So painful to play as khalida in ME

[v3rgil]

I really love tomb kings.

From their awesome eery egyptian concept to their epic construct units

What i DONT love about TKs is their crippling early game where one mistake can set you back many turns or even cost you the game

So far i had to restart a NORMAL campaign as khalida about 5 to 6 times because i tried to play carefully with ambushes in order to quickly take the lahmia continent but from there on i have trouble with the lizardmen due to their far superior units compared to my worse-than-zombie- skellies and if i decide to expand to the west i get wrecked due to skaven ambush tactics

Not to mention the auto resolve mechanic is really against me so its getting really frustrating when i have to start tomb kings campaign again and again due to a single mistake in the campaign map

Havent found any helpful guides so far so i need a bit of help.
How can i transition to Tomb Kings very powerful late game? (Cause so far i've read that if you manage to reach war sphinx/hierotitan unit building then its pretty much game over for other factions)

ps: normal difficulty khalida faction my ass. so far it should have been highlighted as HARD like khatep and arkhan

[Hezz]

Цитата допису marchuitt:

Didn't have much of an issue with her start. My only beef about the Khalida campaign is she is the 'vampire killer' yet the only vamp faction in Lustria is the Vampire Coast which gets beat down and annihillated within the first 20 - 30 turns by the lizards.

Partly why I feel like Neferata might be implemented as a Vampire Count LL and put into that position, though that would make Lustria feel more cramped than it already is, and I don't know if Neferata would make more sense as a Tomb King LL than a Vampire Count LL. I've had no problem having Vampire Coast survive in my Khalida games, but they *never* expand out much and it is a little bit of a coinflip on whether or not the Lizardmen take Lustria or Skrolk does.

I totally agree that its really anti-climatic having Khalida's intro monologue and story going on about how she travelled all that way from Lybaras to hunt down the Vampires in Lustria... only for the vampires to either get annihilated by the wayside or just be a tiny nation after so many turns of waging war with Skaven and Lizardmen, and maybe even Dwarves, High Elves or Dark Elves. I don't know if they'll ever add any of the old races as playable on Vortex campaign, but Khalida's campaign seems perfectly set up for hunting down Neferata, if she'll ever get implemented, whether she's brought in as a Vampire Count or a Tomb King. Maybe a hybrid of both like Arkhan except more expanded would be best.

[Monochromatic Spider]

My experience with a Khalida campaign went like this
1) Cap out on archers
2) Fill up with skeleton spearmen (quite important to use spears over swords for added melee defense)
3) Finish off undead and retake Lahmia.
4) Start murdering rats and orcs while heading west.
5) Stay very friendly with annoying enemies like Dwarves and Lizardmen
6) Keep murdering rats and orcs until I reach the regular TK lands.
7) Murder those pesky TK factions.
8) Handle Chaos
9) Do whatever, as the game is effectively won.

Khalida feels a bit weak but her poison special is a lot bigger than it seems. Applying poison to everything not only reduces the damage you take in engagements, but it also reduces vigor, thus increasing fatigue levels, which in turn also reduces damage taken. An exhausted, poisoned enemy really doesn't do much damage.

In terms of tactics, dealing with Skaven is always a pain in the rear, but by then you should have at least six archers in your army, and most skaven units are badly hurt by just one combined volley from six units of archers.

In terms of dealing with sieges, get a necrotect. I cannot stress this enough, get a necrotect. They have damage wall, which means you don't have to bother with all that silly "climbing onto walls" nonsense at all, you can just run straight in and engage. Considering how rubbish TK wall climbers are, this is massive.

Final thing, Khalida can't do as much damage as Settra on a sphinx but she is surprisingly hard to kill, so don't be afraid of letting her get surrounded by enemy chaff infantry and then hammering them with arrows.

[Ashantai]

Khalida even on normal has a very slow run. I was fortunate that after a few turns besieging the AI sallied, I beat them in a hard battle, and Lahmia was mine. Still, it took me nearly 60 turns to conquer the starting areas and mountains.

Tomb Kings start out fairly weak and very slow. You can't spam armies freely and your starting units kinda suck.
But, get some techs researched, some settlements to top tier and you become an overwhelming tsunami.

I think Khalida should start described as 'hard' though.

[Hezz]

Цитата допису Monochromatic Spider:

Final thing, Khalida can't do as much damage as Settra on a sphinx but she is surprisingly hard to kill, so don't be afraid of letting her get surrounded by enemy chaff infantry and then hammering them with arrows.

I agree with most of what you said, Khalida is a very strong LL if you make the most of her options like poison and heavy ranged focus, but I have to say, if you can help it, Khalida is better off focusing the enemy Lord or Heroes, as she's a very strong Duelist. Once you get her on her serpent she can very quickly chase down and murder pesky wizards. She's definitely not very effective at killing large groups of infantry but I will agree she is a very strong tank if you need to use her that way.

[hammerinn]

Цитата допису v3rgil:

Update: 7th time playing khalida
i proceeded to barely take lahmia with a full stack of skellies and other starting units only after for a TK rebellion to break out and get attacked by a hieotitan and casket of souls 5 unit stack. Another game lost

Well i have now accepted it: im not touching khalida until they fix her horrible starting early game or TKs early game in general
You may as well delete this Thread

You could delete the thread you made it.

