How to deal with Vlad?

[Kae]

I keep trying my hand at an Elspeth campaign(Normal, Normal, I suck at this game so I'm trying to improve as is.) and every time Vlad starts coming after me, usually before turn 20, he has multiple(Think, 3-4) full stack armies that just outnumber me and I can never seem to get an ambush on him, even with 80+% in forests, and he always seems to fully revive all his armies, with seemingly full movement, if I even do manage to wipe out an army.

What am I doing wrong? Is my approach wrong? Is using mostly guns as the mostly-gun Lord not correct? As of writing, I've done multiple recommended strategies, between building units, what passives to take on my Lords and Heroes, and what places to push to and what cities to take, where to ambush and where to retreat, multistacking armies with varying unit comps, and I'm just utterly at a loss. I do not know what I'm doing wrong, but he just can't seem to be beaten in my eyes, even though everyone I see claims to handle him with ease.

Is there anything I can do to improve, or should I just give up on Elspeth?

[Kae]

Adding in the replies, so everyone's not assuming I'm just brand new and have zero clue:
Successful Long Campaign Victories include Nakai(Twice), Archaeon, Azazel, Skarbrand, Arbaal, Skulltaker, Yuan Bo, Miao Ying, Tyrion, Imrik, Sisters of Twilight, Katarin, Epidemius, Kairos, Valkia, Taurox, Alberic, Morathi, Ungrim, Alith Anar, Kroq-Gar, Gor-Rok, Queek, Skrolk, Khalida, Noctilus, & Kholek.

[Wealthy Nigerian Prince]

Manual battles and use your guns and focus fire the vampires/necromancers as soon as you see them. Undead armies have to have generals or they fall apart. Shoot into melee if you have to. Vlad will shred your units through fear and melee power, but he is not bulletproof.

[Kae]

Wealthy Nigerian Prince lähetti viestin:

Manual battles and use your guns and focus fire the vampires/necromancers as soon as you see them. Undead armies have to have generals or they fall apart. Shoot into melee if you have to. Vlad will shred your units through fear and melee power, but he is not bulletproof.

I tried that. I watched Vlad eat at least 4 handgunners worth of ammo before he died, and by that point Isabella and the other vampire hero wiped out the rest of my army. Vlad alone seems to just never die, I imagine I'd get better results if I killed off the other two, but he just tanks through everything I throw at him, spirit leeches included. When I turn all of my guns on him, his army would wipe them out before he died.

[Econ]

How do you deal with Vlad? Very cautiously is my experience. Like you say, he has this amazing ability to bounce back - he recovers from wounds fast (next turn?) and can spawn full stacks after losing them. I've seen AI Elsepeth push him down to one city and then suddenly, her stacks are destroyed and he is resurgent.

I tend to keep two stacks adjacent, as he can throw multiple stacks at you and overwhelm you. I'd probably attack with even more, coming from different directions on the campaign map.

Take out his peripheral settlements, especially outlying capital settlements. Like the Allies vs Napoleon, try to fight his armies when he is not personally leading them. If possible, try to stay out of reach, so he can't attack you - so you retain the initiative on the campaign map.

Don't regard any settlement taken from him as permanently taken. Don't invest in them or try to defend them. Just take them to chip away at his holdings. If he takes them back, fine - maybe that means one of his armies is now exposed to your own counter-attack.

He is one opponent where I value lightning strike in particular, so you can avoid fighting whole clusters of armies.

Also try to bring friends - join in an existing war against him, rather than rely solely on your own armies. AI allies will distract and divide him.

Once you have defeated his main stack, subsequent ones will be less impressive.

Don't rush to take his last, primary castle - it can have a very strong garrison. Only take it when you have cleared all field armies from the map. I tend to brute force it - autoresolving with two stacks.

In battle, I've heard the best thing is to kill his army not him - he's too hard to kill. But against his subordinate's armies, I would do the opposite - focus fire the lord so the army falls apart. Handgunners are good for this.

