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Anyone else running into the mouseover stance bug in the campaign map or the group option bug in battles?

I can't embed the GIF.

https://preview.redd.it/vr6ini0sjo351.gif?format=mp4&s=87b372e1e59064dcf0ed982679b1ab89d89af498

Edit: I'll have battles from time to time where the group option simply doesn't work.

Is Grom completely OP right now? I'm at about turn 75ish in a hard Mortal Empires campaign and I've confederated Skarsnik and Azhag. The Golden Order, Border Princes, Clan Angrud, and a couple of other dwarf factions (Karaz and I think Karak Hirn?) are all dead by my hand. The Vampire Counts decided to start a war with me and I've destroyed several of their armies and claimed Castle Drakenhof. I also took Skavenblight and Skyre might be down to 1 army.

The cooking feels really broken. Early game you can exchange scrap for random gold to speed up your economy. Once you unlock all four slots, which is really easy even with bad quest RNG, doing the Hag quest gives 150 scrap/5k gold every couple of turns. Compared to my Skarsnik campaign I feel like I have a lot more scrap on hand.

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. I did enjoy the WoC quest battles and the three lords are great, Sigvuld less so, but damn that faction is boring as all hell. Especially in endgame when every army is just Chosen/Hellcannon/Knights except for Kholek and his Shaggoths. It feels like it has the least options out of any faction except maybe Norsca, but I haven't played most of the Order factions. They just seem to have more variance. Even running Grom as my faction leader I still use Black Orcs with Grimgor, Big 'uns with Azhag, Spider Riders with Raknik (which work surprisingly well), and Big 'uns/Orc Cav with the 'orrible. Though Spider Riders/Squig Hoppers seem much stronger than any Orc Cavalry unit.

I have entirely too many hours played and I haven't even touched Wood Elves or Lizardmen at all.

A few thoughts.

Warriors of Chaos are bad, primarily because they are a melee infantry focused faction in a game where melee infantry is not good. It's not as a bad at lower level difficulties, but even on hard my High Elf Archers > Swordmasters of Hoeth. The melee buffs are stupid.

I don't want to contemplate how many hours I've spent on Greenskins. I restarted a Grom campaign after confederating Grimgor, Wurzag, and Skarsnik because Azhag was dead. So I then got the band together and won. I also played campaigns starting as Skarsnik and Azhag. Grom is clearly the best faction lord just because of the Cauldron. Wurzag is the best in battle lord thanks to spamming Foot of Gork. I really dislike that their Orc Boy cav is so bad it shouldn't be recruited. Somehow Forest Goblin Spider Riders are better. Orc Infantry is in general weak. Black Orcs are okay, but so damn slow. I think Night Goblin (fanatics) are underappreciated and Nasty Skulkers might be the best melee infantry in the game in terms of cost/effectiveness. I've had battles where they just destroy whatever they touch.

I ran a Morathi vortex campaign. The campaign itself is interesting after only doing vortex as Khalida, but damn is the Dark Elf roster not fun to me. Black Arks I think are implemented well.

I played Khalida to a win on Vortex, but not on ME. I think I'm like 3 turns away on it, but I don't want to go back to it just to kill Strygos. I played Settra to win on ME and tried getting into Arkhan.
I really dislike that the best unit for Tomb Kings is the Casket of Souls and that it is so heavily time gated. It's insane that the best opening strat is get 20 units - Casket of Souls - start facerolling.

Currently playing Imrik and Imrik's army is the stupidest thing in terms of being OP that I've played yet. It is beautiful.

I also played Ikit Claw. The wrong way. I ignored his Campaign Objectives and went east. Ratling Guns are amazing and they absolutely suck during sieges compared to Archers. Still, I managed to win some very lopsided fights (against me) thanks to Ratling Guns. I can't fathom playing another Skaven faction. I guess Clan Eshin might be okay.

I got like 80-100 turns deep in a Gelt campaign, but the Empire has been very underwhelming. Guns are more powerful than Crossbows, but the positioning requirements and borderline uselessness in sieges is very frustrating.

I've done Imrik campaigns in ME and Vortex. Not finishing ME since Clan Eshin keeps confederating with other Skaven to dodge death. Vortex was a joke even on Hard. Every army by mid game is Archers/Sisters/Sea Guard. Usually with a Noble or two on flyers, Handmaiden because why not, Loremaster for Earthblood, Fire Mage, and Lord on Dragon. Endgame is same thing + 3-5 Dragons. Final battle was a Heroic Victory with Imrik's army (Fire Mage, Life Mage, Handmaid, 2 Sisters, 5 Sea Guard, RoR Dragons, and then a couple more Sun Dragons). Life Mage is just there to heal the dragons and Handmaiden holds a couple of buffs for the Archers. The strat is literally just infantry sit outside LoS in checkers, Imrik dives the center line, Dragons breathe on the blob, Fire Mage dumps Burning Head + Flame Vortex. It's silly.

