Teclis Vortex Campaign Start and Tips

[gfish3]

Typically I have been an Empire fanatic, of the hundreds of hours played most as Empire, but I have grown weary of the long Mortal Empires turn time, and decided to revisit the Vortex campaign. I like the Order factions, and don't have all the DLC to play the other Vortex factions to their fullest. Only Warhammer II DLC I own is the Queen and the Crone.

Anyhow looking for advice on how to get Teclis going. Have a bad habit of either getting bored midcampaign, or having ODC result in restarting the campaign, so have a goal of finishing a Teclis campaign.

I tend to run into problems around turn 30-40, income and happiness being the biggest. Playing on normal/normal, I know lame, but play games for entertainment not challenge/frustration.

I have tried to expand fast, generally recruit a second lord early to sail for treasurer hunting and to establish trade with the other HE factions on Ulthuan. The Turtle Island locations stinks. Between the high unrest, and competing demands for money (always in short supply), order and growth it is a difficult balancing act. I have tried to jump start the capital by having the other two provinces with growth buildings, but then run into money issues. The Golden Idol, or whatever the northern province is named is very vulnerable from my several restarts, either Dark Elves, or if you start the first ritual Chaos make a bee-line for the province.

I find the Sentinnels of Xeti to be hard to finish off, I can drive them into the desert, but the Tomb Kings seem to fail at finishing them off.

I have tried a different tactic of sailing off and invading the Citadel of Dusk, which has much higher income potential. From my play through it tends to be one of the highest earning provinces, even more than Lothern.

I have tried to farm influence with a noble, it could very well be that my lack of playing High Elves, except as Tyrion, which was far easier, I don't have a good sense of how to use the influence. Although in my current game I stopped Tyrion from confederating Ellyrion, which if had sucedded would have been half of Ulthuan. Have found it very difficult to confederate any of the Ulthuan factions, and have only been able to confederate some of the minor southern factions, i.e. Citadel of Dawn.

Apologize for the length of post and rambling stream of conciousness. All ideas welcome.

[ChemicalBacon]

High elves can't expand rapidly. They lack the buildings and economy to do so. High elves focus on trade and building high rather than wide. You need to get an eleven garden and a theatre in every major city to generate gold and happiness, focus on finding and owning tradable resources so you can unlock powerful techs to boost your economy and military.

As for the armies high elves excel at skirmishing and holding a line, they have excellent leadership and spearmen have a disgusting amount of melee def when they reach tank 7 or higher. The HEs struggle against magic as their units are frail, having some of the lowest hitpoints per model in the game.

The sentinels should be your priority, ignore the tomb kings. Make sure you actually finish off the lizards - don't rely on the AI to finish a faction off.
Make friends with the tomb kings if possible, the major faction lizardmen can be temporary allies as you will need to deal with the skaven.

For Teclis focus on getting all your spells - get the flock of doom as it shreds skaven and then get a single target nuke like arcane unforging for lords.
Abuse your mage buffs - hire mages and dismiss them if they do not have a trait you like. Horde influence to get the most powerful mage traits early. Keep 2 mages with Teclis to act as a mana battery.

Get your first quest item ASAP - its an easy fight with a strong nuke and flock of doom maxed out.

The turtle isle is a very well defended province as it has plenty of bottlenecks you can use, the chaos incursions have to come via these bottlenecks and you can wipe them out easily. Avoid confederation as it limits your trading partners but do send a hero to Ulthuan to set up a trade route, late game you can normally confederate the whole island which will basically win you the game.

[ChaosKhan]

Long turn time? You too never discovered the fast forward button right besides the pause button which makes turns go 1-2 min max?

[gfish3]

Originally posted by ChaosKhan:

Long turn time? You too never discovered the fast forward button right besides the pause button which makes turns go 1-2 min max?

Aware of the speed up, doesn't make too much of a difference, but thanks.

