Skulls for the skull Throne

[Epathos]

So need some advice, opinions or ways on how to properly play the Khorne army.

I love the chaos armys, daemons... blah blah.

any ways i gave it a go for a few turns to see how it went.

Absolutely no range units which is nice, little rough trying to micro all the infantry though.
Since i have almost no choice but to push their lines. i have to make smart use of flanking and what not.

Thats all fine. i got it.

But the start seems' exceedingly slow. i was under the impression it was just another horde style army economy.. i was wrong, i own it. moving on.

so it seems while trying to make progress to setup a starting area... i stuck between gathering skulls. or spending the skulls i have to occupy settlements.

and at the start. im not very familiar with this... temporary army he can summon after certian fights. On top of trying to fill ranks with infantry that almost get destroyed trying to push the front lines.

Its at a point where im stuck just trying to fill my rooster with units, after every battle. while they just keep on stacking while im here struggling.

The biggest issue is knowing where to focus my resource and how to use his play style of constantly attacking with no troops on hand early game because the higher his rage bar the more benefits he gets etc etc...

thanks for reading.

[BIG E.]

Playing Khorne army is not the hard part.

You just rush. It is simplest army to use in the game and one of the most powerful. Nothing to micro just go full deathball, you are always stronger against even odds and even when you are outnumbered most times.

Tricky part with Khorne is playing the campaign. It is the strongest faction in the game if you are experianced, it can become the absolute worst if you are slow.

I honestly recommend watching some of the Legend of Total War Skarbrand campaigns. Because its just not something that is very easy to explain via text. You gotta see that type of gameplay because its quite different than most players used to with total war games.

You gotta be very and i mean VERY aggressive.

[Epathos]

Alright, ill give it a go again. I did enjoy archys way of things, just keep pushing and leave nothing behind.

Easy economy. The rage bar is new to me though. definitely dont have time to just sit and wait for troops to build.

[joe83]

Originally posted by BIG E.:

Playing Khorne army is not the hard part.

You just rush. It is simplest army to use in the game and one of the most powerful. Nothing to micro just go full deathball, you are always stronger against even odds and even when you are outnumbered most times.

Tricky part with Khorne is playing the campaign. It is the strongest faction in the game if you are experianced, it can become the absolute worst if you are slow.

I honestly recommend watching some of the Legend of Total War Skarbrand campaigns. Because its just not something that is very easy to explain via text. You gotta see that type of gameplay because its quite different than most players used to with total war games.

You gotta be very and i mean VERY aggressive.

As Big E. say.
Plus, settling settlements as Khorne is one big trap. You want to settle only major settlements and leave minor ones razed to the ground. Main settlement building has a chance to colonize the razed settlements automatically every turn. 5% chance (10% with tech). Minor settlements have this too, but chance is 2% (7% with tech) and why spending skulls on minor one if you can get major and the rest for free?

[Salty Nobody]

Khorne can automatically colonize ruins in provinces you own a settlement in. In other words, you only need to spend skulls to occupy one settlement per province. Usually the capital is the one you want.

The temporary armies are expendable, use them as reinforcements to win difficult battles or to attack minor settlements on their own. You will want to be using them alot mid game as you will have the funds to support them but the AI won't be so powerful that they get wiped regularly.

One of your techs gives you a giant sword aoe ability to drop on blobs of enemies. Beeline this tech.

Early on spam chaos warriors. There isn't much that can stop a stack of them at at that point even on high difficulties. Their armor and shields will protect them from missile fire on approach.

Once you get that stack of mostly chaos warriors go on a rampage and don't stop until your settlement is tier 4 and you can fully upgrade your armies. Try and find the time to throw some Chaos Knights and hellcannons in your stacks beforehand though.

Daemon units disintegrate instead of routing, which is highly problematic since they will require constant replacement. Use mortal units whenever possible. Single entities like your characters, hell cannons and bloodthirsters are OK to use though. You have to babysit them still but the single entities tend to be able to heal themselves and/or retreat out of trouble before they kill themselves with their own morale breaking.

Make a second partial army as funds allow to defend the settlement you are trying to upgrade to level 4. You probably won't have enough for that second army to be a full stack that can fight on its own but if you do send that army out on a rampage as well.

Your initial goal is to completely wipe out hostile factions one at a time until you are surrounded by friends or so much razed territory that nobody cares to attack you. Do not be tempted by the techs and events that give negative diplomacy penalties, the rewards are not worth it compared to secure borders, allied ranged units and vassal tributes.

As you noticed, Khorne is a momentum play style. Most of your money comes from sacking and fighting, so stack replenishment boosts so you can fight every turn.

Your early game economy from buildings sucks, but at max level your income from buildings is actually decent due to all the stacking boosts. Upgrade your capitals first since they are best able to protect themselves and your growth rate from buildings is low. You don't even want to bother upgrading minor settlements in most cases until your province capitals are at level 4-5. That also gives your your better units.

[BIG E.]

Originally posted by The Fifth Archon:

Your initial goal is to completely wipe out hostile factions one at a time until you are surrounded by friends or so much razed territory that nobody cares to attack you. Do not be tempted by the techs and events that give negative diplomacy penalties, the rewards are not worth it compared to secure borders, allied ranged units and vassal tributes.

Bro come on.

If i am playing Skarbrand i am going full total war.

Just declare war to everyone.

