Any advice for Chaos Invasion as VC?

[Captain Chris]

Greetings
I consider my a Total War veteran having played everyone since Rome for many, many hours.
However I am having some major trouble as the Vampire Counts dealing with the Chaos invasion.
Im on turn 120, i own all of Sylvania and also Averheim and its little settlement, I have 3 armies and a steady income, all was well.
Then they came, 1 army sitting at my border, then 2, then 3 and at least 2 more off to the west fighting the Empire.
I marshalled all 3 of my armies to the northern border to fight them, lasted about 5 minutes.
1 on 1 they smashed me, tried to reinforce with a second army, they brought a second too.
I cant see any way to beat these guys, they out match me totally.
have I missed something or are they just super powerful and basically unbeatable?
I'm playing on Hard so I expect a challenge but this seems to be far to much to deal with.
Anyone else had this? or have any advice?

[PolecatEZ]

Chaos has almost nothing that can touch your ghosty units, except maybe Hellcannons (which they're fond of spamming). Armor piercing knights and grave-guard are also hard counters to most of what they can field. Vargheists can help with the cannons.

Don't even bother with cannon fodder units of skeletons and zombies, Chaos will chew through those in seconds - they won't even act like the intended speed bump.

[Ammianus Marcellinus]

Originally posted by GanjaDemon:

Greetings
I consider my a Total War veteran having played everyone since Rome for many, many hours.
However I am having some major trouble as the Vampire Counts dealing with the Chaos invasion.
Im on turn 120, i own all of Sylvania and also Averheim and its little settlement, I have 3 armies and a steady income, all was well.
Then they came, 1 army sitting at my border, then 2, then 3 and at least 2 more off to the west fighting the Empire.
I marshalled all 3 of my armies to the northern border to fight them, lasted about 5 minutes.
1 on 1 they smashed me, tried to reinforce with a second army, they brought a second too.
I cant see any way to beat these guys, they out match me totally.
have I missed something or are they just super powerful and basically unbeatable?
I'm playing on Hard so I expect a challenge but this seems to be far to much to deal with.
Anyone else had this? or have any advice?

lower the difficulty setting?

[archonsod]

Yup. Wraiths are only really vulnerable to crumbling facing Chaos, so as long as you can keep their leadership up they'll chew through most of their units. Dropping a Terrorgheist or Vampire on winged Nightmare / Zombie Dragon onto any hell cannons, Chaos sorcerors or their general also helps.
Also don't be afraid to give ground. Chaos can't build settlements, so they'll simply raze and move on, allowing you to come back and rebuild later. Archaon also triggers war between Chaos and every other faction so if you pull back a bit you might get some assistance from neighbouring factions throwing their own stacks at them.

[dongsweep]

Also, I don't know if this is good or not yet but after you defeat a major horde (like 8 stacks) i found a ton of settlements wiped so I just swung in and took 3 full provinces, upgraded them and have been getting quite the income from them. Now the other north armies are pestering me so I am debating as whether this is a good tactic or not but I think you should consider it, keep a scout out there looking for free provinces.

Lastly, anyone know if Chaos or the north groups ever permanently stop or will I be in a never ending 8 stack of respawning doom fight?

[Jerroser]

The main stratagy I use do fend of Chaos is to make sure all of my northern cities are fully upgraded defence wise ans station an army there. I actually had quite a few cases where they layed siege to the city with a single army while their other passed on and I could just annihilate them the next turn by attacking with the army and full garrison.

[Jerroser]

Originally posted by dongsweep:

Also, I don't know if this is good or not yet but after you defeat a major horde (like 8 stacks) i found a ton of settlements wiped so I just swung in and took 3 full provinces, upgraded them and have been getting quite the income from them. Now the other north armies are pestering me so I am debating as whether this is a good tactic or not but I think you should consider it, keep a scout out there looking for free provinces.

Lastly, anyone know if Chaos or the north groups ever permanently stop or will I be in a never ending 8 stack of respawning doom fight?

The Chaos warriors only spawn about 5 or 6 stacks (very powerful stacks admittadly) on the second wave led by Archeon. But once those are gone, the Chaos warriors a gone for good. And the Norcan Tribes raids do decrease a little bit.

In my lates VC game both of them asked for peace as soon as the Chaos warriors have been destoryed.

[Jide Aurelius]

VC needs no unit other than Vargeists

[dongsweep]

Thanks Jerroser, in that case I would assume my tactic to scoop up provinces in the north will be worth it in the long run. I was hoping Chaos was over, that was one hell of a fight.

[Omnipotent Orreo]

I held one of the northen provinces capitals with 3 armies and a full garrison against the onslaught, once I had broken then further decimated archeon and his pals, like dongsweep said theres plenty of ruins ready for you to snatch up and get the dosh rolling in. The biggest problem I faced wasnt even the chaos faction ( I completely eliminated them in 20 turns after I encountered them) but the vargs and skaelings, whom kept seeping down from the north to raid my settlements.

In terms of unit composition, I found a normal(basic) army consisting of grave guard, ghouls, wraiths a few cav and vargheists should be able to pull you, though definitely invest in embedded heroes, as especially with VC they help spread that leadership around.

If you can though definitely bring a few good stacks of crypt horrors, those things saved me when one of my generals got surrounded by 2 1/2 full stack varg armies with my win bar estimated to be less than 25% (most epic battle of my entire playthrough)

[Jesus Christ, It's A Lion! Run!]

Or you can just ally with Chaos.

[Cronotekk]

All I did was divide and conquer
Plus, swarm that giant bird lord with fell bats

[SherabTod]

i went with my main army very early to the city strait to the north and made it the ultimate fortress (city lvl5, and defense-structure lvl3).my army consisted of graveguard (4-6), graveguard GW (4-6), warggheists (2-3) and filled the rest with undead dragons, crypt horrors and the scythe infantry/cavalery
i put my army into the city and waited for them to come. most of the pressure was on the empire anyway and everything that actually attacked me went strait for my city to get wrecked by the combined force of my army and the garrison

for the battle tactics i just throuw everything at them and used my flying guys to snipe the cannons

[Captain Chris]

Cheers all, will give it another go :)

[dongsweep]

One more question, I was attacked at Castle Templehof which was level 5 dark castle (city) and level 3 Blasphemous Bulwark (Walls) yet I fought on an open battlefield - was that supposed to happen or is that a bug?

[Captain Chris]

Im guessing thats a bug, unless your army was outside the walls and they attacked them.
Then it would be outside but the garrison would reinforce.