CA's Total War: The Celtic-Han-Lizardmen alliance that never was

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

I started yet another Empire campaign, because I wanted to see how challenging the slightly reworked Chaos invasion will be. I started with Karl Franz. 

Turn 51 and the Dwarfs of Kharaz-a-Kharak have been destroyed, probably by Grimgor. I have never seen either faction destroy the other so fast. The Greenskin rework really has done wonders for them, but maybe now the Dwarfs need a few more buffs to balance it out.

Of course their destruction is worrisome for me. I've recently confederated with Stirland and have started a war with the Vampires. If Grimgor starts looking north, it will be a challenge. At least I got rid of the pesky neighboring Greenskins, but to the east there are the Bonerattlaz. They've taken out Ostermark, while the Von Carsteins hold Averland, and have pushed into the Golden Order's territory. So two provinces lost temporarily sapped my Imperial Authority, but my relations with the rest are good or fairly good. 

How’s the vampire spam looking?

[Corvinus85]

19 hours ago, Heartofice said:

How’s the vampire spam looking?

Not too bad yet. I defeated Ghorst in a battle and he had a fairly elite army, so I'm sure as soon as I beat the primary armies, the spam will begin.

Edit: Not much at all. I destroyed Vlad quickly, and Manfred hasn't done much against me yet, though his territory is still mostly intact. 

[Corvinus85]

CA has been releasing small cryptic teasers about something coming. This one on Friday, and another today, with a third tomorrow, likely.

People are getting hyped about Warhammer 3 announcement/trailer. YouTube content creators have analyzed them, and while they could also point towards another DLC, CA has never released these kinds of teasers just for DLCs before.

[Heartofice]

3 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

CA has been releasing small cryptic teasers about something coming. This one on Friday, and another today, with a third tomorrow, likely.

People are getting hyped about Warhammer 3 announcement/trailer. YouTube content creators have analyzed them, and while they could also point towards another DLC, CA has never released these kind of teasers just for DLCs before.

It has to be a Warhammer 3 teaser, I don't really understand anything about it, but they have to be at about the point of releasing some details for that game, feels overdue.

[Corvinus85]

The third teaser was released. Each of the four constellation relates to a Chaos god, so they're definitely preparing for WH3.

Edit: a 4th teaser was released, this time seeming to confirm the addition of Kislev, and hinting at a trailer tomorrow.

[Slurktan]

Most youtubers think it will be out late summer as per CA's usual release schedule with another warhammer 2 dlc released right before (like Norsca with WH2) that updates beastmen and gives the DE another Lord.

I've played a few Empire games post WE DLC and the vampire spam still happens but it gets beaten down shortly after the initial push.  The WE lord in their midst seems to really fuck them up.

[Heartofice]

Well I’m glad there is a new game coming out because I finally finished a vortex campaign, and did it with Teclis.

It just got to the point where I was so annoyed with the game and myself every time I wanted to start a new campaign because I hadn’t finished the Teclis one. So I just soldiered through.

And it is really is a bit of a grind. I can’t say it was all that fun, because the last 50 or so turns were me just hitting end turn, and auto resolving any battles. Wasn’t all that hard.

The hard bit is the initial 100 turns. 
 

Basically I now think winning as Teclis in vortex comes down to 3 things:

1. Rushing as fast as you can to get 2 / 3 provinces. Don’t waste a single turn, take a city and move. If you delay your done.

2. Get your allies right. I couldn’t have won without all the other Elven factions declaring crusades on my enemies, and they do a decent job helping mostly. Local Tomb King faction is vital as well, if they stay alive and get strong then it’s a lot easier. If you don’t do any of this then once the Skaven start to steam roll you’re done.

3. Luck. Seriously, sometimes things just went my way, the Skaven didn’t roll over everyone early this campaign, the dark elves didn’t become insanely powerful, Malus didn’t decide to target me for no reason. With all that I was able to survive.

Basically all I did was take the 3 or so provinces in the west, built up my strength  and then when I had 2 decent armies I stormed around Lustria sacking and razing, until finally taking the ritual site on the east of the continent. After that there was almost nothing to do in the game but hit next turn.

The final battle was surprisingly easy as well.

[Corvinus85]

Here it is

 

[Heartofice]

52 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Here it is

 

Looks great. Cathay and Kislev is actually pretty interesting for starting factions. 
 

I wonder when we’ll hear something more concrete about what the game is actually like?

[Corvinus85]

43 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Looks great. Cathay and Kislev is actually pretty interesting for starting factions. 
 

