[OUTDATED]How to take back the peaks for Belegar Ironhammer - A guide for a challenging campaign

This is a guide for the Clan Angrund campaign. I already achieved long campaign victory on very hard/very hard difficulty and it was really interesting and exciting so I decided to create this guide to help players who struggle with the walkthrough.

1. Intro

I love the background story of Belegar Ironhammer and the campaign itself is really fun and interesting. It has the feeling that you are on a serious mission. Most of the time you have to operate with only Belegar and his army and this makes the game really hard and exciting.

For the easy understanding I made different topics for the guide to select the informations what you have to know to complete the campaign.

2. Introducing the faction

Lore

Belegar Ironhammer is the true king of Karak Eight Peaks, born as Belegar Angrund, the direct descendant of King Lunn the last dwarf who ruled the City of Pillars. The hold itself was a beautiful jewel of the Karaz Ankor, now overrun by Skavens and Greenskins and waiting for a dwarven hero to set it free from the hundreds of years oppression. And this guy gonna be your legendary lord, Ol’ Belegar. 😊


I think the story is very similar to the journey of Thorin Oakenshield from the Lord of the Rings saga
and this is one of the main reasons why I love this character. If you like the Hobbit trilogy then there is a high chance you gonna like Belegar too.

Faction mechanics

Race Attributes

First you have access to four ancestral agents to start the campaign with and they are pretty awesome.


They all start at level 5 and all of them have the Immortality skill which makes them unkillable. If they get wounded after 5 turns you can use them again. Of course try NOT to get wounded because they level up faster if they are alive. :) Throught the campaign I used them in the army of Belegar, they are decent combatants and if your severity is also low, they can act perfect campaign agents and can assassinate harassing enemy agents easily. Very useful units.

Second you have the Great Book of Grudges. This makes the game fun, but also makes it harder. There is an index-number called "Severity" which starts to grow every time when you have uncompleted grudge objectives. This is the case with the grudge of Karak Eight Peaks.



If you wait a lot with the siege, then your severity will start growing and around turn 50 it will become 20 which gives you -3 public order penalty and in very hard difficulty negative public order is a big problem. If your provinces are rebelling you can't move your army (for a while you will only have one army) and that makes the game very slow and stale.

Third you have access to the underways. This is an awesome tactical advantage. You can leap across (or under) mountains. Some enemies have to take the normal way but you can cut yours shorter.



In underway stance you have less movement range so its highly advised to attach the engineer ancestral to your army and max out Increase Mobility skill. This gives you +25% movement range on the campaign map. Movement range is always a thing you have to care about because in the early game you have only one army and you have to defend Karak Izor and fight your enemies on the south and on the north at the same time. While moving the underways your army doesn't suffer from attrition. This is very important. Every soldiers life matters. While you use the underway you can be attacked from the surface so be careful. You can also intercept "alternative way" using enemy armies (beastmen, wood elves, dwarfs, greenskins, etc.) or you can get intercepted by them.

Fourth you have access to one of the most developed army in the game. High leadership, high armor, good selection of artillery units, you have everything. Nearly everything. Dwarfs don't have cavalry units, instead they have limited variety of flying units, called gyrocopters. Sometimes they can be very useful against the enemy artillery.



The heavy armor and the lack of cavalry makes them quite slow and defensive but thats not a big handicap if you are able to use your weaknesses as your advantage. A battle is not only about "who has stronger units" you also have to learn how to use the terrain, how to make effective formations, which enemy units you have to attack first, etc. Play enough and you will be a good dwarf commander.

Faction effects

Now here is your real handicap. You receive +50% army upkeep penalty until you recapture Karak Eight Peaks. You gonna see this is a huge amount of money. You have a small territory and limited income and you have an increased army upkeep cost. Thats crazy.

Don't be scared you can overcome this handicap and every victory is better when you have to fight a bit. The keys to stabilize your status are to get more territories and build toolmakers and economic buildings in your regions. It is easier to capture Karak Eight Peaks with 2 armies and this will need a big amount of income. The other faction effects are not that interesting, but can be very handy at risky situations. You get +10 leadership bonus when laying siege which is good however dwarfs units already have a big leadership stats. Some extra points can be useful.

