How does Ambush work?

[abyssalfury]

So, I've started playing my first rats campaign. Haven't really played around with Ambush before, but obviously I'm doing it a lot more now. As such, I've got quite a few questions:

Skaven base stance (Stalk) is a chance of an ambush. How does this work exactly? Is it a flat chance? Does it scale with level? Do some characters have a better chance? (If this is all included on character screens, where is it?)

How do multiple characters in Stalk work?

Ambush stance, what determines whether you are detected? Is there any actual mechanic with this (e.g. can't hide within a certain line of site of an enemy), or is it just a % chance with modifiers from heroes or something, ala detection of Skaven cities?

Is it possible to ambush outside of Stalk/Ambush stance? Some skills, traits etc give + ambush % chance - do you have to have a stance enabling an ambush, or will you just randomly get ambushes instead of normal battles?

Appreciate any advice on this, so I can do some proper Skavening.

[Conflagration]

Skaven ambushes are a little different than most ambushes - they can ambush even when they attack normally, unlike most races who specifically have to wait in ambush stance for the enemy to come to them.

Ambush is affected by the terrain (it usually tells you how effective it is in any given area), the lord (some have naturally high ambush chance and usually this can be improved further through skills or traits), some heroes and technologies.

You can't use ambush stance too close to an enemy.

[Mad Poppins]

Ambush is base on the race, terrain, and skills/traits/techs bonuses. Lets say a Skaven lord, the default chance to ambush for a Skaven lord is 40%, in either stalking stance or ambush stance. He stalks and attacks a Dwarven lord's army, the Dwarven lord is standing in a light forest, the light forest terrain provides a +20% bonus to ambush, so now we have a 70% chance to ambush, but I forgot that our Skaven Walord has the sneaky trait and three points in the Ancient Cunning Skill for a whopping +55% bonus to ambushes, for a total of 125% but it caps out on 100%, we succeed on our ambush, but unfortunately the Dwarven lord we're attacking is Belegar Ironhammer, who has a whoppin 110% ambush defense chance, he spots our ambush. Ambush fails.

[Gorwe]

Alith Anar can also "Stalk" and "Ambush" his enemies, but with like 19 DRAGONS!

The Ambush chance mostly has to do with the terrain the enemy is standing on. You can hover your mouse over it and it'll say "Ambush Chance: x%". This is then added to the base Ambush chance and is further modified by other effects. Wary reduces the chance you'll be ambushed and A.Cunning increases the chance for your Ambush.

One thing to note is that a successful Ambush modifies the Auto Resolve chance to such a ridiculous degree that you might just win 1:3. That might not be so important to Skaven, what with their mostly ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stacks, but Alith Anar...Elven stacks with Ambush and AR super buff? lol.

[zefyris]

Any bonus or malus affecting chances of ambushing will affect the chances of ambushing with stalk exactly the same way. So the blue line skills that increase the ambush chances increase it for both, terrain changes it for both, and so on.

The difference is, most "passive ambushes" do not fail because you fail to ambush, but because you were discovered before the enemy moved in by something else (like an enemy or neutral hero standing too close of your army, and so on)
But for stalk stance, you don't have to worry about that; so really, after a while most of the time when attacking an enemy army on the field, it will be an ambush battle.

[JustGary]

Hit him with the rock

[abyssalfury]

Thanks everyone. I didn't even consider terrain as being important, but it makes sense. Guess that means some areas will be more difficult to get ambushes?

So how close is too close to set an Ambush? I'm assuming you don't have to be too far away, due to being able to lure enemies with weaker armies.

[RCMidas]

If you're within the zone of control (the red circle) of any AI army or settlement, you cannot ambush. That's basically it. Note that even AI armies and Heroes who are ALLIES of yours get the same percentage roll to detect ambushed armies as ENEMIES...

A real case of "Gee, thanks fellas..."

[zefyris]

^yes, very important here. If you have a neutral or ally army/hero standing too close of your ambushing army, chances are very high that your ambush will be discovered before having a chance to be triggered by an enemy walking through the zone.
So move away from them. This can be annoying but there is no way around it.
What you should aim for to set an ambush is chokepoint (like bridges on rivers or mountain passes) that the enemy wil lhave to pass through, or near one of your settlement that the enemy will think undefended.

There is another way to use ambush, and that's to simply hide your armies from sight without actually standing where the enemy is expected to pass, to catch the enemy army of guard by attacking them normally once they've moved in range of your movement.
This is way easier to do than direct ambush since you can stand away from places with a lot of passage, limiting a lot chances of being discovered.

[valky]

50% ambush is always the default.....so skill it, if you are into it..is the way to go. There is always a 5% chance to defy your ambush---- similar to Mordheim, 95% chance to hit----lol

Skill and tech/lord might give you 80+ .. applies to the attack-ambush as well | same with BM
edit: for BM and skaven: skill it! worth every cent

[Bluebeard]

A good trick is to travel with two armies. One strong one, and one significantly weak one (even a single lord will do). The weak one acts as bait and stays visible to the enemy, while the strong one goes into ambush stance next to them.

You can also use settlements as bait in the same manner. The AI will generally avoid fights it can't win. So you have to present them with fights they think they can win.

[Happy]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

If you're within the zone of control (the red circle) of any AI army or settlement, you cannot ambush. That's basically it. Note that even AI armies and Heroes who are ALLIES of yours get the same percentage roll to detect ambushed armies as ENEMIES...

A real case of "Gee, thanks fellas..."

I wish they change that for co-op campaign, really annoying.