Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 sebster wrote:
And the result isn't so much tanking the enemy as mutual attrition, where they run out of bodies before I do.

It's very different and I'm sure I'm doing it really badly right now, but maybe not? Maybe unlike other armies I'm just supposed to lose a bunch of guys in every battle and still call that a solid win?

Pretty much yes. Your baseline skeleton units exist pretty much only to pin enemies in place and die off in droves to fuel the Realm of Souls bar for your better units. If you chuck five blocks of Spearmen at the enemy and most of them die off, so what? Consolidate the survivors, disband any leftovers, and recruit the units back for free. Really everything that isn't Tomb Guard, a construct, a character, or one of the special regiments is utterly disposable.

It's actually quite impressive that the mechanics of the faction effectively require you to "roleplay" the uncaring and arrogant Tomb King that cares nothing for their servants to succeed

To add, the passive regen from the Nehekhara magic tree by itself is pretty useless. I tested it a bit but the regen on casting a spell is about 4 hitpoints per tick for a total of 60 hitpoints over 7 seconds. So you basically have to constantly keep spamming spells to make the passive regen worth it, as 60 hitpoints by themselves don't even tend to make up for the hitpoints lost in those 7 seconds alone.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Pretty much yes. Your baseline skeleton units exist pretty much only to pin enemies in place and die off in droves to fuel the Realm of Souls bar for your better units. If you chuck five blocks of Spearmen at the enemy and most of them die off, so what? Consolidate the survivors, disband any leftovers, and recruit the units back for free. Really everything that isn't Tomb Guard, a construct, a character, or one of the special regiments is utterly disposable.

It's actually quite impressive that the mechanics of the faction effectively require you to "roleplay" the uncaring and arrogant Tomb King that cares nothing for their servants to succeed

Yeah, I really like how different Tomb Kings feel in that sense. I just came from a High Elves campaign where any unit wiped out really hurt, and the game didn't have to tell me it happened because I was acutely aware of any unit was risking losing entirely. With Tomb Kings the game tells me a unit has been wiped, and my first thought is wondering where that happened, in case it means my line might be weak somewhere. The actual unit... meh

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
To add, the passive regen from the Nehekhara magic tree by itself is pretty useless. I tested it a bit but the regen on casting a spell is about 4 hitpoints per tick for a total of 60 hitpoints over 7 seconds. So you basically have to constantly keep spamming spells to make the passive regen worth it, as 60 hitpoints by themselves don't even tend to make up for the hitpoints lost in those 7 seconds alone.

That's what I'm doing now - spamming spells. Having learnt a bit about how Tomb Kings play and figuring out how I wanted to play them I restarted my campaign. This time I only took the low level buff spells with Settra, and in battle I spam those spells over and over again. They're good buffs, especially for their low cost, and it means the army keeps up a constant low level regen about half the time. It isn't much, but its really just an added benefit to those very nice buff spells.

In my other army I've got a liche lord with death, so they just run with the army wide regen and rely on direct damage spells. I like how it makes Settra's army play so differently to my other army.

That's actually the thing I'm really liking about Tomb Kings overall - my armies have real diversity. In every other army after some playing around it becomes clear what mix of high tier units makes for the best overall stack. Then I spam that stack over and over. With Tomb Kings the overall caps on unit types means if I want a lot of a certain unit in one army then I have to find something else to put in my other armies.

So right now I've got my infantry slogging army supported by archers, and I've got my cavalry army, both playing very differently. It's really cool.

 sebster wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
To add, the passive regen from the Nehekhara magic tree by itself is pretty useless. I tested it a bit but the regen on casting a spell is about 4 hitpoints per tick for a total of 60 hitpoints over 7 seconds. So you basically have to constantly keep spamming spells to make the passive regen worth it, as 60 hitpoints by themselves don't even tend to make up for the hitpoints lost in those 7 seconds alone.

That's what I'm doing now - spamming spells. Having learnt a bit about how Tomb Kings play and figuring out how I wanted to play them I restarted my campaign. This time I only took the low level buff spells with Settra, and in battle I spam those spells over and over again. They're good buffs, especially for their low cost, and it means the army keeps up a constant low level regen about half the time. It isn't much, but its really just an added benefit to those very nice buff spells.

In my other army I've got a liche lord with death, so they just run with the army wide regen and rely on direct damage spells. I like how it makes Settra's army play so differently to my other army.

That's actually the thing I'm really liking about Tomb Kings overall - my armies have real diversity. In every other army after some playing around it becomes clear what mix of high tier units makes for the best overall stack. Then I spam that stack over and over. With Tomb Kings the overall caps on unit types means if I want a lot of a certain unit in one army then I have to find something else to put in my other armies.