I find Empire artillery like mortars and rocket launchers are good against VC, as they have big clumps of slow infantry.

Outriders are great too - especially for dealing with black knights and teasing out any bats/hounds so they attack prematurely. With WH2, I liked the regular outriders but in WH3, I tried the ones with grenade launchers and they surprised me with how good they are - they punch above their weight and are good against seemingly all targets.

Given that he is one of the strongest LL in battle, I'd aim to defeat Vlad on the campaign map - i.e. bring superior forces to bear against his stack, not hope to win by superior tactics. Good macro>good micro.

[Mr Robert House]

I'd use a fully mobile army, elspith and her starting engineer are extremely powerful on their own and can kill vlad. If the rest of your army is cav you can kite him for as long as it takes.

Buff the speed of her pistoleers if you try this, and get the state troops cav if you can afford it

Bring a master engineer LORD as reinforcements to get more ammo and use his grenade launcher on infantry but he will need a horse

[Kae]

Econ lähetti viestin:

I tend to keep two stacks adjacent, as he can throw multiple stacks at you and overwhelm you. I'd probably attack with even more, coming from different directions on the campaign map.

I tried this. He wipes one army, and somehow manages to have enough movement to keep going and wipe out the rest.

Econ lähetti viestin:

Take out his peripheral settlements, especially outlying capital settlements. Like the Allies vs Napoleon, try to fight his armies when he is not personally leading them. If possible, try to stay out of reach, so he can't attack you - so you retain the initiative on the campaign map.

Refer to above reply.

Econ lähetti viestin:

I find Empire artillery like mortars and rocket launchers are good against VC, as they have big clumps of slow infantry.

I have tried probably 30 or 40 different variations of unit counts, and no amount of artillery seems to do enough damage to him fast enough to make that matter.

Econ lähetti viestin:

Outriders are great too - especially for dealing with black knights and teasing out any bats/hounds so they attack prematurely. With WH2, I liked the regular outriders but in WH3, I tried the ones with grenade launchers and they surprised me with how good they are - they punch above their weight and are good against seemingly all targets.

Either I suck with mircomanagement or they're not as good as everyone says they are, because I can never seem to get them to have even remotely do enough to justify their cost of recruitment or upkeep. My campaigns never seem to last long enough for me to rush grenade outriders before Vlad ends it prematurely.

Econ lähetti viestin:

Given that he is one of the strongest LL in battle, I'd aim to defeat Vlad on the campaign map - i.e. bring superior forces to bear against his stack, not hope to win by superior tactics. Good macro>good micro.

I will try to see what I can manage. I just know my most recent campaign(about 20 minutes before this thread), I brought mortars, handgunners, outriders(sans grenade launchers), and I still got my entire setup of armies slaughtered.

[Barick]

It's hard to know what's going wrong without being able to see what you are doingbut I can tell you what I do with Karl anyway.

I'm playing Karl Franz atm on vh/vh and never found him to be much of an issue unless I'm getting swamped by other threats and let him take over the empire. It should not be too different as Elspeth outside of her not needing to deal with those other issues at the same time as Vlad. Elspeth is better, but things are a little different with her being your mage as you will need to choose between spells or buffing the army.

I like to use 6-8 Halberdiers as my front line verses him as he lacks ranged troops to punish them, they have armor piercing and anti large so they can handle everything thrown at them as long as they don't get overwhelmed. I'd go with a mix of swordsman, free company millita and spears if you are not able to make them at that point in the game.

I rush state armor tech right away for the 15 armor, state issued weapons after that for another 4MA/MD . 3/3 emperors finest for the extra 6 MA/MD. Lastly I take a captain who will have admired infantryman for another +3 MD/MA along with hold the line to give every unit around him another +5 MD. If you have any equipment to give him like Glittering scale armor + the white cloak of Ulric to debuff the enemy that also helps.

