The Khalida Problem - Underpowered

[sergiomorozov]

Khalida is cool and shmexy undead poison paladin (if the death mask bears any resemblance to her real self), but she is totally screwed by her stats and circumstances:

1) She does not get any +Number_of _heroes skills.

2) She does not get a Sphinx mount, and her Serpent mount is weak. and you know, a strong Nehekaran woman needs something strong to clutch with her hips, not a cold, soft, wiggling, small useless sausage!

3) Her buff-skills are either for tier 1 unit (of course, one will probably always have Skeleton Archers), or for a relatively not useful high-tier units (one is better off with sphinxes, not with Knights or Stalkers.)

4) Her campaign objectives call for having those less useful units.

5) Her death-mask is shattered, yet even the lowly Tomb-Guards have whole masks.

Why, why is this cool chick so screwed by the devs?

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by DecayWolf:

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

I mean you can say she's insanely overpowered. But so are generic lords. All the tomb kings lords give really big army buffs (you get that choice between 3 different types). I mean khalidas might be better but they aren't unique. When all lords are capable of army soling with a few items and turning their army into unstoppable killing machines, it stops meaning as much.

What are you comparing her to saying shes insanely overpowered. To me, insanely overpowered is like Malekith. Half costs all the units you need to build and can solo an army by himself. Wurzhag is on a similar level, and Durthu+Kholek can both do it as individuals (Kholek moreso than Durthu). They're lords where battles are just literally unlosable without even having a powerful army. I find it very very very hard to imagine Khalida is on that level.

As for every other legendary lord, they're on the level where their army is ridiculous and wins most battles easily. But theres still a theoretical way to lose battles.

Let me just say when I compare Khalida to a generic, I'm comparing her individual combat ability. She's a legendary lord, so obviously her overall strength should be higher than a generic, and I think she does it through army buffs (which aren't in that tier of buffs already OP units to the point of invincibility like a few LL's have).

To make my point, lets just comapre her to Lahmizash. He gives huge bonuses to ushabti (one of which generic lords just give in general), so I'd say hes competative as a buffer. He's on a tanky monster mount, so he's a tank (seriously what lord isn't a tank when you can just stack ward save and md on them). He's a duelist, khemrian warsphinx are decent at killing lords and unlike Khalida they have the mass to move through anything in your way. He's an army mulcher himself on a warsphinx, so crowd damage dealer fits. And you've missed the category of faction buffers, which he does slightly increase your ushabti cap so he's got something there. Even if we just view a regular generic, they've got a smaller army buff, and still get a warsphinx mount.

So basically we have in terms of individual combat, khalida is better at dueling than a generic lord. But she's less mobile (cause of lower mass), kills fewer targets at once, and while tankiness barely matters when items are a thing she is overall less tanky. On an army buff level, she pulls ahead of generic lords. But is it really by the amount that other legendary lords do?

Hence I say weaker end of legendary lords, but not underpowered. Underpowered is like Grimgor, where a generic actually is better than him.

Oh and to be clear I don't prefer a generic lord to her. She's better than a generic. But I don't think she's better than lahmizash, and I don't think she's better than a generic by as much as other legendary lords are better than their generics.

Ushabti are strong and easy to use, but it still didn't reach neither her versatility to deal with army adversity nor potential army strength. Also an army of ushabtis in considerable numbers takes longer to build and requires more provinces, where hers is more accessible.
Her army requires more micro, is more tricky to put a decent army composition, but it was hands down the strongest, from her campaign. By the end of campaign I don't think I have reached the ideal army combination, was still testing and tweaking which is part of the problem of how to maximize her skills with an army that works with pure synergy.

Sure she doesn't have the same power on battlefield as Durthu by herself, nor she isn't as strong as Malekith overall which in lore he is meant to be one of the strongest living beings, but these are either rare exceptions which are meant by the lore to be the strongest or niche lords that are good at the role they are suppose to occupy. Khalida does also excel at hers as well, but it differs from most lords and one have to think outside the box, for it's not as obvious as "select this lord, and charge forward."
She cannot be compared to any other lords without equal role distribution, but even then, she has to judged for what she does and how meaningful it's.
She's quite good and way above any generic lord imo, specially late game on high level.

I'm not sure her units are more accessible. She gives buffs to like skeleton archers and then to stalkers and necropolis knights. And of course the army poison. Stalkers and necropolis knights are not more accessible than ushabti.

If we're looking at late game stack power, becoming more powerful than lahmizash is meaningless. 18 ushabti at decent level (which I think you can recruit them at level 7), a liche priest, and lahmizash is enough to beat any group of stacks you will fight. You can beat 2 chaos stacks with that at least. Maybe if you get into a war with high elves, you'll lose if they get enough sisters and phoenix guard, but thats about it.

