I am bad at this game: Dark Elves

[coolgame308]

I love a Legendary Dark Elves campaign, usually played as Malekith. He's always been my favorite start. Keep in mind while reading this that I'm bad at this game. I think the DE are great as a faction and have a good roster, but I find this campaign impossible.

Is it possible to win, or at least survive, on Legendary Immortal Empires campaign now, given all the threats in the region? It seems to go like this for me no matter what I try to accomplish. I wipe out Grombrindal, sometimes with difficulty, then start to look either West, toward Valkia, who's usually savaging my DE compatriots in Ghrond or Har Ganeth by this time, or South, where Clar Karond and Karond Kar are being devoured by Alith Anar & co., or Mother Stank. By about turn 80, even if I've been very successful thus far, I'm being overwhelmed by High Elf stacks, since Alith Anar has called them into the war in some fashion. The three factions that end up controlling Ulthuan with no opposition can pump out 4 stacks per turn each, which I can't keep up with even if I'm never losing a pitched battle. They're sailing all over creation, sacking all my settlements, and I can't hold them back with the 3-4 stacks my income allows me to keep in the field. Add to that the insanely powerful stacks of Akshina ambushers, along with Mother's abilities that nuke half your units' health before combat even begins, and things start to fall apart.

Come to think of it, of the dozen or so I.E. campaigns I've played since the format dropped, I don't think I've ever seen the HE *not* wipe out the DE. Have you survived the Ordertide as Malekith? How did you do it? Like I said, I love Malekith, and he's got some cool abilities, but his campaign effects and starting units are a bit lackluster, too.

[Ashardalon]

with 4 stacks a turn killed, shouldnt that give you a lot more money?
battle victorys give the most income
so plenty to afford more armys to kill more stacks for more money
+ all the free labor
tho its been a while since i played delfs

[coolgame308]

Originally posted by Ashardalon:

with 4 stacks a turn killed, shouldnt that give you a lot more money?
battle victorys give the most income
so plenty to afford more armys to kill more stacks for more money
+ all the free labor
tho its been a while since i played delfs

That's part of my problem, I think. They can pump them out that fast, but I usually can't kill that many in one turn. The later things go on, the tougher it gets. Being bad, even the pitched battles start to become difficult, though I almost never lose them. With their half dragon doomstacks, though, it becomes hard to match them one for one without heavy casualties.

I tried peeling off a couple of stacks to strike Ulthuan once, but they were immediately swarmed by seven dragon-lousy doom stacks at the Shrine of Khaine (or whatever that settlement is called), and were eventually wiped out, while another eight or so HE stacks were still running all over my continental holdings. Maybe I should've gone right for Ulthuan,

[Triple G]

I´ve seen a strong AI Naggarond in some games. And i never really saw that DLC Kislev faction, as Morathi wipes it out. But when You dealt with the high elves, the real problem might be Clan Pestilence, because in all games i saw that area, they own all of Lustria, which means many many stacks, with all kinds of artillery and ratling guns, and hero spam.

But i want to add that 3-4 stacks at turn 80 is a bit too few. Perhaps use the cheaper stuff. Actually the darkshards with shields are pretty good.

And if You want to avoid that they sack Your settlements, conquer one on their side. Usually they wouldn´t use the ships, if they can reach a target by foot. At least that worked for me whenever i played either dark- or high elves, or anything with water between it - like Norsca.

And then defend that settlement, and expand from there.

Also You have the black arks, which have little upkeep for the units - and for port settlements it´s like another army.

And also yes - in this game they actually have like 2-8 big single entity monsters in them, which is a bit over the top. I guess the worst i fought was chaos dwarfs, with only like 3 actual units and the rest single entities - with like 8 of these mortars. I don´t have the DLC, so i thought i don´t need to worry about them when they show like 125 range - but it´s 480 in battle. And i didn´t know that one shot wipes out a unit. Also Norsca is nice with 8 mammuts, led by Wulfrik on a mammut - because You never have the firepower to shoot so many HP down, if You just build "normal" or "balanced" armies...

[Aneerah]

The biggest challenge with Malekith's campaign is setting yourself up in the beginning. Once you have secured your northern and western flanks, generally it becomes fairly manageable - at least in my experience. You can do a lot with just shades, darkshards and lords/heroes.

A good tip as dark elves to easily beat up some ai armies is to station your black arks in port settlements that are likely to be attacked. The ai will often make silly attacks and give you a free win, even if your full black ark + settlement garrison will easily defeat them in auto resolve. I don't know if it's something wrong with the code where they don't recognize the black ark as an actual army or what, but they sure love to underestimate them in these situations.

[Triple G]

^
It depends on which faction suicides. Imho Ogres suicide themselves more often, and e.g. Skaven are strong, because they can attack in ambush stance, which the AI never takes into consideration when they move their armies to beat the Skaven. So they move their 4 stacks together, then the Skaven attack, one stack is gone, and the three others are taken out by their stacks, as they retreat in any direction.

In Lustria there are no dwarfs it seems, which can stop them by being OP in auto-resolve. And i rarely see dwarfs suicide themselves. Also the factions don´t confederate that often any more, which meant that more legendary lords are in some faction, which made the Lizardmen in Lustria stronger, and also the dark elves, while the dark elves had to fight more battles than the high elves, which equals higher level - and combined with black ark spam they dominated the early and mid-game in any campaign in WH2.

Here in WH3 i rarely see AI black arks. And also Makkelith has the dwarfs next to him, which means he gets beaten early more often than not, while in the past he got Crone early, and then Rakarth. Or Malus, no idea...

And Black Arks deliver army abilities - i´m unsure how these are calculated.

[Captain Baldy]

If you can excel in the game at legendary difficulty, you're reaching a level few can attain. So, I hope you don't be too disheartened if you keep facing defeats though at some point you will feel it deep and hard as we are not wired to enjoy repeated defeats and setbacks.

