Order of the Loremasters on very hard

[LawSlay]

Hello guys,
I just can't get out of the early game with Teclis. I deal with the dark elves bear by and get some settlements. Around turn 20, the dwarfs and high elves near by get eliminated by Clan Skyre and Clan Pestillens. After this I just get overrun by the skaven. Any tipps how to survive this rat plague?

[wwolf69]

Get some provinces (better east and two northern ones) and spam cheap armies like eight spears+eight bows+three bolt throwers. Do not conquer unsuitable climate lands - early on they just don't worth it. Raze and raid are fine.

[Tyrel [R]]

What? Dark elves and... Skaven??

Okay Teclis has Dark Elves to the north that keep attacking him by the sea which can be quite the nuisance, but how on Earth are you getting overrun by Skaven by turn 20?

To the east there are Dwarves (that you mentioned) and also a purple Lizardmen faction that I can't remember the name of. How do the Skaven get trough both of those so quickly?

Actually when I started out with Teclis I had a lot more trouble with the purple Lizardmen than anything else, as they performed a Rite (? not familiar with that faction, don't like it one bit) that allowed them to raise an army of about 8 big dinosaurs very early on, beside their regular 20/20 army, so I was kinda f'cked...

Btw with the High Elves early on, just go for the Lothern Sea Guards (if you reach tier 3 then ofc go for the Shielded ones) and also have your Lord fully develop Bow Master and Militia Master skills ASAP. Use these units both for melee and ranged combat.

Once you have it look for choke points or defendable hills on battle maps and setup there, then use your superior range to force your opponent to charge at you, play very defensively. The rain of missiles and relative toughness of the Sea Guards will beat anything Teclis can meet early on (and works quite well late game too). It's especially effective against Skaven because they have horrible morale that get's devastated by your storms of missiles and troops willing to stand their ground.

I've always found it easy to fight Skaven with the High Elves, their range and leadership advantage absolutely decimates them... Fighting the Lizardmen with their tons of HP, big *ss dinosaurs and exceptional leadership is a lot, lot harder.

Also I think Dark Elves are quite weak without all the really cool bonuses their heroes (thinking of Morathi especially) can give them, so the minor Delf faction to the north isn't so hard to beat. I agree though that they are annoying to defend against, mostly because their sea access. Just bring the fight to them as soon as you can afford doing so and they'll fall.

[Rabidnid]

Turn 50 yeah, turn 20 you should hardly have consolidated your initial province. Build up, kill off the purple lizzies and avoid contact with the skaven to the south. Send a hero to make contact with ulthuan for the trade. Consolidate again and deal with the dark elves. At this point you have the choice of going north or south and fighting skaven. Until you upgrade your buildings and get the other high elf trade you will be pretty limited in stacks.

[LawSlay]

The dwarfs and high elves in the south fall immediately to the skaven in my campaign. That's why I get overrun by them. But I gonna try to go in the northern direction, maybe it helps, if I don't fight the lizardmen at the start
Maybe they can block the skaven off!

[Aenarion]

You can knock out the purple lizardmen in about six turns, and the dark elves in a dozen or so. At that point you have three complete provinces in hospitable climates (one of the purple lizardmen settlements is desert - raze it). The question is where you go from there.

On my first attempt I tried to take it slow to develop provinces but ended up in a hopeless defensive war with pestilens and quit around turn 90. So I think you need to expand faster, possibly up the west coast where the climate is favourable with weak enemies (itza lizards and savage orcs).

[Slim Sic]

this campaign has captured my interest a lot and i will agree with the above comment about how you can take out lizardmen early on VH. I go straight for the castle they own to the east with a 13 stack, then kill the 20 stack coming from the south dessert using the garrison. Take the blood hall to the north later. I would be using influence to improve relations with the green skaven and make them go to war with the yellow lizzard guys because you need to buy time to assault them. I think by turn 50 you should be ready to attack skaven with teclis and have a roving army for defense. if you get lucky, you can capture a north province along the coast with your second army without getting into too much trouble. One of the dwarf settlements in the mountains just east of you has the ability to make gems, which helps enormously with trade and income. its not good settling climate, but the gems are worth it.

ok i said a lot so to sum it up..

kill purple lizards early, take blood hall coven and that province early.

go for cultural advancements asap and trade advancements asap. use the castle to the east to split the buildings, dont put both on turtle island. its for this reason you need to buy time on skaven using the influence. you need to develop those settlements.

when blood hall coven is secure and your small prov to the east is good, let dwarfs and skaven fight it out, take the gem settlement. Why? because you risk going to war with all skaven attacking skyre that owns the castle just next to the dawi, plus skyre owns the other ones along the coast north of you. Oh no skaven owns the settlement north of the blood hall coven.