I'm not really seeing what khalida would do thats so much stronger. Ushabti don't even require provincial capitals to get, and you get a couple of them already from his lord effect. For me, even with just the few ushabti I can recruit when I first get him, his army is already winning 2v1 battles (to be fair early game you're fighting brettonians and other tomb kings, who have some of the weakest stacks in the game early).

Seriously though, what does khalida have going for her that made her army that much better than an ushabti stack with lahmizash? I don't see her beating 2 chaos stacks with skeleton archers, and ushabti with poison arent better than the buffs lahmizash gives. I don't see any army tomb kings could get earlier that will beat any stacks you fight decisively, other than maybe if you get settra enough items and lord traits to solo stacks himself.

And while lords like Malekith are the most broken, he's not quite that out of place. Him. Wurzhag, and obviously Kholek I'd put on the insanely overpowered tier. But lords like mazdamundi, Durthu, Hellabron, Skrolk, Allarielle, Fey, Harkon, Cylostra, and Volkmar I feel have been powerful enough in my campaigns to leave generic lords in the dust (all of them by like turn 30 in the campaign seem to either have ridiculous stacks with tier 1 unit money, or get stupid ridiculous doomstacks that literally cannot lose like Allarielle with sisters). And of course theres vlad and grombindal who give very strong faction buffs. I'd say of the ones I named there, either Fey or Allarielle is probably the weakest and Fey can solo low to mid tier stacks by herself while Allarielle buffs sisters enough that the army is literally unbeatable and both get like 60 bonus winds of magic.

Khalida almost certainly falls into a lower tier than those lords, and that was just off the top of my head as I'm almost certain I've missed a few broken lords. Even dropping down a few levels, a legendary lord like Queek gives 50 percent reduced cost to stormvermin and clanrats, which makes for powerful cost reductions up until late game when additional upkeep cancels that out. Kroq gar for example with Saurus and horned ones and him actually being a powerful lord almost certainly beats out Khalida.

I'm not sure what you're doing with her that makes her that good. But to me, you've gotta get down to like the Morathi tier of lords before I could see her being stronger. She just doesn't have that much other than poison for her whole army, and buffs to skeleton archers but are you really gonna use many of those past like turn 30?

Maybe I need to play a campaign on her to see for myself, but with over half the legendary lords in the game giving me armies that I almost can't lose battles with I'm just not seeing her in the upper half, let alone "insanely overpowered". I mean upper half of legendary lords I can see as possible, but insanely overpowered just no. Not a chance.

Also I feel like you underestimate generic lords. They get a good monstrous mount, and they get an extra skill to make either chariots and tomb guard or ushabti stronger than just the regular red skills. I think thats +18/+18 to ushabti after techs and skills, not even counting the skills for when they're level 7. Don't even need lahmizash for them to mulch everything (and of course theres an equivalent buff for tomb guard and chariots but I don't remember what their red tree skills are off the top of my head).

[DecayWolf]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Originally posted by DecayWolf:

Ushabti are strong and easy to use, but it still didn't reach neither her versatility to deal with army adversity nor potential army strength. Also an army of ushabtis in considerable numbers takes longer to build and requires more provinces, where hers is more accessible.
Her army requires more micro, is more tricky to put a decent army composition, but it was hands down the strongest, from her campaign. By the end of campaign I don't think I have reached the ideal army combination, was still testing and tweaking which is part of the problem of how to maximize her skills with an army that works with pure synergy.

Sure she doesn't have the same power on battlefield as Durthu by herself, nor she isn't as strong as Malekith overall which in lore he is meant to be one of the strongest living beings, but these are either rare exceptions which are meant by the lore to be the strongest or niche lords that are good at the role they are suppose to occupy. Khalida does also excel at hers as well, but it differs from most lords and one have to think outside the box, for it's not as obvious as "select this lord, and charge forward."
She cannot be compared to any other lords without equal role distribution, but even then, she has to judged for what she does and how meaningful it's.
She's quite good and way above any generic lord imo, specially late game on high level.

I'm not sure her units are more accessible. She gives buffs to like skeleton archers and then to stalkers and necropolis knights. And of course the army poison. Stalkers and necropolis knights are not more accessible than ushabti.

If we're looking at late game stack power, becoming more powerful than lahmizash is meaningless. 18 ushabti at decent level (which I think you can recruit them at level 7), a liche priest, and lahmizash is enough to beat any group of stacks you will fight. You can beat 2 chaos stacks with that at least. Maybe if you get into a war with high elves, you'll lose if they get enough sisters and phoenix guard, but thats about it.

I'm not really seeing what khalida would do thats so much stronger. Ushabti don't even require provincial capitals to get, and you get a couple of them already from his lord effect. For me, even with just the few ushabti I can recruit when I first get him, his army is already winning 2v1 battles (to be fair early game you're fighting brettonians and other tomb kings, who have some of the weakest stacks in the game early).