[hammerinn]

Try khatep. Took me 400 turns to finish his ME campaign amd even thougj I start far left required me to take over basically the entire old world. Dwarf/VC alliance ...

[Wyvern]

Khalida is arguably the easiest TK lord, and were it up to me, Arkhan would be dropped to the same difficulty as Settra and Khalida. Only Khatep has a uniquely annoying campaign.

Some tips for Khalida.
1)Wipe out Shining Host, this should net you two provinces within the first dozen or so turns.
2)Get bunches of chariots and archers, start building a second stack, I would recommend getting a caster initially, as Khalida is the only TK lord that doesn't start with magic.
3)Fortify your provinces. You should be teching up to a 3rd stack pretty quickly.
4)Take out Queek. Skaven are a cakewalk for TK's because their morale is atrocious and any unit that causes fear or terror screws them over hard.
5)Taking on Lizards in a field battle is actually rather easy. Between your units poison, the unbreakability of your frontline and Khalida's decent firing line+chariots, you can hammer and anvil saurus and skink troops into oblivion with just your tier 1+2 units. Monsters can be difficult, but that's what your Sepulchral Stalkers, Knights, Queen Khalida and Tomb Princes are for.
6)If you are forced to besiege lizards with anything short of overwhelmingly monstrous odds in your favor. Don't fight them. Just starve them out. Early on, Tomb Kings are literally the worst siege faction in the game(Honestly, they're not that great of a siege faction ever, though at least against AI their constructs can really help carry in late game). Even if you have a Necrotect. Even if you busted down walls and have spells and archers, your soldiery is complete and total garbage that will get blocked up in chokepoints and massacred. Once you've ground Kroq Gar under, and you might have to, he has a tendency to declare war on you, you have the entire bottom right corner under control. Given the tendency of orcs to win vs dwarves nowadays, your fight to the North should be a cakewalk, or you can fight vampires+nehekharans to the west, which is also very easy.

[VoiD]

Tks have a bad early game? I never had issues along the entire game, tbh TKs might make for the easiest legendary campaign in the entire game, at least it's the very first time I've ever ranked top 5 in strength among all empires along the entire game, due to upkeep constraints even if I was winning the game and stomping everyone around me I'd still be rated below 20th place due to the lack of armies.

In fact I never even got to tier 5 to get their big things, so far I haven't had many issues focus firing dangerous targets with archers, holding the line with spears and wrecking their entire armies with charriots, works against every army.

Lizzards are a bit more annoying as they don't flee too easily, instead they go on a rampage, but even they can't hold their morale for too long against a charriot rear charge.

[IamStu]

Take Lahmia immediately. Turn 1 build roads, move and recruit. Turn 2 move and recruit. Turn 3 seige lahmia. End the turn and they will come out and fight. I won a Pyrrhic, but totally worth it since you can refill your stack for free anyway.

I play on hard, so know this might not work for people on harder difficulties.

[Mooselager]

Oh boi, Arkhan on legendary difficulty ME campagan is quite the joy, one false step and you are done. The negative public order you get is insane!

[Sn3z]

Take the other minor settlement Lahima have and let them take your one on purpose, move on then to take their main whilst his forces are away, from here you have a very good advantage.

[Darth Wadewilson]

I know the pain. It took me all I had to wipe out kroq gar early in the game. Both in the khalida campaign and queek vortex campaign. I think it was easier with khalida since kroq gar didn't get much time to expand and for some reason lost a bunch of troops to the skaven.

Lizards are tough, even when you spam them with multiple armies.

But if it bleeds it can be killed. Right ?

[bensbury]

Easy tomb kings trick that worked with Khalida. Take Lamhia then finish off the vamps in the region below.
Raze the city.
Use the Ritual that allows you recruit a necrotect who can colonise a ruin at level 3 (he then dies).
Settle the new lvl 3 city.
Now you have a jump start on more higher tier units and Ashabti rush.
I focused growth on Lamhia, beat up the Skaven to the West and when I had 2 stacks (ended as 3) and Ashabti, went after the Last Defenders.
Mounted archers and missile chariots did a great job of having the lizards chase them about the map, and used Khalida and constructs to mess up their split up forces. Lizards aggressive nature makes them try and chase down the first thing in sight.
If that’s a guy on a horse they singlemindedly seem to rampage after them across the map.

[Christian Lebis]

Hm I'm now starting my first Khalida vortex campaign, I did play as Settra the imperishable before, and had great fun, and a feeling of invincibility, untill the lizzards declared war on me, and utterly crushed me in battle, my sphinxes where surrounded and pummeled to death, my highly skilled for fighting Settra was beaten down on his warsphinx, my precious gold chevron scorpions destroyed and the Lizzard dinosaurs tore through my skeletons.

I'd say conquer your first province, build up your economy sack your neighbours if possible for cash, some people go into raiding stance in their own territory for extra cash and to spawn rebel armies to level their hero's and armies on because Tomb kings units are free to recruit and have no upkeep, so it doesn't really matter if you lose a bunch of skeletons, in the long run you can build a very experienced army. Don't over expand too early I would also say, all my campaigns go horribly wrong whenever I over-expand make sure you can field enough armies and make sure they can hold their own in battle.

Then again I really suck at every total war game that came after Medieval II so maybe I'm not the best to give advise, there's a guy on youtube called legendoftotalwar who plays a Khalida campaign

[Kaaz]

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