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Green is best.... but I did not expect those jiggle physics. [By the by- picture and magnify that for the great unclean one in TW3)

Also, general update to how greenskins work and other things:
https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-warhammer-ii-the-warden-the-paunch-faq/

Accumulate Waagh! points in battle for a big army buff. Multiple times, but costing more each time.

Campaign Waagh! is a faction pool (not an army bar, like it currently is), and you send Waaagh! armies after regions.

Scrap is gathered post battle and used for upgrades and tech.

Character skills trees reworked

Azhag start position moved (and has his own faction, presumably). Reportedly to Karak Ungor, so gets to fight Ungrim, Kislev and eastern Empire early on. His diplo bonus with vampires may actually matter now.

Badlands area of the map updated


Also stream from earlier today (skip to about 12 unless you want to watch the 'something on the horizon' preview of emptiness):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztt1y1V1ZWM

I don't particularly recommend watching it though- there is some information but they spend a lot of time just yakking rather than really showing things off.

Its mostly about the free greenskin rework. New Karak (Raziak) below Karak Ungor, for example.

They don't explain it very coherently, but the Waaagh! armies don't work the same- it isn't an 'allied subfaction' army. It basically creates a second stack bound to each of your other armies that fill over time, until you're basically running around with 40 stack armies. Army composition is determined by the region they're in.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Lol at that description of the high elf rangers. That's like the equivalent of a hillbilly redneck elf that probably breeds with his cousin .

Is that really a thing when the incest is already a hallmark of the nobles? Wouldn't the hillbilly elves be considered backwards because they don't do that?

There are a lot of videos on the free update to orcs (each LL has his own variant of the Waagh combat ability, and a higher chance to get certain units- feral wyverns, black orcs, doom divers and savage orcs).

Additionally CA did a 'let's play' video on Grom, which isn't vaguely a lets play, but does give some insight to some of the expansion units (especially the River Troll Witch hero) and his food mechanic.

It also had a brief look at the settlement tree, and apparently black orc big bosses are sneaking in.


Scrap seems fairly straightforward. You get it after battles and you get even more if you raze settlements, its used in the tech tree (50 or so for certain techs) and to upgrade units, and each LL has specialities- Grimgor can give black orcs even more armor, for example. Different units get different upgrades- some are really bad (you can give 25 armor to archers, but why?, or you can give 25% lower reload time).

Oh and Grimgors Immortalz banner is ludicrous. As long as their morale is greater than 50%, models in the unit can't die. Yep. They take damage, but don't lose models.
Just don't let them get rear charged or overwhelmed. Though plague and fire weapons can depress their leadership real quick.

Folks are showing off all the units now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECtLjvXC4ek

Some of them are campaign only, some interesting unexpected additions (at last for me, I paid more attention to the green)- War Lions (not attached to chariots), Rangers (anti-infantry) and Silverin Guard (mid-tier spears).

Several 'mistwalker' units that are basically exclusive to Yvresse.

High elves also got archmages and mages of all the lores. Fire can be on dragons. Yes, even heroes.
They also get adjusted models- mostly different colors for each lore.

A Grom Mortal Empires campaign
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQG2upSxLv4

Building tree for Massif Orcal at about 16. The mysterious orc boss isn't there in this preview build (though it was in CA's build during their 'lets play' video). Speculation is that will be a free dlc as part of the Skull Throne event this year.

Orcal (which is Grom's ME starting point), does get a special stone troll building, however.

...
And finally some Eltharion coverage (Vortex, though he doesn't play the 'shoot colored lights at the spiral' game):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XNI9eQOdgo

(warning: a large chunk of what Turin says is basically memes instead of the English language. I find it really annoying, but YMMV)

Also, for anyone unaware, the video title comes from the fact that Christian Bale is the voice actor for Eltharion (so he is Bat-elf), and his sidekick hero is named for Henry Cavill, who apparently plays TW and Warhammer (and several of the character's abilities are based on his role as Geralt the Witcher).

Imrik mortal empires campaign:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJnPKMpXOnk

Looks fun. New dwarf minor faction as well, so there's a huge enemy variety in the area.
So far, the Grom and Eltharion campaigns look really easy to cheese. They have some neat campaign mechanics, but they look to be really quick games.