So right now I've got my infantry slogging army supported by archers, and I've got my cavalry army, both playing very differently. It's really cool.

True, the spells are good, but you would barely notice if the passive regen was gone. On that note, the Tomb King lord resurrection skill at the end of the red line is a lot better for regeneration, it is pretty powerful as it provides a core group of units around the Tomb King that can stand and fight for a much longer time. Kind of strange that the TK has more powerful regeneration 'magic' than the Lich Priests as its the other way around lore wise.

I agree, the army diversity is amazing. Besides a core of Tomb Guard and Skeleton Archers I always run a diverse amount of units in each army, which makes battles a joy to play as its all different and not another clone war army. My dream would be that they implement the unit caps for other races, although with higher caps per building as you still need gold buildings, so the diversity gets pushed to others too. I think Tomb Kings are my favorite army to play mechanically by far, Lizardmen just edging out overall because it was my primary TT army, but TK have been done so much better.

I've been playing with a mod in my Mortal Realms campaign as Empire that carries over the unit limitations per buildings that the Tomb Kings had baked in upon release. Divided by the familiar(to WHFB fans) as Core/Special/Rare. Its adds a fun dynamic, in that the truly elite units are exceedingly rare and only get pride of place in my LL's armies. Everyone else has an army that are very much balanced combined arms forces, with a small spread of elite units amongst them. They look true to the lore as well. The AI seems to have the same limitations as well, although they still get spammy because thats what Total War AI does.

Its been the most fun I've had since Mortal Realms came out, because even deep into the campaign, as the majority of my armies are on the same level as lesser factions, it really makes you have to choose your battles.

Speaking of Mortal Realms, I think the campaign system should get a serious rework. It is fun, but it really lacks focus. An extra incentive to going exploring or conquering on other continents should be encouraged, much like the Norsca Monster Hunts from WH1. Every faction should get that mechanic in some fashion, whether it be an Errantry War, an ancient Grudge, or just colonialism, there should be something other than just doing it for kicks. Maybe even scripted events like the Chaos Invasions, but instead maybe a trade dispute with an Elf faction breaks out into war, or Dark Elf raids that can only be stopped by sailing up north and kicking some butt, a Waagh thats about to pour through Black Fire Pass. There are all sorts of possibilities that could add hours of gameplay and really make use of the expanded map.

I restarted the Tomb Kings campaign a few times but now I am finally almost done it. I ended up sticking with Khatep just because it was the most interesting in terms of gameplay. I won the final battle and now I need to march across the ocean and take the Black Pyramid.

 nels1031 wrote:
I've been playing with a mod in my Mortal Realms campaign as Empire that carries over the unit limitations per buildings that the Tomb Kings had baked in upon release. Divided by the familiar(to WHFB fans) as Core/Special/Rare. Its adds a fun dynamic, in that the truly elite units are exceedingly rare and only get pride of place in my LL's armies. Everyone else has an army that are very much balanced combined arms forces, with a small spread of elite units amongst them. They look true to the lore as well. The AI seems to have the same limitations as well, although they still get spammy because thats what Total War AI does.

Neat. What mod? I've wanted something like that for years since I found it odd having armies of knights and such or having early tier units become redundant and almost extinct in your fighting armies in each total war game. The mod probably wouldn't do it how I'd want but I'd still like a look at it.

I'm at work at the moment, but I believe it was "Unit Limit - Core/Special/Rare".

 nels1031 wrote:
I'm at work at the moment, but I believe it was "Unit Limit - Core/Special/Rare".

That's the one. Thanks.

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

what does SFO mean?

Steel Faith Overhaul

Bah I'm blind, thank you. I wish CA would crank out this kind of material and it was not a mod

SFO is trash. It buffs Chaos into the high heavens, which is cool and all, but then proceeds to nerf the factions that would otherwise give them a good fight (especially lizards are nerfed rather egregiously for no apparent reason) so chaos just becomes uncontested. In the latest patch they had to put a limit on the chaos high tier units, which you know, wouldn't be a problem if they just balanced the bloody things properly to begin with.

The devs seem far more obsessed with giving everyone access to 10-soldiers-or-smaller units of uber super saiyan ultra elites than making the core framework make sense. It all just smells of fanwank.

Tomb kings do seem to suffer rather heavily under SFO, I could have sworn the initial limit for armies in vanilla was 3, but in SFO they get... 1. Good luck defending and expanding with that!

No, the initial army limit in vanilla is 1 as well.

Research gives you +1 per dynasty and you can spend excess gold and canopic jars on army capacity as well.

Hm, maybe it was radious or something then, I dunno.

It would be super OP otherwise. Name me one other faction who can afford 3 armies from turn 1.