I gave legendary mode a shot in both campaign and battles for a substantial amount of time, and regardless of my efforts, I kept experiencing losses, especially with the Nurgle faction.

Losing can be okay as long as it's enjoyable, but after a continuous series of defeats, the appeal waned, and I eventually switched back to lower difficulties with my pride squished like a bug. It appears that legendary mode is designed to be incredibly challenging. Nevertheless, if you find satisfaction in it, I encourage you to persevere, as the solution often boils down to three words: 'repetition, repetition, repetition.'

[Smex]

Playing this campaign at the moment. Allied with Halebron and used her to be a buffer to the east. Confederated Malus, and worked south, took the dohnut and just finishing up Lustria. Boris likes me for some reason and has given me a nice buffer against the Empire etc. Mostly spammed cheap stacks, Corsairs and Darkshards with a fire mage.

[DecayWolf]

Originally posted by Ashardalon:

with 4 stacks a turn killed, shouldnt that give you a lot more money?
battle victorys give the most income
so plenty to afford more armys to kill more stacks for more money
+ all the free labor
tho its been a while since i played delfs

Druchii eco is very strong, by turn 80, she should be able to field 10 - 12+ armies. With a surplus of 10k+

[DecayWolf]

Well, that's how I do malekith on legendary.
1. Take Iron foothills.
2. Go for the altar of darkness and raise a new army in Naggarond, can be userful later on, keep recruiting new units. Hire a black ark as soon as possible. You could put your units inside of it, in order to prevent the upkeep.
3. Take Rackdo Gorge. Afterwards you can declare peace on the skaven.

Then you have a few options. You can kill the ogres and finish the province.
Or you could start a war against the dawi or valkia.

If you had done stuff quick enough, you would have time to kill the ogres and then retreat back to naggarond with malekith.
By now, Grond is about to die from Valkia.
I won't declare war on valkia otherwise. Taking spiteful peaks is extremely important, and it doesn't feel right to kill the druchii neighboor. So, I let him die instead.

I'd start a war against her using my 2 armies. Take this province and make it economy focused.
Once you have enough slaves, make the ritual of Sacrifice of Khaine, you could use both the dark conduit and the extra repenishment. Also you would be in a tough war against valkia and afterwards the white dawi.

Anyways, focus on killing valkia, after she's dead, kill the dawi... I mean, after this point you can't really lose.

All of this can be done before turn 30ish.
20ish if you are good and have luck.
30ish if you were unluck or screwed up.

In my most recent run, I sent my black ark to help Rakart, so he won't get wiped out. So killing valkia was a bit harder without a black ark support. Still doable.

Just a small, but obvious tip. Before invading ulthuan make sure you have at least 2 black arks at your disposal. So... You can make more armies...
And, make sure your allies are free to assist you. Like Morathi, Clar Karond, Malus and hellbron if you ally with her.

Then ask for assistence. (not that you really gonna need, you should be able to solo 4 Asur factions, but would be cooler and easier if you had assistence.)

Oh yeah, before invading you would still have to kill 3 small foes. the sisters, the asur and the Vcoast. You should have 3 - 4+ armies and 1 to 2 black arks, so should be quite simple.

[Aneerah]

Sacrifice of Khaine is super good, yes, for all the passive bonuses but especially the Dark Conduit ability. You can obliterate several full units of infantry with just one use if you set it up with one of your character.

Another tip is to focus your recruitment almost solely from Black Arks. The barracks is good for Masters, certainly, and some of the advanced military buildings are decent, as well, both for heroes and passive bonuses like increased lord recruit rank. You can recruit lords straight at level 50 late game, for instance.

[DecayWolf]

Generally speaking 2 cities province tends to give the worst income, therefore they can be used as military outposts, while it loses very little income.

Naggarond makes a great starting military base, the land mark gives a +2 recruitment, with a palace of dread you get another +2. Then 2 default and +1 from each lord, and another +1 from tech.
Then put 1 or 2 black arks there, and you'll be able to get full stacks going very quickly.

OFC after you invade somewhere else, you are better off recruiting from your newer position.
But if you need extra reinforcement you could always rally from Naggarond as well.

[coolgame308]

I started over for the tenth time, and I'm doing a bit better with lots of ambushing and heavy use of the Black Ark for recruitment. I've established a steady foothold on Ulthuan, but I think I've now had enough of the campaign. It's just so grind-y! Every battle against the HE factions is kind of the same, and not super fun after a while. Oh well, on to something new.

[DecayWolf]

You can either focus on quick units so you can eat his missiles or you can auto resolve them out. But yeah, once you can take Ulthuan the campaign is pretty much over.

[Whatever100500]

Imo, the best course is:
1) Get Har Kaldra and peace out with Skaven. Don't trade or NAP them. Grombrindal will eventually kill them, and you don't want to piss him off. Ideally gift and NAP him when met, but if even if you just delay war, that's ok.
2) Race Valkia for Ghrond province, backstab her army in march stance if convenient opportunity comes up. Valkia is much worse than Grombrindal, because she razes what she takes, reducing territory's value to you, while Grom is a normal builder faction. Ghrond is also far better province economically than whatever you can take from Grom. Start rasing army in Har Kaldra as soon as you don't need Nagarrond's recruitment for main army (to protect it from Mung).
3) Finish Valkia and Mung, go for Alith Anar, he has good territory and you can't make peace with him.
4) Ideally have Grom and Khatep engage in neither-side-wins war for their less desirable territories, while having NAP with both, take everything else in Naggarond (ally Morathi for confed, ally Hellebron at some point, keep alliance with Malus - and make sure to direct him via ally targets so that he doesn't just sit on his ass).