Your artillery also may not have line of sight with the target.
Ikkit Claw wants ~6 Ratling Guns, 2-3 Jezzails, and round out the rest with artillery, doomwheels, and a couple Stormvermin. Your front line is the Ratling Guns.
Your artillery also may not have line of sight with the target.
Ikkit Claw wants ~6 Ratling Guns, 2-3 Jezzails, and round out the rest with artillery, doomwheels, and a couple Stormvermin. Your front line is the Ratling Guns.
With Ikkit I like 1/3 infantry, 1/3 ratlingguns&jezzails, 1/3 characters and skaven doombikers.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I really need to do an ikit claw game, do people recommend Vortex or ME? Seems like very different start positions.
Though I am having a ton of fun with Gelt right now. Lore oddness aside, it’s so much better than Karl Franz’s campaign. I’m basically fantasy Austria right now, trying to conquer the fantasy balkans (borderlands and sylvania) while balancing the empire enough to build IA so I can conquer rebel elector counts and confederate friendlies without massive penalties.
Eventually I expect a big invasion from the greenskins, which happen to sit right where the Turks would be in real life, to make the fantasy Austria experiencd complete.
I would suggest Vortex with Ikkit; it will be a much more fun campaign.
In ME you don't have many large threats at the start; you will just steamroll the south and then your only real threats will be brettonia/woodelves/belagar and the rest of the dwarves.
I feel like that’s a bit of a problem with the south in general, at least for Gelt I felt like with one or two decent stacks you can overrun the whole southern realms and no one can do much to stop you.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
So apparently I have forgotten everything I ever knew about how to play Total Warhammer, because my artillery keeps charging. Melee mode is not engaged! I am also not sure what I am doing wrong as Ikkit, because I am basically upgrading to Stormvermin and adding a bunch of artillery, but they apparently can't get the job done.
They might be chasing routing units. You should always enable guard mode on your artillery.
Speaking of army comps, what do you guys use for VCounts? I never really gave them a shot before, but I think I might. Seems like there's a lot of overlap. How do you know what the right cavalry is for what application?
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Speaking of army comps, what do you guys use for VCounts? I never really gave them a shot before, but I think I might. Seems like there's a lot of overlap. How do you know what the right cavalry is for what application?
VC cav is generally just a straight upgrade. When you can get Blood Knights, you pretty much have no reason to use Black Knights in new armies. By the time you get BKs you'll have much better options for back line harass. My early VC builds are mostly just trash I can resurrect from around the map. I'll usually try to grind out a better resurrection pool on the first walled city I come across. Sometimes I throw a load of zombies at the walls and retreat with my lord once everyone else is dead, only to come back a few turns later with a bigger load of zombies to take the place. Once I even managed to take the castle with just my lord and hero left. I believe I got a load of grave guard, Black Knights and Vargulfs out of it.
Speaking of army comps, what do you guys use for VCounts? I never really gave them a shot before, but I think I might. Seems like there's a lot of overlap. How do you know what the right cavalry is for what application?
VC cav is generally just a straight upgrade. When you can get Blood Knights, you pretty much have no reason to use Black Knights in new armies. By the time you get BKs you'll have much better options for back line harass. My early VC builds are mostly just trash I can resurrect from around the map. I'll usually try to grind out a better resurrection pool on the first walled city I come across. Sometimes I throw a load of zombies at the walls and retreat with my lord once everyone else is dead, only to come back a few turns later with a bigger load of zombies to take the place. Once I even managed to take the castle with just my lord and hero left. I believe I got a load of grave guard, Black Knights and Vargulfs out of it.
That's clever, I never thought to try that. Also, with the artillery on guard mode do they target new units if their manual selected targets move out of range?
Oh yeah, in my Kemmler ME campaign I attacked Marienburg very early and defeated them over the course of three battles in which I kept wearing them down and retreating to raise dead. By the end I could raise Vargulfs, Mortis Engines, and a bunch of other fancy stuff from there.
