Heinrich Kimmler

[STOPTIMUS CRIME]

I'm curious. Playing on Very Hard campaign difficulty. The few reviews I've watched of this campaign say it's boring and raise the battle difficulty. WELL... It seems I have to fight every damn siege battle ( annoying ) and regardless of how many armies I have Grom comes up and kicks the crap out of me. Grom seems like the greatest adversary as opposed to the French. I tried to save the Red Duke but he's a prick. Also, NO WINDS! Zero. I run out of magic instantly in every battle. With ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Gandalf ( Bad ). If you haven't played him recently then give it a whirl because his campaign does not play out like the older you tube videos. Would love to hear some strategy. I've recruited a Lahmian vamp to help with constant warfare. Oh btw. If you take Lynesse to save the Red Duke for resale, Slannesh declares instant war on you. This is the hardest campaign yet as far as I'm concerned.

[Skurio]

Publicado originalmente por DecayWolf:

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You are not really opening yourself up to Grom, he declares war on you before you meet him if you manage your diplomacy wrong. That can be a surprise and its a difficult war to get out this early. That you shouldnt declare war on Marienburg afterwards is clear but i think its feasible that Grom could declare war on you after you declared war on Marienburg.

Even if its just one or the other, it can be rough. If you take it slow you take Ziflin on turn 5 after taking Gissoux on turn 1 and have 2 stacks from raise the dead it puts you at roughly zero income.

That is
13 Zombies
7 Skeleton Spears
4 Skeleton Warriors
3 Bats
4 Dogs
2 Necromancers
2 Ghouls
1 Wraith
1 Hexwraith
1 Strigoi Lord

With Kemmler and the Necromancers on Rank 4 and the Strigoi on 3.

From there it can go 3 ways.

You play it safe and take Artois out
You take on Marienburg
Grom interrupts you.

At this point you dont have the funds for a third army yet, you would need to trade in some of your dps units and still need funds for your money buildings.

The Marienburg stack you encounter consists of

Lord + Captain
3 Swords
2 Spears
1 Hablardiers
2 Crossbows
3 Reiksguard
1 Empireknight
5 Knights of the blazing sun
1 Mortar

I havent tried it yet but i dont think your squares morale will hold in an open field battle. Mortar will be an easy snipe for the bats and you should be able to take out the crossbows but 9 Anti Infantry Knights with 120 Armor sounds rough.

Either way, from that point you can get slogged down. Which is i think the underlying cause for the difficulty. Once you are on a roll its trivial. But if you dont get your momentum going quick enough you will walk into roadblocks that will cut you off from the funds you gain from expansion. If that takes long enough even Bretonia becomes a problem.

You can argue that you shouldnt be this slow, but its not implausible. The two extra turns for Ziflin gives you an auto resolve and the tech for additional post battle replenishment. You can get the same delay if you try baiting the Dwarfen Lord out.

While most of that is specific to the test i made, i think a Grom war declaration on turn 6 due to mismanaged diplomacy can stifle you drastically. Simply because his capital will be a challenge this early on and you still need to expand at least against the minor Bretonians for money.

To make a long story short, the quicker you roll and get momentum the easier the game becomes. Kemmler has 3 possible roadblocks in the critical first ten turns that can slow you down and put you onto the defensive. Marienburg, Dwarfs and Gromm.

Sure it can be easy if you play optimally but the point is you can find yourself in a difficult position quite quickly.

[DecayWolf]

You can kill Zifling on turn 2! Ignore Artois and go straight for him, he's the ONLY faction that can stop VC early game, due high armour.
Still, even if you do not kill Zifling, what is supposed to to do? Siege your capital which has a 16 garrison (with grave guards, black knight and wraiths!!!)? You just need 1 army nearby and you'll be able to win and push back, as I did in my campaign.

If only anything I should've leveled up my Nercrach with Kemmler before attacking Ziffling with an aid army, would've been much easier, as we don't control whever a AP unit such as cairn wraith. crypt horrors, grave guard GW and any similar (vargheist also work wonders, due very high WS.) would spam from dead sites... So that would've been the easiest.

Even then, I could send Kemmler back to deal with Zifling, after Courone is dead, or grab his starting units to send there. Heck I could have sent 3 armies instead there, would work as well. There are so many ways to kill Karak Zifling even if you don't finish him off on turn 2. Afterwards there's NOTHING that can strop Kemmler.