Seriously though, what does khalida have going for her that made her army that much better than an ushabti stack with lahmizash? I don't see her beating 2 chaos stacks with skeleton archers, and ushabti with poison arent better than the buffs lahmizash gives. I don't see any army tomb kings could get earlier that will beat any stacks you fight decisively, other than maybe if you get settra enough items and lord traits to solo stacks himself.

And while lords like Malekith are the most broken, he's not quite that out of place. Him. Wurzhag, and obviously Kholek I'd put on the insanely overpowered tier. But lords like mazdamundi, Durthu, Hellabron, Skrolk, Allarielle, Fey, Harkon, Cylostra, and Volkmar I feel have been powerful enough in my campaigns to leave generic lords in the dust (all of them by like turn 30 in the campaign seem to either have ridiculous stacks with tier 1 unit money, or get stupid ridiculous doomstacks that literally cannot lose like Allarielle with sisters). And of course theres vlad and grombindal who give very strong faction buffs. I'd say of the ones I named there, either Fey or Allarielle is probably the weakest and Fey can solo low to mid tier stacks by herself while Allarielle buffs sisters enough that the army is literally unbeatable and both get like 60 bonus winds of magic.

Khalida almost certainly falls into a lower tier than those lords, and that was just off the top of my head as I'm almost certain I've missed a few broken lords. Even dropping down a few levels, a legendary lord like Queek gives 50 percent reduced cost to stormvermin and clanrats, which makes for powerful cost reductions up until late game when additional upkeep cancels that out. Kroq gar for example with Saurus and horned ones and him actually being a powerful lord almost certainly beats out Khalida.

I'm not sure what you're doing with her that makes her that good. But to me, you've gotta get down to like the Morathi tier of lords before I could see her being stronger. She just doesn't have that much other than poison for her whole army, and buffs to skeleton archers but are you really gonna use many of those past like turn 30?

Maybe I need to play a campaign on her to see for myself, but with over half the legendary lords in the game giving me armies that I almost can't lose battles with I'm just not seeing her in the upper half, let alone "insanely overpowered". I mean upper half of legendary lords I can see as possible, but insanely overpowered just no. Not a chance.

Also I feel like you underestimate generic lords. They get a good monstrous mount, and they get an extra skill to make either chariots and tomb guard or ushabti stronger than just the regular red skills. I think thats +18/+18 to ushabti after techs and skills, not even counting the skills for when they're level 7. Don't even need lahmizash for them to mulch everything (and of course theres an equivalent buff for tomb guard and chariots but I don't remember what their red tree skills are off the top of my head).

She doesn't need many stalkers and necropolis knights, in fact why would she?
These units were designed to a very specific counter in order to prevent a specific army weakness, they aren't meant to be spammed. With 6 skel archers +1 casket and she can start killing stuff, surely this is a very early game build with a lot space for improvements, but she doesn't need tier 4/5 in order to be competitive or take maximum effect of her passives.

I don't remember exactly the army composition which I made but gonna name the few I I've choosen, also I do not believe it was perfect, it still had space for improvement, but it was pretty strong. Basically the idea is to maximize her strength, which is ranged.

The ones that I remember were.

Khalida.
1 mage, don't remember the lore.

6 skel archers. I remember that 4 skel archers could delete a high tier monster in seconds, just like Asur can (but asur non AP archers feel weaker), also lords with very high armor can be insanely fast sniped, simply due their absurd amount of volleys per second. They might have lower range than asur archers, but I think they're the deadliest non AP archer in the game, when receiving the full potential buffs from Khalida. they can do sort of okish against amoured inf.

2 bone giants. Was doing some tests, their AEO can really pack a punch against the AI tight formation, they can also be used to snipe high tier monsters at distance and big lords, also in melee they are decent, specially when reinforced by infantry, and they can also melee kill other monsters, though they are overall weaker than a giant, but still pretty strong.

3 artillery pieces buffed by khalida. IIRC I was trying to swap a few into bone giants, but they have different battle roles..
5 inf with halberdier to tank and add some AP.
2 stalkers.

It was more or less like that, though I'm pretty sure I had 1 warphinx in the last battle.
In short, her ranged power is quite nuts and in campaign the infantry gets a lot of buffs to get sturdy.

IDK if I would do it again, I guess I would reduce the archers to 4 or 5, in order to maintain 3 artillery, without compromising the melee strength too much. This amount would still be pretty good anyways.
For sure add some tanky construct such as Warsphinx. Maybe a necrophinx, but then stalkers are good anti large variant that has the option to use ranged attacks, making them overall more versatile, and they do receive a lot of buffs.

