time I paid much attention Brettonia did fine there, and the tiers seem to shift a fair amount patch by patch.
If that's still a thing, Foot Squires are still great at holding lines.
EDIT: Also, all the infantry that Brettonia brings to the field are fodder. They are primarily there to pin units in place so the cavalry can do their work.
Hyped for the new DLC. Clan Eshin and weird elf-thing are grade A in my book!
*continues to give Paradox shit for DLC while greedily buying all the Total Warhammer DLC*
Also, I know it's not everyone's jam, but getting some multi games going could be fun either campaign or some matches.
https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-warhammer-ii-the-potion-of-speed-update/
O_O. Those are some big changes for Deathrunners and I can't say if they just murdered the unit or if they buffed it.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Melee defense is what holds. Spears hold with 40 MD and charge defense.
Greatswords kill with 30 MA and +8 Anti-infantry. (Their armor is also no joke)
If you need a supoort unit to add leadership then youre missing out on another line or dmg unit. Single player when cost isnt an issue you still have army size limitations.
But saying “well i get my kills with cavalry” is besides the point considering were talking about a peasant infantry focused lord...
Which is to say that her buffs will be nice but dont expect her infantry to be top tier all of a sudden. They can win 1v1s with some non-infantry focused factions but theyre almost universally worst in role across the board
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
This really is a good QoL patch. Teclis, Morathi, Generic Slann plus Maz and Kroak get Greater Arcane Conduit. More sacrifices for Sotek. Hidden items now visible on the skills screen and available in ME and Vortex. Black arks now have skill trees, level up and can blockade ports or attack coastal cities.
The public order vision change is also good if they're intent on keeping vision based on difficulty. High PO grants more vision of a province, low PO less. It's tough to get PO in control on Legendary so it's kind of a natural effect. That said it's not clear if there's still a vision penalty on higher difficulties or if it all comes from PO. Only seen it mentioned by one streamer so far and it was just an aside.
Did the Dawi already have it?
You're not going to be pre-nerf Wurrzag(double red tree infantry, triple red tree cavalry, magic damage, 40% DR, +25 charge bonus savage orcs) or even post nerf Wurrzag(kinda double red tree infantry and cavalry, magic damage, +25 charge bonus, 45% DR savage orcs) for that matter.
Edit: As an example Wurrzags current stats for Savage Orc Big'uns is 56 melee Attack(+8 anti-large), 47 weapon damage (32/15+8 anti large), 71 charge bonus, who fucking cares melee defense, 45% physical resistance with 10,800 HP and Frenzy. Regular Savage Orcs are 44 MA, 39(29/10), 63 charge bonus, 45% physical resist, and Frenzy. And they have roughly the same upkeep as swordsmen.
In general i would say buff
1) smaller unit size makes it easier to maneuver when in box formation
2) smaller unit size generally does NOT inpact total DPS unless you hit a situation where you are less than 2-3 deep at enemy unit width. (Second row is generally able to be engaged but the third row is usually not)
3) smaller unit sizes (with more HP) are generally more resilient in combat and across battles for a variety of reasons
The exception is if they make the unit spacing larger.
Basically you’re probably going to be able to get the same number of rats attacking and they will do more damage and have better resiliency.
Those Pestilens changes are pretty awesome! I get what they were going for with skaven corruption by having it be bad for Skaven but worse for everyone else -- we already had Chaos and Vampire so let's try something different -- but it was in general just less fun. I love Vampire Counts in part because spreading vampiric corruption everywhere is cool! Bonuses to me, penalties to them -- tons of incentive to turn the map into an undead wasteland. On the flip side I found myself very rarely spreading Skaven corruption -- there were some uses, but I would never build a building just for the corruption. Letting Pestilens go all out and have incentive to turn the world into a horrible plague world sounds like a great idea.
Witch Elves mounted on the Cauldron of Blood now throw knives at enemies when in melee combat
This makes those chariots a LOT better
Free Company Militia: Fire while moving
FUUUCCCCKK!
Organ Gun: Made projectile 1.5 times as accurate.
This might actually be a nerf
Razordon Hunting Pack: changed trajectory to dual_low_fixed, allowing the unit to choose a higher trajectory if obstructed
This will make those units good deal better since they will now be able to hit the rear of units even if an enemy attempts to block them
Black Coach: +1050 mass
Might make it a bit harder for the coach to get stuck. Should be good
Hexwraiths: +2 melee defence, +3 AP melee damage, +1 base melee damage
Chillgheists (Hexwraiths): +2 melee defence, +50 cost, +3 AP melee damage, +1 base melee damage
Cairn Wraiths: +6 melee defence
none of these units needed to get better(MP maybe?) but ill take it
Grave Guard (Great Weapons): +50 cost, +2 melee attack, +1 AP melee damage, +1 base melee damage, +3 bonus vs infantry, -1 charge bonus
The extra attack and bonus vs infantry should go a long way to making GW GG's not worse at killing infantry than regular GG's, which they currently almost are
Rebalanced all abilities that modify melee attack or melee defence, reducing their effectiveness by roughly 10%
Rebalanced all abilities that modify melee base damage or melee ap damage, increasing their effectiveness by 20%
not sure what to make of this
For the purpose of streamlining some unclear communication in the battle layer, we’ve updated all projectiles spawned by abilities to be unblockable. This applies to bombardments, magic missiles and more. It was clear after an internal discussion that our current implementation didn’t really communicate to the player when they could rely on a shield to block or not block a magic missile. Shields still block regular arrows as normal
Good. This was annoying
Snare Net (Gutter Runners): changed implementation, now a passive ability with a 40m radius that reduces speed and charge speed by -12%
that is a big change hidden in the minutae
I think the Fire While Moving on FCM is going to be ridiculous. Theyre already really high damage as it is. And now they can shoot as they chase units doen.
Might be interesting to look at Skarsnik's Night Goblin Squigs with their double red + Skarsnik buffs. IIRC they were vaguely comparable, if less durable.
The thing is though they're not basic infantry, they're bretonnia's equivalent of elite infantry. Their infantry gets no better than "slightly above average". I'll admit I never tried using a grail reliquary because I find the whole concept a bit silly, but I guess if all my peasants were unbreakable they might be serviceable to hold the line at least.
Brettonia’s equivalent of elite line “infantry” is grail guardians, in the same way vampire coast’s elite line “infantry” is armored prometheans.
At the time other factions are switching over to things like greatswords or chosen you should be replacing battle pilgrims with grail guardians and building one dedicated siege army with a few foot squires and a lot of pegasus/hippogriff knights and artillery.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
archers are pretty useful in all stages of the game; except maybe not against chaos warriors.
The guys I really remember fearing and having to be careful against on my Brettonian campaign were dark elves - malekith happened to take some of norsca, black guard are nasty, often spammed by ai, and they are backed up by spammed ap ranged. Ended up avoiding him a lot because he was distracted by HE.
I imagine a temple guard lizardman force would be tough, or an elite infantry focused HE as well... Chosen halberds should also be an issue, though I don’t remember them being too bad - maybe chaos AI just doesn’t spam them because they have so many other good options.
But I think I'm going to revisit dark elfs first and then do an ikkit claw campaign because I never tried the nuclear option.
But really, all those big quality of life changes
...
I can’t decide...
Repanse on vortex because Vortex campaigns for non-core races tend to be great?
Malus darkblade on Mortal Empires for the non-naggarond start? Or even Lorkhir now that there are functional black arks?
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Against Vampire Counts? Sure, nearly everything is super flammable. Tomb Kings? You just want to give your guys blunt force weapons. Stop trying to be fancy.