Imrik has an amazing skill tree as well.

 Overread wrote:
They've made it so that the speed-up turns button remembers its position turn to turn!

Sad to say the 'gate bug' didn't make it to the fix list. Its probably the longest lasting and most obnoxious bug in the series.

Still don't know who I'm going to start with. Feel obliged to go with greenskins, but I've got an itching to do Grimgor or even Azhag rather than Grom.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They're likely ignoring it until the siege overhaul.

Which game do you figure that will be in? Troy, Warhammer 3, or <undisclosed historical title>?

Ah. I'm cautiously optimistic about it, but I'd feel better if I knew how they were handling things (particularly chaos in general, not just daemons) and what factions would be the focus.
The latter particularly since the lord packs for 2 have really lavished attention on the base game factions (and the dlc factions from TW1 are really in a poor and incomplete state). And several of the prospective factions for TW3 simply don't have 6 LL candidates.

I also hope CA's enthusiasm sticks, now that GW has found a different partner for a AoS RTS game.


----
Oh, yeah, just a reminder, the Ararchnarok mount for Gobbo shamans and great shamans is out today as well. But you have to get it through Total War Access on their website, much like Gotrek and Felix and the TW1 regiments of renown.

And then you have to download Imrik separately from the DLC, as his own piece of FLC. This system is annoying. Just bundle everything together, or make the free lords and mounts part of the free patch update.

Having a lot of fun with Azhag.
Went sacking a bit in Ostermark, then withdrew into the mountains to sort things out.

Had a brief stumble with Ungrim (too many slayers backed with lots and lots of guns- I figured I could take him sallying out of his city, and was wrong). Came back a few turns later with the Waaagh. Fun fact- if you give the waagh armies to the AI to control, they no longer tick the battle Waaagh counter. :(

Caught the bloody spears leader in the mountains after he retook Mt. Gunbad, so got those settlements for free, then rolled over Zhufbar and the new Skaven faction there.

Now I've got the first quest battle, then going after the Dwarfs... if Grimgor and Wurzag don't beat me there.

-----
The big buff I'm seeing to the greenskins is the huge growth and obedience buffs due to the high Waaagh meter. Territory goes longer without rebellions and grows really fast.

Sacking to keep up with money demands really helps. Only problem is I'm leaving my starting territory with the best buildings further and further behind.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Voss wrote:
Had a brief stumble with Ungrim (too many slayers backed with lots and lots of guns- I figured I could take him sallying out of his city, and was wrong).

The changes to Slayers make them far harder to crack. Something to be wary of.

Yeah, I thought I saw something about them, but it didn't stick until battle. Then I realized it was Ungrims passive- none die until their HP pool is at 50%


---

Well, I'm at turn 89 of Azhag's campaign. Its pretty crazy. I made it all the way down to the Silver Road and took out the Dwarfs (just before Wurzag got there, though he'd already failed his Waaagh goal a few turns before). Then Grimgor beat me to most of the Wolf Lands (Crookback mountain and the like from the last patch), so I jumped over to Nagashizzar and took it (as seemed appropriate) from the Silver Host (who had apparently colonized). Meanwhile, all- out-war has erupted between the Greenskins (all of us collectively) and Clan Mors, and the fight has spilled over to Eshin now that Mors is almost wiped out (I declare a Waaagh and razed their capital, they have a nice trophy bonus- growth and replenishment). Wurzag is also skirmishing with the Border Princes.

Meanwhile the Empire is overrun with Vampires. Almost everything below the River Talabec is undead, except for Wurtbad, all of Wissenland and Solland (which are held by Nuln now). The Golden Order grimly holds on to Fort Soll. Meanwhile Mannfred's reach extends all the way to Ubersreik, and battles unfold outside Altdorf on a regular basis (and Bretonnia annexed Eilhart and Helmgart). Mannfred also owns Southern Kislev and Ostland, but is at war with Clan Moulder, who have bypassed Kislev itself and taken (or raze) Fort Jakova and Nagenhof.

The forces of Chaos have yet to stir, but Kislev consists only of Praag, Reengrad and Fort Ostrosk, all of which are relying on massive garrisons and the vampire-skaven war to hold out. Given the fiarly pitiful size of Praag, I suspect it was sacked at least once.