[Daizangan]

As High Elves dont expand to rapidly, you wont be able to protect and also keep the upkeep of additional settlements and armies early on. just improve your first regions and trade with every faction that can and is willing to trade with you. I dont have experience with teclis but thats what i did with alith anar and was able to succeed the early game just be trading.

[ChaosKhan]

Originally posted by gfish3:

Originally posted by ChaosKhan:

Long turn time? You too never discovered the fast forward button right besides the pause button which makes turns go 1-2 min max?

Aware of the speed up, doesn't make too much of a difference, but thanks.

So 1-2 mins is long for you? People these days...

[gfish3]

Originally posted by ChemicalBacon:

Get your first quest item ASAP - its an easy fight with a strong nuke and flock of doom maxed out.

I must be doing something wrong have had a hard time with this fight, haven't reached level 11 yet, the level at which you unlock Teclis' only mount option. Of course not have the net spell is a problem.

[ChemicalBacon]

Originally posted by gfish3:

Originally posted by ChemicalBacon:

Get your first quest item ASAP - its an easy fight with a strong nuke and flock of doom maxed out.

I must be doing something wrong have had a hard time with this fight, haven't reached level 11 yet, the level at which you unlock Teclis' only mount option. Of course not have the net spell is a problem.

The tactic is to spam flock of doom by making a 360 degree box around teclis so it hits everything, when the terrorgheist comes use arcane unforging or any other kind of single unit damage spell to nuke it to death.
Take teclis off the mount for this fight as the gheist is anti large and will beeline for your lord

The net spell helps a lot but any wind spells you have will help more, they rip through the skaven in that fight.

I suggest just using spearmen with about 4 arches to back them up, the rest should be your lord, heroes and and misc units you have already recruited
Make a box of spearmen and use teclis to nuke the rats first, then focus on the gheist when it turns up, after it dies the bats should die and then you should've already won against the rats

Another method is using the net on the gheist and bringing a lot of archers who can destroy it in seconds

[gfish3]

Originally posted by ChemicalBacon:

Originally posted by gfish3:

I must be doing something wrong have had a hard time with this fight, haven't reached level 11 yet, the level at which you unlock Teclis' only mount option. Of course not have the net spell is a problem.

The tactic is to spam flock of doom by making a 360 degree box around teclis so it hits everything, when the terrorgheist comes use arcane unforging or any other kind of single unit damage spell to nuke it to death.
Take teclis off the mount for this fight as the gheist is anti large and will beeline for your lord

The net spell helps a lot but any wind spells you have will help more, they rip through the skaven in that fight.

I suggest just using spearmen with about 4 arches to back them up, the rest should be your lord, heroes and and misc units you have already recruited
Make a box of spearmen and use teclis to nuke the rats first, then focus on the gheist when it turns up, after it dies the bats should die and then you should've already won against the rats

Another method is using the net on the gheist and bringing a lot of archers who can destroy it in seconds

So how early on do you do this quest? I just won, I had a much different army composition, then in my past attempts.

Had the following: Starting Frost Phoenix Sword Masters of Hoeth, legendary spearman unit, White Lions of Charce, 2 x spearmen,1x Shadowguard, 3 x Lothren sea guard with shield, 1x Lothern Seaguard, 4x archers unarmored, 2 x Ellyrian Reavers, 2 x Ellyrian Reavers with bows and Teclis

This was fairly easy, previously had mostly spears and archers, it didn't work out very well, but definitely intersted in tactics that work, since this was later in the game between turns 30-40

[ChemicalBacon]

Originally posted by gfish3:

Originally posted by ChemicalBacon:

The tactic is to spam flock of doom by making a 360 degree box around teclis so it hits everything, when the terrorgheist comes use arcane unforging or any other kind of single unit damage spell to nuke it to death.
Take teclis off the mount for this fight as the gheist is anti large and will beeline for your lord

The net spell helps a lot but any wind spells you have will help more, they rip through the skaven in that fight.

