Total War: Warhammer 2

Yeah, the steam reviews, even the positive ones, talk about how massively overpowered he is. Sometimes you just want to smash everything, I guess.

LegendofTotalWar in his video put Taurox’s Mortal Empires campaign (on legendary difficulty of course) at the highest tier. But Tyrion, who I had just played, was up there too. Maybe legendary evens them out a bit but on Normal, Taurox is like a tier above Tyrion.

It was good smashy fun though. The units are just all so much fun, especially the new ones.

I was waffling today on whether to get S&F and the sales all ran out before I could pull the trigger, so I went back to my Grimgor ME campaign. Next time…

The big difference on Legendary is your melee units get a significant nerf, which hurts Taurox much more than Tyrion.

On the other hand in legendary there’s enough stacks that taurox can do that momentum chain and clear the map in record speed (that’s what some players did early on)

Ok, I’m about 50 turns into a Taurox campaign and yes it’s easy but I’ll be damned if I’m not having a fabulous time fightin around the world and just declaring war on and crushing everyone. Taurox is very angry all the time, which makes him quite relatable.

I have been playing this recently. I wanted to do tomb kings on ME without playing settra again. So I first tried Khalida a few times. I kept getting in continuous wars. Basically I would finish the first faction you start of at war with, then haggref (the dark elves) would show up and attack me, then I would beat them back, then the fucking lizards would declare war. and trounce me. I tried this 3 times before I gave up.

Then I tried Arkhan the black. He starts off somewhat protected with only direction he can be attacked, by some knights. I tried this 3 times as well and could never get the upper hand, and eventually the other knight factions would join in and declare war and it would be all over.

Any advice for the above two factions? I was playing on normal difficulty.

Now I am running my 2nd attempt playing Balthazar Gelt, the lore of metal wizard. His spells are pretty nice and I may actually win this campaign, although chaos has yet to show up and that could change things.

I’m pretty sure the Tomb King Way in the early game is to just research the first two Additional Army techs and get three trash stacks up ASAP and then win by auto resolve.

Also the only force multiplying unit you have early is the Cask of Souls artillery piece. You should recruit one every turn they become available. It’s by far the strongest weapon you have and the only way to beat Lizardmen that early.

Probably use Lord, archers and arty to kill the early stacks. Liberally use ambush when appropriate.

Yeah, that would be nice if I could last that long. I only managed to live long enough to research one tech to unlock another general once and even then I never had time to recruit a real 2nd army. This is with Arkan the Black mind you. I do not have other issues like this with other tomb kings.

Okay it’s possible to get full 20 units by turn 4 including the casket of souls (5000 gold + 20 units)

Then run up north to that white/red knight.

At turn 6 you face 14 units + garrison of 10 units

Turn 7, got attacked by 26 units. Okay let’s see. It’s a really good map because of the chokepoint.

Yeah hid the doggies, used them up to tie up artillery and archers. Microed a bit, doggies mostly died but by then the enemies almost all dead.

the mage lord i just used to tank and spammed a few single target spells against enemy lords

What are you going to do when 2 other armies show up with nearly full stacks, when the other knight factions declare war. I dunno. I have LegenedOfTotal war’s Arkan the blacks campaign queued up, but that will probably take me a few weeks to get through it.

Anyway, my empire campaign is going well. I just killed the vampire counts so now, so now I just need some time to build up and swap out my crappy armies with some top end stuff. Not sure what a good army composition is for Empire. I have read like 20 posts on it, and have 20 different opinions.

Also chaos just entered the scene so I do not know how much peace time Ill have.

Empire:

Rocket artillery, mortars, handgunners.

Heroes, mages. Some trash infantry. Outriders are ok, i don’t invest much in cavalry. Too much micro.

As for your Arkham if you’re getting attacked by fulls tacks you are moving too slowly or something. I was the aggressor every turn. I couldn’t even get them to attack me with ambush

Turn 30:

You can ping me on steam and I’ll run a coop to see what’s going on.