Lord effects

The underway vanguard deployment is very nice. You can put Belegar and the ancestrals to the frontline so the enemy artillery will attack them first. Thats a good thing. Melee enemy units will blob around Belegar and you can attack huge blobs with your artillery. True eyecandy for Total War players.

You receive +10 leadership bonus against skavens and orcs which is a nice little addition. You will have to fight lots of greenskins and a little leadership bonus is always welcome. You also get the Siege Attacker trait which allows you to launch siege battles without having to wait for siege towers or battering rams. This can be very useful in certain situations.

3. Geography

You start the game at Karak Izor and this hold is the capital of the province called The Vaults. I think this province is a pretty good starting position you are surrounded with every major order factions so there is a high chance that they gonna fight with your enemies too.



Your starting region is also not that bad. You have access to a unique building called the Copper Mountain which gives you really good benefits, like +500 gold income, growth, recruitment capacity increase and 2 ironbreaker garrison units. The other two regions in the province are Karak Bhufdar and Zarakzil. Karak Bhufdar has timber resource what makes some trade profit. Zarakzil is the most southern region and the most fragile all of them.

Realms in your neighbourhood

On this map you can see all the surrounding factions who can affect your gameplay. All of them has its own icon on the map.



Lets take a look at them and how they usually act against you.

Northern factions

Karak Norn - Dwarfs - Friendly

Golden Order - Empire - Friendly

Crooked Moon - Greenskins - Hostile

Skull-takerz - Greenskins - Hostile

Western factions

Talsyn - Wood elves - Neutral

Wydrioth - Wood elves - Neutral

Argwylon - Wood elves - Neutral

Torgovann - Wood elves - Neutral

Broken Nose - Greenskins - Hostile

Carcassone - Bretonnian - Friendly

Eastern factions

Border Princes - Empire - Friendly

Karak Hirn - Dwarfs - Friendly

Black venom - Greenskins - Hostile

Crooked Moon Mutinious Gits - Greenskins - Hostile

Southern factions

Tilea - Empire - Friendly

Estalia - Empire - Friendly

Clan Skryre - Skaven - Hostile

Pirates of Sartosa - Vampire coast - Hostile

Beastmen (Khazrak) - Beastmen - Hostile

Random emerging beastmen horde - Beastmen - Hostile

What are the advantages of your location?

• You have 20 neighbour factions and 7+4 of them are order factions. Humans, dwarfs and wood elves. I wrote 7+4 becuase wood elves have relatively good relation with dwarfs and with humans but they are not Shield of Civilization factions (I will write later about this trait). They are friendly because you have mutual enemies and you have small aversion with them.
  
  
• Destruction factions are more diversed. Order factions co-operate with each other while the destruction factions are not that usually. Tilea-Estalia-Border Princes are the southern realms of the Empire and they like and help each other while I didn’t see Clan Skryre to team up with the pirates or with the greenskins. This is a nice advantage. Beastmen, skaven, greenskins, pirates have high aversion against each other.
  
  
• Tilea and the Border Princes are the shepherds of your southern and eastern regions. They fight destruction factions and sometimes they prevent them entering your realm.
  
  
• Your starting province have a pretty nice income.
  
  
• At west only wood elves can attack you so you don't have to concentrate on this direction.

What are the disadvantages of your location?

• Few of the order factions are useful or worth to cooperate with (roughly only humans come in handy).
  
  
• They are usually camping in their own province and not doing any kind of activity (the only exception are the Border Princes).
  
  
• Few destruction factions can give you headache if you let them grow stronger.
  
  
• Wood elves gonna be hostile towards you if you not treat them well. You have to avoid war at all costs. They are the only factions on the west who can attack you. Your goal is to defend this border by diplomacy.
  
  
• Skavens, beastmen and pirates are all spreading corruptions. At higher difficulty you have problems with public order so you have to deal with these factions quickly to prevent constant rebellions.
  
  
• You can only trade with few factions.
  
  
• You can't expand your realm because you have too many friendly factions around you.
  
  
• You are relatively far away from Karak Eight Peaks.

4. Neighbourhood overview

Diplomacy is the key for your survival and for your victory. Every decision has its consecvences and a wrong one can ruin your whole game. To be in a balanced relation with your neighbour realms is an essential part of your campaign.



Don’t forget you have a small state and only one army in the beginning. Don't anger your neighbours or your campaign can quickly reach its end.