If one struggle against empire missiles or artillery as VC, this one seriously needs to learn how to use it's army properly, it's by default a skill issue. Any empire missile or artillery should count as a free kill, or one less unit in the army.

GS is not anything crazy. They don't have armour early game, can be killed by grind. Station a necromancer nearby your troops, the master of dead gives a huge boon, better yet if you have a corpse cart with unholy lodestone.
Then send your specialist units from pick the units more isolated, rear charging. They'll die in no time, then start a wave of panic on the remaining forces as you kept rear charing them. Heck even Skellies from Raise of Dead in their rear, can give a lot of pain on the orcs. (They'll get morale penalty from being rear flanked, and they'll drop their MD up to 75% decrease IIRC from rear attacks, each hit kill do damage, because they don't have armour, once orcs start fleeing, it's over. Dogs will love to feast on these fleeing fungi. No armour vs VC is really bad idea.
GS should not attempt to trade with VC like that, specially without armour. Zombies/Skellies aided by heals, will overrun them. Their only play would be killing your sorcerers, but the AI cannot achieve that.

There's literally nothing to do, it's so easy.


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The army above is overly expensive, has to many fast units (2 is often enough, 4 tops,.) per side you'll expand/defend.
Also why strigoi? He's literally the worst lords in VC roster, get a master necromancer, much more helpful for the army, or generic vampire lord, as they can brawl.

Also on a note, your primary use of a necros on the battlefield early game, will be for master of the dead and that's it. If you can cover it with an master necromancer, you won't need them there, they'll just eat space.

[Nhika]

I used to think Siege battles were intimidating too, only to find the AI are so bad at them.
Lords and Heroes are THE best at siege battles, and vampires have the best supposedly?

Just send in Krell to beat down the gate solo and absorb all the arty shots and you win lol

[Skurio]

Publicado originalmente por DecayWolf:

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I do agree btw, i was more looking at how people get into the situation. Once you get unholy loadstones and proper battle markers vampire counts reach unstoppable.

Good catch with the fast units, its basically the raise dead pool at that point. Got strigoy as a very early game melee fighter. Would normally switch him out for the Bloodline Lord so he wont get much overall use. Leftover habit from warhammer 2 i think, here its a waste of gold. Necros just get leved up.

Would be curious what your first thought is on the marienburg matchup above, while i think its easy to not get into that situation in the first place, i dont think it would be doable as open field battle. It seems unlikely you could break them and crumbling is a real threat that early on.

edit: Just tested it with random orc boy heavy greenskins and zombie spam and you were spot on. Think i massively underestimated Master of the Dead.

[DecayWolf]

Fair point on the necros.

The above battle seems hard, but doable.

I'd get my bats in a flanking position but outside harms way.
Lead the assault with zombies, to take the brunt and let them exaust the enemies on top of the walls.
Cast Raise Dead on enemy missiles or engange with troops if possible (blocking the cav is a must, otherwise they'll kill very easily any unit on bottom.)

I'd keep hunting all missiles with my bats whenever an opening appears (you need to keep an eye on them, to pull out when necessary, and then resume the aggression whanever possible, if only just keep them running away as long no missiles are being shot is good enough, till an opening raises and you can strike again), I'd start picking on starting mortars, then going for missiles or assisting on the walls. (though assisting on the walls would be costly, hp wise, may requires some invocations of nehek to keep them running.)

Dogs would be the least useful unit, so I'd sneak a few units in the other gate to open for the dogs, use them to kill missiles if possible. (again, need to keep the cav locked, otherwise your dogs will be just a sacrifice)

The only problem would be the cav. If you manage to stuck them, with raise dead and whatnot, then flank by all sides, you'll still grind them out to death.

Won't recruit an strigoi lord though.

If the above battle was in the open field though, I'd have a small front line with reserves, I'd focus on destroying one of the cav wings with my cairn and hex wraiths and whatever that can deal damage that you had, raise dead on their rear so they would get stuck plus morale penalty. The other wing I'd have 2 or so zombies in reserve to close the gaps and slow the enemy.

Once whanever wing side I choose colapse, I'd go for the center, rear charging with my wraiths + army + raise dead... GG.
Any missile unit would be extra f. on the open field. Dogs + Bats + raise dead = get out of here.