Skarsnik is long dead (apparently at the hands of Belegar, but Eight Peaks is deep in Wurzag's territory. Nothing that isn't green lives in the badlands anymore (not even the Strigoi)

Tilea has taken Skavenblight, but Ikit is likely holding on to part of Estalia

Vlad is a firm ally of Mannfred, but was displaced to Averland and a dwarf hold he took from Gelt.

Imrik and the new Helheim dwarves were never seen by my greenskins- the skaven crushed them long ago (and Mors conquered Karak Azul before Grimgor took all those holds for himself.

Malus holds the Dragon Isles, though my Spider Shaman murdered him after he settled in the ash ridges mountains, so we're at war.
And Malekith has all of two cities back home. No idea what happened to him.

Krog-Gar and I had a brief truce while we fought vampires and skaven, but he betrayed me, so I'm razing his cities until he agrees to go away (or my Waaagh runs out), as I have little interest in those lands. I have taken the Plain of Bones above Nagashizzar, and plan on displacing the remaining skaven. I left a settlement of Queek's behind (I believe), so he may eventually re-establish himself.

No idea what Settra is up to, but the minor Tomb Kings are still around, so I suspect its not very much.

--
The lack of Chaos amuses me. When they come, they'll be facing a vampiric Empire and I'll need to relocate armies to Karak Ungor. Any salvation of humanity is going to have to come from Bretonnia.
Huh. Middenheim is ruled by Marienburg, who are the strongest Imperial faction. But not enough. The world is likely to end up Green and Undead.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Voss wrote:
The world is likely to end up Green and Undead.

So an endless battle against enemies that keep coming back? Sounds like Orc heaven.

Somewhat. Though the empire just confederated Nuln and swept through a bunch of vampire provinces, and the main Moulder army is all the way down in Eschen, so I may have spoken too soon.

Though I did just gank Grimgor and took all his lands, now if I can only find Wurzag...
and stop all these skaven (and Malus) from running away (having a Waaagh army drops campaign map speed a _lot_), even hindering movement with my gobbo heroes, I'm only closing the gap (though the Wolf lands and Plain of Bones are large and empty)

And chaos arrived right after I took Grimgor's lands (which took me over the next chapter marker and into 30-some occupied provinces, so either might have caused that to trigger).
I guess Grimgor is going to defend my northern border once he returns.

There are some amazing greenskin landmarks now. Grom's Peak has a statue of His Immensity.

Ha. Pigbarter gets a new landmark for Orcs and Gobbos.

Gnoblar Underbelly
+2 cap for Gobbo Bigbosses,
-20% recruitment cost for gobbos and night gobbos
+2 recruit ranks for gobbos, nightgobbos and Bigbosses

---
Stomped and confederated with Wurrzag, which gives me almost all of the Badlands (there are still some savage orcs down in the Southern Badlands- and Zandri... what is Settra doing?).
He has... no spells unlocked. Level 16 and never even put a point in Gaze of Mork. OR his personal skill line. Instead he's focused on looting, sacking and buffing cav, trolls and giants.


Oh, and thanks to the Deathmaster, both Azhag (on his wyvern) and Raknik Spiderclaw (new technology unlocked shaman) on his Arachnarok have Stalk. Yep. They can't be seen on their giant mounts until they're too close.

I'd be more surprised if it was on PS4. That would be a punishing (and very expensive) port. They'd have to build the interface from the ground up, and a simple multi-army battle (like the new Waaaghs) would beat the crap out of the PS4 graphics capability. Definitely no ultra unit sizes.


-----

Found an amusing bug: some hero characters are inexplicably balancing on the back of their mounts. They aren't in the normal pose, they're standing with their arms out at a roughly 45 degree angle. Doesn't seem to affect everyone, but I can see a Vampire on pegasus and an empire captain with this behavior.

I didn't notice this primarily fighting skaven and dwarfs, as it doesn't come up.

