Do you guys enjoy making "thematic" armies ?

[Cadwell]

Let me explain what i mean by this is, do you build armies to specialize in certain roles, maybe with a Lord with a custom name?

I do this to add a bit of roleplay element to the game, and make Generic Lords and Heroes with the army compositions stand out.

-One of my Khorne Lords ascended to Daemon Prince of Khorne, and so i decided to add "Beast Tamer" to his name, and added a lot of Minotaurs of Khorne to his army as well the the ROR version of the Ghorgon.

-Decided to keep the human form of the Chaos Lord of Khorne, and made his army about Chosen of Khorne and the SkullCrusher cavalry, with a sprinkle of Skull cannons.

-decided to Ascend to Exalted Bloodthirster a Bloodreaper Lord , and his army is exclusively composed of Exalted Bloodletters , Blood thirsters, and Blood Crushers alongiside Blood Shrines.

It's just a thing i like to do, and makes sending a Lord on a quest to exterminate a faction much more interesting, kind of like a mini-story of it's own!

[Yannir]

Yes but I also like to cover all my bases. If a theme is only good against, for example, infantry and can't deal with large units well enough, I usually discard the theme.
It's fun to run a Skink-themed army until Kairos comes after you with 8 Lords of Change and 6 Soul Grinders. Which is a real scenario that happened to me in a Last Defenders-campaign.

[Amphibian Artillery]

I normally make balanced armies even if they aren’t the most efficient

[Cadwell]

Originally posted by Yannir:

Yes but I also like to cover all my bases. If a theme is only good against, for example, infantry and can't deal with large units well enough, I usually discard the theme.
It's fun to run a Skink-themed army until Kairos comes after you with 8 Lords of Change and 6 Soul Grinders. Which is a real scenario that happened to me in a Last Defenders-campaign.

Of course, i meant "within reason" !

Even when using Thematic Armies, i normally include a small minority of different units to be flexible and able to tackle different situations.

For example, if i were to make a Thematic Army with Boris which buffs Tsar Guards, i'd also have to bring other ranged units and bear cavalry to be effective in combat.

In general, i'd say "i build an army heavily specialised in a role, without losing effectiveness"

[Isaac]

yes, I give each army a certain theme to go with it. it is hard to give examples, as there are way too many factions to name a couple for each, but In gereral I try to make a focus in either melee, ranged, cavalry or artillery. hell, with skaven you can make really thematic armies with basicaly each faction.

[Cadwell]

Originally posted by Amphibian Artillery:

I normally make balanced armies even if they aren’t the most efficient

In general, i'd say that would be a good approach. Make flexible armies that are jack-of-all trades and able to get by.

Don't get me wrong, even when i do thematic armies, i usually don't willingly handicap myself by bringing units that are ineffective at the job, or neglect other useful units.

Like, even if a Lord is specialized with artillery, you aren't going to see me bring Tier 1 Spearmen when i can bring the Shielded variant or the Halberdiers to defend the artillery.

Just thematic enough to make sense, you see?

[feillyne]

Yeah, at least that tiny part that is feasible. The amount of possible customisation in TW WH is a bad joke. No visual representation of equipment changes, no way to paint armies or create your own faction's coat of arms / ruler. No way to make custom lords or heroes... in the end, every character will look generic at turn 200 as they do at turn 1.

[Cadwell]

Originally posted by Isaac:

yes, I give each army a certain theme to go with it. it is hard to give examples, as there are way too many factions to name a couple for each, but In gereral I try to make a focus in either melee, ranged, cavalry or artillery. hell, with skaven you can make really thematic armies with basicaly each faction.

Agreed! Skaven are especially good with army compositions!

I recall once that i was playing Clan Skyrie, i was able to make one army (Ikit's army) more about the tech side of Skaven, while another army was more about the monstrous units and YET ANOTHER was inspired by Clan Mors and in general just brought a lot of Stormvermin.

[Cadwell]

Originally posted by feillyne:

Yeah, at least that tiny part that is feasible. The amount of possible customisation in TW WH is a bad joke. No visual representation of equipment changes, no way to paint armies or create your own faction's coat of arms / ruler. No way to make custom lords or heroes... in the end, every character will look generic at turn 200 as they do at turn 1.

Agreed.

Even older titles had some manners of customisation!

Warhammer : Battle March which i used to play on Xbox360 back in HighSchool felt like an 'on-rail' version of Warhammer Total War, and even in Skirmish mode you had the ability to customize the color of the units! Basic, but it was a welcome addition.

Feel like if CA were to bring such customization back in Warhammer Total War, it would bring back a LOT of the playerbase and propel the game in the stratosphere.

And by that, i also mean Lord Customization the same way Daniel has.

Will it waste a lot of resources? Yes.
Would it be worth it? Absolutely.

[Raider Deci]

Somewhat. I like to try different things, not just go for whats most effective (aka doomstacks) but what sounds like fun for the moment. I still need some kind of flexibility though


I my latest mp-campaigns (now defunct), I played as Volkmar and I simply refuse to get rid of my Militia-boys (but now CA decided that extra range is not allowed!!) , switched up a bit with the generic lords though

[Falaris]

I like to make thematic armies in the sense that they fit the faction, and I avoid doomstacks like they have plague. Balanced and fairly well rounded armies, and the main weight on T2-4 units, when available, and a couple of T5 centerpieces.

[Zeek]

I just generally like to make balanced armies with the exception of LL that really specialize in some over others, like as many dragons as possible for Imrik.

[dulany67]

Yes, sometimes. For example, if I get a blood dragon lord with a blood kiss, I build his army with many knight units plus chaff for anvils.

[James Heller]

I do this too except I don't change the name

[Inardesco]

I prefer thematic armies over the copy-paste doomstack armies.

Incidentally, I also only use legendary lords making thematic armies a bit more viable than the generic run of the mill lords due to that extra skill line they have.

[Basarab Laiota]

if by "thematic" you mean stacks of dinosaurs as lizardmen, then yes!