I didn't made a good use of necropolis knights, because it was so easy to obliterate the enemy ranged, and my artillery would already aeo crush inf blobs. Maybe 1 or 2 max just to charge from the rear in order to break a wavering enemy and then pursue, but then some changes would need to be made and overall they really aren't on top of my list.
Also they have poison attacks, Khalida already gives poison. The price and effectivess of the unit is linked with all it's attributes, sure he does receive buffs, but IDK I just didn't make a good use nor I think it's that optimal to have a unit that ain't giving 100%.

The amount needed of stalkers is directly linked on the amount of large units which the enemies has, specially cav, since monsters are very easy to snipe. That was more or less how I had my army, very strong ranged power.

To make a little bit less messy, I would try the following set up.
1x Khalida.
1x Mage.
2x Warsphinix.
2x Bone Giant.
4x Inf Halberdier
4x Skel Archer.
3x Art.
3x Stalkers.

Edit: Oh also btw, give her all special banners that boost ranged in general and skeleton archers.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Originally posted by DecayWolf:

Ushabti are strong and easy to use, but it still didn't reach neither her versatility to deal with army adversity nor potential army strength. Also an army of ushabtis in considerable numbers takes longer to build and requires more provinces, where hers is more accessible.
Her army requires more micro, is more tricky to put a decent army composition, but it was hands down the strongest, from her campaign. By the end of campaign I don't think I have reached the ideal army combination, was still testing and tweaking which is part of the problem of how to maximize her skills with an army that works with pure synergy.

Sure she doesn't have the same power on battlefield as Durthu by herself, nor she isn't as strong as Malekith overall which in lore he is meant to be one of the strongest living beings, but these are either rare exceptions which are meant by the lore to be the strongest or niche lords that are good at the role they are suppose to occupy. Khalida does also excel at hers as well, but it differs from most lords and one have to think outside the box, for it's not as obvious as "select this lord, and charge forward."
She cannot be compared to any other lords without equal role distribution, but even then, she has to judged for what she does and how meaningful it's.
She's quite good and way above any generic lord imo, specially late game on high level.

I'm not sure her units are more accessible. She gives buffs to like skeleton archers and then to stalkers and necropolis knights. And of course the army poison. Stalkers and necropolis knights are not more accessible than ushabti.

If we're looking at late game stack power, becoming more powerful than lahmizash is meaningless. 18 ushabti at decent level (which I think you can recruit them at level 7), a liche priest, and lahmizash is enough to beat any group of stacks you will fight. You can beat 2 chaos stacks with that at least. Maybe if you get into a war with high elves, you'll lose if they get enough sisters and phoenix guard, but thats about it.

I'm not really seeing what khalida would do thats so much stronger. Ushabti don't even require provincial capitals to get, and you get a couple of them already from his lord effect. For me, even with just the few ushabti I can recruit when I first get him, his army is already winning 2v1 battles (to be fair early game you're fighting brettonians and other tomb kings, who have some of the weakest stacks in the game early).

Seriously though, what does khalida have going for her that made her army that much better than an ushabti stack with lahmizash? I don't see her beating 2 chaos stacks with skeleton archers, and ushabti with poison arent better than the buffs lahmizash gives. I don't see any army tomb kings could get earlier that will beat any stacks you fight decisively, other than maybe if you get settra enough items and lord traits to solo stacks himself.

And while lords like Malekith are the most broken, he's not quite that out of place. Him. Wurzhag, and obviously Kholek I'd put on the insanely overpowered tier. But lords like mazdamundi, Durthu, Hellabron, Skrolk, Allarielle, Fey, Harkon, Cylostra, and Volkmar I feel have been powerful enough in my campaigns to leave generic lords in the dust (all of them by like turn 30 in the campaign seem to either have ridiculous stacks with tier 1 unit money, or get stupid ridiculous doomstacks that literally cannot lose like Allarielle with sisters). And of course theres vlad and grombindal who give very strong faction buffs. I'd say of the ones I named there, either Fey or Allarielle is probably the weakest and Fey can solo low to mid tier stacks by herself while Allarielle buffs sisters enough that the army is literally unbeatable and both get like 60 bonus winds of magic.

Khalida almost certainly falls into a lower tier than those lords, and that was just off the top of my head as I'm almost certain I've missed a few broken lords. Even dropping down a few levels, a legendary lord like Queek gives 50 percent reduced cost to stormvermin and clanrats, which makes for powerful cost reductions up until late game when additional upkeep cancels that out. Kroq gar for example with Saurus and horned ones and him actually being a powerful lord almost certainly beats out Khalida.

I'm not sure what you're doing with her that makes her that good. But to me, you've gotta get down to like the Morathi tier of lords before I could see her being stronger. She just doesn't have that much other than poison for her whole army, and buffs to skeleton archers but are you really gonna use many of those past like turn 30?