I wonder when we’ll hear something more concrete about what the game is actually like?

Have you read the steam page info and the FAQ? It appears the campaign will somehow feature the realms of Chaos, like you'll actually enter the realms. So that's interesting. There is also talk about an ancient figure who is pulling strings, looking for a champion, that will allow said figure to wield supreme power. That's part of the story for this campaign, which we don't know what it will be called yet.

As to Cathay, while surprised, I suppose it makes sense given the financial success of Three Kingdoms, and that they can draw stuff from there. But more importantly, Games Workshop is stepping up and working with CA to actual flesh out and develop the Cathay lore.

The campaign will also start with more playable factions than the previous two, not counting DLCs. I am a bit disappointed that the Ogres may not be a part of it at launch, though they could be a first week DLC.

[Slurktan]

Presumably Ogres are going to be the early adapter race.  Apparently ME is not coming with the game at the start.  That's kind of  ugh,  They have been getting better at the campaigns (the Tomb Kings, Pirates, and Wood Elf campaigns are easily better than Vortex shit) but I want my giant dinosaurs to fight some bear cavalry in fake South america.

 

EDIT: Also while there is seemingly 6 starting races there are only 9 Legendary Lords.  Also what happens with the existing Chaos faction?

[Fez]

Cathay is a kinda wild choice, considering it never had any models and was barely ever in any lore. I guess this means that when the Mortal Empires map does come, it'll be the entire world?

I'd still like to see a 40K Total War game at some point; but I'll certainly play this too.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Slurktan said:

Presumably Ogres are going to be the early adapter race.  Apparently ME is not coming with the game at the start.  That's kind of  ugh,  They have been getting better at the campaigns (the Tomb Kings, Pirates, and Wood Elf campaigns are easily better than Vortex shit) but I want my giant dinosaurs to fight some bear cavalry in fake South america.

 

EDIT: Also while there is seemingly 6 starting races there are only 9 Legendary Lords.  Also what happens with the existing Chaos faction?

9 LLs for now. I suspect the Warriors of Chaos will be reworked, since they were badly needing it anyway. ME wasn't a thing when WHII launched, either, so I'm ok with this. I strongly hope for naval battles in the mega ME campaign.

[Heartofice]

34 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

9 LLs for now. I suspect the Warriors of Chaos will be reworked, since they were badly needing it anyway. ME wasn't a thing when WHII launched, either, so I'm ok with this. I strongly hope for naval battles in the mega ME campaign.

I see zero chance of naval battles. They’d have to add naval units to every race for a start. Plus not even a hint this might happen. 
 

Not too worried, they haven’t worked so far in total war.

However I’m expected good sieges this time

[Slurktan]

12 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

However I’m expected good sieges this time

I'm going to be blunt.... it's CA. Why would you ever expect that out of them?

[Corvinus85]

CA did say some time ago that siege battles will be reworked for the 3rd game. We'll see.

[Toth]

16 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I see zero chance of naval battles. They’d have to add naval units to every race for a start. Plus not even a hint this might happen. 

I see zero chance of that happening either, but oddly enough they would more or less only have to incorporate the "Man o' War" spinoff game. Warhammer Fantasy did briefly had a naval battle system.

[Slurktan]

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

CA did say some time ago that siege battles will be reworked for the 3rd game. We'll see.

CA has at some point said they would  fix sieges in damn near all their games. Hasn't happened yet.

[Toth]

So... looking at some articles this morning I realized how... odd this is. So there are 6 starting factions, which will likely be 4 flavors of Chaos, Kislev and Cathay...

So... I have to assume Chaos Dwarves will be pre-order DLC? And the Ogre Kingdom will also be DLC only. I can't help but look at this roster and feel like there is nothing exciting in it, sorry...

[Heartofice]

58 minutes ago, Toth said:

So... looking at some articles this morning I realized how... odd this is. So there are 6 starting factions, which will likely be 4 flavors of Chaos, Kislev and Cathay...

So... I have to assume Chaos Dwarves will be pre-order DLC? And the Ogre Kingdom will also be DLC only. I can't help but look at this roster and feel like there is nothing exciting in it, sorry...

I think it depends on how interesting those factions are. On the face of it 4 chaos factions and 2 human factions really just looks like 3 factions in total. My assumption though is that each chaos faction plays wildly differently. 
 

What I hope we don’t get is chaos rosters made up of standard chaos warriors, although maybe differently painted, and a handful of different daemon units. That would suck.