Edit: And yeah, if you leave the artillery on fire at will they will acquire new targets on their own.
Yeah, everything is pretty much an upgrade by cost. Black knights don’t have a great charge, black knights with barding+lances have a much better charge, blood knights are Essentially Elite black knights with barding+lances.
Fell bats and hounds are fast harassment units for use against weak things like archers and artillery. You have lots of flyers too for hitting your enemies rear and archer lines. Offensive/monstrous infantry and defensive infantry are pretty straightforward.
The only thing really not obvious is wraiths, they are just physically resistant so hold up really well against regular units but die quickly to anything with a magic attack (so a lot of elite units and heroes/lords).
Also the chariots, I never got much use from them but maybe someone else has and knows a good use for them.
Speaking of army comps, what do you guys use for VCounts? I never really gave them a shot before, but I think I might. Seems like there's a lot of overlap. How do you know what the right cavalry is for what application?
I like to have lots of grave guard (supported by skeletons if I'm short on cash), some fliers to kill enemy archers and artillery (or soften up the enemy if I have terrorgheists) and some Cairn wraiths to kill enemy armor and apply some terror. Also, at least 3 spellcasters, because I want lots of magic points coming in order to use Invocation of Nehek, zombie summons and Wind of Death.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Mortis Engines are awesome (AOE damage over time); throw them into your large infantry heavy armies. They are also especially useful in sieges where there is a mosh pit by the gates. Don't really want or need them if you're going mostly monsters.
The WH1 black chariot was not a very good unit. But when they changed its abilities to be constant and to be gained after attaining X number of kills, it became a very useful unit.
use them in unison with other units like a battering ram. disperse an infantry line/archer line with the black chariot, tie up the unit in disarray with another like Black Knights, and send the black chariot to another target.
Some battles only yield less than 100 kills with it. Sometimes 200+. its effectiveness really depends on the enemy army composition. I would not recommend using it against lizardmen.
Oh yeah, in my Kemmler ME campaign I attacked Marienburg very early and defeated them over the course of three battles in which I kept wearing them down and retreating to raise dead. By the end I could raise Vargulfs, Mortis Engines, and a bunch of other fancy stuff from there.
Edit: And yeah, if you leave the artillery on fire at will they will acquire new targets on their own.
Yeah this is definitely a big deal for all three undead factions, a war of attrition (as in the historical concept, not the game mechanic) is not only ok but is a good thing. As long as you can retreat your lord and heroes out and have some cash you can happily have every regular unit in a stack die, because you can get them back quicker than your enemy.
Speaking of army comps, what do you guys use for VCounts? I never really gave them a shot before, but I think I might. Seems like there's a lot of overlap. How do you know what the right cavalry is for what application?
Many units for VC are direct upgrades and theyre very hero/magic heavy. Theyre one of the few armies that do not mind multiple copies of the same hero type. In general i prefer one elite army coupled with a necromancer lead zombie/skeleton army. The necromancer’s job is to drop a winds of death on the enemy infantry then retreat off the battlefield on their flying mount. And the armies job is to die. Zombies are best because they have expendable*. The elite army uses ambush with the zombies as bait as you advance across the land. Loot an occupy will negate attrition and then just sell everything and let the vampire rebels pick up the pieces.
The super nice thing about VC is that because you will do a lot of recruiting via raise dead you will get a chance to try out a lot of units you otherwise would not. As VC i rarely even build recruitment buildings unless i really really need to slam a bunch of zombies into something. (The growth buildings i think it is give you extra recruitment slots so you can generate a 20 stack of zombies every 2 turns for pretty cheap. But other than that focus utility/corruption/money)
Wight Kings are anti-infantry tanks. They will lose to anti-infantry elite(but not that fast), armor piercing heroes/lords, and high quality/AP cavalry but generally beat everything else. They have 50% shields and so make good leads if you need someone to eat some crossbow fire. You probably only need one. But a second is another huge front line tank.