Even Skaven with their cheap units can't get to 3 armies that fast. And even if they are all grunt troops, 3 TK armies in the first few turns would let them either strike out in two or three directions or use all three at once to overwhelm a good few settlements before any nation could get enough power together to counter.

So rumor mills I've seen have Alith Anar coming out as a new LL. Super pumped about that.

Next is a lizardmen lord, actually, Ghor-rok the albino one or whatshisname in all likelihood.

I've been playing this game a bit and i started to notice if you have a good bunch of heroes, tooled up ambush for skaven lords and several armies to ambush on the move you can do fairly well in fights. Even if it's 3 armies vs your 3 armies you just lower mobility with warlocks and then just put all your armies near one of their's or even 3 when the time comes and then ambush attack one of them. Skaven can ambush attack enemies on the move and ambush skills can be boosted pretty high and seem to work even for ambush attack. Lightning strike seems to suck with skaven since each skaven army is a bit inferior to enemy armies but ambush attack move is like lightning strike +1 or +2 because the enemy is force deployed in a bad position and only with the army that got ambushed and it allows all your supporting armies to fight so you can basically fight 3 of your armies against one of theirs even if they had 3 armies in base to base with each other and would normally support each other. Not only that but if you don't move much when attacking an army you can retreat and attack move till you can ambush attack move the army so that's a thing.

Anyway it's not a sure fire thing as high level lords can just brush off your heroes but it's really helpful vs the lower level lord led armies.

I realize i may be considerably behind all of you but it's helped me sometimes so far and i thought i'd share some helpful tips with skaven. My game is still a slow game but it's going fairly well considering i'm facing 2 super powered enemies with increasingly irrelevant allies (power-wise) with the exception of warriors of chaos allies which are doing fairly well. Then there's the wood elf frenemy i have which mostly hurts high elves but has sometimes gotten on my nerves. I'm fighting the near entirety of the lizardmen armies on my own, chaos is just attacking and destroying settlements with no resistance and high elves are split fighting me and wood elves. It's funny because warriors of chaos even sent an army to sack cities around ulthuan and the high elves don't give a flying **** about it to even send an army after em.

So the new dlc reveal is coming up. Its pretty clear by now that its a lord pack with Alarielle and Hellebron, but its kinda a downer in content in units if the leaks are correct. 1 hero (handmaiden) and 2 infantry units (shadow warriors and the new female hybrid archer unit that was added before the end times) for HE and 1 lord (sorc lord), 1 infantry unit (sisters of slaughter) and 1 cav unit (doomfire warlocks) for DE. Some RoR too, but seemingly not the amount that game 1 got. Have to say, pretty sad to see a LP that is more barebones than either of the two we got for game 1 after waiting for almost 6 months.

Makes me worried for my Lizardmen if they only do 2 units, as they are missing at least 4 units, 3 which are quite different from what they have now.

More high elves, nice!

And Dark Elves too! Shiny toys for both!!

Those and Norsca and Regiments - This will be a good end of the month!

Wow, crazy.

Dark Elves get a Pegasus unit. Only one, but I am pretty impressed.

A have a sneaky suspicion that Helebron will get to summon an Avatar of Khaine in a similar fashion to the Ubshabti summon Tomb Kings get... well, it is more of a hope than a suspicion.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/779880/Total_War_WARHAMMER_II__The_Queen__The_Crone

Sounds like it indeed. And a great price for a neat addition! Regiments, new units, new heroes, all new shiny stuff!

 StygianBeach wrote:


A have a sneaky suspicion that Helebron will get to summon an Avatar of Khaine in a similar fashion to the Ubshabti summon Tomb Kings get... well, it is more of a hope than a suspicion.

The chained secret thing is almost gauranteed to either be bloodwrack medusas (blood and chains? Sounds right) or kharibdyss (hydra reskin, very efficient).

High Elves are also getting Alith Anar with this patch. I'm hoping for Eltharion the Grim to make an eventual appearance.

Content information.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Next is a lizardmen lord, actually, Ghor-rok the albino one or whatshisname in all likelihood.

Ghor'Rok would be nice. Gives them a reason to add the Troglodon, both Feral and as Skink mounts.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Next is a lizardmen lord, actually, Ghor-rok the albino one or whatshisname in all likelihood.

Ghor'Rok would be nice. Gives them a reason to add the Troglodon, both Feral and as Skink mounts.

Ghor-rok was debunked, Alith Anar is the one who's coming. :(

Ghor might come another time.

I really hope Alith Anar is a warband lord, it would make a fun addition and make him very special.

It makes sense for that character. Alith Anar should not have a starting settlement, he should have no settlements at all, that is for other Asur.