Slaanesh IE campaign (VH+)

[Helhammer]

I have 1000+hours in the series and I have no idea how to make a good go with this starting location. By turn 20 you're at war with all the major HE factions and either Bretonnia or the Dreadfleet (with bad luck, both!). I've tried multiple restarts, focusing cults, being aggressive/passive etc., I've tried appeasing the HE, I've beat the RNG and ambushed the hell out of stack after stack of stupid elf units and I don't know how you succeed at higher difficulties with this start location. not looking for commiseration, looking for tips.

[Hellya]

You don't make friends with the donut. You do other stuff to the donut, the correct word is not allowed here though.

Since you are VH+ I don't think I need to say it say never auto resolve with low armor factions. Be ultra aggressive. By turn 10 I destroyed Chrace and Yvresse next to them owned. This takes pressure off your North area. From there I go to town on Avelorn and seduce the other faction right under them. This is all within the first 20-25 turns. At this point you are set to go toe to toe with Tyrion the tool. You will need two armies at this point.

Some technical items. Send out those cultist and get those cults rolling. Do not blob up your army especially in siege (2 gates for those who can break them and fast movers and walls for the marauders or seduced units). Expect to lose some settlements until your cults kick in.

[A.Pot]

When surrounded by enemies, sack and raid. Just sack and raid till your towns are walled up and in N'kari's case enslave others to become your vassals so they can help relieve the pressure.

[BiteSizeCenter]

As the first poster said, you want to be as aggressive as possible. In my Nkari campaign I took out the initial HE factions surrounding you, then worked my way around the donut clockwise towards Eltharion and Tyrion.

Abuse the speed of your units to dance around the AI in sieges, and do whatever you can to keep their archers from firing on you.

If you're properly aggro you should be able to conquer Lothern around turn 20 with the help of a disciple army. Then it's just a matter of taking out Alarielle and cleaning up the rest of the donut.

Oh and be careful not to subjugate Eltharion or Tyrion if you care about the campaign victory conditions. Just wipe them out. Do subjugate the minor factions though as they can be useful to help defend your territory.

[yuzhonglu]

If the AI has a Lord recruiting outside of the settlement, attack the Lord. This gives you time to move your army into the AI reinforcement zone. When their units enter the battlefield, their units are in this clumped mess on the edge of the map, in direct contact with your melee force. This completely negates their archers allowing you to wreck garrisons with minlmal losses.

[Amereth]

against heavy ranged faction with slaanesh i would use chaos furies.

they don't cost a lot, they are fast, they fly so it is easy to reach their targets and their are armor piercing.

On top of that they come with vanguard.

[Nyaruko]

Originally posted by Helhammer:

I have 1000+hours in the series and I have no idea how to make a good go with this starting location. By turn 20 you're at war with all the major HE factions and either Bretonnia or the Dreadfleet (with bad luck, both!). I've tried multiple restarts, focusing cults, being aggressive/passive etc., I've tried appeasing the HE, I've beat the RNG and ambushed the hell out of stack after stack of stupid elf units and I don't know how you succeed at higher difficulties with this start location. not looking for commiseration, looking for tips.

i've spent like a week trying to perfect a nkari early game. i play on LEG/VH and am super aggressive.
Best tip i can give you is: Use nkari to waste archers ammo, then its a piece of cake.
-go full demonetes(i see ppl saying ♥♥♥♥ like get harpies....NO)
-get 2nd army early so you can recruit from 2 regions.(u only have 2 recruit slots early and it takes a while to get a full stack)
i kept the cultist in the army to get him lvl12 to get summons but im not sure if its entirely worth it. You can demolish the starting cultist building you have and get the one that gives u a free cultist. send a cultist asap to spread cults in morathi. dont try to seduce HE, just destroy them.

I REALLY tried to like nkari but there's so many bugs that its impossible to enjoy it. and the lack of legendary lords make his faction limited.
dont try to vassal, since they just sit and do nothing.
disciple armies inflict hidden supply line penalties
seduction cost reduction effects are bugged and dont apply as they should

[Leslian Lexter]

Subjugate Chrace. Just give them Elise or whatever the small town is called. They will have 1½ stacks of elfs, to help you against Yvresse. I completed a legendary campaign with Nkari on IE, and its definitely doable.

What you do, is you subjugate factions on the frontline, and when theyre no longer on the frontline you betray and destroy them (unless they have good units, then you build an outpost).

[The Sand Witch]

I started by removing chrace. Then I removed the greeny banner next. Then I moved to eltharion. Then I moved to tyrion.

I got war declaration from pesky brettonians: peasant attacks failed since they sieged a settlement and by just seducing 1 unit, it got victory on auto-resolve.

Same thing happened with allarielle who sent an army to attack ungarrisonned settlement.

In open field they were easily trashed (sadly though using furies did not go well for me), settlement is a bit meh but you can convert 4 archers.