Vampires are primary casters and buffers. Halfway between a empire wizard and warrior priest. You will want one to two in each elite army depending on lord magic set and leadership buffing needs. At the very least you want dark spellcaster and one vampire spellcaster per elite army.
Banshees are your only source of consistent anti-lord until terrorgheists. Theyre still good vs lords even if they have magic damage unless the lord is a hard deulist because you can spread out the lords damage onto other units and because you can stack ward save/magic resist.
Necromancers are... eh. They cannot get a good mount and so are mainly good for the lore of vampires... which i think you can get from a vampire hero who will be better. Their AaE heal is eh and corpse cart mounts are nice but not good enough to justify.
Zombies are pure fodder. Before you have two armies you put the zombies in front of your real units so that the zombies exhaust their arrows/front line.
Skeleton Warriors(spears) are an OK front line fodder unit. They upgrade into Grave guard which are the second best basic elite infantry in the game with anti-infantry, armor, and 50% shields. (Great weapon are worse than greatswords though) and make a strong line whenever you need it.
Your likebackers are really only crypt horrors which upgrade into Mortis Engines. Having one or two of them is always nice. Cairn wraiths can also lineback but horrors are generally better
Your flanking DPS is crypt ghouls which upgrade to cairn wraiths which upgrade to hexwraiths. Cairn Wraiths do better DPS (due to density) but the speed of hex makes them upgrades.
Your perma rout is dire wolves which upgrade to hexwraiths.
Your cavalry is an upgrade from “well theyre still heavy cavalry”(black knights) to “holy damn but theyre not chaos knights”(blood knights) to “this will eat everything short of grail knights”(hexwraiths). Do note that against ranged magic damage you will still want blood knights around.
Fell Bats run interference -> varghesits are better and have some anti-infantry use -> terrorgeist is best and has anti-large plus anti-infantry special. Terrorgheists are your only AP anti-large and are in general just awesome. You can stack them if you have the dosh and not feel bad at all.
Corpse Carts are EH. But Black Coaches are really good. Probably the beat pure chariot in the game. Better on smaller unit sizes
You may be noticing a theme here. An ideal lategame army is probably something like:
Strigoi King on a Terrorgheist/Von Carstein/blood dragon on a zombie dragon.
Wight King
4 terror geists
4 hexwraiths
1-2 Blood Knights
1 vampire
6 Grave Guard
1 Mortis Engine.
1 WILD CARD (banshee or vampire or wight king)
You can dump TGs for more infantry but like you could also drop infantry for wight kings or TGs.
*i think its not listed on their card and need to recheck. Anyway what it means is that army losses for zombies should only count for zombie leadership and not for other unit leadership.
Bloodknights have several things working for them. They're fast, cause terror, huge anti-large bonus, frenzy and they have decent AP damage (not enough to be super-AP units, but 30% AP damage is nothing to scoff at). Also, I think their blood banner gives them ranged resistance?
Also, I really like Cairn wraiths because they're one of the cheapest sources of terror and one of the few units that can match heavily armored enemy anti-large infantry (especially halberd infantry with their AP bonus). Against hexwraiths halberds get their anti-large bonus, but no such luck against cairn wraiths.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Huh, so apparently the Festag update will not have an FLC Skaven lord released along with it. Wonder if it means that it's actually Dark Elves in the new pack? Or maybe it is actually a Dark Elf vs Skaven pack?
Right now I'm just kind of hoping the fan favorite character they mentioned isn't Malus. I'm sure he'll be in eventually, but I just can't make myself excited for him.
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited October 2019
Have they confirmed that the Christmas release is a Lord?
I’m still holding out hope for some more Legendary Heroes.
Or give us Troglodons like how they added the Bone Giant.
But at this point I’m more interested in fleshing out current Lords rosters than adding more Lords. There’s just so many Lords now, especially in Vortex.