Maybe I need to play a campaign on her to see for myself, but with over half the legendary lords in the game giving me armies that I almost can't lose battles with I'm just not seeing her in the upper half, let alone "insanely overpowered". I mean upper half of legendary lords I can see as possible, but insanely overpowered just no. Not a chance.

Also I feel like you underestimate generic lords. They get a good monstrous mount, and they get an extra skill to make either chariots and tomb guard or ushabti stronger than just the regular red skills. I think thats +18/+18 to ushabti after techs and skills, not even counting the skills for when they're level 7. Don't even need lahmizash for them to mulch everything (and of course theres an equivalent buff for tomb guard and chariots but I don't remember what their red tree skills are off the top of my head).

Why in the hell al want allways Allarielle with full sister. I use this, and it will crush any army i can face. 2 Maiden (one give the archer buff, and has the resilent trait, which gives MD+ 5 magic res+ 5% and 5% missiles defence for infantery, (do not forget to kick Harkon and Kemmler as they give together 15% magic res for your army), the other get the watcher skill line, and explosive trait.

1 Life Mage, 8-9 Stardragons, all other sister. The dragons have over 100 MD if you tech them up with goldrank (which is fast) if you use a dragon tamer and the left special skilltree, as it give +6 MD to all units in the army.
Artillery? Who need those crap bolt HE arty, the dragons are immortal with the high defence and 2 healers. And all who dare to shot at them got shot themselves.
Cav? No need the dragons crush even demigriph halberd with this setting as the simply get not hit with the high MD.
Optimized you can get 12% magic res+ 12 physical res from craftet items for the army. This army can face everything i found so far (even 2 stacks of chosen). A full sister stack will have problems if the ai field several high lv shock cav.
Only disadvantage is the micro of the dragons as they fly up and do nothing if the target runs, so yes skaven hordes are annoing with this army.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

To people talking about archer spam: You can do that with any TK faction. It's Khatep's main strat because he doesn't have anything else to play around with. :P Archer RoR to reduce their armor, Soulblight to reduce it further, and if you can get your hands on it the amulet to reduce it further (this will be difficult though), and tada, anybody's skelly archers are fine.

Originally posted by rlee87:

Originally posted by aidenpons:

but a Necrosphinx can just do that better, in addition for one third of the price as the building chain to get your Necropolis Knights is ludicriously expensive and time consuming - unlike the Necrosphinx one which is "10000 and 5 turns later you have a Necrosphinx."

Necrosphinx are better but the issue here is that as tk you have a ridiculous amount of stacks running around and you cant support every stack with 4 to 6 necrosphinxs. also each province capital have 8 to 10 building slots and you can only construct 1 type of building. so you should end up building both necrosphinx and necropolis knight building chain.

This is true, in that your building slots are limited. But I still find it a better bet to fill my building slots with:
- tomb scorpion (+2 scorps from 1 building is ridiculous)
- ushtabi building
- Bone Giant
Add that to +3 for your major monsters (Sphinx 1, Sphinx 2, Hierotitan) and you're already at 6. Being a settlement pushes that to 7. If you have a resource or port you'll already be at 8, and I'd much rather spend a slot on walls (always come in handy!)
Very few setttlements have 10 building slots; the only ones in Lustria are Hexotal and Itza; and those also have unique buildings that you'll probably be wanting to build, not to mention another slot being used for the goldmine.

I would build the cav chain if I could with ease, but I'd actually much rather take... anything else really:
- Tomb Guard building, building it in a walled capital means it's nice and protected
- Other building that provides some nice buffs (like +xp recruits and +local capacity) next to the Bone Giant
- Money making, always a good thing (and you'll need it for Necropolis Knights!)
- Growth (hard to come by as TK)
- public order (perpetually neccessary)

[ArchAnge1LT]

Because they cant make every Lord as good as another. They have power hierarchy, CA uses tabletop as guidelines.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by JODEGAFUN:

Why in the hell al want allways Allarielle with full sister. I use this, and it will crush any army i can face. 2 Maiden (one give the archer buff, and has the resilent trait, which gives MD+ 5 magic res+ 5% and 5% missiles defence for infantery, (do not forget to kick Harkon and Kemmler as they give together 15% magic res for your army), the other get the watcher skill line, and explosive trait.

1 Life Mage, 8-9 Stardragons, all other sister. The dragons have over 100 MD if you tech them up with goldrank (which is fast) if you use a dragon tamer and the left special skilltree, as it give +6 MD to all units in the army.
Artillery? Who need those crap bolt HE arty, the dragons are immortal with the high defence and 2 healers. And all who dare to shot at them got shot themselves.
Cav? No need the dragons crush even demigriph halberd with this setting as the simply get not hit with the high MD.
Optimized you can get 12% magic res+ 12 physical res from craftet items for the army. This army can face everything i found so far (even 2 stacks of chosen). A full sister stack will have problems if the ai field several high lv shock cav.
Only disadvantage is the micro of the dragons as they fly up and do nothing if the target runs, so yes skaven hordes are annoing with this army.

