Horde race(s) in 3

[Mud'N]

I am quite late to tww3. But have to bring up and ask opinions on the horde race(s)?

1) I'll start with what I came here for. With beastmen it seems like once a Lord is wounded, and healed. He cannot retake his army. Because a Lord with horde buildings cannot replace another lord with horde buildings. Is this really intentional?

The only exploit I can foresee here is that Morghur could warp around the map and lead many more big battles. But surely that is a good potential for him, If one wants the hassle

2) It seems all Horde races except Beastmen has lost their horde exclusivity. Seems encountering Kholek he now captures settlements and is no longer a Horde race. I get that people did not like the recapture of the ravaged land in the wake of Chaos, but reforming the traditional Warriors (from 1) just seems wrong. After all there are tww3 exclusive Warriors of chaos now, who I could not care less about, if they (and only they) may capture settlements.

3) Black arks: I am not fond of the dark evles, but I am curious to know whether black arks can be disbanded yet? I know in 2 I was disappointed that I could not disband a black ark in my Felheart campaign. It racked up quite the army upkeep penalty at the time. Surely one should be able to give these lords a hiatus.

I am still not completely sold on the beastmen rework, of so long ago. But this way of confederation does breath some nice renewal into a beastman play. Which does better hold my attention. However not being able to to get wounded Lords back into the field does seem like one huge undersight.

I am just concern about my, seeming unpopular, horde dynamics. Interested in thought on the subject

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Mud'N:

It racked up quite the army upkeep penalty at the time. Surely one should be able to give these lords a hiatus.

Black ark armies do not add to the upkeep penalty (more upkeep the more armies you have), as far as i know they never did.

[pascal.difolco]

About 1) I discovered this weird limitation yesterday with Malakai (that had an unfortunate encounter with an Hydra lol)
You have to recruit the LL as a New lord and then transfer the army to him
Luckily his former army was able to move to a friendly settlement so I didn't lose much time, but it s*cks

[Mud'N]

Originally posted by pascal.difolco:

About 1) I discovered this weird limitation yesterday with Malakai (that had an unfortunate encounter with an Hydra lol)
You have to recruit the LL as a New lord and then transfer the army to him
Luckily his former army was able to move to a friendly settlement so I didn't lose much time, but it s*cks

Only I am basically running my army cap +1. So cannot just spawn another army (lord) to transfer units.

Originally posted by Garatgh Deloi:

Originally posted by Mud'N:

It racked up quite the army upkeep penalty at the time. Surely one should be able to give these lords a hiatus.

Black ark armies do not add to the upkeep penalty (more upkeep the more armies you have), as far as i know they never did.

Even so, the lord on his own will surely have an upkeep. And ship logistics is not the best. So re-rising an ark has advantages

[MadArtillery]

While I sometimes miss the pure anxiety of old beastmen desperately trying to stay alive while hiding and popping out occasionally, the new beastmen are definitely a way better play experience. Bloodgrounds are a great compromise while keeping to the theme of destructive mobs roaming the land. Nothing but ruins and corruption in the wake of beastmen. Bit of a shame such a challenging campaign got made as easy as it is though.

WoC desperately needed the rework. Unlike beastmen the lack of stealth left them with zero redeeming qualities. Absolutely nothing has ever made me miss that dumpster fire of a campaign.

[Zeek]

Originally posted by Mud'N:

2) It seems all Horde races except Beastmen has lost their horde exclusivity. Seems encountering Kholek he now captures settlements and is no longer a Horde race. I get that people did not like the recapture of the ravaged land in the wake of Chaos, but reforming the traditional Warriors (from 1) just seems wrong. After all there are tww3 exclusive Warriors of chaos now, who I could not care less about, if they (and only they) may capture settlements.

You're not really incentivized to take and hold territory personally as WoC. Sure, you can but the settlements are absolute garbage for Warriors. You're much better off gifting them to vassals where they can properly build them up.

Also, fun fact, you can totally ignore Dark Fortresses if you want to. I've had many successful WoC campaigns where I only held the starter one and buggered off to somewhere else to raid and pillage. So you can still play WoC like they used to be with no settlements, but dark fortresses are really beneficial to have.

Originally posted by Mud'N:

3) Black arks: I am not fond of the dark evles, but I am curious to know whether black arks can be disbanded yet? I know in 2 I was disappointed that I could not disband a black ark in my Felheart campaign. It racked up quite the army upkeep penalty at the time. Surely one should be able to give these lords a hiatus.

Good question, no idea. I've never tried/wanted to disband them because they're awesome. Black Arks have massive upkeep reduction for units inside of it (up to like 80-90% IIRC). I think this was always the case even in game 2 but it has been many years so I might be misremembering.

Originally posted by Mud'N:

I am still not completely sold on the beastmen rework, of so long ago. But this way of confederation does breath some nice renewal into a beastman play. Which does better hold my attention. However not being able to to get wounded Lords back into the field does seem like one huge undersight.