There's gonna be a DLC if I'm not mistaken, and they've confirmed no more campaign packs (new races) outside of a potential game three pre-order bonus. So that only really leaves Lord Packs, unless they unveil a new type of DLC.
Edit: Unless you mean the FLC coming alongside it, in which case apparently they updated their FLC array to show the next release is a Lord.
Maybe Dwarfs vs Dark elves? (How? Are there any Dark elves and dwarves with a serious beef aside from Grombrindal vs Malekith?)
Maybe Dwarfs vs Skaven but a 3rd race flc? (I doubt they would have a FLC lord for a non core race due to not wanting to require DLC for FLC, but Malus Darkblade could start up close to Thott in the ME map...)
Maybe a giant swerve and its something like Dwarfs vs High Elves, and greenskins will be Greenskins vs Skaven?
Greenskins, Beastmen, Wood Elves and Chaos are the races not playable in Vortex. So I'm hoping for one or two of them for the DLC.
"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
The thing to remember is we don't need characters with a particular beef, just a theme that could pit them against each other. Wulfhart and Nakai are basically entirely unrelated, but they make good counter points to each other thematically. So any race can really work vs any other if they find a good potential hook. Mind I'm still struggling on any good hooks for the remaining Dark Elf characters and Dwarfs. I could easily see Skaven vs Vampire Counts working since the two of them both frequently want warpstone for their own reasons and particularly with Throt and a potential vampire they also both might covet particular corpses to make monsters with.
And yeah, we aren't getting Greenskins and they've said they aren't against DLC for DLC anymore, but currently have nothing planned for it. So the lord pack has to involve Empire, Dwarfs, High Elves, Dark Elves, or Skaven (they ruled out Vampire Counts getting anything as well). People are assuming High Elves are unlikely because Grom vs Eltharion, but that's not a foregone conclusion even if it's very likely. Doubt we'll get Empire again so soon, though they haven't been specifically ruled out. Skaven are seeming less likely with this news too, unless it's Dark Elves vs Skaven. Grace did respond to someone asking if Thanquol is being added with "The FLC Lord is not Skaven" so not sure if that rules out Thanquol or not.
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
The Nakai vs Wulfhart pack shows how they will treat DLC for DLC, since Warhammer 1 is essentially a big DLC pack for Warhammer 2.
If they add say, a Beastmen LL in a Warhammer 2 pack, it’ll just get that Beastmen LL and his roster in Vortex and ME for those without Warhammer 1 and Call of the Beastmen.
Yeah. I could see them throwing a swerve and putting in a lord for one of the WH dlc. The only ones that could stand as is without a rework are probably Brettonia and Norsca though.
I think people are hanging onto the greenskins vs high elf combo because Grom is literally the only greenskin character with anything to do with the new world.
You could do an old world focused greenskins vs skaven pack, but they haven’t been keen on ME focused packs...
And if you do one cross game dlc but not another the math on lord matches gets a bit messed up.
My guess is Malus vs Thott somehow. Or Thott vs Rakath? Malus honestly makes more sense as a paid lord with unique mechanics and Rakath as FLC but who knows.
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-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited October 2019
Grom vs Eltharion is the popular speculation for the next Old World update lord pack, updating Greenskins.
I'm hoping the DLC includes Skaven at least at this point. I'm now wondering if they plan to do some more cross-game DLC for game three. Could see a Dwarf vs Chaos Dwarf DLC pack. Otherwise it feels very weird to have a single cross game DLC then go back to WH2 vs WH2.
Rakarth vs Throt would probably be my personal favorite scenario with the data we have.
Speaking of army comps, what do you guys use for VCounts? I never really gave them a shot before, but I think I might. Seems like there's a lot of overlap. How do you know what the right cavalry is for what application?