Umm why would I throw 8-9 star dragons into Allarielles army? When you said "why the hell" I thought you were gonna go lower.

If I can beat 2 chaos stacks with under 100 troops lost and all single entities full hp with a couple HMs, 2 moon dragons, and the rest sisters, why would I go waste 6 turbs of recruitment, X turns lf movement, probably like 10k gold and another 2k per turn to get an army that is exactly the same effectiveness?

Who are you fighting that you need 8 star deagons to beat? The only 2 factions that get annoying doomstacks are hjgh elves and wood elves. You're playing high elves, and dragons really aren't good vs woof elf archer spam.

And I didn't mean literally full sister. You throw 3-4 single entities or treekin in. But even if you went full sister, they've got like 70 md and would kill most shock cav before the charge. So the only mass shocj cav you could lose to is if you fought 2 full stacks of chaos knights or something, which is solved by 2-3 hms, dragons, treekin, treemen, phoenix guard, hell even lothern sea guard would probably work.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Originally posted by JODEGAFUN:

Why in the hell al want allways Allarielle with full sister. I use this, and it will crush any army i can face. 2 Maiden (one give the archer buff, and has the resilent trait, which gives MD+ 5 magic res+ 5% and 5% missiles defence for infantery, (do not forget to kick Harkon and Kemmler as they give together 15% magic res for your army), the other get the watcher skill line, and explosive trait.

1 Life Mage, 8-9 Stardragons, all other sister. The dragons have over 100 MD if you tech them up with goldrank (which is fast) if you use a dragon tamer and the left special skilltree, as it give +6 MD to all units in the army.
Artillery? Who need those crap bolt HE arty, the dragons are immortal with the high defence and 2 healers. And all who dare to shot at them got shot themselves.
Cav? No need the dragons crush even demigriph halberd with this setting as the simply get not hit with the high MD.
Optimized you can get 12% magic res+ 12 physical res from craftet items for the army. This army can face everything i found so far (even 2 stacks of chosen). A full sister stack will have problems if the ai field several high lv shock cav.
Only disadvantage is the micro of the dragons as they fly up and do nothing if the target runs, so yes skaven hordes are annoing with this army.

Umm why would I throw 8-9 star dragons into Allarielles army? When you said "why the hell" I thought you were gonna go lower.

If I can beat 2 chaos stacks with under 100 troops lost and all single entities full hp with a couple HMs, 2 moon dragons, and the rest sisters, why would I go waste 6 turbs of recruitment, X turns lf movement, probably like 10k gold and another 2k per turn to get an army that is exactly the same effectiveness?

Who are you fighting that you need 8 star deagons to beat? The only 2 factions that get annoying doomstacks are hjgh elves and wood elves. You're playing high elves, and dragons really aren't good vs woof elf archer spam.

And I didn't mean literally full sister. You throw 3-4 single entities or treekin in. But even if you went full sister, they've got like 70 md and would kill most shock cav before the charge. So the only mass shocj cav you could lose to is if you fought 2 full stacks of chaos knights or something, which is solved by 2-3 hms, dragons, treekin, treemen, phoenix guard, hell even lothern sea guard would probably work.

Massive shock cav spam you cold solve with autosolve. And aigans a mass sister spam artillery would help, but the ai use artillery not well. One empire army with 1 sunmaker+ 3 rockets could inflict massive dmg if it is lead by Baltarsar, before they are even in range to any sister/seaguard spam. I have only problems as empire with a full dragon stack ore phoenix/dragon mix 1vs 1, all other HE ai army you can shot to piece before they are in range.
And i use this dragon/sister army only if i have the resources to do it, i know that 4 are enough. The only advantage you have with more is if you have to kick out a dwarfen 18/20 garrison with a full high t3-t5 army, then you need more than only sister spam.
The army has a much higher cost, but it is also capable of more (not that you need it to win),
But most player forget that a generic princess with punisher trait buff handmaiden 20% and theenemie army gets - 10% res aigans shoting.

At least but not least Allarielles defensive buff counts for all units.

[Professor H. Farnsworth]

Some of you forget that the Festag update actually fixed several of Khalida's skills so that they now also apply to Bone Giant, Ushabti Great Bows and Soul Casket.

That alone makes her a mean lean killing machine.

If you just stick to your ranged units:
25% reload speed, 30% Ammunition, 25% Accuracy.
On top of the various +12/15% damage and armor piercing traits as well as the poison debuff.

She is quite a good lord. In fact her ability to increase faction ammunition by 40% on its own is ridiculously OP.
Everything combined thatùs 75%-80% on your ranged units (including red line and research) which incidently means (almost double the amount off ammunition!)... Your casket of souls, bone giants, archers and ushabti (great bows) are unlikely to run out of ammo battle.