---
And wow. Grimgor crumped Archaeon like he was kicking a three legged puppy.
Fun fight though. Kholek, Archaeon and the remnants of Saretheriol's army vs Wurrzag and Grimgor and their Waaagh armies. Reinforcements got really weird- Wurrzag was in underway stance, Kholek and their reinforcements came in at the front corner of my deployment area, and Grimgor came in behind Archaeon (which helped with the four Hellcannons). Kholek broke out but I was able just bombard his army with Brainburstas over and over again, while pitching my Savage orc boarboys against him and sticking him with Effigy of the Git.

Only chaos force left is Sigvald's and its at half strength, hiding in the hills south of Norden, while multiple empire factions circle the area (taking vampiric attrition). Though I think Louen is going to get him. Or resettle Norden like an opportunistic git.
And yep. Norden.

Ah well. Time to drop Mannfred as my ally. He's lost most of the Empire at this point, mostly because of Clan Moulder (and also suiciding stacks against Altdorf)

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Voss wrote:
He has... no spells unlocked. Level 16 and never even put a point in Gaze of Mork. OR his personal skill line. Instead he's focused on looting, sacking and buffing cav, trolls and giants.

I really do wish there was a "reset points" ability, either by default when you gain new Lords from confederating, or even something you have to pay gold for.

Yeah, there should be something, because the AI is ridiculously bad at skilling Lords. Most of the time anyway. Grimgor was almost perfect when I snagged him. 2 points in looter and 2 in devastating charge that I wouldn't have picked, but everything else was on point.

Well, campaign wrapped with a short victory (I don't want to go on a worldwide tour for 8 more scattered capitals.)

Mannfred ended up being crushed by a resurgent Empire. They have everything but two small towns controlled by an opportunistic Bretonnia- they lost Norden to Sigvald coming back and crushing Louen after they greedily settled it, Flensburg is a ruin for reasons unknown, and I have a small piece in Mordheim and Essen. But I wiped out Kislev and took Hell Pit to finish off the short victory condition. Also allied Cult of Pleasure- the only Dark Elves left, and they've lost most of the continent to High Elves.

Bretonnia is also entirely intact, Settra just had Khemri so I killed them off, and control the World's Edge mountains, the Badlands and everything eastward, and a fair chunk of Kislev.
Azhag ended up effectively out of the campaign for the second half, slogging his way north with the Waaagh army slowing him down. He did get to finish off Fort Ostrosk and Hell Pit at the end, and can throw an absurd amount of magic around.

Ended up chasing Sigvald across the Northern Empire, had him cornered at Middenheim by Grimgor and Wurrzag, and Todbringer swooped in out of nowhere and killed him, ending the Chaos invasion.
Pump wagons are neat, but as usually I find chariots too fiddly (and wagons too fragile)
At least Grimgor had the glory of cutting down Archaeon in one on one combat, even if Wurrzag got the credit for the win.

Stone Trolls are, I think, my favorite of the new units. They can go to town with a lot less worry than other trolls.

Played Etharion's campaign on the vortex map.

It was... odd, and short. Rough start, mostly because of Saltspite sailing around and diving in for settlements, but once I cleaned up the southern provinces and stabbed her in the face, it was a cakewalk.

Money became a non-issue and Grom randomly went south, calling a Waaagh on Kroq-Gar (and failed). I just walked over his starting region without a challenge. He then lost everything else to other factions' counter attacks. He has a Tier 1 settlement at the serpent coast which Kroq-Gar has unaccountably failed to take (but he hasn't settled the ruin in his starting province either)

Triggering the 'final battle' felt very artificial. The mistwalker units are faintly ridiculous, but not very interesting (and annoying to play rock/paper/scissors with the various interchangeable archer units to figure out which units they're supposed to target because they're anti infantry, anti large and whatever)

Bromsy wrote:Played as Grom. I recruited Skarsnik by smacking him around a bit, then hung out in Massif Orcal and just raided and sacked the Brets until I was stupid rich. Recruited a third lord to watch my stuff and sailed to Ulthuan. Gobbos are just hilarious with all the buffs and scrap upgrades. I was wrecking face, but I quit after a bit when my units of night goblins were out shooting High Elves.

They may have taken this a bit too far. So now I'm playing as Eltharion to balance the scales.

I felt that with the skaven - at least, Skryre and Eshin. The nukes and gear upgrades were ridiculous, as are Deathmaster's missions, but Eshin gets crazy just because of the armor-piercing on everything.