Many units for VC are direct upgrades and theyre very hero/magic heavy. Theyre one of the few armies that do not mind multiple copies of the same hero type. In general i prefer one elite army coupled with a necromancer lead zombie/skeleton army. The necromancer’s job is to drop a winds of death on the enemy infantry then retreat off the battlefield on their flying mount. And the armies job is to die. Zombies are best because they have expendable*. The elite army uses ambush with the zombies as bait as you advance across the land. Loot an occupy will negate attrition and then just sell everything and let the vampire rebels pick up the pieces.
The super nice thing about VC is that because you will do a lot of recruiting via raise dead you will get a chance to try out a lot of units you otherwise would not. As VC i rarely even build recruitment buildings unless i really really need to slam a bunch of zombies into something. (The growth buildings i think it is give you extra recruitment slots so you can generate a 20 stack of zombies every 2 turns for pretty cheap. But other than that focus utility/corruption/money)
Wight Kings are anti-infantry tanks. They will lose to anti-infantry elite(but not that fast), armor piercing heroes/lords, and high quality/AP cavalry but generally beat everything else. They have 50% shields and so make good leads if you need someone to eat some crossbow fire. You probably only need one. But a second is another huge front line tank.
Vampires are primary casters and buffers. Halfway between a empire wizard and warrior priest. You will want one to two in each elite army depending on lord magic set and leadership buffing needs. At the very least you want dark spellcaster and one vampire spellcaster per elite army.
Banshees are your only source of consistent anti-lord until terrorgheists. Theyre still good vs lords even if they have magic damage unless the lord is a hard deulist because you can spread out the lords damage onto other units and because you can stack ward save/magic resist.
Necromancers are... eh. They cannot get a good mount and so are mainly good for the lore of vampires... which i think you can get from a vampire hero who will be better. Their AaE heal is eh and corpse cart mounts are nice but not good enough to justify.
Zombies are pure fodder. Before you have two armies you put the zombies in front of your real units so that the zombies exhaust their arrows/front line.
Skeleton Warriors(spears) are an OK front line fodder unit. They upgrade into Grave guard which are the second best basic elite infantry in the game with anti-infantry, armor, and 50% shields. (Great weapon are worse than greatswords though) and make a strong line whenever you need it.
Your likebackers are really only crypt horrors which upgrade into Mortis Engines. Having one or two of them is always nice. Cairn wraiths can also lineback but horrors are generally better
Your flanking DPS is crypt ghouls which upgrade to cairn wraiths which upgrade to hexwraiths. Cairn Wraiths do better DPS (due to density) but the speed of hex makes them upgrades.
Your perma rout is dire wolves which upgrade to hexwraiths.
Your cavalry is an upgrade from “well theyre still heavy cavalry”(black knights) to “holy damn but theyre not chaos knights”(blood knights) to “this will eat everything short of grail knights”(hexwraiths). Do note that against ranged magic damage you will still want blood knights around.
Fell Bats run interference -> varghesits are better and have some anti-infantry use -> terrorgeist is best and has anti-large plus anti-infantry special. Terrorgheists are your only AP anti-large and are in general just awesome. You can stack them if you have the dosh and not feel bad at all.
Corpse Carts are EH. But Black Coaches are really good. Probably the beat pure chariot in the game. Better on smaller unit sizes
You may be noticing a theme here. An ideal lategame army is probably something like:
Strigoi King on a Terrorgheist/Von Carstein/blood dragon on a zombie dragon.
Wight King
4 terror geists
4 hexwraiths
1-2 Blood Knights
1 vampire
6 Grave Guard
1 Mortis Engine.
1 WILD CARD (banshee or vampire or wight king)
You can dump TGs for more infantry but like you could also drop infantry for wight kings or TGs.
*i think its not listed on their card and need to recheck. Anyway what it means is that army losses for zombies should only count for zombie leadership and not for other unit leadership.