I tried Lizardmen and hated it. No artillery, short range at best, and magic seems mediocre compared to what it should be. I don't like infantry focused armies.

And that does look somewhat appealing, but how many turns does it take to get there? Maybe I'll give Mazdamundi a try on Vortex.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Voss wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
And that does look somewhat appealing, but how many turns does it take to get there? Maybe I'll give Mazdamundi a try on Vortex.

Quite a few, at least without a very structured build order and a lot of sacking. Lizard income is pretty bad, their upkeep is rough, and trying to go wide (a lot of territory) is something of a trap, as its too easy to spread money too thin.

Lizard growth is also pretty slow without buildings and tech.

For Mazda specifically, Hexoatl starts with a gold mine, but in terms of actual income, its pretty bad- 600 at level 3.

The upside is they are in areas with a lot of special buildings. Lots of gold mines and such in the area. Trade is pretty easy with them. But yeah, money is their biggest issue. You are going to have to do a lot of work for that. But those special spawned monsters are beefy.

Edit: Just started a game as Khemri. So if anybody knows any good strats with the Tomb Kings I would appreciate it.

It's probably too late for this advice, but if you restart or anyone is starting a new one this what I've done for Khalida/Arkhan/Settra. It's a bit cheesy though.

You should start with military building for archers. Don't upgrade it. Maybe make the income building or chariot building since chariots are at useful for rear charges and breaking morale. I actually managed to get 200+ kills on 2 chariot units cycle charging Saurus warriors in one battle and that was the only reason I won. :/

Nehekara Warriors are borderline useless. Tomb Guard aren't, but they aren't worth rushing to get. The Dynasty Lord with Tomb Guard buffs + the 2 Heralds that buff them (IIRC Deathblow and Frenzy) make them better, but they'll never carry a battle.

All you do is sit in your starting province, recruit your archers, demo that building if you need gold, get to a 20 stack, get 5k gold, get Casket of Souls. Also, get the starting Liche Priest. Using Global Recruitment this should only take 4-5 turns. At this point your army is going to be TK, LP, Casket of Souls, 4x Archers, maybe 2x Chariots, Spearmen, and your respective starting units. It will be fully capable of beating anything else you can face this early outside of the Books of Nagash armies. From here I rush a settlement, sack, occupy, move to the next one. Once I get to the last settlement of the starting enemy I'll sack it for a turn or two, maybe more, especially if I have my second TK over there with 19x Spearmen. Getting levels on your Priest is huge.

Aside from that, make sure to get another Casket of Souls off of CD and try not to lose them.

Other things.

Get Necrotects that unlock additional Sphinx, Tomb Scorpions, or Ushbati. Any other traits are worthless, just recruit and disband them if you have the money.

Banishment is probably the best offensive spell you have access to and you can't heal constructs. Spearmen/Archers/Tomb Guard are easy and quick to replace, constructs can take forever. Make sure to bring a Necrotect to heal your constructs.

Unlock the TK heal trait (red line) ASAP. It might even be more of a priority than LS.

The Rite that causes attrition gives you an additional 50% ambush chance. It is amazing for defense especially in ME as Khalida as you can lock down the two land paths into Lahmia and easily wipe out enemy armies.

Ushbati work best as flankers, TG/Spearmen should be your frontline.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
I didn't see this until I had about 70ish rounds in to my campaign. But I did put your advice to good use. Casket of Souls are amazing and I hadn't made one up until that point.

I also didn't do the sack/occupy for a long time. Which is really my fault tbh, I use that tactic on other factions but didn't use it here for some reason. On the Faction that probably uses it the most.

I knew about Necrotects having special traits thankfully from a attempt before.

I am going for a Priest and Necrotect in every army I have but I wasn't sure what magic school for priests. I have been going with Nehekhara and it is working very well.

Tomb Guard seem pretty good as far as front lines go honestly. Some of the strongest melee I have seen on any of the factions really. They hold well.

Light is the "best" because so much of TK damage is ranged and Net is great, but they all work.

Beat Vortex on Luthor (H/N). I had only played VCoast before on E/E. I had started and quit a couple of campaigns as Luthor, Noctilus, and Aranessa before settling on the last one.