Empire got some nice units in their rework, especially the Elector Count specials, but they mostly don't feel as broken as the rats and greenies. Some are even bad.
Imrik is pretty crazy, but only his personal stack. The mistwalkers are cheesy, but don't feel like they matter- sisters of avelorn still seem better. Dark elves and lizards didn't ever get the sheer craziness that hit the other TW2 factions.

Eumerin wrote:
So now that (what I think is supposed to be) the last TW: WH2 DLC has been released, what are the opinions on how all of the races compare to each other?

There's one more DLC. Likely Moulder (meaning Thrott) and ?? (possibly another TW1 faction, but based on vague 'starting factions' statements likely not beasts, warriors or wood elves)

Which is sad, because beasts, warriors and wood elves are in the worst state. Though in the case of the wood elves, their behavior is strongly constrained by an AI directive not to leave Athel Loren. They still declare pointless wars, but they rarely attack anymore to avoid some of the ridiculous behavior in earlier builds. Unit wise they're alright, but playing their campaign is maddening because of the ridiculous amber mechanic and their pathetic expansion settlements.

Norsca could also use some extra love, particularly in the LL area.


Beasts and warriors need some sort of spawn point, so when half a dozen armies march out of nowhere with 'laser-lock' on you, the campaign doesn't just arbitrarily end in an unwinnable fight.
They need the rest of their units as well.

Eumerin wrote:
The third game is - from what I understand - supposed to be Chaos-focused. If so, perhaps the developers are waiting for that before they take another pass at Beastmen and Warriors.

Probably. There is some milling about the idea that there will be a preorder bonus for TW3, similar to how Norsca was supposed to be (presumably not mucked up as badly), that those who preorder 3 will get whatever-it-is for game 2, and it will be worked into game 3.
I could see beasts or warriors getting the attention then.

Still, it'll be a while, since 3 is still technically unannounced in most of the ways that matter and they'll want to focus PR on Troy (whenever they decide to shove that out the door, it'll likely lock down other games for a month or so on either side of its release). At this point I just want it to happen and get out of the way.

Well, CA used to do a 'What the teams are working on,' but they stopped doing that in Feb 2019.

I miss it personally. That one in particular mentioned they were working on an unnamed Saga game (Obviously Troy now), what they were working on with the launch delay of 3K, a lord pack for TW2, and motion capture for TW3, then in pre-production. Also the launcher and a 'secret project' by the 'access team.' And their new FPS, which is still unspecified as far as I know.

These days they seem to share a lot less.

Black orc big boss has arrived, as expected part of Skulls for the Skull Throne event.

Theoretically even in current campaigns, though mine says 'No characters currently available, a new character will be available on the next turn.' And the same message the next turn. And the turn after that.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Voss wrote:
Black orc big boss has arrived, as expected part of Skulls for the Skull Throne event.

Theoretically even in current campaigns, though mine says 'No characters currently available, a new character will be available on the next turn.' And the same message the next turn. And the turn after that.

you need to restart the campaign.

Yeah, I figured. Happily I was done with that one anyway. Was waiting on the Grom 'vortex' campaign until he came out.

 nels1031 wrote:
Vlad and Mannfred have been running the board in the Empire regions for every campaign I’ve played since this patch. Started an Azhag campaign and it seems AI controlled VC get all of East Sylvania and a portion of West Sylvania right at the start. Seems kind of silly.

To a point. Once the Empire gets its act together and starts confederating (mid game), they seem to roll right over the vampires. In mine they get to the gates of Altdorf, but once the first confederations start happening, the ball starts rolling and the VC are pushed back to Sylvania in a very fast dozen or so turns, and then snuffed. The battle calculations for greatswords and other late game units seems to really favor empire vs vampires, while the inverse seems to be true early on.

Part of it is the change to the AI- the vampires used to get in fairly pointless fights with the dwarfs, and burned a lot of armies that way. Now they're encouraged to focus on the empire, and having Azhag up north gives them an ally, rather than expansion space for Ungrim (or Kislev).