For first lets see again who your neighbours are and how to treat them.

Northern analysis

• Karak Norn They are not friendly with other factions around and if they survive the Crooked Moon (they are in war with each other) then they start war with wood elves what is bad for you. You only need a military access treaty with Karak Norn to deal with Crooked Moon and thats all. Don't make more treaties. If they have green chance for confederation then accept if you can deal with the penalty. Karak Norn is just next to your province and nobody will attack it. You can develop it peacefully and it has fur bundles to trade for some extra income.
  
  
• Golden Order Be careful with them. They usually end up allied with Wissenland and Karak Hirn. If that happens they can be hostile towards Reikland but thats not 100%. Never do any kind of treaty with them if they stand very low with Karl. Trade agreement and non-aggression pact is OK.
  
  
• Crooked Moon Your second target after you deal with Broken Nose. Don’t allow them to grow powerful. Get a military access treaty from Karak Norn and go destroy them.
  
  
• Skull-takerz A migrating horde-type greenskin faction. At the first two turns they sometimes got destroyed by the Golden Order. If not then you have to deal with them. Not a big challenge, greenskins have low armor so quarrellers or rangers will do the job. Through my campaigns they didn't survive the second turn so I can't tell you much.

Western analysis

• Talsyn, Wydrioth, Argwylon and Torgovann They are similar to each other and Talsyn (Orion) is the most important. He owns the eastern borders of Athel Loren and he is the only one who can attack you. Non-aggression pact and gifts are recommended to keep him peaceful. There is a big chance that Wydrioth or/and Torgovann will declare war on you but it doesn't matter they can't attack you. They will confederate with Orion later. Always check your standing with Talsyn and avoid war at all costs. He doesn't like treaties with Karak Norn and with the bretonnian factions.
  
  
• Broken Nose Your first targets in the game. By the first 5 or 6 turns you can destroy them just bring dwarf warriors and some ranged units and the ancestors of Belegar. They have crap units so its not a big deal to wipe them.
  
  
• Carcassone They will start war with Orion so avoid treaty with them. They also fight Clan Skryre with fluid success. Not much to tell about them they are weak and hostile against wood elves like the other bretonnian factions.

Eastern analysis

• Border Princes Non-aggression pact and trading is enough for a while. They are one of your true friends. You will always have good attitude because you gonna fight mutual enemies. Sometimes I military ally them to get rid of fog of war. Greenskins attack from their territory and its good to see whats going on next to you.
  
  
• Karak Hirn They are bullies like Karak Norn but ideal confederate partners because the province has iron resource and it generates a nice income. It is wise to avoid treaties with them until they are ready to confederate with you.
  
  
• Black venom Nothing special, Karak Hirn usually deal with them. Regular greenskin faction with cheap and crap army.
  
  
• Crooked Moon Mutinious Gits They rule Karak Eight Peaks. They are not exactly your neighbours because their capital is far from your province but they are going to attack you continuously through the campaign with cheap armies. There is a chance that they later federate with Black Crag or get killed by Clan Mors.

Southern analysis

• Tilea Non-aggression pact and trading treaties are must and If you want to reach Sartosa and Skavenblight you have to get military access too. They are friendly but less active. In legendary difficulty they usually get destroyed by the pirates and/or by the beastmen (Khazrak) and if that happens then get ready for war with Sartosa.
  
  
• Estalia They start the game in war with the beastmen (Khazrak) and with Ikit Claw (Clan Skryre). I don't make any treaties with them until they can't overcome Clan Skryre. It is wise to stay in peace with Ikit because you can only kill him after you have killed the pirates. If Estalia can't deal with Ikit and Khazrak then they will be destroyed and your campaign will be very difficult.
  
  
• Clan Skryre Your third or fourth target depends on how strong Sartosa is. They are similar to the pirates, starting the game with only one region its called Skavenblight. They gonna spread skaven corruption what will cause public order problems. Go for Rat Poison technology to get more untainted points. To secure Skavenblight and prevent rapid rebellions build Refectory and use Venerate the Ancestors commandment.
  
  
• Pirates of Sartosa Your third or fourth target depends on how strong Clan Skryre is. Their army can be easily defeated however I highly recommend you to snipe out Bloated Corpses with ranged units or send the ancestors against them. They can wipe out an entire unit with their explosion. Build Refectory and use Venerate the Ancestors commandment in Sartosa to overcome the vampiric corruption. Be ready to farm the rebels and build wall in the city. Wine can be a nice trading resource.
  