I know it's not the meta to buff them so much compared to focusing on guns but I like when they can actually hold the line as I find they get slaughtered in WH3 even quicker than in WH2. At Rank 9 without any of the in battle buffs they are at 70 MD so they do their job well.

I like two heavy cav (Rieksguard as Karl but I would go with Knights of the Black Rose with her.), their job is to help deal with the swarm of bats and dogs that will be trying to deal with your guns and artillery, after that they will smash the back lines to try and break them asap.

Helstorm rockets are better, but I like to take two Helblaster Volly guns. They still get a few hundred kills in battles and are decent for clearing infantry, but I like them for taking out cav, monsters, and lords. I mainly just find them fun so I use them over the meta. The Zombie swarm is rarely an issue for me, it's the quicker units disrupting my gunpowder troops and monsters so I try to focus on them.


After that I just take a Eng hero for the buffs to gunpowder troops and fill everything else with gunners. You don't need a mage as Elspeth so I would fill that slot up with her legendary hero if you want him.

In battles I will do everything I can to wipe out their bats, and then dogs before their reinforcements arrive if they have any. I try to harass them with my ENG hero once he has a mount and often get them to send some of their quicker troops to try and kill him. I don't know how good Elspeth is personally at killing swarms of bats but once you have her dragon I'd also use her. My cav will stay back and charge into any dogs flanking my guns, or charge into bats that make it to them. Volly guns will kill flying units, then focus fire a lord. Guns will shoot in the gaps between my infantry for the most part, and focus fire lords and cav if they have a good shot at them.

Keep a second hero with Elspeth for a while, I like to train one in one of the first few turns to get him leveled and then I give him with a pair of free company millita, then some spears just to back up my main lords army.

Vlad resurrecting his army so quickly is annoying but once you kill off his good troops and heros it will mostly be zombies and skeletons that you can deal with easy enough. If you find her fun I would not give up on her, just reflect on what you did poorly and what you could have done better after each battle or turn so you can improve.

[Barick]

Kae lähetti viestin:

Wealthy Nigerian Prince lähetti viestin:

Manual battles and use your guns and focus fire the vampires/necromancers as soon as you see them. Undead armies have to have generals or they fall apart. Shoot into melee if you have to. Vlad will shred your units through fear and melee power, but he is not bulletproof.

I tried that. I watched Vlad eat at least 4 handgunners worth of ammo before he died, and by that point Isabella and the other vampire hero wiped out the rest of my army. Vlad alone seems to just never die, I imagine I'd get better results if I killed off the other two, but he just tanks through everything I throw at him, spirit leeches included. When I turn all of my guns on him, his army would wipe them out before he died.

I always kill vlad last personally. He's not mounted and needs to slowly waddle along early in the game, just use something to keep him busy if needed while you focus fire on the other vampires and necromancers while you clear out his troops.

[Reaper King]

It might not be the "Optimal" way to win but against vlad here are some super useful tricks. 1) Rush Lightning strike. Does this limit the power of your army ? Yes. But at the same time if you use this right you can easily wipe out vlads lower power armies and then focus him 1v1. 2 With the Gunnery School the first thing you should be upgrading are your cannons and your hellstorm rocket batteries. These are your damage dealers and hero snipers. Monstrous impact is one of the most ridiculous perks in the entire game. Use it to slow down hordes and make them easy cannon fodder. If you upgrade your arttillery early they can quickly give you a nice leg up. 3) Siege battles are your friend specially as Elspeth. The Ai is dumb as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rocks in Siege battles. They will continuously hold and reinforce the same posistions on the map. All you have to do is learn those spot on the differrent maps, target them with the Hellfires and keep your engineer on reloading and buff duty. This works especially well against vampires because wiping out leader ship starts unit decay. Furthermore they have 0 ranged or artillery units. If you play these right you can easily wipe out elite armies with nary a loss to yourself.