A few thoughts.

The goal was to not take territory and use Pirate Coves as my source of income, which mostly worked. I only had 5 Provinces at the end and spent 90% of the campaign with only 2. I took my starting one since it's a mandatory for Unified Mind, a two settlement one nearby that had two ports and was easily defensible, Galleon's Graveyard later on (since it's the most defensible port I know of), and then two island provinces that the Order of Loremasters had.

For up until the Third Shanty fight I only had up to 5 armies, which were just the Technology Lords. Shipbuilding is amazing. I only recruited normal lords for office slots and then 1 more for the Third Shanty fight since my other armies were out of position.

I ran 3 Mortars in every army and a Gunnery Wight in most, prioritizing ammo refill trait since it gives another 35 rounds of ammunition to mortars.

Started with Handgunners, but replaced them with Deck Gunners in most armies. Not sure if Deck Gunners are necessarily better, but they seem easier to position due to their range and unit size (playing on Ultra).

Necrofex are probably the best unit in terms of killing power, but I think they're overrated to a degree. Leviathans are better in melee and are all I need to lock up the enemy army while my ranged goes to work. I did get my Noctilus run up to about 10 Necrofex with double Arcane Conduit and overcast healing spell trait (I forget the name), but it wasn't as effective as Luthor on a Terrorgheist supported by a Fleet Captain, 3x Mortars, The RoR Gun, Leviathans, and Deck Gunners/Hand Gunners.

Depth Guard (with healing) surprised me at how well they can chew through chaff.

Luthor's killing power with the right gear once he has Unified Mind is tremendous. For sieges I'd let my artillery take out a couple of towers and then work on the ranged and Luthor could take out the rest solo. I had him at 52% Ward Save at the end and he could just charge in, get blobbed, and then drop a Vargheist's Revenge on the blob. He had just shy of 700 kills in the final battle and routinely picked up 600+. Didn't crack 1k though, but I was mainly fighting High Elves and they don't have those kinds of numbers.

Vargheist's Revenge > Winds of Death, at least on Ultra, but the healing spell is almost too good to pass up. I think most of my late game armies were around 1k-1200 and I'd frequently restore upwards of 100 units (basically all the damage I took) with heals after the army loss penalty was inflicted.

Some annoyances with the VCoast roster.

1. The best artillery unit is tier 2. I never recruited the cannons. Captured one once and disbanded it. Not sure why you would ever get one when Hand Gunners/Deck Gunners can melt monsters/cavalry just fine when focusing. I had a siege where the garrison had 3 dragons and they actually flew out past the walls. 6 Deck Gunners killed one before it landed and the other two were around half health when they landed (and got chewed up by regular Depth Guard). The mortars are good, but Empire artillery is dramatically better.

2. Can't recruit RoR outside of friendly territory. Every other faction that has RoR can use them as emergency troops anywhere.

3. No cavalry. I suppose you have Deck Droppers and Rotting Prometheans...the latter are okay, but their role is also filled by Leviathans. The gunnery version of Rotting Prometheans seems pointless. As do Deck Droppers.

4. The roster is small and many units seem pointless. Mournguls, Syreens, Handcannons, the bomb throwing guys, the Deck Droppers, Bloated Corpses (with the exception of early gam raise dead) don't really provide any benefit over other units that can do the same thing. At least in SP.

5. Terrible mount options and only Luthor can access a flyer. To make matters worse, the mounts barely increase speed.

It's certainly not a weak faction, but it suffers from having a lack of viable options. Army builds are basically Necrofex spam or a gun line variant.

If anyone is curious Isabella's Flying Circus is effective and amusing. For those who don't know, Isabella unlocks two additional Vampires, starts with two, gives embedded Vampires +10 Melee Attack/+10 Melee Defense, and I think a weapon strength bonus as well...but that doesn't display in game anywhere I can see even though I see the effect. So once they go down the melee line the Vampires have 70-80 MA, 50-60 MD, 500-600 WS, 100+ armor, 80+ leadership, and a self-heal on top of Isabella's Invocation of Nehek. They can also get Dread Incarnate for -4 to enemy leadership and this effect stacks.

The one I had running at endgame was Isabella, 16 Vampires (I believe 10-11 Dread Incarnate), and 3 Varghulfs for Siege Attacker and because you need ground units to avoid some penalties. 17 Arcane Conduits with excess of 250 starting Winds of Magic. It might actually top the Imrik Dragon stack.