  
• Beastmen (Khazrak and random emerging beastmen horde) They are semi-neighbours. You sometimes meet with them and sometimes not. They fight other stronger factions and they are usually get destroyed. If not, you can deal with them easily, they don't have too much armored units - especially in the early game - and quarrellers can bring their units down quickly. Khazrak has two armies so if you start war with him then be aware of his army locations. Beastmen spread chaos corruption so if you want to know the location of a beastmen army just check the untainted rating of your neighbour regions. If its rising then there are beastmen. The random beastmen faction usually emerge in Tilea.

5. Diplomacy

About alliances

• The first step: NEVER ALLY ANYBODY IN THE EARLY GAME!!! Do you see this huge exclamative here? Keep this in mind!
  
• The second step: repeat the first.

I’m not joking. At the first 100 turns everybody wants to kill its neighbour and allies gonna pull you into unwanted wars. Even order factions fight each other until the arrive of Chaos. Just be a friendly neutral guy you have other things to do like capturing Karak Eight Peaks. Keep alliances to the middle of the game and they are not even necessary to deal with your enemies. To stay being a friendly neutral guy is enough for a high reliability. Maybe it gonna bother you to refuse every alliance requests but thats the least.

After many minor factions gone extinct or federated then you will see who are the strongest ones who are worthy for an alliance.

Primary alliance targets (after turn 100)

• Reikland They are one of the top end factions. Avoid treating with factions that hostile towards the Empire. Franz is one of your best friend. If you want to survive Chaos then be partner with him.
  
  
• Karaz-a-Karak Your future confederate. It is wise to confederate with Thorgrim in the midgame or later because until that he will help you to fight the greenskins on the south, Chaos on the north and Clan Eshin on the east.
  
  
• Lothern The ultimate power of the campaign map. Never cross their ways or every order factions will hate you.
  
  
• Couronne I don't really like them but they gonna help you to fight both the norscans and the wood elves.
  
  
• Lizardmen Last defenders and Hexoatl. These are the two lizardmen factions who are able to survive until the endgame.They worth a mention because they can grow powerful. You usually meet with them late in the game due to their geographic locations.
  
  
• Kislev A very strong Empire faction with lots of armies. They are at constant war with Norsca and Chaos because of their location. Can be a very handy ally.
  
  
• Southern Realms The well-known triumvirate Tilea, Estalia, and the Border Princes. Don't have to say much, they are nice guys. If they survive the early game. :)

The Shield of Civilization trait

All of these potential ally factions will receive the Shield of Civilization trait when Archaon the Everchosen arrives. What is the Shield of Civilization trait?



It gives +50 relation points with every faction who has the same trait and making them more likely to cooperate with each other and fight against Chaos. After you defeat Chaos the trait will disappear. Every minor and major factions from these categories will be affected by the trait:

• Empire
  
• Dwarfs
  
• Bretonnia
  
• Kislev
  
• Southern Realms
  
• High Elves
  
• Lizardmen

So this is why I mentioned all the factions above for potential allies because they are the strongest Shield of Civilization factions in their own categories.

How to be a good diplomat

1. First (and most important) always keep your reliability at Very High.

The higher your reliability is the other factions will like you more. It goes down if you break a recently made treaty (like an alliance). Don’t make treaties what you will regret or at least wait for a while before you break it. This is what gonna happen if you are acting hasty.




This picture is from a campaign what I had to restart because fighting endless stacks of enemies is everything but not satisfying. Reliability climbs back from negative to positive VERY slowly. Keep this in mind.

2. If a treaty has green possibility then ALWAYS demand money from your partner.

Always. You have a poor country and you need the cash. And of course just why not to take the money?



3. Always check your enemies on the diplomacy UI. Strength ranking is a very useful info.

If your enemy has a low strength rank (or it goes down quickly) that means its army got rekt because its in war with another faction. Maybe its time for you to attack or lay back and build your empire in safety. The number of settlements are another good info.



4. If you want to make a treaty with a faction, first check how it acts toward other factions.

Don’t make bargains with bullies its not worth it especially the ones who have garbage armies and bully with major powers. Karak Norn is a perfect example. Check this picture. He has low strength and fighting Reikland and Wood elves. If you want to anger these powers then just accept treaties with Karak Norn.