Settra comes nowhere near the ranged unit power that Khalida does. Likewise Khalida comes nowhere near the raw damage Settra can do on his own. Just like neither Khalida nor Settra comes nowhere near the magic capabilities Khatep can output on top of his free casket of souls which is gimped too be honest.. Here have ♥♥♥♥ ton of magic to blast enemies in to oblivion oh and a casket of souls so you can blast enemies into oblivion while casting spells why not.

My point is. They're all valid lords that excel in different ways.

Also 10x Building Slots are primarily reserved for faction capitals with a few exceptions in which it makes sense lorewise.

Building Tomb Kings is easy tho.

You get: 6 (7 with the book of nagash to increase hero limit) of necrotects that increase Khemrian Warsphinx. You have all 6/7 of these increase Khemrian Warsphinx once they hit rank 14. Now you only _ever_ need to build 1 Khemrian Warsphinx building (a few more as you expand in order to have a close to the frontline recruitment area)

Each provincial capital should thus look like this:
Walls
Open Graves or Resource
The Estate building (not the Burial)
Heirotitan
Necrosphinx
Gold building
Ushabti

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by Professor H. Farnsworth:

Some of you forget that the Festag update actually fixed several of Khalida's skills so that they now also apply to Bone Giant, Ushabti Great Bows and Soul Casket.

That alone makes her a mean lean killing machine.

If you just stick to your ranged units:
25% reload speed, 30% Ammunition, 25% Accuracy.
On top of the various +12/15% damage and armor piercing traits as well as the poison debuff.

She is quite a good lord. In fact her ability to increase faction ammunition by 40% on its own is ridiculously OP.
Everything combined thatùs 75%-80% on your ranged units (including red line and research) which incidently means (almost double the amount off ammunition!)... Your casket of souls, bone giants, archers and ushabti (great bows) are unlikely to run out of ammo battle.

Settra comes nowhere near the ranged unit power that Khalida does. Likewise Khalida comes nowhere near the raw damage Settra can do on his own. Just like neither Khalida nor Settra comes nowhere near the magic capabilities Khatep can output on top of his free casket of souls which is gimped too be honest.. Here have ♥♥♥♥ ton of magic to blast enemies in to oblivion oh and a casket of souls so you can blast enemies into oblivion while casting spells why not.

My point is. They're all valid lords that excel in different ways.

Also 10x Building Slots are primarily reserved for faction capitals with a few exceptions in which it makes sense lorewise.

Building Tomb Kings is easy tho.

You get: 6 (7 with the book of nagash to increase hero limit) of necrotects that increase Khemrian Warsphinx. You have all 6/7 of these increase Khemrian Warsphinx once they hit rank 14. Now you only _ever_ need to build 1 Khemrian Warsphinx building (a few more as you expand in order to have a close to the frontline recruitment area)

Each provincial capital should thus look like this:
Walls
Open Graves or Resource
The Estate building (not the Burial)
Heirotitan
Necrosphinx
Gold building
Ushabti

Really? She buffs now all range units with bow? Then she more than only a strong range focused lord. Last time i play her is now half year ago, so then i am not up to date.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by JODEGAFUN:

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Umm why would I throw 8-9 star dragons into Allarielles army? When you said "why the hell" I thought you were gonna go lower.

If I can beat 2 chaos stacks with under 100 troops lost and all single entities full hp with a couple HMs, 2 moon dragons, and the rest sisters, why would I go waste 6 turbs of recruitment, X turns lf movement, probably like 10k gold and another 2k per turn to get an army that is exactly the same effectiveness?

Who are you fighting that you need 8 star deagons to beat? The only 2 factions that get annoying doomstacks are hjgh elves and wood elves. You're playing high elves, and dragons really aren't good vs woof elf archer spam.

And I didn't mean literally full sister. You throw 3-4 single entities or treekin in. But even if you went full sister, they've got like 70 md and would kill most shock cav before the charge. So the only mass shocj cav you could lose to is if you fought 2 full stacks of chaos knights or something, which is solved by 2-3 hms, dragons, treekin, treemen, phoenix guard, hell even lothern sea guard would probably work.

Massive shock cav spam you cold solve with autosolve. And aigans a mass sister spam artillery would help, but the ai use artillery not well. One empire army with 1 sunmaker+ 3 rockets could inflict massive dmg if it is lead by Baltarsar, before they are even in range to any sister/seaguard spam. I have only problems as empire with a full dragon stack ore phoenix/dragon mix 1vs 1, all other HE ai army you can shot to piece before they are in range.
And i use this dragon/sister army only if i have the resources to do it, i know that 4 are enough. The only advantage you have with more is if you have to kick out a dwarfen 18/20 garrison with a full high t3-t5 army, then you need more than only sister spam.
The army has a much higher cost, but it is also capable of more (not that you need it to win),
But most player forget that a generic princess with punisher trait buff handmaiden 20% and theenemie army gets - 10% res aigans shoting.