Debating the best Greenskins stack.

I racked up 1400~ kills on Azhag in a siege against Skaven which is the most I've gotten for any lord. This is with the special building that reduces cooldown on Death Magic spells by 20%, level 40 Azhag with maxed out melee and magic skills (not literally every spell, just the krumpin ones), 3 Orc Shaman for Arcane Conduit/Foot of Gork, and the item that reduces ability CD by 15 seconds. He had regeneration trait from Isabella, but I also had the skill.

The stack was Azhag, 3 Shaman, 4 Black Orc Big Bosses (for melee attack/LD buff, Tormentor Sword, Helm of Discord, double Glittering Scales -5 MA each), and 12 Arachnarok Spiders to include the queen. You can send Azhag onto walls to fight while the mounted Black Orcs sit below since the buffs will still apply. Black Orc Big Bosses are amazing with Arachnarok Spiders regardless. With Azhag the full temporary buffs are +40 Armor, +24 MA, and then the debuffs are -10 MA from 2x Glittering Scales (constant), -24 from Tormentor Sword, -24 from Helm of Discord (iirc). Basically you can bring any non elite/lord/hero infantry down to 0 melee attack for a time. You can even just go full melee for the hell of it since Orc Shaman give another 24 MA/24 MD and 40 MA with two spells. Goblin Shaman would make it even better with their buffs. Then Azhag can nuke enemy leadership, damage, and armor via 2 Death Spells. Lastly, you could throw 6x Scarecrow Banners on the Spiders/Black Orcs for -48 Leadership (constant) to the enemy.

In summary the temporary effects would be the following.

Buffs:

MA: +24, +24, +40, total of 88...absolutely pointless...isn't 100 the cap?
Armor: +40 total
LD: +8 (Death Spell iirc), +16 Black Orc Buff, +24 total plus the Black Orc Aura
MD: +24 total

Debuffs:
MA: -24, -24, -10 x2 Glittering Scales, -68 total
MD: No debuffs...though I think Discord and Tormentor Sword both bring it down, I just don't recall
Weapon Strength: -30% Lore of Death
Armor: -30% Lore of Death
LD: -16 (Death Spell iirc), -8 x6 Scarecrow Banners for -48, -64 total and Spiders cause terror

The numbers may be off slightly, but for about 30 seconds the combo is unkillable in melee and with 4 Black Orcs you can cycle their buff for near constant uptime.

Also, Azhag has a flyer and is the only Orc LL to get one.

In my mind, Skarsnik and Grimgor are out of the discussion for just being footsloggers. Also, not being casters hurts as well.

Wurzag is an excellent caster, has a mount, but more importantly gives the best buffs to Arachnarok Spiders in the form of 25% physical resistance. He also strips magical resistance, but Fate of Bijuana (sp?) and the Purple Sun are superior to Foot of Gork (even the cheap one) and Brainbursta IMO.

So out of the three legendary lords left.

Azhag:
Terrible Army buffs for lategame, but vanguard deployment is amazing midgame for Orc Boar Boyz as I use them to hunt artillery and casters.
To maximize his individual effectiveness you have to give up redline buffs for your army if you want Lightning Strike. This isn't that big of a deal because 3 points will be wasted at least since his stack will just be heroes/spiders.
Not unstoppable in melee like a Vlad tier character, but has Regen, 80+ MA, and 700+ WS. He is vulnerable to anti-large in lategame, but basically every top tier LL will be. As far as caster lords on flyers go I don't know who is clearly superior overall as a melee/magic hybrid.
Having a flyer means he can easily pick his battles and most importantly can wipe ranged units on walls all day.
Only way to get a Lord with Lore of Death.

Grom:
Has the best faction buffs from start to finish.
Gives all Spiders maternal instincts. Useful for at least hitting flanks/rear of the enemy.
-10% spell cooldown and +10 winds of magic. Faster Foot of Gork is better.
Chariot is good for krumping.
Can't fight on walls.
Is best when cycle charging (i.e. not sieges).
Not a spellcaster.
Will get red line buffs.

Wurzag:
Strips magic resistance.
+25% physical resistance and red line buffs for your best units.
Cheapest Foot of Gork.
Okay in melee.
Can't fight on walls.

For a doomstack I think Grom is automatically out as well. Wurzag is more a straightforward nuke 'em till they glow type, but he's mediocre in melee, and much slower than Azhag.