5. Don’t make treaties with enemies or with destruction factions.

Even peace treaty has a negative consecvence, your friends gonna remember that.

Unexpected diplomatic actions

Here is a picture from my disaster campaign. Thorgrim military allied with Clan Eshin. I had to fight against Thorgrim and Snikch at the same time.



AI is not too smart. If this happens you have two options. Start a new campaign or fight against endless stacks of dwarves and skavens. This is just crazy and looks like AI sometimes can't handle the lore... :)

6. Technology

This topic worths a whole guide so I'm not gonna speak about every technologies just the important (or useful) ones.

Diplomacy techs

I always chose these first. It takes 10 turns and you have +30 relations with the Empire factions around you. They are the shepherds of your enemies. Very useful.

Public order techs

These are must. You always struggle with public order penalty at very hard and legendary difficulties.

Untainted techs

You will struggle with vampiric corruption in Sartosa, with skaven corruption in Skavenblight, and with chaos corruption when the beastmen are raiding your southern territories or when Chaos arrives. Take these when you are able.

Military techs

These are pretty good. For a while your quarrellers (and later the thunderers) gonna be your primary weapon against the cheaply armoured greenskins. Take these.

Growth techs

Every economy techs are useful but extra growth is very important. You need walls to your settlements and you can only build walls if they are able to evolve.

7. Army composition

Early game

I used this army composition to wipe the greenskins and It worked pretty well.



This is not a strong army but you don't even have to be powerful in the early game to take settlements. You don't have to fight with strength, the AI is not that smart. Use the weaknesses of the AI as your advantage.

So the early composition is:

Belegar
4 ancestral heroes
4-5 quarrellers
3-4 grudge throwers
rest are dwarf warrriors.

If you recruit a lord for a second army then you can attach a thane or a master engineer to your army. I don't like runesmiths. Thanes are very effective lord-killers and monster fighters, while engineers can buff up your ranged units and gives you increased campaign movement.

Mid game

This is Belegars army at turn 82. I have Karak Eight Peaks and now I have 3 and a half armies. You can start changing dwarf warriors to longbeards and quarrellers to thunderers.



So there is nothing special just start taking armor-piercing units because Chaos is on the way.

Late game

Full of armor-piercing and heavily armored shieldwall frontline...



Now these are the tough guys. They can torn whole chaos armies and they eat black orcs for breakfast. Organ guns are the instruments of destruction. They are awesome. Smashing enemy lords, giants, chaos knights, trolls, they deal with everything. Use them wise and defend them because the AI always sends its cavalry against your artillery. If there are too many cavalry then go to the corner of the map and play turtle.

So for late game this is my ideal and recommended army build. This doesn't mean other compositions are not working, this is just an OK one.

Regular lord (I always use regular instead of runelord)
Engineer or Thane
4 Thunderers
4 Organ guns
1-2 Firedrakes (regular or trollhammer torpedoes)
0-2 Hammerers
Rest are Ironbreakers.

8. Building your lord

A bit boring (but one of the most important) topic. You can't reset your skill points so spend them wisely.

My Belegar build

As I already told I'm not using runelords because I don't find them effective enough. Belegar and the regular dwarf lord has very similar (nearly the same) skill trees so I'm gonna show you only his tree. I don't say this is the perfect build but this one just worked fine for me. The sequence is:

1. Blue line
2. Red line
3. Yellow line
4. Top line

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Recommended skills

These skills are always recommended whenever you play with Belegar or with a regular lord.

Blue line

• Route marcher -1 point
  +10% campaign movement range. I think this doesn't need comment.
  
  
• Miner’s Instinct -3 points
  Intercepting armies using "alternative paths" is very useful. It works similar to ambush but you can only use against factions using alternative paths (beastmen, wood elves, greenskins, dwarves, etc.). If an enemy army crossing your army then you have a chance to intercept them.
  
  
• Pure-bearded -1 point
  +1 point on untainted. A little addition agianst corruption.
  
  
• Iron-willed -1 point
  Your lord replenish his HP faster. Very useful.
  
  
• Lightning Strike -1 point
  Extremely useful. You can fight multiple armies selectively.
  
