Story time: I managed to get The Stuff of Legend (win battle with 10-to-1 odds) achievement with vampire count. Karl Franz and his fellow empire men struck deep into my terratories. They caused terror and grief amongst the innocent undead. They razed one city to thr groud. Then my loyal zombies decided: No more! When this emperor of men attacked next city they faced determined garrison troops. Garrison consisted zombies, skeletons, couple ghouls, one crypt horror and two dire wolves. Empire army was somewhat weared down but still pretty strong. My dire wolves harashed enemies and managed to split the army. Karl Franz and his main line of troops attacked my positions, but I managed to surround him. Emperor of men faced crypt horror and the zombies in the woods. After some fierce fighting Karl Franz was wounded and out of the battle. After that morale of the empire army started to crumble. Those men who was with Karl was soon dead. After routing the enemy, I reorganized rest of my troops to face the other half of the empire army. Dire wolves managed to harass enemy just long enough. Facing the rest of the army was quite easy, after they realized that the emperor was served as dinner for the garrison troops.
Just so long as you pick the right god's name to shout first. The one tip I can offer for playing Orcs is: Don't sweat rebellions. Don't necessarily encourage them... But, Waaagh happens. An' da boyz need trainin'. Oh. An' always 'ave the numb- noomberik.. n- SOD IT! BRING MOAH BOYZ DEN DEM!
DAY TWO IMPRESSIONS: Everything already said more or less still applies. This is just a follow up on a few things: Diplomacy is turning out to be a pretty big let down. My biggest complaint is you are completely unable to trade territories with allies. I do this quite often in strategy games as it allows me to consolidate my defenses and delegate defense of territories closer to someone else. The game doesn't even allow you to abandon territories. This is particularly disastrous for the Dwarfs because if I claim any territory I HAVE to defend it or suffer the penalties of losing it and getting another entry put into the Book of Grudges (too many of these left unfulfilled can cause you problems). As a result there is very little advantage to helping Dwarfen allies retake their lost territory if you are not prepared to keep it for yourself. Trading is a complete afterthought in this game. It's there, but it is entirely forgettable. Disappointing. Military Alliances will get you in trouble if you have a lot of them. If to factions you are allied with go to war (and they will) you will be forced to choose a side and the other will hate you for it. Abstaining from the war will essentially have the same affect. There is no neutral option. Stick with Defensive alliances unless you need to go further. Greenskins & Chaos seem to have the least amount of limitations in terms of claiming/raiding territory. You can pretty much just roam the lands pillaging and burning as you go without any drawbacks to leaving areas abandoned. The Vampires suffer attrition when moving over territories that have not be sufficiently tainted. They walk an interesting line between tactically having a lots of disposable units (raising undead) and strategically being somewhat turtlers. For the Dwarf and Vampire campaigns, the border between the Vampire Counts & Zhufbar is pretty much set in stone since neither can claim the territory of the other. If you are playing Dwarf, you pretty much just need to worry about taking Silver Pass and everything SOUTH of you (Zhufbar does a good job of protecting your northern border and taking out the Bloody Spears stronghold every time I've played). Zhufbar and Barak Varr will be your most helpful (or most annoying) allies. Try not to piss them off. Take all of the Death Pass province as quickly as you can; it is easier to defend than the lowlands and has everything you need to build up a powerful throng. If you are fast enough in taking all of Death Pass, you can try to save Karak Azul (further south) before they get overwhelmed, but be careful not to overextend yourself. If you make the attempt, I recommend defending only their stronghold at Black Iron Mine (use the Underway from Black Crag to reach it), until your forces are sufficiently built up in the Death Pass province. Karak Azul is a good candidate to Confederate with, but wait until they have lost their territories further south so you won't have difficulty defending them. The worst thing you can do is have an entry in the Book of Grudges get added that is difficult to reach & complete (had this happen in my first game and it fucked me up). If you are playing Vampire, be watchful of the Dwarfs to your south and east (who will occasionally try to raid you), but direct your main forces west into empire territory. The Undead have advantages in territories that are sufficiently tainted. Consolidate your home territories and then push outwards. I haven't played them as much so not as much info to give on them. You can indeed build walls for settlements! Look for the Watch Room (or whatever your race calls it) upgrade on your settlements (it needs to be fully upgraded). Keep in mind, though, this does occupy a slot. I recommend only building these at choke points and borders of your realm. Some buildings can only be used at your provincial capital and others work best there. For example, your melee troop barracks is actually best at your settlements since it only goes up to Tier 3. Your ranged troop barracks (for dwarfs anyway) goes up to Tier 5 and so is obviously better at your provincial capital. Pay close attention to what buildings unlock. Some units require two different buildings. It is very difficult to fit all your advanced buildings in a single province without making some sacrifices. Holding at least two good provinces will allow you access to everything in your faction's roster. However, buildings are shared within a province only. If you want to have access to the best units cheaply, you will need your provinces to specialize a little. For example, for my Dwarfs I have Silver Pass focus on high tier siege workshop units while my production in Death Pass focuses on advanced melee units (Death Pass province gets a special building that grants a huge XP buff to melee units). Like Death Pass, many provinces offer unique buildings that can be constructed for additional benefits. Use them to your advantage.
Well I'm rustled. The Replay function seems bugged. I saved a 5 armies fight in which I managed to wound Grudgebearer, kill Ironfist, and send Stunty McWossisname running.. (3 Dwarf armies v Me an' Da Waaagh!). Pyrrhic victory, but we pulled it off through brutal kunning and kunning brutality. Now, the stupid replay shows me getting my ass kicked, since the army placement is completely different from how it actually went down. Stunty Engineers sabotaging the replay!
You wanna monocle wit' dem big words? "Deer Boss. Da Waaagh! is doin' gud. We kik'd dem beardies outta dere hideout in da roks. U kno da won. Wif da beard effi-geese carvins. Da Shaman sez dat Mork n' Gork is plezed. Da Boyz all got extra rashuns of Stunty. Even da grots is happy cuz nobody eats dem wif all da extra meat we gots. Some git sed dat da pointy-teef fairies are coming Souf tru da pass. We got a gud Stronghold here now. Dey's gonna lose lotsa teef. I hope U r gud an dat da Black Crag is gud. Luv, Gnash Beard-Ripper. PS - Da Shaman sez we gotta shout Mork n' Gork at da same time now. Dat is da best idea I herd ever." Long story short. Karaz-a-Karak got redecorated. Grudgebearer lives in the Western Badlands now. Vampires are pushing South ahead of Chaos. And I just realized I should have built a Goblin Tinkerer a long time ago.
The other night we were talking about possible expansions and I mentioned that I really wanted to see "Dreadfleet," which is the spiritual successor to the Warhammer Fantasy Naval game Man'O'War, added to the game. Well apparently I might not be far off in that assessment, while digging around in the assets files someone came across these Unit cards for Ships. My guess would be they would want to wait until the elves release in full as both the Dark Elf corsairs and the High Elf Dragonships factor heavily into warhammer lore.
Dihm. I feel like your avatar should come with a "Hulk Sorry.." animation in the second set of frames.
Spoiler Meanwhile.. Grudgebearer just keeps reviving and coming back with an absurd number of veteran troops for a faction that has only two territories, neither of which are capitals.
