No Skarsnik Goblin buffs?

[Judge Cudge]

So I really wanted to play a goblin flavored campaign and spam archers. I picked Skarsnik thinking this would be the obvious choice.

Problem is, unless I'm missing something, he has absolutely no unique faction buffs to goblins, let alone goblin archers.

This while Grom the paunch has access to Orcs immediately, and has several intrinsic goblin buffs, in addition to his food system which gives a litany of extra stuff on top of that.

Is Skarsnik just badly designed and totally superceded in half of the areas he's supposed to specialize in? Or am I misled? He seems to only have like two ambush buffs and some stinky mushroom spells and that's it. With all the goblin flavored buffs being the same as any other goblin lord.

Edit*
I am obviously aware of his unit cost reduction, further his lord's army buffs to certain goblin types are all standard night goblin lord ones, none are unique to him as a legendary lord.

[CrUsHeR]

Skarsnik has a factionwide -40% goblin upkeep cost. A Night Goblin Lord costs something like 500g to recruit. Shroom-Addicted Lords and Heroes stack with -15% upkeep each.
Especially with the nerf to Supply Lines extra cost, you can figure that it is extremely easy to field a *lot* of (night) goblin armies.

With goblin Lord/Heroes the entire army also has Vanguard, Night Goblins always having sneak. They slow everything and deal a crapload of damage with Skarsnik's Death Juice.
Plus if you combine all the goblin-only research, and the fact that 3 points in red line cover both melee and archer gobbos, they are actually among the best T1 units for the lowest price.

Then multiply those armies with the Waaagh bonus armies you can have for 20 turns.

Another advantage with so cheap armies, you can not only conquer territory, but also defend it.


PS - another thing is that is campaign is super fun, even if currently a bit odd. Karak Eight Peaks is supposed to be your fabled destination, but the province is actually crap with only 7 build slots. And it takes something like 30 turns just for the Orc recruitment buildings. However, on your way you stumble across Karaz-a-Karak, which has 9 build slots and is what you actually need to hold on to.

[Judge Cudge]

We've covered that, but a man designed to rely on goblins should have good goblins, not just cheap ones, and he doesn't.

[raynay]

At least he has can give his goblinunits a unique scrapversion "skarsnik juice" a DoT which is better then the normal armor or tiny AP bonus but yeah compared to grom hes feels pretty dated.

[CrUsHeR]

Messaggio originale di Judge Cudge:

We've covered that, but a man designed to rely on goblins should have good goblins, not just cheap ones, and he doesn't.

Messaggio originale di id:

Biggest difference is that Skarsnik can field 40% more goblins with his faction effect

Well. A 40% baseline upkeep reduction is NOT 40% more armies. That's closer to 100% out of the box. And stacking the Shroom-Addicted leaders for 15% each makes the cost reduction even more dramatic. The Night Goblin Boss lords are also so cheap that you can "fish" for the trait.


Also this https://totalwarwarhammer.fandom.com/wiki/Skarsnik's_Death_Juice

It does 4-8 dps for 10 seconds as per ingame tooltip. Scrap upgrade for all Night Gobbos. Basically like having an AOE spell ticking the whole fight.

Just for comparison, if a unit has a weapon/missile strength of 25, it means average 25 damage over 10 seconds. The Death Juice deals an average 60 damage over 10 seconds.

[franz]

Skarsnik -40% recruitment cost and upkeep to goblins > anything Grom can do on IE .
Economy > 1 strong doomstack .
Grom get the grom peak buff but not the Karak 8 peaks buffs to gobbos as Skarsnik gets both .

[Fryskar]

Messaggio originale di gg:

Skarsnik -40% recruitment cost and upkeep to goblins > anything Grom can do on IE .
Economy > 1 strong doomstack .
Grom get the grom peak buff but not the Karak 8 peaks buffs to gobbos as Skarsnik gets both .

Grom can buff his entire faction with the cauldron.
So its many weaker armies vs stronger armies.

Also neither goes really into doomstacks territory with gobbos.

[Vulture]

Honestly, Skarsniks biggest problem at the moment (aside from his unique garrisons not being present ;_;) was the change to Fanatics. They're probably more 'balanced' at the moment but they are way less effective and certainly not as fun. That being said, Skarsnik can use them better for a cost-benefit point of view.

[digix.Z]

Skarsnik is actually the easiest Greenskin campaign currently with Wurrzag not too far behind. You can have 3 functional armies by turn 7-10 pretty comfortably with 1-2k per turn in Econ going due to his factionwide Upkeep reduction. You can immediately Ally with Azhag by killing the dwarfs, and you are in a super defensible position in the mountains with access to Underways.