[Econ]

OP, what kind of army composition does Vlad have when he defeats you? What units are killing you? And what is the best stack you've fielded against him (the one that put up most of a fight before losing)?

I think the consensus with one man armies like Vlad, Archaon and Grimgor is to focus on killing army.

But I don't recall Vlad having very formidable units - he's a combat monster, but I don't recall his armies being overpowered. But it sounds from what you say, that he is beating you on a quality, not quantity, so I am curious what's happening in your battles.

[Kae]

Econ lähetti viestin:

OP, what kind of army composition does Vlad have when he defeats you? What units are killing you? And what is the best stack you've fielded against him (the one that put up most of a fight before losing)?

I think the consensus with one man armies like Vlad, Archaon and Grimgor is to focus on killing army.

But I don't recall Vlad having very formidable units - he's a combat monster, but I don't recall his armies being overpowered. But it sounds from what you say, that he is beating you on a quality, not quantity, so I am curious what's happening in your battles.

Usually, 2-3 Blood Knights, 7-8 zombies or skeletons, a corpse cart or w/e it's called, a horde of bats with 3-4 vargheists, and heros.

Oh, and 3 other full stacks of zombies, bats, skeletons, or other low tier units like them.

[Kae]

Reaper King lähetti viestin:

It might not be the "Optimal" way to win but against vlad here are some super useful tricks. 1) Rush Lightning strike. Does this limit the power of your army ? Yes. But at the same time if you use this right you can easily wipe out vlads lower power armies and then focus him 1v1. 2 With the Gunnery School the first thing you should be upgrading are your cannons and your hellstorm rocket batteries. These are your damage dealers and hero snipers. Monstrous impact is one of the most ridiculous perks in the entire game. Use it to slow down hordes and make them easy cannon fodder. If you upgrade your arttillery early they can quickly give you a nice leg up. 3) Siege battles are your friend specially as Elspeth. The Ai is dumb as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rocks in Siege battles. They will continuously hold and reinforce the same posistions on the map. All you have to do is learn those spot on the differrent maps, target them with the Hellfires and keep your engineer on reloading and buff duty. This works especially well against vampires because wiping out leader ship starts unit decay. Furthermore they have 0 ranged or artillery units. If you play these right you can easily wipe out elite armies with nary a loss to yourself.

I would love to rush lightning strike, but I'm usually level 8 to 10 by the time Vlad rolls up at level 13-15.

[identity]

Fire Wizard. Guns. A second or third army to back up your main force.

[StrangestEcho]

Kae lähetti viestin:

I tried that. I watched Vlad eat at least 4 handgunners worth of ammo before he died, and by that point Isabella and the other vampire hero wiped out the rest of my army. Vlad alone seems to just never die, I imagine I'd get better results if I killed off the other two, but he just tanks through everything I throw at him, spirit leeches included. When I turn all of my guns on him, his army would wipe them out before he died.

Vlad is always on foot, so Elspeth and your Engineer Hero can kite him to death. Bait their fast units into attacking your army early and then send your engineer around their flank to focus fire Vlad. Engineer Heroes have very high DPS against single entities.

[StrangestEcho]

Kae lähetti viestin:

Usually, 2-3 Blood Knights, 7-8 zombies or skeletons, a corpse cart or w/e it's called, a horde of bats with 3-4 vargheists, and heros.

Oh, and 3 other full stacks of zombies, bats, skeletons, or other low tier units like them.

Sounds like you are playing quite slowly on the campaign map. You can have your second province completed and the southern fort captured on turn 6.

https://youtu.be/ZdbFkP0KZdY?si=K774_R2kZU94y23F&t=4932

I'm able to have Vlad wiped out around turn 15 on Legendary/Very Hard.

https://youtu.be/YAKaWnaM8sA?si=Py1-YaqW83CjX0Wn&t=3858

Granted, I did get a bit lucky in that Vlad lost his main stack to Drycha in this campaign, but it wouldn't have really mattered.