Grand Hierophant Khatep, any tips?

[Ashley]

Is it just me or does the design of this characters position seem really flawed? You spawn with the Dark elves usually declaring war on around turn 10. You can't really expand early game because it's not a good habitat besides the 3 starting cities. Any advice? I have no idea where to go.

[Mr Geriden]

Its a very slow start, but im about 180 turns in and finding life very cosy - almost too easy actually. I havent tried the other TK starters yet so i've got nothing to compare it to.

[SteelaiRizel]

Originally posted by ♥Ashley♥:

Is it just me or does the design of this characters position seem really flawed? You spawn with the Dark elves usually declaring war on around turn 10. You can't really expand early game because it's not a good habitat besides the 3 starting cities. Any advice? I have no idea where to go.

Vortex or ME?

Well honestly unpleasant don't matter much to the tk, you have a cheap public order building and you mainly just want their settlements for units. Killing the dark elves as khatep means good use of your titan as a blob maker then nuking the blob, using archers to focus down units, and grabbing chariots when you can(as in immediately).

Building the chariot building means you will have an easy way of destroying their darkshards and knocking around their backline. Just make sure to cycle.

Look for juicy targets then sack the hell out of them for money OR take them without sacking. Taking them outright can net you free buildings and they remain the tier they were before battle meaning it bcomes free buildings for more free units and not having to spend a dime on them.

Buildings with the level 2 or 3 versions of their barracks are prime targets as that means warriors and tomb guard(if at 3) which is fantastic for your line.

Take your time after securing your first province to build up then move out and repeat. Once you got about 3 armies you can just wreck house nonstop without much care with good compositions.

Just be prepared to fight a lot and abuse the movement super buff from battles in the open to speed around your province to defend early on.

Edit: also raiding is pretty good early money and easy to do.

[Dot]

TK early game is all about slow expansion and protection of what you do have. As you get more dynasties you can do more maneuvers and really delve into their territories. Until then, you just take the first two or three near you then consolidate. Get more dynasties then branch out after 2-3 armies.

[Hurricane]

Originally posted by CKGeriden:

Its a very slow start, but im about 180 turns in and finding life very cosy - almost too easy actually. I havent tried the other TK starters yet so i've got nothing to compare it to.

180 turns? I finished legendary at 130 and thats me dragging it out.

[Maelos]

Originally posted by Hurricane:

Originally posted by CKGeriden:

Its a very slow start, but im about 180 turns in and finding life very cosy - almost too easy actually. I havent tried the other TK starters yet so i've got nothing to compare it to.

180 turns? I finished legendary at 130 and thats me dragging it out.

Congratulations, now that you had the attention you're asking for, please leave.

[Hurricane]

Originally posted by Maelos:

Originally posted by Hurricane:

180 turns? I finished legendary at 130 and thats me dragging it out.

Congratulations, now that you had the attention you're asking for, please leave.

130 is scrub numbers people could easy do 70 turns if they wanted to rush it.

[rhettrongun]

Originally posted by Hurricane:

Originally posted by CKGeriden:

Its a very slow start, but im about 180 turns in and finding life very cosy - almost too easy actually. I havent tried the other TK starters yet so i've got nothing to compare it to.

180 turns? I finished legendary at 130 and thats me dragging it out.

Oh wow! You deserve something. How about a cookie?

[Ashley]

Troll aside, it just is really horrible that there is pretty much no green habitats near him besides his starting point.

[Epic The Incandescent]

Originally posted by ♥Ashley♥:

Troll aside, it just is really horrible that there is pretty much no green habitats near him besides his starting point.

the one who likes mountains yeah? He has a ton of stuff north of him he can take, and like one user pointed out tomb kings really only have to worry about the cost of construction, everything else is just time. Just watch out for the new skaven ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lord and malakath. Mal seems to be a 1 man wrecking crew vs TK armies....still trying to figure a adequent army comp to stone wall him without using 3 armies to his 1.

[The Baron]

I've been abusing his canoptic jar generation in conjuction with his liche priest raising at level 6 to create more jars. I've been going 5th Dynasty first for Setep, spawn him, then you have Liche Priests coming out at level 8 or so. But as said above, extremely slow and dedicated expansion. I still only have my first region and just branched out to Quintex at turn 50 or so. But this might bite me in the ass. Just made a pact with the High Elves as well, as it seems they've been smacking the Dark Elves and Skaven down.

[Dot]

Originally posted by Epic The Incandescent:

Originally posted by ♥Ashley♥:

Troll aside, it just is really horrible that there is pretty much no green habitats near him besides his starting point.

the one who likes mountains yeah? He has a ton of stuff north of him he can take, and like one user pointed out tomb kings really only have to worry about the cost of construction, everything else is just time. Just watch out for the new skaven ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lord and malakath. Mal seems to be a 1 man wrecking crew vs TK armies....still trying to figure a adequent army comp to stone wall him without using 3 armies to his 1.

Ushabti are pretty badass at killing stuff, get 3-5 ranked up and they roll through ♥♥♥♥, maybe one necrosphynx and hierotitan, throw in tombguard and maybe few archers

[KingHurin]

I'm on my first playthrough as Khatep on hard on ME. At the start, make sure you clear out the roaming beastmen ASAP. They give good $$ to get you going, and you save yourself a lot of trouble because they tend to declare war on you any time you're army gets hurt badly while fighting Tretch or the Dark Elves. I guess you could also wait and let them duke it out with the Dark Elves so that you can take some territory while they're crippled, but that leaves too much to chance imo. I had a lot of success with chariots early on to get behind DE lines and kill the dreadshards/shades since they end up killing the bulk of your units. Your front line can hold for a long time vs. dreadspears/bleakswords, especially if you use your free liche priest well. If you're really having trouble, manually duke it out and make sure you abuse/level that Heirotitan properly.. it's your ticket to early success. Also, speaking of priests, I invested in a few early on and stuck a point in their ability that gives their embedded army +2 recruit rank. I was able to get Khatep recruiting at level 9 early on with a couple priests, his blue tree skills, and timing my recruitment with the casket of souls ritual. You can either juggle units between armies while you're training a new stack or transfer priests to the new army to recruit every stack with high level units. It takes more time to do and slows your expansion if you choose to juggle units between armies because it requires you to have your strongest army (khatep, assuming you give him the priests) out of comission, but having an army of lvl 9 units, even if it's mostly skeles, gives you a huge edge.I did this and I'm around turn 180, and I've conquered all of the north and the Isthmus, and the rest of Lustria is basically free for the taking because Mazdamundi has no armies left, and I have six ( I think?) stacks plowing through the jungle. On the other hand, this might have had a bigger effect on my campaign b/c I'm currently trying out Valuable Veterans, so I'm not sure how much it would help in Vanilla, but it's worth a shot.