I think the ideal stack would be:
Azhag
2x Night Goblin Shaman for faster Arcane Conduit, Little Waagh spells
1x Orc Shaman for Arcane Conduit, Big Waagh...mainly the melee buffs if it's a choice between Foot of Gork and Purple Sun.
6x Black Orc Bosses. Keep their melee buff up constantly and hopefully have a couple of Glittering Scales, Tormentor Swords, Helms of Discord. Plus they're freaking tanks.
10x Arachnarok Spiders with 1 being the ROR Queen or swap one out of the ROR Rogue Idol.


TLDR: I used think Azhag sucked, now I'm convinced he's the best. Also Black Orc Boss stacking is silly.

Well in that case they're clearing 150-160 since Black Orcs are around 70 with traits sans items.

Anyone else get war declarations from just about everyone playing as Norsca? I've tried 3 starts with various tactics and as soon as I took Albion via confederation the Elves and Dark Elves went HAM on me.

I have one campaign with a Wulfrik near 40, a Nurgle Lord (for regen on a mammoth) near 30, and probably a dozen mammoths between them sitting in Courenne, but it's like turn 140 and the Dark Elves are gone. I razed Har Ganeth and Karond Kar. Rictus and Nehek cleaned up Cult of Pleasure and Naggarond. Eataine is the only real Ordertide going, but they're about to drop Rictus.

I'm trying to come up with a good starting strat.

Take your starting province, maybe take out the one near Kislev, treaty Clan Moulder, wipe Kislev, head to Nordland? That should be doable by turn 30-40.

Edit: Wiped it all out to make room for this.

I finally found out how to modify favor. It was in a Lua Script not the DB files.

I tweaked Norsca a bit. Mainly QoL changes. Slightly stronger early game, but not significantly so IMO after playing 40 turns while testing.

Changes:

- Razing settlements now grant the chosen god 9 favor, up from 6 and reduces favor
for other gods by 3, up from 2.
- Monster Hunt offerings now grant the chosen god 18 favor, up from 12 and reduces favor
for other gods by 6, up from 4.

Norsca Marauder Chieftain Traits have been changed to give the following. Each Chaos God has a total of 9 points to
invest with the final trait locking out the others. i.e. you can get Pestilence of the Crow (Regen) but not Sorcery
of the Eagle. In the base game you can only get bonuses from a single Chaos God.

Values were chosen based on their favored numbers. Khorne is 8, Slaanesh is 6, Nurgle is 7, Tzeentch is 9.

Khorne (The Hound) Bonuses:
Charge Bonus: 24
Weapon Strength: 8
Melee Attack: 16
AP Damage: 16

Slaanesh (The Serpent) Bonuses:
Health: 12
Fatigue Resistance: -30
Melee Attack: 12
Leadership: 12

Nurgle (The Crow) Bonuses:
Physical Resistance: 14
Weapon Strength: 7
Melee Defense: 14
Health: 7

Tzeentch (The Eagle) Bonuses:
Magic Resistance: 9
Speed: 9
Armor: 18
Ward Save: 9

Only The Eagle's final ability has been changed. It now gives Fate of Bijuna (same version as Azrik the Maze Keeper) and
+15 Winds of Magic Reserve. The reserve is to largely cover the cost of one cast (22 WoM) as the previous ability was
Bound Fireball with 4 casts.

Norsca major settlement main buildings give an additional 10 Income and 10 Growth.
Norsca minor settlement main buildings give an additional 5 Income and 5 Growth.
Loot Piles give an additional 10 Growth.
Ports give an additional 5 Growth.
This translates to an additional 40 Growth for the World Walker's starting province.

Outposts have not been touched.

All Chaos Gods give an additional favour effect at rank 1 Favor.

Crow: 10% Physical Resistance
Hound: 10 Melee Attack
Serpent: 10% Speed
Eagle: 10% Magic Resistance

Serpent rank 2 bonus of +5 to Lord recruit rank increased to +8.

I'm considering changing all the bonuses to reflect their favored numbers however.

Range for Throwing Axes and Javelins has been increased from 80 and 90, respectively, to 90 and 100. Damage has been slightly
increased for each.

Marauder Chieftains have had their base defense increased from 40 to 45 when on foot or on a horse.
Marauder Chieftains have had their HP increased to 4400 when on foot, up from 4260.

Working on giving Azrik the Maze Keeper optional skills. Removed his starting ones, but kept the Lore of Metal and Death.

Image won't embed.
https://imgur.com/9TzCu8H

Edit: I realize his default skill is redundant with the two Loremaster traits. Not sure what else to do. It's simple enough to swap out unique line skills. Working on giving him a unique weapon.