  
• Inspirational leader -3 points
  Casualties replenish faster. Extremely useful.

Red line

• Inspiring presence -1 point
  Some extra points to your leadership aura.
  
  
• Tactician -3 points
  In the early game its a must. If the battle goes long your quarrellers run out of ammo. Prevent this with Tactician skill.
  
  
• Thunderer -3 points
  Same as Tactician but for artillery units.
  
  
• Rally -1 point
  Gives a nice amount of leadership for your units. Situational skill.
  
  
• Dawi firepower -1 point
  Your ranged units gets awesome benefits like missile resistance, missile damage, reload time reduction. Very nice and needed skill.
  
  
• Honored by Grimnir -1 point
  Buffs up your late game melee units. Irondrakes gonna be your shieldwall so extra physical resistance is an awesome addition.
  
  
• Morgrim’s favoured -1 point
  Further buff for your artillery. Awesome.
  
  
• Stand your ground -1 point
  Replaces rally, the skill lasts 4 more seconds and gives you Melee Defence bonus too. Nice skill.

Yellow line

• Full plate armor -1 point
  A bit armor bonus.
  
  
• Scarred veteran -2 points
  Extra HP. Very useful. Take it.
  
  
• Hard to hit -2 points
  Some extra melee defence. Makes your lord harder to hit.
  
  
• Foe-seeker -1 point
  Your lord doesn't have a horse so he needs some speed to reach the enemy lord. Useful skill.
  
  
• Wound-maker -2 points
  +20% weapon strength? Yes, take it.
  
  
• Blade master -2 points
  Higher chance to hit the enemy. Just take it.
  
  
• Deadly onslaught -1 point
  The lord killer ability. Extra charge, weapons strength and armor-piercing damage. Use against heavy targets.

Top line

• Rune of Grimnir -1 point
  +10% missile resistance. Always welcome.
  
  
• Immortality -1 point
  You can take this when your lord reach lvl 20. Instead of dying he just gets wounded. Extremely useful.

Skill distribution priority

The most important line - IMHO - is the blue one. I always build up this line first. You will have to fight multiple greenskin armies and lightning strike is a beast skill. With a good army you can wipe out even 4 enemy armies in a single turn. After lightning strike the most important is Inspirational Leader. You took heavy casualties after a battle? No problem. Next turn they are all healed up and you can attack again. With 4-5 armies each of them having a full blue line lord you can attack rapidly and take settlements turn by turn. Dwarf blitz!

Only after blue, I go for red line. I take the buffs for ranged and artillery units and only take top tier unit buffs. In my eyes taking skills like Axe Lord is a waste of points.

Third one is the yellow line. Some extra stat points always welcome.

The top line is a bit situational. If you want to have better relation with dwarf factions then take Rally the Holds early. Gather the old Clans and Mighty Oathstone are also very nice additions.

Useful items

There is one more thing I highly advise for your lords (and agents). Check the Forge -> Enchanted items and forge Ironwarden’s Tankards as fast as possible. This gonna regenerate your lost HPs constantly during a fight. Extremely useful. If you can't forge then try to get Potion of Healings.

9. Warfare tips

The AI has its weaknesses but you also have yours. Early game you have only one army and you have to win battles. How to do that?

Learn to use your heroes

I saw this in many gameplay videos that the player sends his heroes or/and the lord in advance to meet the enemy army while he is staying behind with his troops, setting up a defensive formation and shooting the enemy army with his ranged and artillery units. If you know how the AI is thinking and you can use your army and the terrain then the AI has no chance to win.

In this video I encountered a greenskin army:

It was a really easy map to defend. I set up my melee line not far from the land bridge to prevent enemy melee units and chariots to set a foothold on my territory and try to flank and attack my ranged units. I put the ranged and artillery units on a higher ground and sent the heroes and Belegar to the land bridge to hold the enemy at a narrow place where they are crowded.

I had reinforcements from the nearby settlement however they were too slow to arrive in time. I lost only 5 soldiers.

Know how to encounter the enemy cavalry

So dwarfs don't have cavalry. What to do now?

Go to corner camp or go to turtle formation.

During corner camp you have to send your artillery to the corner of the map. Try to choose the right corner where your artillery is not obstructed by elevations. Put your ranged units as second line then cover your foothold with your third melee line. You can operate with your heroes and/or with the lord wherever you want. I usually send them against monstrous infantries or against the enemy lord.