I was not even getting to turn 14 before I had multiple armies coming in. I do not think I was too slow. Anyway Ill try that some other time. I deleted those saves. Thanks for the offer though.

Booo!

I just wrapped up a Normal/Normal Vortex campaign with Naggarond (Dark Elves led by Malekith) and had an absolute blast. The Dark Elf economic mechanic is really powerful, but I could see it being a headache on harder difficulties since it can create a lot of public order problems. I probably should’ve (and could’ve, since it was only on normal) mitigated the problem with heroes just hanging around provinces but I’m not used to that style of play quite yet (thought didn’t occur till the campaign was essentially over).

I also had an easier time than I’ve ever had of confederating other Dark Elves and having tons of allies/trading partners all thanks to the Envoy, a follower who you can give to any Lord and a couple heroes (Death Hag and Master). My minimal internet research informed me of the following:

By looking in the game files, it seems to be a super specific trigger: you need a character who has won at least 4 offensive battles so far. Then, if you your faction entered a war on the current turn, when that character levels up he has an 8% chance to get an envoy!

I’m not entirely sure how much sense that makes (does the character need to level up on the same turn war is declared?) but I found myself with 8 of them after 130 turns, which gave me a +80 relations with everyone. I have never played a faction that was so well liked while doing the opposite to deserve it.

The Envoy wasn’t the only thing that helped diplomatically, since even with great relations I find it hard (impossible maybe?) to confederate when you are weaker than the other faction. That’s where Black Arks came in and they were absolutely amazing. They became my unit recruitment centers, freeing my cities to focus on agents and economy. The army/garrison they have on-board is extremely cheap thanks to the main settlement building: at Lvl 5 its -60% upkeep for ALL UNITS! Couple this with the Admiral’s own blue line skills, and you can get -83% upkeep without any other bonuses. I was king of the oceans. Also, they can sail anywhere without attrition, so just plow right into that reef or go take Galleon’s Graveyard easy, since they can also occupy any coastal settlement (those that have harbors). The abilities they provide in battles were fun, but only the Soul Rain/Torrent/Storm was really special. On Normal, Black Arks do not add to supply lines, so having as many as you can get (1 every 25 turns) is absolutely fine.

I’d say I was stronger as Taurox/Beastmen (though the strength ranking says otherwise), but I never had as many armies full of the best units as I have with the Dark Elves thanks to Black Arks. I used mainly Shades/Hydras for the devastating combo of hidden armor piercing missiles with regenerating fire-breathing monsters (so kind of like High Elves). I had armies full of one or the other too, but the full Hydra armies were kind of annoying to play since so much micro was involved. The Shade armies were fun though since all the units were hidden save the general, which led to great ambush battles. Malus’s army was especially fun, since he had Stalk too.

Now I think I’ll try Skaven. Going with Clan Mors (Vortex campaign) even though I’ve heard they are the least interesting of the bunch.

Oh man, I finally came across something as taurox I can’t just bull my way through (yuk yuk). The Sisters of Twilight have hawk riders that are strong as hell and can just kite my units while raining a bunch of pain. I can’t seem to really catch them with my manticores or my archers. Not sure how to handle them!

Oh lord that is a nightmare. Is spamming another armor full of ungor raiders not a possibility? I don’t think they could win but they all have Stalk and a stack of them coupled with your good stack should be able to handle that doomstack of Wood Elves.

Once you get past this I would make it your prime directive to eliminate all Wood Elves lol. Their armies just seem like the perfect counter to Beastmen. I know I loved hunting Beastmen as the Wood Elves in TWW1 (the “Chaos Invasion” mechanic for them was just waves of Beastmen). When I did my Taurox Vortex campaign I just beelined over to The Sisters of Twilight and stomped them before they could become too much of a pest.

What I hate about the dark elves is the constant chaos stacks near the northern homelands. Map edges are supposed to be safe, darnit!

So, I have a lore question.

Why are the beastmen, by which I mean me, fighting chaos? Aren’t we all in service to the dark gods?!