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Is anyone else having their maps being over run with Clan Mors or Cravenclaw while playing? As Eltharion I Hardly had a chance to fight Greenskins outside of the beginning two provinces, and didn’t even bloody get to see Grom, much less duke it out with him. Grimgor and Thorgrim got steamrolled by Clan mors, and Clan eshin took out Imrik. I think skaven took out half of bretonnia too Now I got Skaven empires on all sides, in a land war with Har greth, and may have to defend against more skaven soon.

Nope. I'm seeing seas of vampires and greenskins. Skaven keep coming to bad ends relatively early on, with the exception of Moulder, which rolls over Kislev and the Norse Dwarfs (though in fairness Kislev often ends up fighting 3-4 factions, so gets distracted). Vampires eventually fade into the mid/late game, but Grimgor becomes a massive block with Wurrzag and all the minor tribes underneath him. Ikkit tends to go back and forth with Estalia and TIlea, but eventually falls to those minor powers (usually Tilea)

I finally figured out what was going on with the latter- I started up a Eltharion mortal empires campaign (which I didn't really like- the split starting locations is actually annoying).
Anyway, when the gobbos on Ulthuan have one province left, Grom confederates them. I thought that was odd, since he's way off in the Misty Mountain area, but move on, take the settlement anyway, and start building defensively their while I focus on the savage orcs (Top Knots). Then a few turns latter, Grom confederates Wurrzag, which seems odd, since those vampires are in between and I didn't think they were at war. A bit latter, the savages are gone, and I'm moving into Groms territory, get jumped by Grom and Wurrzag's stacks, win, and then suddenly Grimgor confederates Grom's tribe, and my war with Grom is over.

And it hits me- the AI gets both confederation options (beating in a fight and just doing it through diplomacy, which they're inclined to do when they've lost stacks and are weak.) So its turn ~30, and Grimgor has about 11 provinces, all of Grom's and Wurrzag's stuff, and they'll come back in 4-5 turns. And the ridiculous green juggernaut picks up speed- having both confederation options is just crazy, given how easily the AIs give into each other on that score. The only one I usually see crumped (or just sitting in his starting area) is Skarsnik. He just doesn't have anywhere to go that the AI can handle.


----
Skaven-wise, Queek seems to pick bad fights and gets plowed under, and while I suspect Eshin tend to take out Imrik early on, they tend to hit the green wall. The one major advantage Skaven have is their ambush. It lets them ignore Waagh armies, and those just vanish when their main army get wiped out.

I was playing a Vlad campaign, and south of the mountains, the dwarfs were hanging on, mostly by confederating westward, but they still get pushed out of Karaz-a-Karak. The weird thing here was Barak Var rallied and kicked Wurrzag back out of their city (which, I now suspect, is when Grimgor confederated with him). But Grimgor still took Karaz-a-Karak, and had 25-30 cities.

The trick with skaven is focusing on their cities and just accept the fact that they will ambush you, which means not overloading on missile and artillery units. With solid fighting units, the ambush devolves into a straight fight pretty quick, and the skaven AI tends not to do that well with army composition or utilizing the ambush set up properly (often they set up on one side and further away) Fast stuff that can run night/gutter runners down also helps (as does attacking any siege engines they may or may not bring).

Not Online!!! wrote:

Voss wrote:
The trick with skaven is focusing on their cities and just accept the fact that they will ambush you, which means not overloading on missile and artillery units. With solid fighting units, the ambush devolves into a straight fight pretty quick, and the skaven AI tends not to do that well with army composition or utilizing the ambush set up properly (often they set up on one side and further away) Fast stuff that can run night/gutter runners down also helps (as does attacking any siege engines they may or may not bring).

ever heard of, you know, heros that can scout?
Also remaining outside their attack range will make it neigh impossible to get ambushed by them.

Er... skaven armies are invisible on the map when they want to be. Scouting heroes make no difference (beyond revealing the ruins as the skaven cities you already know they are), nor does their 'attack range.' You still have to get to their cities to wipe them out.

This game does throw weird results from time to time.

Playing a Throgg campaign. Spent the first 20 turns uniting Norsca west of the dwarves (the last idiot, Kamaerhon the Bloody Hound, razed the Varg Camp then spent half-a-dozen turns running from me). Then Cothique declared war. So I turn Throgg into the ocean and start going west. As I'm passing the northern end of Bretonnian, I notice two huge stacks from the Red Duke in L'Anguille.

