Morghur the shadow grave (Beastmen) help

[Donut]

So this is my first time playing beastmen and im having a number of problems and im confused on how your ment to get around it as they seem Extremely unpowered compared to the other factions and Auto Resolve obliterates your army almost all the time, having to keep a steady income seems to be almost impossible and trying to stay alive in general seems to be mission impossible.

Problem #1

-income-

So as Beastmen i understand that you gotta roam, raid and raze in order to keep your income steady or at least bearable but it seems after having over 10 units (at the start) im having alot of trouble dealing with come having over -400 with raiding and like -600 when im not and im confused on how im ment to act as there isnt alot i can do.

Problem #2

-Army Strength-

It seems you need both armys in order to win battles but even when i have both armys with about 10 units each they are sooo weak like overall i had about 20 units (10 in both armys) and the empire are able to wipe me out with just a few swordsmen and spearmen with shields, i dont understand how when i do win however im left with sooo many casualties so i was curious is there a better way to win more battles or are battles like a big coin toss for Beastmen?.

problem #3

-Attacking nearby settlements-

So when i start im usaually attacking the small towns in provices, the towns without walls and very small garrisons but there isnt alot to attack and im having trouble on where to go. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lol everytime i go near Altdorf i have Karl Franz chasing me around the whole map as well as Middenland and Nordland and i dont understand how im ment to get around them since everyone wants to chase me and when i say chase i mean they are just relentlessly on my butt like Middenland chased me from thier main city all the way to the Hochland before they finally left me alone AI might also be broken because when im in my hidden encampments they just wait there so im pretty sure the Ai is using esp hacks.

any tips or help with these issues would be greatly appreciated since i love the beastmen sooo very much but it seems they are just horrible to play or maybe im horrible =/ most likely me

[Sin]

Build 1 20 stack on morghul, raze raze raze raze ..growth is nice but the moon will tell you "time to regen and get -20 horde growth <3 " so don't bother until you go your eco somewhat stabalized or got a save event going.
Use your 1 lord stack to bait the enemy out of citys. Hidden encampment >in front< of the single lord stack, single lord stands open - ai charges you get a "fair" battle.
This is not an ambush. This is standard reinforcement battle.
You can try to bait him further than 1 turn of movement and then beastcharge him for a potential ambush.

Rush Chaosspawn on morghul, beastigor and minotaurs on the second stack which will be lead by khazrag (later).

Morghul will only use chaosspawn due to his very low upkeep for them.
Khazrak will not use minos but you want to unlock 2 or 3 gorebull heroes for your armys.
Your shamans are suprisingly good, use them. Just not the beast / wild lore.

Once you got 2 maybe 3 buildings in one horde build the first level of the upkeep building, it is offset by the blue line growth buff and saves you aton of money. do not go for level 2 on it unless you think your horde is done growing.

Raid and pillage the north eastern imperium. Cities are far away which makes hostile reinforcements difficult. Alternativly, go towards the badlands but do not attack dwarfs.

Last: Morghul is the strongest beastmen lord for campaign purposes, but the weakest faction leader. The fact that you can not use minos will come back to haunt you. Deal with it the best you can, by using chariots, Centigores with great weapons and chaos spawn / cygore. Just keep in mind that all of those are SHOCK units, not fire and forget units.

Eco wise: You can get 3k gold out of a 10 slot city region (late game) if you raid.
You will also end up gettin 8K to 35k from razing. It just takes a while and you need to tech and skill towards it. It's a real struggle and I would actually not recommend beastmen to anyone. Their campaign mechanics were build for WH1 and especially their small campaign, not for TWW 2 powercreep. The buffs recieved are not enough to offset the crippeling campaign effects.

Chaos is a lot more fun.

[Decomposed]

@Sin Most people say BM are more fun to play than Chaos.

[Sin]

Originally posted by Decomposed:

@Sin Most people say BM are more fun to play than Chaos.

I honestly don't get why.
Your eco sucks, units that don't suck are not affordable until way late into the game, most of your non infantry units do the exact same thing with different stats, the moon events are rarely usefull almost always "which leg do you want to cut off this time? don't worry it will grow back in a couple turns so you can chop it off again."
Your growths sucks unless you go for the event that allows for growth, an event that is setting your regeneration to 0.
The hidden encampment is a bugfest if I have ever seen one
NO marsh stance. You are slow and if you dare to jurney overseas prepear for a beating for everyone will catch up to you.
Your heroes are great but it takes forever to unlock them unless you rush which ususally costs you dozens of turns you could have used better.

There is very little "enjoyable" regarding beastmen mechanics.
I will admit that it's fun to watch a beastmen line supported by minos crush into elves or empire lines.. but that's your late mid game. Late. Mid. Game. Most people have finished their campaign shortly after. Before that it's a trash fest since you can't even afford Gor.