Skarsnik also gets a natural Lightning Strike, and by maxing out his campaign line, you get a Factionwide -30% Reinforcement Time (Your Waagh's come in the battle at 15 seconds compared to 57-1:30 generally), +25% campaign movement, and a 90% ambush chance.

You are also a stone throw away from confed on either Azhag, Wurzagg, or Grimgor. I do agree the only slog piece of his campaign is the 30 turn build time (LOL) on his unique building at Eight Peaks, which got stealth nerfed to an 8 slot from a 10 slot. That said, with the unique buildings from the starting mountains (I forget the name that adds + leadership to goblins), his 8 Peaks unique building which adds leadership and armour to goblins, you'll literally have 70-80 armour regular expendable goblins with 90 leadership at higher ranks with their +25 armour scrap buff with Skarsnik poison. They punch way above their weight and lets your Doom Divers / Skulkers just crush.

The -40% Econ lets you literally have a 20 stack of night goblins / archers / squigs (which also count as goblins), and regular gobbos for about 700-1.2k in upkeep total. It's the only campaign I've played where I can have multiple roamers in my territory to completely stamp out backstabs since you can have so many armies.

FWIW, I've beaten every Greenskin campaign on L/VH, and just beat a Skarsnik 200 Endgame difficulty L/VH campaign where I managed to, of course, get the Dwarf incursion just to give you some context.

[Judge Cudge]

Oh by far, his location makes him explode. He just needs more flavorsome gobbo mechanics.

[Sevrojin]

natural -40% upkeep reduction
Tech -20% goblin unit upkeep reduction
tech -10% all infantry reduction

so with that we are sitting at a very comfortable 70% upkeep reduction to goblins

throw on 2 shroom addicted heros or lord and hero and boom FREE GOBLINS

[Judge Cudge]

Messaggio originale di Sevrojin:

natural -40% upkeep reduction
Tech -20% goblin unit upkeep reduction
tech -10% all infantry reduction

so with that we are sitting at a very comfortable 70% upkeep reduction to goblins

throw on 2 shroom addicted heros or lord and hero and boom FREE GOBLINS

This has been covered.

[Sevrojin]

Messaggio originale di Judge Cudge:

Messaggio originale di Sevrojin:

natural -40% upkeep reduction
Tech -20% goblin unit upkeep reduction
tech -10% all infantry reduction

so with that we are sitting at a very comfortable 70% upkeep reduction to goblins

throw on 2 shroom addicted heros or lord and hero and boom FREE GOBLINS

This has been covered.

just looked and not fully nor in this way they only cite 40% plus the 2 15% and not the tech that lowers this number further

[BigRockWall]

Grom is also goblin focused, its not just skarsnik. They present 2 opposing playstyles given the same general units being used.

Grom - Buffs them better. Allowing for less stacks required to AC a given fight/siege than skarsnik (whether that matters is up to you. its a thing)

Skarsnik - Doesnt really buff the unit strength much more than a typical goblin warboss. But gives faction wide upkeep reduction, allowing you to spam MORE armies of the same units, just not as powerful individually.

K8P also has some flavor added to skarsniks campaign that grom isnt pushed towards the way skarsnik is. PS, dont use orcs with either faction, regardless of availability.

[Judge Cudge]

Messaggio originale di Sevrojin:

just looked and not fully nor in this way they only cite 40% plus the 2 15% and not the tech that lowers this number further

Yes and the tech is universal to all greenskins. This is a thread discussing how Skarsnik either does or does not modify the efficacy of goblins uniquely outside of his discount.

So a comment on how a tech for goblins that makes them cost less merely exists for all greenskins, is both obvious and double irrelevant.

So far his only unique buff is ability to use a scrap upgrade that lets you add a small DOT to poison units, which does seem legitimately useful, but is still not quite as flavorsome as Grom's abilities, pardon the pun.

[Sevrojin]

Messaggio originale di Judge Cudge:

Yes and the tech is universal to all greenskins. This is a thread discussing how Skarsnik either does or does not modify the efficacy of goblins uniquely outside of his discount.

So a comment on how a tech for goblins that makes them cost less merely exists for all greenskins, is both obvious and double irrelevant.

So far his only unique buff is ability to use a scrap upgrade that lets you add a small DOT to poison units, which does seem legitimately useful, but is still not quite as flavorsome as Grom's abilities, pardon the pun.

but its not irrelevant though i just stated how skarsnik with his faction buff can get free goblins

Grom cant he needs the 30% from tech and then 5 lords and heros to have the same effect as skarsnick. costing substantially more money

grom gets stronger gimmicky goblins Skarsnick can get free goblins

and as a side note you can replace 3 of those heros with disciplined to get another 6 MA on everything