Next turn, bam, they've taken Couronne- all that's left that I can see is a solitary level 1 Prophetess of Beasts camped out in a field, and I believe the orc settlement in the mountains just next to Marienburg.

The Red Duke's army is wrecked, and the garrison in Couronne is 4 skeletons with spears, 2 zombies and 2 bats.

I managed to steal a frost wyrm, skin wolves and an Ice Chariot in addition to my starting units and marauder filler, and the sorcerer of metal I recruited gives +5 melee attack to the entire army. With throgg's buff, my ice trolls have 71 melee attack.

So I'm very, very tempted, despite wanting to see a normally third tier faction over-run the Brets.

Still think the 'hit box' for army selection is smaller than it used to be.

But still, they fixed some problems that have been dogging the game since the black orc boss mini-update

O&G in general are pretty ridiculous on campaign. I have a Wurrzag campaign I got rather bored of simply because it involved rolling over everything.

But yes, Grom is a cakewalk.

This seems to be a trend. Vampire coast was fairly OP on release, Ikkit and Deathmaster have absurdly broken mechanics.

----
The only start that I've found that is noticeably harder than it used to be is Empire (not Golden Order) and that's simply because the rebellion gets the mountain pass fort, and their AI almost always retreats there when you start taking cities. A stack behind the walls on top of that garrison is a pain for the empire early on.

And their relationships with the other empire states precludes exploiting them early on. Once past that hurdle, however, it isn't too bad.

Of course, Chaos, Beasts and Wood Elves still have issues as well.

 trexmeyer wrote:
I did get a WoC win on normal but it was painful and I cheesed it by basically never making marauders after turn 50~ in order to stack 2-3 armies together. .

In fairness, that isn't cheesing it when it comes to chaos. General advice is to delete the marauder building turn 1 (so the next building costs less growth) and never recruit any marauders at all.
And often people don't bother with knights. Just stacks of Chosen and Hellcannons. Shaggoths sometimes take their place (even without Kholek).

Chaos worked a bit better in game 1, simply because no one could re-settle 'wrong terrain' cities. In 2, the ruins chaos leaves behind get rebuilt absurdly fast, and you get increasingly surrounded by enemies as you go.

Might as well go here

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/dev-blog-july-2020/


Soft announcement of the next DLC for WH2, another Lord Pack.

Featuring... Wood Elves! (and a WH2 race lord). This should be simple and straight-forward, but the they break it down twice and just keep it confusing.

First off, if you buy nothing, there is a Free hero character and a general game update.

If you buy the lord pack you get a Wood Elf vortex campaign and.. the 'opposite number' lord for this pack, who is probably skaven or dark elf.

If you have warhammer 1, you also get an Old World Update for WE in Mortal Empires.

If you also have the original WE DLC for warhammer 1, you also get a fourth WE lord (a 'her' according to the blog) and new units and characters for Mortal Empires.

Not sure if there is also a FLC lord for either Skaven or DE, or if the 'have everything' 4th WE lord takes that slot.

They allude to doing something like this again in the future if this works out. Presumably for beastmen, because they also need a major overhaul.

No word in the blog about TW3, blaming Covid for not announcing the 'next Total War title.' which I guess could be something else, but they've got an absurd road map for Troy (given that its Saga and theoretically 'early access' on the Epic store), and also announced a new DLC for 3k.

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Reaction- personally, WE desperately need an overhaul, so I'm happy to see this. Lord #3 will likely be in Orean's Camp down in the southlands, and the FLC lord (#4) will probably be in the Laurelorn Forest in the Empire, for a lack of other options.
No idea who the counterpart lord would be. Maybe Thrott if its Skaven and... Kouran Darkhand? or Beastlord Rakarth? if DE. Maybe? I'm kind of out of DE characters I care about, and felt Malus was disappointing and Lokhir was rather forgettable in implementation, and even Hellebron's death night mechanic was annoying.

But really, they've over-complicated this. Just give people access to the whole shebang if they buy the new DLC. They broke it down twice and still called it confusing themselves, and promised clarification when it actually comes out. That's absurd.