Good question, also no idea since I don't think I've ever had my beastmen lord killed. I would think you would just need to re-recruit your wounded lord and transfer the units back to him. I believe horde buildings should stay the same upon death.

[Mud'N]

Originally posted by Zeek:

Originally posted by Mud'N:

Good question, also no idea since I don't think I've ever had my beastmen lord killed. I would think you would just need to re-recruit your wounded lord and transfer the units back to him. I believe horde buildings should stay the same upon death.

Now that I'm home. The notification reads: "You cannot replace a Lord with another Lord if either of them has horde buildings." which should read something like "... have conflicting buildings..." because the unused (low level) replacement will not have, but the current horde will always have. But grammar and accuracy aside. it is a weird dynamic for beastmen. I understand it for Drak elves and Vampire coast with black arks and ships. But surely with beastmen it is a oversight.

[Skurio]

The Lord replacement with Beastmen is just fidgety. I encountered it with confederated Lords, if i recall correctly you recruit them with their old horde, replace the Legendary Lord with a generic one and can then trade in the legendary one in another horde. Pretty sure its a coding issue, the Horde needs to go somewhere.

I also really miss the horde mechanic of WoC. It limits you quite drastically to the regions with Dark Fortresses. Going with Belakor to Lustria is fun bit utterly pointless. You dont have Norscan Vassals or Dark Fortresses there.

[Zeek]

Originally posted by Skurio:

I also really miss the horde mechanic of WoC. It limits you quite drastically to the regions with Dark Fortresses. Going with Belakor to Lustria is fun bit utterly pointless. You dont have Norscan Vassals or Dark Fortresses there.

You don't need dark fortresses. Like at all. I've taken Valkia down to Lustria with only my starting fortress and was absolutely fine.

If you're worried about money, WoC have aalways and remain to this day a sack and raze faction. Dark Fortress money is just icing on the cake.

You also don't even need vassals. I do 0 interacting with them and treat them as a glorified ruin settler.

[Skurio]

Originally posted by Zeek:

Originally posted by Skurio:

I also really miss the horde mechanic of WoC. It limits you quite drastically to the regions with Dark Fortresses. Going with Belakor to Lustria is fun bit utterly pointless. You dont have Norscan Vassals or Dark Fortresses there.

You don't need dark fortresses. Like at all. I've taken Valkia down to Lustria with only my starting fortress and was absolutely fine.

If you're worried about money, WoC have aalways and remain to this day a sack and raze faction. Dark Fortress money is just icing on the cake.

You also don't even need vassals. I do 0 interacting with them and treat them as a glorified ruin settler.

Thanks, will give it a try. What do you do with the territory? Warshrines or feeding it to an order vassal? Wont the later just revolt on you sooner or later? Leaving you to redo the entire area again?

Also, how do you handle recruitment? Do you rely solely on the warband mechanic? And is there another way to get hero capacity or are you stuck with your starting ones?

[Zeek]

Originally posted by Skurio:

Thanks, will give it a try. What do you do with the territory? Warshrines or feeding it to an order vassal? Wont the later just revolt on you sooner or later? Leaving you to redo the entire area again?

Also, how do you handle recruitment? Do you rely solely on the warband mechanic? And is there another way to get hero capacity or are you stuck with your starting ones?

For territory, I gift to vassals and allies if I can. Otherwise, I just leave it as a ruin and usually my vassal will pick it up anyway. I almost never directly hold territory myself. If someone else colonizes, I'm probably going to be at war with them soon anyway so it doesn't matter. It'll get ruined again.

For recruitment, yeah I rely on the warband mechanic mostly. I like the hodge-podge assortment of mauraders and trash you get in the beginning and then slowly morphing your horde into a killing machine. I also like to sprinkle in the good daemons too.

For hero capacity, I'll be honest and say I don't usually play with more than 1 or two armies max as WoC, so the starting ones + the ones you get from the buildings in one or two dark fortresses is more than enough for me.

[Skurio]

You make a good point, no Dark Fortresses is rather unlikely. Transplanting a Chaos Vassal should also be possible.

[Skurio]

I tried it and it works. Also, transplanting a Norscan vassal without mods is possible but a pain.

Also see why you only need two armies, with the AI never really grouping up you steamroll everything.

[Zeek]

Originally posted by Skurio:

I tried it and it works. Also, transplanting a Norscan vassal without mods is possible but a pain.

Also see why you only need two armies, with the AI never really grouping up you steamroll everything.

Glad to hear it

On the ai grouping up, I see them do it semi-frequently, but only if it controls a lot of territory which tends to only happen deep into a campaign. Also difficulty plays a big role. Vh+ gives them massive recruit capacity buffs and they will take full advantage if it.

But properly built and specced warriors are stupid strong in the hands if the player, so it doesn't matter if you have to 1v3 armies sometimes