So I tried this out over the last few days, with very little success. Kemmler just doesn't seem to have the economy to be able to support multiple stacks (even if the second stack is free skeletons) unless I take several settlements, and that pisses off everyone around me. More importantly, even when I have battles with huge losses, I don't seem to be able to get to any of the good stuff. My opponents (especially Brettonia... seriously, Brettonia sucks) sends armies with like 5 characters and ~300 assorted knights, and I think you need huge losses on both sides to get top tier stuff. The best I've been able to raise was regular Black Knights. And I can't let the "vampire rebels pick up the pieces" because the settlements I do try to loot and occupy rebel way before vampiric corruption can get anywhere near 50%. At this point Marienburg, Parravon, Empire, and Brettonia are all throwing stacks at me and since they're attacking from multiple different angles I can't fight them all off at once.
Am I supposed to spend 50+ turns with just a single full province (say, the Forest of Arden + my starting settlement) building it up so that I can afford these things?
Posts
Ikkit Claw wants ~6 Ratling Guns, 2-3 Jezzails, and round out the rest with artillery, doomwheels, and a couple Stormvermin. Your front line is the Ratling Guns.
With Ikkit I like 1/3 infantry, 1/3 ratlingguns&jezzails, 1/3 characters and skaven doombikers.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Though I am having a ton of fun with Gelt right now. Lore oddness aside, it’s so much better than Karl Franz’s campaign. I’m basically fantasy Austria right now, trying to conquer the fantasy balkans (borderlands and sylvania) while balancing the empire enough to build IA so I can conquer rebel elector counts and confederate friendlies without massive penalties.
Eventually I expect a big invasion from the greenskins, which happen to sit right where the Turks would be in real life, to make the fantasy Austria experiencd complete.
In ME you don't have many large threats at the start; you will just steamroll the south and then your only real threats will be brettonia/woodelves/belagar and the rest of the dwarves.
They might be chasing routing units. You should always enable guard mode on your artillery.
VC cav is generally just a straight upgrade. When you can get Blood Knights, you pretty much have no reason to use Black Knights in new armies. By the time you get BKs you'll have much better options for back line harass. My early VC builds are mostly just trash I can resurrect from around the map. I'll usually try to grind out a better resurrection pool on the first walled city I come across. Sometimes I throw a load of zombies at the walls and retreat with my lord once everyone else is dead, only to come back a few turns later with a bigger load of zombies to take the place. Once I even managed to take the castle with just my lord and hero left. I believe I got a load of grave guard, Black Knights and Vargulfs out of it.
That's clever, I never thought to try that. Also, with the artillery on guard mode do they target new units if their manual selected targets move out of range?
Edit: And yeah, if you leave the artillery on fire at will they will acquire new targets on their own.
Fell bats and hounds are fast harassment units for use against weak things like archers and artillery. You have lots of flyers too for hitting your enemies rear and archer lines. Offensive/monstrous infantry and defensive infantry are pretty straightforward.
The only thing really not obvious is wraiths, they are just physically resistant so hold up really well against regular units but die quickly to anything with a magic attack (so a lot of elite units and heroes/lords).
Also the chariots, I never got much use from them but maybe someone else has and knows a good use for them.
I like to have lots of grave guard (supported by skeletons if I'm short on cash), some fliers to kill enemy archers and artillery (or soften up the enemy if I have terrorgheists) and some Cairn wraiths to kill enemy armor and apply some terror. Also, at least 3 spellcasters, because I want lots of magic points coming in order to use Invocation of Nehek, zombie summons and Wind of Death.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
The WH1 black chariot was not a very good unit. But when they changed its abilities to be constant and to be gained after attaining X number of kills, it became a very useful unit.
use them in unison with other units like a battering ram. disperse an infantry line/archer line with the black chariot, tie up the unit in disarray with another like Black Knights, and send the black chariot to another target.
Some battles only yield less than 100 kills with it. Sometimes 200+. its effectiveness really depends on the enemy army composition. I would not recommend using it against lizardmen.
Yeah this is definitely a big deal for all three undead factions, a war of attrition (as in the historical concept, not the game mechanic) is not only ok but is a good thing. As long as you can retreat your lord and heroes out and have some cash you can happily have every regular unit in a stack die, because you can get them back quicker than your enemy.