KHORNE WANTS IT

[Salty Nobody]

Originally posted by BIG E.:

Bro come on.

If i am playing Skarbrand i am going full total war.

Just declare war to everyone.

KHORNE WANTS IT

Khorne cares not from where the blood flows, and a 20 faction doom tide paying out 24k a turn in vassal tribute does far more fighting against far more foes than I can do alone.

[BIG E.]

Originally posted by The Fifth Archon:

Originally posted by BIG E.:

Bro come on.

If i am playing Skarbrand i am going full total war.

Just declare war to everyone.

KHORNE WANTS IT

Khorne cares not from where the blood flows, and a 20 faction doom tide paying out 24k a turn in vassal tribute does far more fighting against far more foes than I can do alone.

Wait are we talking about Valkia or Skarbrand?

Because Skarbrand is completely fine with fighting the entire map due to bloodhosts. And pretty sure he can't vassalize like Valkia.

[Salty Nobody]

Originally posted by BIG E.:

Originally posted by The Fifth Archon:

Khorne cares not from where the blood flows, and a 20 faction doom tide paying out 24k a turn in vassal tribute does far more fighting against far more foes than I can do alone.

Wait are we talking about Valkia or Skarbrand?

Because Skarbrand is completely fine with fighting the entire map due to bloodhosts. And pretty sure he can't vassalize like Valkia.

I'm talking about Skarbrand. And unless they patched it in/out since last we respectively played him he can vassal.

I was on legendary, while fighting the map is possible there is a very real danger of getting overrun from a single mistake or miscalculation. Even in the event of success that is quite the slog I'm subjecting myself to and no "This is Total War" achievement to give me a reason to do so. And why wouldn't I vassalize someone like Kairos? He was a stronger faction than me and it's the ultimate own on those scheming cowardly Tzeenchian magic users.

[BIG E.]

Originally posted by The Fifth Archon:

Originally posted by BIG E.:

Wait are we talking about Valkia or Skarbrand?

Because Skarbrand is completely fine with fighting the entire map due to bloodhosts. And pretty sure he can't vassalize like Valkia.

I'm talking about Skarbrand. And unless they patched it in/out since last we respectively played him he can vassal.

No but he can't vassalize like Valkia does.

I mean you can't just walk up to someones final settlement and vassalize them like Valkia does.

If he can he probably has to do it via diplomacy which AI never EVER accepts anyways so i never tried with Skarbrand. I don't even know if he gets the option to do so.

I just played a L/VH Skarbrand campaign and i can confirm you can't just vassalize like WoC does.

[Salty Nobody]

Originally posted by BIG E.:

No but he can't vassalize like Valkia does.

I mean you can't just walk up to someones final settlement and vassalize them like Valkia does.

If he can he probably has to do it via diplomacy which AI never EVER accepts anyways so i never tried with Skarbrand. I don't even know if he gets the option to do so.

I just played a L/VH Skarbrand campaign and i can confirm you can't just vassalize like WoC does.

Ah. Yeah he has to use diplomacy. I did end up with 14 vassals though so the AI does accept. You just have to trade them a settlement or alot of money usually.

[jonoliveira12]

Originally posted by The Fifth Archon:

Originally posted by BIG E.:

No but he can't vassalize like Valkia does.

I mean you can't just walk up to someones final settlement and vassalize them like Valkia does.

If he can he probably has to do it via diplomacy which AI never EVER accepts anyways so i never tried with Skarbrand. I don't even know if he gets the option to do so.

I just played a L/VH Skarbrand campaign and i can confirm you can't just vassalize like WoC does.

Ah. Yeah he has to use diplomacy. I did end up with 14 vassals though so the AI does accept. You just have to trade them a settlement or alot of money usually.

Diplomacy?

Talking to the enemy, IN THIS HOLIEST OF BATTLEFIELDS!?

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Epathian:

so it seems while trying to make progress to setup a starting area... i stuck between gathering skulls. or spending the skulls i have to occupy settlements.

There is no real need to occupy that many settlements as Khorne.

Khorne's settlement based economy sucks (even if you have a ton of settlements the income will be meager and Khorne units are expensive as well), as Khorne you will get most of the income from combat/sacking/etc (So the ideal, in my mind, is running a negative economy instead).

At most i would take one settlement for each province and us his "drawn to destruction" mechanic to eventually fill it out, but even that isn't really necessary (In my opinion Khorne isn't a paint the map race).

You also only really need 1 settlement that you can recruit from since together with the buffs from his bloodletting mechanic he also gets a -2 global recruit duration (and his versions of a "encampment stance" aka "deamonic portal" doesn't require any movement)..

The main thing with Khorne is always being aggressive, any turn spent without combat is a turn wasted and ideally you want fight multiple battles each turn. His replenishment in hostile territory and movement after combat heavily supports this. If you eventually go somewhere where the settlements are somewhat close together (like the empire) you can raze a bunch of them each turn with a single army (meaning you could also potentially create a number of blood hosts, then use those to burn down the entire empire in a few turns).

Another thing to take into consideration is that you should only create blood hosts from battles by proper armies early game, rather then creating blood hosts from battles lead by other blood hosts, since they have a penalty for the created blood hosts size. Late game you have enough buffs to blood hosts size to make it more feasible.

[Epathos]

I like all the comments folks. Definitely was not playing him how he should.

After i finish my archy domination IE ill give him a go again.