Markus Wulfhart & his awful mechanic

[Raider Deci]

Just a bit of rambling

I love the idea of playing as Markus. Finally an empire-faction away from the old vampyre-struggle and into the jungle to ambush some lizards. But unfortunately the campaign comes with a terrible & truly ill thought out mechanic. The Hostily-meter. And the army that spawns because of it. Forever for all eternity.

I get the idea. It works somewhat alright in vortex where his hunt-thingy actually matter. But as soon as you play mortal empires & it does not mesh a single bit with the rest of the game and the victory conditions since they are all conquest-goals in ME.

Every few turns some army is going to spawn somewhere, say 4-7 turns (or less, depending on number of battles), in your lustrian land. So you need to keep an army and later 2 stacks there for the rest of the game. For legendary you only get the warning 1 turn in advance. On legendary you are already dealing with the extra upkeep, now you need money-sinks for a terrible mechanic.
Early game its a crap-stack that can be easily dealt with but later on that thing will consist of very good elite units. The hostility-meter increases whoever you fight. Even if its chaos, skaven, orcs or even your own rebels. Even if all the lizard-factions are dead. You are going to be punished regardless with a random army in your land.


The extra-weapon strenght & so on is annoying but less of an issue. Just as the instant low reliability at the start


I wish this blight of mechanic getting removed or reworked for immortal empires but I doubt it. Right now its just garbage added to an otherwise great & challenging faction.

[Testikles]

Have you considered just modding it out? I found this one, but I can't say how well it works.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2790532558&searchtext=wulfhart

[Raider Deci]

Originally posted by Rindenberg:

Have you considered just modding it out? I found this one, but I can't say how well it works.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2790532558&searchtext=wulfhart

Yes. Dont usually mod my TW-games much, unless overhauls. Still a bad mechanic.

I dont actually mind it at the start. But having the random army & hostility-meter cease to be a thing when ex all lizardmen in lustria is gone or fighting enemies anywhere but lustria would be a start. Or when Nakai's faction is gone.

In the lategame the imperial regiments is also way less useful when you are sitting with 1 turn global recruitment on all units anyway.

[Gresh]

Change my mind: Hunter and the Beast is the worst DLC in Warhammer 2.

I say this while really liking Wulfhart and Nakai as lords. I WANT to play them. Their campaigns are just bad.

[Dalai Llama]

And the worst part is both lords of that DLC had the potential to be unique and amazing, and both were shafted by not putting in enough effort. Every unique mechanic they tried to pull is a great thought that they didn't bother refining into something fun.

I sure love endless waves of buffed lizard armies for engaging in the core gameplay loop, or triggering extra incoming from vassals every 3 turns - or asking them for 10k gold, not knowing if this is one of the lucky turns every time, while my military alliance just declared war on my vassal which I cannot forsake.

Also, I have not once received imperial supplies by running down the absurdly long timer. It's always hostility level 5.

[Lack of Stuff]

Markus and Nakai are adandonware.

[Gresh]

Originally posted by Dalai Llama:

And the worst part is both lords of that DLC had the potential to be unique and amazing, and both were shafted by not putting in enough effort. Every unique mechanic they tried to pull is a great thought that they didn't bother refining into something fun.

I agree, definitely.

I like Nakai's ability to purchase different blessed units and boosts depending on what temple favor he's developed- that was a cool idea. The idea of Nakai being a horde that gives land to a vassal state was interesting too. It's like CA didn't bother to play test the campaign, which can't be true. Your allied Lizardmen factions declaring war on your vassal, forcing you to break alliances is such a ridiculous design faux pas, gameplay-wise and thematically.

For Wulfhart: Another ranged ambushing legendary lord is great. A big game hunter that's cut off from the main Empire in hostile territory, can't resupply well and gets periodic supply drops from home is a cool concept. Then they give him a mechanic that actively punishes him for expanding in Lustria. You're already surrounded by factions that hate you and can't recruit high tier units organically- just have that as the difficulty spike for the campaign.

I forgot that there is a paid blood DLC though, so Hunter and the Beast is the second worst DLC.

[the.lovewyrm]

They're both enjoyable enough for screwing around but I also would rank this DLC as 'the pits'.
I think I got my moneys worth of it, which was highy discounted, and Nakai, being so damn dumb, having a tech tree that makes heroes immortal is mildly amusing, too.

Wulfhart can be RP'd a little bit, and I generally don't care about his real victory conditions at all, but rather just guerilla it up in the lustriabowl.
It would be too much of a pain to paint the map and still have lizardmen separatists accost me on the regular.
So, I tend to quit once that teeters on absolutely immersion breaking.

Nakai, ehhhh. Would probably be more fun if the start location was different. Especially on higher difficulties, Albion is just a damn prison island, and wandering off with Rakarth still being on the hunt, is also very immersion breaking. To me at least.

Someone linked an online campaign editor the other day, I think.
Edit:
Found it.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2295560801

That thing could potentialy work really well with Nakai (and many others)

[Dalai Llama]

Kroxigors have always been getting the shaft of the lizardmen lore, I just wish they would have kept Nakai completely silent as opposed to barely able to string together 3 words over an equal amount of minutes. Clearly he's exceptional, but no, he needs to be extremely dumb due to lizard caste system.

And now that you mention it, WHY ALBION on mortal empires?! It makes NO sense, it's the LEAST interesting position to be in.

[the.lovewyrm]

Originally posted by Dalai Llama:

Kroxigors have always been getting the shaft of the lizardmen lore, I just wish they would have kept Nakai completely silent as opposed to barely able to string together 3 words over an equal amount of minutes. Clearly he's exceptional, but no, he needs to be extremely dumb due to lizard caste system.

And now that you mention it, WHY ALBION on mortal empires?! It makes NO sense, it's the LEAST interesting position to be in.

I can only guess he starts there to mix up old world factions with a new world one (Reik, Couronne, Norsca, etc) , but other than that, no idea. I don't really know his lore. I do like Kroxigors, though, which is enough for me.

But yeah leaving there on beyond normal difficulty is a slog.

[SomeGuy1]

Their DLC has... uh... it has Ancient Kroxigor heroes and Razordon Hunting Packs!
I like the hunting packs.
But yeah their mechanics need work. Hopefully the changes to Nakai in 3 make him bearable...

[Gresh]

Nakai's mortal empires start... blah. Lizardmen are known for their hate of French people, so it makes sense he's close to Bretonnia.

The connection to Albion is extra annoying on Vortex, because you have to send a character there as a trigger for his quest battle. Dumb.

[Basarab Laiota]

markus exists as lizard food