Got tips for ikit claw?

[nfrance1322]

I’m haveing trouble playing ikit claw can someone point me in the right direction

[Lamp]

Ratling guns.

It's been a while since I played him but that's the ticket. Have them out front, like 4-5 units. Use your catapults to draw the enemy in, be sure to use the snare spell on flyers and go nuts- defensively. Let them come get meat-grinded on your many many guns.

Have w/e ringer/infantry units very close and ready to smite anything that starts to make it close to the gunners- but you can also position expendable slaves out front for the enemy to get caught on, just try and place them to the sides and forward so they don't block line of sight for your wonderful guns.

Also get warplock engineer heroes for boosts and use assassin heroes as campaign map assassins, you'll have your own winter-soldier-rat in no time.

And as for more campaign stuff- don't expand right away. Food is everything you need to grow. Don't take Lobaro or Tobaro or w/e it is, farm the man-things. Sack it every now and then, grow them like cattle and eat like rat-kings.

[Darklight]

There should be two buildings you try to get early on which is your workshop and the building for plagueclaw catapults and plague priests. There should be a unique building alternative for the workshop that gives you the weapon team units quicker and engineers.

Once you get those two going and your army built, it's just uphill from there. 1 Engineer, 4-5 catapults, 4 gatlings, 4 Jessels, 2 priests for summons, 1-2 motors, fill rest with meatshields or more heroes and start smashing everything while working on your workshop upgrades.

That's pretty much what I do every time I play Ikit.

[A.Pot]

Don't be afraid to experiment with army comps. If you know how to micromanage properly, Doomwheels, Doom Flayers and Moulder Wolf-Rats make for great Hammers to the Anvil of a horde of Clanrats or Skavenslaves.

Edit: fixed my earlier mistake, thanks Fryskar for pointing it out

[Lamp]

Packmasters are great for the 'plant regen hero(s) out in front of your rifle line' tactic, too. They can summon wolfrats- which are some of the best dogs around, (armour piercing instead of weak vs armour,) and get regen with their big mount.

Put them well out front of your firing line to draw aggro, and while the enemy clumps up on your packmasters your guns will shred them to bits. This works well with rifle using factions with beefy heroes or just beefy single entity units (so like Dwarves, Empire, etc.) Ratling gunners feel a bit harder hitting and less accurate than good riflemen though so I don't find myself using this tactic so much with rats, but it is effective.

[SpiffyGonzales]

hordes of slaves with one army of good units will win you the early game. Food is a must. Let enemy settlments die and use your underground stuff for your allies

[FATT]

Recruit an actual army for Ikit.
Recruit another army that is nothing but skavenslaves.

Put the skavenslave army in force march for no reason with Ikit in ambush stance next to it.
The AI cannot resist attacking an army in march stance so will rush your skavenslave army, getting ambushed by Ikit.

Using this tactic makes his campaign a joke until Karl comes knocking.

[Lamp]

Another fun rat thing you can do is raid one of your own cities, (that you don't care about,) and each general raiding will be generating food. When the region rebels, eat the rebels and repeat. If one of the generals goes disloyal/turncoat, eat them too.

Sometimes these rebels/traitors will even spawn a set of catapults that you'll get to keep when you eat the owners.

Not a strategy for most campaigns, but there are times when it helps.

Oh and also if you're about to lose a settlement sell it to one of your neighbours instead. If it's someone else the invaders are at war with you can take the city back or attack it for food later, (once the invaders have taken it.)

[Reaver79]

Ratlings, warpfire, jezzails, poison wind globes & doomwheels..

[Fryskar]

Originally posted by A.Pot:

Don't be afraid to experiment with army comps. If you know how to micromanage properly, Doomwheels, Doom Flayers and Moulder Wolf-Rats make for great Anvils to the Hammer of a horde of Clanrats or Skavenslaves.

WTF am i reading.
Neither are doomwheels, flayers or wolfrats an anvil nor are clanrats or slaves a hammer.
If anything, you got it 180° backwards.

Anyway, Ikkit is a weaponteam faction.

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by Fryskar:

Originally posted by A.Pot:

Don't be afraid to experiment with army comps. If you know how to micromanage properly, Doomwheels, Doom Flayers and Moulder Wolf-Rats make for great Anvils to the Hammer of a horde of Clanrats or Skavenslaves.