So I didn't realize Vashnaar's Conquest was notable until googling his lore after killing him once again. I don't know if he's weaker now because I've never personally had a problem with him, but apparently he used/still does run rampant through the game at times. I have witness him conquer middle Lustria once or twice, which is hilarious.

The only other particularly odd thing I've seen was when playing Court of Lybaras on ME VH. I quit the game around turn 150ish at strength rank 3/4. Sylvania was number 1 and had destroyed the Empire. Literally, every Imperial faction outside of the Golden Order was gone and the Golden Order was a few turns from death. Von Carsten was still alive and independent. Grimgor was number 2 and had trashed Karaz-a-Karak and Clan Eshin. The strongest dwarf faction left was Greybeard's Prospectors. Bretonnia only had their Araby Crusade holdings. Everything else was Clan Rictus/World Walkers/Sylvania.

First time I've seen Empire and Dwarves both get stomped out by the AI.

It does look like this thread is dead. :/

I ran through a VH on Norsca (Wulfrik) and then a H as Clan Angrund and a VH as Ungrim.

Norsca actually feels stronger than either Angrund or Ungrim. Just to summarize.

Norsca:
Ranged is lacking, but you have very good anti-large range in javelins.
Skin Wolves are pretty solid flankers/anti-large flankers.
Infernal Dominance stacking can get silly.
You have access to Fire Magic which is IMO the best school of magic.
Lords lack skill options, but red/blue line buffs are critical for basically every non caster lord so melee self buffs aren't that important. Big thing is you get Mammoths with Regen, +15% Missile Resistance, and +15% Weapon Strength.
The Dragon Ogre's Horn and Unidentified Hydra head will wipe swarmed infantry when combined. I've literally kill 800+ by sending in my lord with those to get swarmed and popping both.
Monster Hunts in general are one of the most fun and rewarding faction features. Some rewards are mediocre, but I prefer it to just crafting.
3x Skin Wolf Werekin (might be 4x) can stack all 3 (might be 4) levels of the MA attack buff. This combined with disbanding until you get Infernal Dominance leads to stupid MA values. My Wulfrik stack had Mammoths buffed in excess of 120 MA.
Marauder Horsemasters are actually decent as harassment units and with full buffs get pretty solid missile damage.
The tech you gain from capturing capitals snowballs quick. I had captured all of them except for 2-3.
You control when Archaon arrives, thus no Ordertide.

The early game trick is to level up 2 Lords while not confederating any Norscan faction with Albion. I beat up on Norsca for a long minute before sniping Couronne and then Altdorf a few turns later. After that it turned into a snowball where I just focused on preventing counterattacks while clearing out Reikland and sniping other capitols for tech. I won the campaign after the final challenger. I think trying to buddy up with Archaon to win is a mistake.

Dwarves meanwhile:
Artillery outside of Organ Guns (which are amazing) is unimpressive.
Runesmiths/Runelords are really only good for the DR rune and the slow rune.
Generic Lords are markedly inferior to Norscan lords.
Painfully slow unless you stack Engineers and then only your ranged are fast. You can really only do this with one army, but that army will wreck. (70 speed, 247 missile damage rangers)
Slayers are questionable picks outside of Ungrim's army. With Ungrim they're silly.
No magic hurts a lot and MR is not valuable (imo) at all in SP because the AI doesn't make good use of magic.
The greatest strength is that you are part of the Order Tide. On both Angrund and Ungrim I helped out allies, avoided confederation except to fill out a province here or there, and just focused on the objectives. Whereas with Norsca I was #1 in strength from basically turn 60-70 onwards. I never reached that point on Dwarves.
Some gear combos are amazing. Every character can get 8 HP regen with no downsides, perfect vigor, and cause terror. They become very tanky.
Grudgethrowers have a horrific firing arc for sieges. It might be the worst one I've dealt with yet.

I feel like Dwarves used to be strong, but got left behind with the power creep. Their rune crafting, which should be vital, doesn't even exist. Ungrim was fun and Angrund was as well until I took Eight Peaks, but they don't seem like they've been updated in a while.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Alot of the older races needed an update more then dwarfs, that the orks got one that is Fun and works for them is by no means a small thing aswell.

Also you are stuck to deal with skaven, which are with their hordes a Real pain in the ass.

Wasn't Warhammer just the following?