Many units for VC are direct upgrades and theyre very hero/magic heavy. Theyre one of the few armies that do not mind multiple copies of the same hero type. In general i prefer one elite army coupled with a necromancer lead zombie/skeleton army. The necromancer’s job is to drop a winds of death on the enemy infantry then retreat off the battlefield on their flying mount. And the armies job is to die. Zombies are best because they have expendable*. The elite army uses ambush with the zombies as bait as you advance across the land. Loot an occupy will negate attrition and then just sell everything and let the vampire rebels pick up the pieces.
The super nice thing about VC is that because you will do a lot of recruiting via raise dead you will get a chance to try out a lot of units you otherwise would not. As VC i rarely even build recruitment buildings unless i really really need to slam a bunch of zombies into something. (The growth buildings i think it is give you extra recruitment slots so you can generate a 20 stack of zombies every 2 turns for pretty cheap. But other than that focus utility/corruption/money)
Wight Kings are anti-infantry tanks. They will lose to anti-infantry elite(but not that fast), armor piercing heroes/lords, and high quality/AP cavalry but generally beat everything else. They have 50% shields and so make good leads if you need someone to eat some crossbow fire. You probably only need one. But a second is another huge front line tank.
Vampires are primary casters and buffers. Halfway between a empire wizard and warrior priest. You will want one to two in each elite army depending on lord magic set and leadership buffing needs. At the very least you want dark spellcaster and one vampire spellcaster per elite army.
Banshees are your only source of consistent anti-lord until terrorgheists. Theyre still good vs lords even if they have magic damage unless the lord is a hard deulist because you can spread out the lords damage onto other units and because you can stack ward save/magic resist.
Necromancers are... eh. They cannot get a good mount and so are mainly good for the lore of vampires... which i think you can get from a vampire hero who will be better. Their AaE heal is eh and corpse cart mounts are nice but not good enough to justify.
Zombies are pure fodder. Before you have two armies you put the zombies in front of your real units so that the zombies exhaust their arrows/front line.
Skeleton Warriors(spears) are an OK front line fodder unit. They upgrade into Grave guard which are the second best basic elite infantry in the game with anti-infantry, armor, and 50% shields. (Great weapon are worse than greatswords though) and make a strong line whenever you need it.
Your likebackers are really only crypt horrors which upgrade into Mortis Engines. Having one or two of them is always nice. Cairn wraiths can also lineback but horrors are generally better
Your flanking DPS is crypt ghouls which upgrade to cairn wraiths which upgrade to hexwraiths. Cairn Wraiths do better DPS (due to density) but the speed of hex makes them upgrades.
Your perma rout is dire wolves which upgrade to hexwraiths.
Your cavalry is an upgrade from “well theyre still heavy cavalry”(black knights) to “holy damn but theyre not chaos knights”(blood knights) to “this will eat everything short of grail knights”(hexwraiths). Do note that against ranged magic damage you will still want blood knights around.
Fell Bats run interference -> varghesits are better and have some anti-infantry use -> terrorgeist is best and has anti-large plus anti-infantry special. Terrorgheists are your only AP anti-large and are in general just awesome. You can stack them if you have the dosh and not feel bad at all.
Corpse Carts are EH. But Black Coaches are really good. Probably the beat pure chariot in the game. Better on smaller unit sizes
You may be noticing a theme here. An ideal lategame army is probably something like:
Strigoi King on a Terrorgheist/Von Carstein/blood dragon on a zombie dragon.
Wight King
4 terror geists
4 hexwraiths
1-2 Blood Knights
1 vampire
6 Grave Guard
1 Mortis Engine.
1 WILD CARD (banshee or vampire or wight king)
You can dump TGs for more infantry but like you could also drop infantry for wight kings or TGs.
*i think its not listed on their card and need to recheck. Anyway what it means is that army losses for zombies should only count for zombie leadership and not for other unit leadership.