Chaos can have usable units by turn 12 without sacrificing anything (probably sooner) and their non infantry units are actually different in more than just "a little less damage but essentially the same". Their lords actually do stuff other than making you question why you even go for legendarys... only real downsides with chaos is the spawn and the missing ambush stance.

[Gnarl]

For my last Morghur run, I sent the 2nd army into the sea for treasure. It got dicey a lot of times because bretonnia would send a 20 stack after the treasure hunter. Overall it paid off though.

Sometimes Morghur would have to rely on his Breyherd. He basically ran around the Reikland, sacking and resacking the settlements until he got strong.I think I allied with Norsca, but this was preepatch and they were useless.

A brey shaman of beast lore with the accuracy debuff is my choice.

Chaos spawn are expensive and they actually die alot. But I wanted a themed army. They need 2 gorebulls with their aoe buffs to really shine.A minotaur army is definately bettter, but I kept trying to push 10 chaos spawn army when I could on Morghur. Sieges were bad early game.

As for Morghur I built him to be a pin cushion. After awhile he could just single handled rush 10 WE missle units. It was depressing how eazy it was to burn down the great tree even.

Endgame BM is basically unbeatable by ai in open field battles. You're just so fast and missle resistant.

[Iriath Zhul]

Don't raid unless you've got nothing better to do. Sacking even smaller settlements is worth ~10 turns of raiding and this can get to truly outrageous levels in the mid-late game.

Avoid autoresolve. Beastmen punch way, way above their weight.

[A_COOC]

Originally posted by Sin:

Originally posted by Decomposed:

@Sin Most people say BM are more fun to play than Chaos.

I honestly don't get why.
Your eco sucks, units that don't suck are not affordable until way late into the game, most of your non infantry units do the exact same thing with different stats, the moon events are rarely usefull almost always "which leg do you want to cut off this time? don't worry it will grow back in a couple turns so you can chop it off again."
Your growths sucks unless you go for the event that allows for growth, an event that is setting your regeneration to 0.
The hidden encampment is a bugfest if I have ever seen one
NO marsh stance. You are slow and if you dare to jurney overseas prepear for a beating for everyone will catch up to you.
Your heroes are great but it takes forever to unlock them unless you rush which ususally costs you dozens of turns you could have used better.

There is very little "enjoyable" regarding beastmen mechanics.
I will admit that it's fun to watch a beastmen line supported by minos crush into elves or empire lines.. but that's your late mid game. Late. Mid. Game. Most people have finished their campaign shortly after. Before that it's a trash fest since you can't even afford Gor.

Chaos can have usable units by turn 12 without sacrificing anything (probably sooner) and their non infantry units are actually different in more than just "a little less damage but essentially the same". Their lords actually do stuff other than making you question why you even go for legendarys... only real downsides with chaos is the spawn and the missing ambush stance.

I find modded Beastmen much more fun than modded Chaos. Which is where I think it comes from. With SFO you actually get some pretty reasonable growth from razing and stacking all the upkeep reductions feels really nice. Since one of my personal issues with Chaos is the massive negative upkeep inherent to the faction. Which while still in the negatives, actually feels like you're gaining things from raiding consistently on top of all your actions because of your upkeep reductions. Even without march, you have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of mobility from upgrades And in battle Beastmen units are much faster on average, higher speed stat and vanguard deployment go a long way. I do enjoy marching chaos warriors up into enemy ranks, but having my army just run head long into the enemy and make contact right from the get go feels amazing. And I've also personally never encountered any bugs with hidden encampment. Just having two lords from the get go to cause mayhem and baiting with ambushes are also a ton of fun. I think a lot of the love for Beastmen comes from their popularity on the tabletop and their alternative take on mechanics for Chaos. That some people also think should have been how Chaos was designed.

[Green Raven]

Beastmen are tricky... Your basically Chaos Commandoes: your job is to keep the forces of good off kilter until the Everchosen arrives.

Dont be afraid to break away and hide. Time your attacks to sync with the dark moon. Set up ambushes.

Humans have always been afraid of the dark. Remind them why.

[Ninjasquirrel]

The only part I like about beastmen over chaos are all the fun ambush battles. Their magic really fits those types of fights.

[Gwwarg]

You may want to go to Kislev. They have enemies everywhere and they can't defend all their cities. As beastmen you want to hunt weak targets and run away when it turns bad.
And like others said, ambush as much as you can it's easy to do as beastmen

[Ubaldios]

you need to use your encamp stance if they're chasing you. You're hidden in encampment so you can just wait till their armies move then attack the settlement after. Most turns I end in encampment stance unless I attack a settlement of course, the AI will mostly ignore you unless they either stumble right across you or your army's spotted.

I always try to find places with higher chance to ambush but I'm not sure if that counts to being spotted or just more chance ambush once they're stumbled across you but I do it anyway just incase.

The campaign becomes quite easy once you learn to hide your armies every turn

Also with malagor get rid of the giant its mostly usless and expensive