The Empire (Better than Dwarves in everything other than melee infantry...I think...maybe Greatswords are comparable to Hammerers)
The Greenskins (Worse range by far, but better elsewhere)
Vampire Counts (No range, but they're incredibly strong)
Beastmen (bad)
Warriors of Chaos (not bad so much as the Horde mechanic needs a rework and they're facing an uphill battle by fighting basically everyone)
Wood Elves (getting the next DLC)

Edit: Now, I do dislike fighting the AI Dwarves, but I think that's primarily due to the following: they confederate quickly and constantly, magic resistance is much better for the AI in SP than the player, and they're part of the Ordertide.

I think they're in a better spot than Dwarves despite the lack of unit variety.

Trolls are worthless unless with Throgg. They could use a Troll/Fimir lord that gives them additional buffs over what Chieftains can do.

Both varieties of Fimir Warriors are good, but not great. Definitely better than trolls.

Skin Wolves win 1v1 against cavalry that isn't anti-large.

Norscan Ice Wolves/Chariots (forced into melee mode) are good anti-ranged/artillery and okay flankers.

Early game I spam so many Javelin Throwers that Bretonnia and it's trash infantry just don't matter. What I was most worried about was Hellfire Rocket Batteries, but the AI is dumb. I found that you can split your force in two halves, spread far apart, and charge from both sides. AI ends up spamming reform to target whoever is closest. Works even better if you have a Fire Sorceror to nuke them while they're fiddling about.

It's doable. I've ran through like 4-5 campaigns as Norsca. The learning curve is steeper than I think every other faction I've played. Confederation is a trick imo. You're best off beating the snot out of other tribes for the first 40-50 turns and leveling up to lords to mammoths before you attempt to go south.

Ran through Talsyn on hard for the first time. Won on turn 109 (it didn't trigger until the next turn :/). I had Mixu's Tabletop Lords mod which gives 3 Spellsinger Lord variants. Not that it mattered because I never leveled any lord other than Orion past 11 and the second highest was a Glade Lord.

The blue line needs to be reworked to bring it in line with other factions. Requires 5 points instead of 4 and LS is way too deep. I think it was the most dorked up blue line I've seen outside of maybe WoC.
I like not being able to fully settle outside of forests, but I would at least bring their settlement options on par with Norsca in that they have outposts with a different set of buildings that can go up to t3/t5 or at least t3 for every major settlement and t5 for faction capitols.

Orion is mediocre IMO as a legendary lord. Could use a mount and either better AoE, fire when shooting, or being more of a tank.

Waystalkers are bonkers. My final Orion army was 2 Spellsingers + Waystalker hero with Talon trait, 4 Wild Riders (for fluff), 3 Sisters of the Thorn for buffs and debuffs, and the rest were Waystalkers. They melt targets faster than anything I've seen in 1000+ hours.

Honestly, after hearing so much about how hard they are I was not impressed. You can raze settlements for 100k+, you get +30 rep with everyone eventually and +70 with certain factions. It was really simple to just ally with the Ordertide and send a couple of armies out to wreck enemy settlements.

 Argive wrote:
Im playing as the awekened currently.

I almost got order tied but the dwarves love me coz I keep fighting cult of pleasure so I amanged to broker a peace with them and trade and am about to get a defensive alliance to try and trick them into going to war with empire lol.

Necrofex collossus + vamp magic and gunnery wight are just soo good.. Its a shame they are just hands over heels better than rotting leviathans or terroghaist.

Will probably revisit Norsca again on my week off before moving onto stunties.

Rotting Leviathans are pretty good. Necrofex is definitely better in Noctilus's army, but in other ones I think it's more of a tossup. I ran through an Awakened campaign a while back where I only took 2-3 provinces and just dropped Pirate Coves all over. It was more fun than trying to paint the map.

In general Vampire Coast is a really good faction. My only actual complaint about their roster is that their mount options are pointless except as a way to increase the character's mass. They should really be 55-65 speed.

Also, Gunnery Wights are possibly the best ranged hero in game right now. I kept two in my Queen Bess army to refill the ammo. It's my favorite buff ability.

Depth Guard are good at eating low-tier/mid-tier infantry, but they need to be supported by some kind of meat shield. I would combo them with Zombie Mobs of the Polearm variety.

Honestly, the place they absolutely shined the most for me was in sieges vs Tomb Kings. I'd take out the towers and send them up the walls since they eat TK infantry.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Gonna give TWW2 a crack for the first time in a couple of years. Is it worth getting the Grom DLC for playing an O&G vortex campaign?