Also, I really like Cairn wraiths because they're one of the cheapest sources of terror and one of the few units that can match heavily armored enemy anti-large infantry (especially halberd infantry with their AP bonus). Against hexwraiths halberds get their anti-large bonus, but no such luck against cairn wraiths.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
But they aren't AP. So while they tend to have problems vs armored monsters/lords.
Right now I'm just kind of hoping the fan favorite character they mentioned isn't Malus. I'm sure he'll be in eventually, but I just can't make myself excited for him.
I’m still holding out hope for some more Legendary Heroes.
Or give us Troglodons like how they added the Bone Giant.
But at this point I’m more interested in fleshing out current Lords rosters than adding more Lords. There’s just so many Lords now, especially in Vortex.
Edit: Unless you mean the FLC coming alongside it, in which case apparently they updated their FLC array to show the next release is a Lord.
Maybe Dark elves vs Skaven?
Maybe Dwarfs vs Dark elves? (How? Are there any Dark elves and dwarves with a serious beef aside from Grombrindal vs Malekith?)
Maybe Dwarfs vs Skaven but a 3rd race flc? (I doubt they would have a FLC lord for a non core race due to not wanting to require DLC for FLC, but Malus Darkblade could start up close to Thott in the ME map...)
Maybe a giant swerve and its something like Dwarfs vs High Elves, and greenskins will be Greenskins vs Skaven?
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
They said no Old World update, so they’re all ruled out.
And yeah, we aren't getting Greenskins and they've said they aren't against DLC for DLC anymore, but currently have nothing planned for it. So the lord pack has to involve Empire, Dwarfs, High Elves, Dark Elves, or Skaven (they ruled out Vampire Counts getting anything as well). People are assuming High Elves are unlikely because Grom vs Eltharion, but that's not a foregone conclusion even if it's very likely. Doubt we'll get Empire again so soon, though they haven't been specifically ruled out. Skaven are seeming less likely with this news too, unless it's Dark Elves vs Skaven. Grace did respond to someone asking if Thanquol is being added with "The FLC Lord is not Skaven" so not sure if that rules out Thanquol or not.
If they add say, a Beastmen LL in a Warhammer 2 pack, it’ll just get that Beastmen LL and his roster in Vortex and ME for those without Warhammer 1 and Call of the Beastmen.
Though I liked the idea of High Elf vs Vampire Coast, Aislinn vs Vangeist.
You could do an old world focused greenskins vs skaven pack, but they haven’t been keen on ME focused packs...
And if you do one cross game dlc but not another the math on lord matches gets a bit messed up.
My guess is Malus vs Thott somehow. Or Thott vs Rakath? Malus honestly makes more sense as a paid lord with unique mechanics and Rakath as FLC but who knows.
One more skink commander down, back to the camp.
Rakarth vs Throt would probably be my personal favorite scenario with the data we have.
At the very least Neferata is in Darklands, and Dwarfs vs Chaos Dwarfs makes sense.
So I tried this out over the last few days, with very little success. Kemmler just doesn't seem to have the economy to be able to support multiple stacks (even if the second stack is free skeletons) unless I take several settlements, and that pisses off everyone around me. More importantly, even when I have battles with huge losses, I don't seem to be able to get to any of the good stuff. My opponents (especially Brettonia... seriously, Brettonia sucks) sends armies with like 5 characters and ~300 assorted knights, and I think you need huge losses on both sides to get top tier stuff. The best I've been able to raise was regular Black Knights. And I can't let the "vampire rebels pick up the pieces" because the settlements I do try to loot and occupy rebel way before vampiric corruption can get anywhere near 50%. At this point Marienburg, Parravon, Empire, and Brettonia are all throwing stacks at me and since they're attacking from multiple different angles I can't fight them all off at once.
Am I supposed to spend 50+ turns with just a single full province (say, the Forest of Arden + my starting settlement) building it up so that I can afford these things?