At least but not least Allarielles defensive buff counts for all units.

Influence princesses are pretty overpowered too. Allarielle gives them md buffs though and has huge amounts of winds. Honestly of the powerful lords I listed I think she's the weakest though, probably a tier below the others.

But I mean I listed Harkon as a ridiculous lord cause he can solo armies, but Burke Black is better. A syreen stack with some guns behind it with him basically can't lose except to sister spam, SoK or Wurzhag, and even then you'll win the 1v1 battle. He's just not a LL.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by Professor H. Farnsworth:

My point is. They're all valid lords that excel in different ways.

Excelling in different ways does not mean they're tge same strength though. Just makes it so you actually need to discuss it instead of A>B.

For example, Morathi does a few things better than Malekith. But I doubt there's anyone here who would seriously call her a better lord.

And someone like Archaeon having access to lore of fire is completely insignificant when Kholek is soloing 4 stacks by himself. Maybe there could be a discussion about who is better before you stack ward save and lord traits, but afterwards its just incredibly obvious Kholek is superior.

I'd haven't played a Khalida campaign after the update so maybe she's stronger than I think she looks on paper. Part of the problem is just I don't really like TK range that much with how good chariots, scorpions, and ushabti are. They all get ridiculous amounts of melee buffs, and battles tend to end before they run out of ammo for the factionwide buff to be useful. Perhaps in Khalidas army they end up as OP as Settra annihilating armies by himself, idk.

But honestly I think Settra is overrated as a lord, lords like Hellabron can solo armies while also half costing strong units and giving them melee buffs.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

Originally posted by JODEGAFUN:

Massive shock cav spam you cold solve with autosolve. And aigans a mass sister spam artillery would help, but the ai use artillery not well. One empire army with 1 sunmaker+ 3 rockets could inflict massive dmg if it is lead by Baltarsar, before they are even in range to any sister/seaguard spam. I have only problems as empire with a full dragon stack ore phoenix/dragon mix 1vs 1, all other HE ai army you can shot to piece before they are in range.
And i use this dragon/sister army only if i have the resources to do it, i know that 4 are enough. The only advantage you have with more is if you have to kick out a dwarfen 18/20 garrison with a full high t3-t5 army, then you need more than only sister spam.
The army has a much higher cost, but it is also capable of more (not that you need it to win),
But most player forget that a generic princess with punisher trait buff handmaiden 20% and theenemie army gets - 10% res aigans shoting.

At least but not least Allarielles defensive buff counts for all units.

Influence princesses are pretty overpowered too. Allarielle gives them md buffs though and has huge amounts of winds. Honestly of the powerful lords I listed I think she's the weakest though, probably a tier below the others.

But I mean I listed Harkon as a ridiculous lord cause he can solo armies, but Burke Black is better. A syreen stack with some guns behind it with him basically can't lose except to sister spam, SoK or Wurzhag, and even then you'll win the 1v1 battle. He's just not a LL.

I think Malekith, Durthu, and Kholek are the strongest, Tyrion is good for lord killing, but he is not effective aigans mass of trash. But with the new skilltree even KF is to be respected.
Alarielle is not strong by herself, it is the buff which make her strong, the MD bonus counts for all armies in your province, so if worked correct a nearby army/garrison should get +6MD to, which is a huge buff.

generally they should limit ward save to 50% as a wardsave 4+ is the highest in tabletop. If they would do this, Kholek would not kill 4 stacks alone any more.

[Wh♂♂par]

90% is just fine. And it's not that easy to reach, plus it's a funny thing to experiement with.

Except if the remaining 40% can be from resistances.

[Cacomistle]

I think for resistances they should just make them stack multiplicatively. No lord gets 90 percent ward save at least not without sword of khaine. They get like 50 percent ward save and 40 physical resist and magic resist.

If they were multiplicative, more ward save still matters, but like the situation I described would suddenly be only 70 percent ward save. So the lord would take 3x the damage they currently do.

Then you'd have Kholek with sword of Khaine would still be broken. But I think a lord or 2 like that in really specific situations is fine. Its like how if you throw 4 engineers into an army of gutter runners they deal over 100 damage and move faster than cavalry.

[valky]

Originally posted by JODEGAFUN:

generally they should limit ward save to 50% as a wardsave 4+ is the highest in tabletop. If they would do this, Kholek would not kill 4 stacks alone any more.

I currently use a setting of max 60, which seem to be working fine for me. Thereafter it becomes absurd.

@OT: I was about to reboot my stalled Khalida anyway - it basically forces me now in doing so