WTF am i reading.
Neither are doomwheels, flayers or wolfrats an anvil nor are clanrats or slaves a hammer.
If anything, you got it 180° backwards.

Anyway, Ikkit is a weaponteam faction.

Agreed. Not too many hammer and anvil factions in this game, and Ikit def isnt one of them. With Ikit you want to get flammen werfers, gatling guns, and overal just the tech stuff.

I would also advise AGAINST using nukes and doom rockets in the early game. Yes they look cool but you'll get PLENTY later. Use that warp fuel on upgrading one unit type at a time till you can pump out some decent armies with amazing ranged units. THEN you can start going enola gay on everyone.

[SpiffyGonzales]

Originally posted by Pookie101:

It's a must to repeat "Ikit Claw" over and over while playing to truly capture the faction feeling

How has OP not marked this as the answer?

[Nobby]

My favorite army comp is

General (plague priest or warplock engineer for lvl3 workshop)
2-3 plague priests (vermintide summons as meat shields)
1 engineer hero (ranged boost)
4 ratling gunners (large units and close units)
4 jezzails (hero/general/single unit sniping)
4 catapults (long range)
2 plaguewind mortars (long range, sieges and infantry blobs)
1-2 random (some speedy or monster units)

As several ppl said, ikit is a ranged weapon team faction. Definitely focus upgrades on gunners, jezzails and mortars first.

If needed you can always make a backup army of skavenslaves for meatshields while your ranged units annihilate everything.

[A.Pot]

Originally posted by Fryskar:

WTF am i reading.
Neither are doomwheels, flayers or wolfrats an anvil nor are clanrats or slaves a hammer.
If anything, you got it 180° backwards.

Anyway, Ikkit is a weaponteam faction.

Originally posted by SpiffyGonzales:

Originally posted by Fryskar:

WTF am i reading.
Neither are doomwheels, flayers or wolfrats an anvil nor are clanrats or slaves a hammer.
If anything, you got it 180° backwards.

Anyway, Ikkit is a weaponteam faction.

Agreed. Not too many hammer and anvil factions in this game, and Ikit def isnt one of them. With Ikit you want to get flammen werfers, gatling guns, and overal just the tech stuff.

I would also advise AGAINST using nukes and doom rockets in the early game. Yes they look cool but you'll get PLENTY later. Use that warp fuel on upgrading one unit type at a time till you can pump out some decent armies with amazing ranged units. THEN you can start going enola gay on everyone.

Fixed it

[CrUsHeR]

If you start a new campaign, try this starting strategy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miQEynHWWiU

This was always possible in WH2, but now there's the Shadowgave herdstone in range so you cannot resettle normally. So that's the optimal start, get Skavenblight to T5 asap and you have access to all units and heroes.

Then you want an army formation like this

1x Plague Priest | 2x Ratling Guns || 2x Ratling Guns | 1x Plague Priest
2x Poison Wind Mortars || 2x Poison Wind Mortars (just behind the Gunners)
4x Warplock Jezzails
4x Plague Claw Catapult
1x Warlock Engineer
1x Warlock Master / Ikit Claw

So basically the Plague Claw Catapults are in the back with the Warlock Engineer in front just to buff them. Jezzails directly in front of them.
Ratling Guns are in teams of two on the flanks in a slight forward position, with the Plague Priests standing guard just to summon Clanrats for distraction.
Mortars are directly behind the Ratling Guns. They make sure that the gunners never get outranged by enemy archers etc.
Ikit or the Warlock Master is driving around on the Doomwheel, creating more confusion and casting spells.

Effectively this setup always works, only the dense forest maps are kind of bad (never place artillery near trees). Especially the annoying sieges are incredibly good, insta-bomb the towers and destroy everything on and around the walls. Then move the Ratling Guns in together with the Lord and Heroes.

[CrUsHeR]

Also for the overall strategy, try to have a Warlock Engineer dedicated to stealing tech and establishing Undercities.

The Undercity spam is kind of necessary because battles now mostly give like 1-2 food (instead of 10-20 in WH2). For that you want to pick a city with as many bordering regions as possible. Then use the mining building for auto-expansion.

The cooldown is something like 10 turns until you get the Skavenblight landmark, so there is plenty of time in between to travel to the best undercity hotspots. Places like Ancient City of Quintex, Dragon Bridge (north of the Cathay wall) can be easily reached through the sea lanes.