[Helhammer]

Some great advice here, thank you all! I think my problem has been trying to consolidate after killing Chrace and the Green faction near them. I'll try being aggressive at that point and/or subjugating a neighbor rather than someone inland. Really appreciate it.

[Leslian Lexter]

Originally posted by Helhammer:

Some great advice here, thank you all! I think my problem has been trying to consolidate after killing Chrace and the Green faction near them. I'll try being aggressive at that point and/or subjugating a neighbor rather than someone inland. Really appreciate it.

Let us know how it goes

[Helhammer]

Originally posted by Leslian Lexter:

Originally posted by Helhammer:

Some great advice here, thank you all! I think my problem has been trying to consolidate after killing Chrace and the Green faction near them. I'll try being aggressive at that point and/or subjugating a neighbor rather than someone inland. Really appreciate it.

Let us know how it goes

Going much better on turn 25, straight demonettes was particularly good advice since they shred all the early game elves. I think I was just moving too slowly before.

One question: should I focus growing cults further into the island (Tyrion/Avelorn territory) from the beginning, or just one step ahead of my armies? Seems like the former makes sense, but I also like having the cultist quickly moving back into my stack to give the mobility boost.

[MrSoul]

Originally posted by The Sand Witch:

I started by removing chrace. Then I removed the greeny banner next. Then I moved to eltharion. Then I moved to tyrion.

I got war declaration from pesky brettonians: peasant attacks failed since they sieged a settlement and by just seducing 1 unit, it got victory on auto-resolve.

Same thing happened with allarielle who sent an army to attack ungarrisonned settlement.

In open field they were easily trashed (sadly though using furies did not go well for me), settlement is a bit meh but you can convert 4 archers.

With morathi being semi slaneesh maybe going on western half be safer, tho then running risk of Lizzie’s spotting you and taking offence instead think Brett’s be an easier fight still, in 2 with DE’s usually go for west tho but then usually own that part of map before launch invasion of the donut

[Nyaruko]

Originally posted by Helhammer:

Originally posted by Leslian Lexter:

Let us know how it goes

Going much better on turn 25, straight demonettes was particularly good advice since they shred all the early game elves. I think I was just moving too slowly before.

One question: should I focus growing cults further into the island (Tyrion/Avelorn territory) from the beginning, or just one step ahead of my armies? Seems like the former makes sense, but I also like having the cultist quickly moving back into my stack to give the mobility boost.

remember if the cultist has used some movement and joins an army, he'll decrease that army's total movement.
dont bother with cults in the donut, you'll have conquered the whole island before you can max influence with an elf faction and dominate them. and you wanna dominate mortahi anyways so you'll have 10turn cd on dominate.
just send cultists either to malekith/sisters of twilight or bretonia/empire, always build the building that gives free cultist, use that cultist to grow another cult and disbland him later since he has 15turn cooldown, to save some upkeep costs. when u get like 50+ cultists their upkeep isnt negligible anymore

[Pawulon]

bro this game is super easy, how can you struggle?

[Amereth]

Originally posted by Nyaruko:

Originally posted by Helhammer:

I have 1000+hours in the series and I have no idea how to make a good go with this starting location. By turn 20 you're at war with all the major HE factions and either Bretonnia or the Dreadfleet (with bad luck, both!). I've tried multiple restarts, focusing cults, being aggressive/passive etc., I've tried appeasing the HE, I've beat the RNG and ambushed the hell out of stack after stack of stupid elf units and I don't know how you succeed at higher difficulties with this start location. not looking for commiseration, looking for tips.

i've spent like a week trying to perfect a nkari early game. i play on LEG/VH and am super aggressive.
Best tip i can give you is: Use nkari to waste archers ammo, then its a piece of cake.
-go full demonetes(i see ppl saying ♥♥♥♥ like get harpies....NO)
-get 2nd army early so you can recruit from 2 regions.(u only have 2 recruit slots early and it takes a while to get a full stack)
i kept the cultist in the army to get him lvl12 to get summons but im not sure if its entirely worth it. You can demolish the starting cultist building you have and get the one that gives u a free cultist. send a cultist asap to spread cults in morathi. dont try to seduce HE, just destroy them.

I REALLY tried to like nkari but there's so many bugs that its impossible to enjoy it. and the lack of legendary lords make his faction limited.
dont try to vassal, since they just sit and do nothing.
disciple armies inflict hidden supply line penalties
seduction cost reduction effects are bugged and dont apply as they should

in other word your strat is to waste 30 minutes in front of their army dancing with N'kari and wasting their ammo.


and you compare chaos furies to harpies... which is far from being the same unit.

anyway, i would rather just destroy their units as fast as possible rather than dance in front of them, but yeah using N'kari for that is going to work. it is just extremely boring, not surprised you didn't like playing him.