I suggest just using spearmen with about 4 arches to back them up, the rest should be your lord, heroes and and misc units you have already recruited
Make a box of spearmen and use teclis to nuke the rats first, then focus on the gheist when it turns up, after it dies the bats should die and then you should've already won against the rats

Another method is using the net on the gheist and bringing a lot of archers who can destroy it in seconds

So how early on do you do this quest? I just won, I had a much different army composition, then in my past attempts.

Had the following: Starting Frost Phoenix Sword Masters of Hoeth, legendary spearman unit, White Lions of Charce, 2 x spearmen,1x Shadowguard, 3 x Lothren sea guard with shield, 1x Lothern Seaguard, 4x archers unarmored, 2 x Ellyrian Reavers, 2 x Ellyrian Reavers with bows and Teclis

This was fairly easy, previously had mostly spears and archers, it didn't work out very well, but definitely intersted in tactics that work, since this was later in the game between turns 30-40

I don't have a concrete time i do it by but i tend to do it when Teclis hits around level 15 so I can put some points into his unique skills.
Your lineup seems fine, I only suggested spearmen and a few archers because its important to do the quest early as the quest item is really good early on but later its not as useful.
I tend to play very passive/defensive High Elves because their late game spearmen are disgustingly good with my much Mdef they accumulate.

It seems your army is built for skirmishing and a high degree of flexibility, which I can't fault since Alith Anar was added the units in that patch add a great degree of skirmishing potential to the high elves

[Runix]

For Teclis, slow and steady expansion is the key. It will be some time before you get your core provinces stable and fortified, and you get your key technologies unlocked.

Some ideas in no particular order:

* Do finish off the Lizardmen. Their full stacks are very difficult even into the mid-game, and you can't afford to have them sending stack after stack after you. If they're holed up in the desert and Khalida isn't finishing them off, go after them, and raze their settlements, since they're too much of a pain for you to hold at this point.
* Do make friends with Khalida if possible, and open trade with her. I also usually make friends with the Dwarfs (even though they and Khalida often fight each other), since the Dwarfs and the Tomb Kings help keep the southern and eastern borders relatively safe.
* As soon as you can spare a hero, send it on a beeline to Ulthuan, and open up trade with as many factions as will trade with you - which should be most of the High Elves, and possibly some of the Tomb King and Bretonnian factions, maybe even some of the Lizardmen. Trade is the key to your economy throughout the game, especially since you can't expand too quickly.
* I usually declare war on the nearby Dark Elves as soon as the Lizardmen are gone, but it's easier to take their mainland settlements than their island, which is kind of a fortress. If you're feeling brave, try to take them out completely, just get ready for a serious fight; otherwise, just take their mainland settlements and then wait until they're ready to sign peace and then just ignore them.
* Settle down into your starting province and one or two others until public order is stable and you start getting some of your tech buildings. At that point, you can consider starting to expand - the best direction typically being north. You can try pushing into the jungles of Lustria, but you need to be in solid shape before you take on the Skaven/Pirate vortex of death. You can usually wait, since the Lizardmen will hold them off for some time. But don't wait too long, or Skrolk becomes a nightmare and Harkon starts showing up with a full stack of Colossi.
* For the quest battle, you can fight it early-ish using one stupid trick - Lothern Sea Guards. Like, a full stack. The main problem with the quest battle (and pretty much every quest battle, really) is that they attack from every direction and dive your back line. So just bring a full stack of the Sea Guards, and form them into a square, and all of a sudden, you have no back line to worry about, and they counter everything. A couple of units of cavalry are also helpful, since you can send them out to keep the Skaven broken after their initial attacks break.
* You can wait on the rituals. I often don't even start them up until turn 100, sometimes later. You can do the first one early on, but the later ones are a major headache, and so I just wait until I have solid armies and fortifications in every city.
* You don't really need to confederate any of the other High Elves. In fact, keeping them independent is probably the best idea, since they'll do a solid job keeping the other factions busy. And if your territory is consolidated in Lustria, it's easier to defend against the invasions. There's plenty of room in Lustria, and you should be able to find nearly all resources you need there.