Yes. It adds faction wide buff mechanic via Grom's Cauldron (cooking). You start off with access to food items that give two buffs and that can progress to three. There are buffs for IIRC every unit type in the roster. Grom himself is a pretty good lord and buffs up regular Goblins (not Night Goblins) quite a bit. Also it unlocks a new hero caster that has access to Shadow magic as well as a couple of other units.

I haven't played as Eltharion, but I know he adds a bit to High Elves as well.

OG will snowball slower in Vortex due to no confederations, but Grom should still be a beast. If you're familiar with the game he's too strong to play on normal/easy.


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I did a Wulfhart campaign out of curiosity. The heroes are interesting. The Waystalker ends up much stronger than normal Waystalkers and the Paladin is a tank. The Imperial Supplies feature is interesting.

The campaign left a bad taste in my mouth. Wulfhart is evil. He's a European colonizer expy wiping out the natives in a South America expy. I've played other evil factions, but none bothered me like he does. I think it's the combination of rampant racism against the Lizardmen and the fanatical belief that the Empire is somehow the pinnacle of civilization. Also with other evil characters you get it into expecting them to be evil. Chaos wants to end the world, Dark Elves are slavers, Vampire Counts want to dominate the Empire, Skaven are insane, Norsca wants to sack and pillage, etc. The Empire is supposed to at least pretend to be good...but then you spend the entire campaign wiping out the most ancient defender of civilization.

I think I have to play Nakai now just for redemption.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Gonna give TWW2 a crack for the first time in a couple of years. Is it worth getting the Grom DLC for playing an O&G vortex campaign?

I decided to give Grom a go on Vortex VH to see if it was as easy I expected. It's easier...assuming you do a little bit of cheese.

I opened by sacking Arachnos settlements until Grom was level 8-9.

Then I finished them off and the Dwarves.

Imrik declared war on me but his forces were strangely split into two partial stacks. I had enough gold to raise a second army of goblins so I attacked Imrik's starting province with Grom. My second army chain sacked his last settlement (where the vampires start) until that lord was about 18~. I didn't want to stop but the vampire rebels took the settlement and then TK rebels took it from them.

After that Grom took out the Wood Elves and the second army wiped out Numas.

Then the Last Defenders declared war on me. I started wiping them, allied with Clan Mors and together we wiped out the rest of the Lizardmen on the continent. I had to take out an Yvresse army that tried to invade my northern lands, but aside from that they haven't come.

Right now Grom has like 5-6 Big Spiders in his army and a third army has a few as well. I'm about to fill out a 19 stack with the Workshop Boy Night Goblin Shaman boss that gives spider buffs. That army with Maternal Instincts will be able to spawn around 100~ little Spiders in combat and since I have Arachnos + the Workshop Lord they'll have massive buffs.

Grom's food buffs are insanely OP along with his starting buffs. I think my goblins in his army have like 40% physical resistance with 40MD/40MA. The biggest thing is the food buff that gives +8 Public Order and +10% Income.

To make matters worse I have only fought one battle manually, Grom's quest. Everything else has been autoresolved. The ability to recruit rank 9 anything at the same speed or faster as locally is absurd.

Also somehow a rank 8 Black Orc Big Boss killed 1000+ TK skeletons in an autoresolve.

Making Clan Moulder your vassal as Warriors of Chaos earns you the greatest voice line game.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
Making Clan Moulder your vassal as Warriors of Chaos earns you the greatest voice line game.

Spoiler:

Wait ,lol that is in the game:
?

Yes, that is in the game. Along with the Skaven singing 'Underground, overground, Skaven are we'. I lost it when he said that.

I did finish Grom VH Vortex on turn 153. Could've gone faster, but Rictus confederated Clan Mors so I wiped them out of my jungle before going after Yvresse. That did end up being easy. I think I only called 3 Waaghs all game, one against Imrik, Last Defenders, and Eltharion. I never got my ingredient reward from either High Elf Waagh despite Eltharion being SR 10 when I declared against him so it might be bugged.

Vortex is kind of cheese as a non ritual faction just because even on VH you can time your invade while Chaos is going HAM as well. On the other hand, Grom VH Vortex was much easier than Khalida H Vortex so maybe I've gotten much better or Grom > TK. I do like the Vortex map a lot more. The ocean feels considerably larger.

I only fought two manual battles. Honestly, I doubt I spent more than 3-5 minutes on the average turn that game.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I love explosive arrows on Gobbos.

Thanks to that recipe of Grom's, enemy units just tend to vanish under a hail of explosions.

And it stacks with the scrap upgrade. I think R9 Goblin Archers were over 50 missile damage. Not sure if that was with the High Elf Waaagh buff or not however.