I fought this quest battle for the first time. On the corner of the map there was a corridor and I was afraid of enemy reinforcements will come from there and gonna flank my artillery so I sent some melee units behind it. Just worked fine the enemy was not able to reach my organ guns.

Capture settlements with minimal casualties

So in the early game you have only one army and its relatively cheap and not powerful. How to win offensive siege battles with this army when you are outnumbered by the defenders?



As I already told you the AI is not too smart. This picture is from my disaster campaign where I attacked Tilea and I managed to destroy the defending tilean army and the garrison of the settlement at the same time. As you see I have an early game army composition so how is this possible?

In this video I show you how I fight siege battles. Destroy the towers which are able to shoot your units, make a breach on the wall and set your artillery and ranged units to a position where they can shoot into the breach without having obscured. Send your heroes and/or the lord through the breach and lure some enemy units to the sight of your ranged and artillery units. You can do this until you run out of ammunition or your heroes and/or the lord runs out of HPs. Very useful tactic and you can keep your casualties at minimum.

10. Campaign walkthrough

• At turn 1 build Copper Mountain at Karak Izor and make your most necessary treaties with your friendly neighbour factions for some cash. Copper Mountain will give you a nice income bonus and 2 units of ironbreakers who are essential to defend this region.
  
  
• Rush for Karak Bhufdar and Zarakzil and destroy the Broken Nose faction. You need about 5 or 6 turns to deal with them so do it quickly before they can recruit a solid army. After they are gone I advise you to disband the hammerer unit. Their upkeep is too high.
  
  
• Train quarrellers instead of rangers. They have better stats better traits and more ammo. The upkeep cost is just a little bit higher (5 golds...).
  
  
  
• Keep fighting the arriving Crooked Moon Mutinious Gits armies and the rebelling greenskins. They will give you good amount of gold and XP points for Belegar.
  
  
• It is possible that Beastmen (Khazrak) will cross your borders and start to raid your territories and spread chaos corruption. He is coming from Estalia and going towards the wood elves and he fights his way across the map so MAYBE he is weakened. He has two starting armies but if there are only one left then don't hesitate to finish him in one turn. If you want to know where beastmen armies are then check the "untainted rating" of your neighbour regions. If chaos corruption is rising then there is a beastmen army. Check this picture. On the left side you can see a region with fog of war and on the right side a region without fog of war raided by a beastmen army.
  
  
  
• Train grudge throwers as fast as you can and build one (and later two) Refectory. Public order will always be a problem and its a must to stabilize The Vaults.
  
  
• Go for Skarsnik (aka Crooked Moon). Get a military access treaty from Karak Norn and rush to north and take Karak Azgaraz. Be careful he usually have multiple armies. Military actions against Crooked Moon will rise your relation with the wood elves. Thats a really good thing.
  
  
• Build walls in every settlements. Even in smaller regions the garrison become handy when you have to deal with huge armies. In Karak Izor its a must to have walls. You will have only one army for a long time and sometimes you have to defend your province with the garrison armies.
  
  
  
  
• Head south and capture Sartosa then Skavenblight. Sartosa is more important because it generates more income. It can happen that you have to stay nearby the city for a while because of the vampiric corruption, public order gonna be a problem here. Build a wall against the rebels. Vampire rebels not that hard to kill. To reduce corruption, rush for Rat Posion technology and attach followers to your lords and agents like Choir Master, Teller of Tales, or Dwarfen Tattooist. They will increase public order and reduce corruption.
  
  
  Runesmiths can also reduce corruption with 6 points maximum (3 points standard and 3 points with a maxed out skill). Thanes can increase public order with 6 points maximum (3 points standard and 3 points with a maxed out skill).

• After you dealt with all of your surrounding hostile neighbours (and you have a good relation with wood elves) now you are free to go to the greenskin lands.You should try it with 2 armies. Attack from the north and take the settlements one by one. The red line on this map is my recommended path.
  
  
  Stay close to the territories of Karaz-a-Karak because its way more safer then just play Rambo and rush into a hostile land. Send some of your heroes in advance to scout the area for greenskin armies.
  
  
• If you have successfully took Karak Eight Peaks and destroyed the greenskins then you are free to go for Snikch (Clan Eshin) and Malus Darkblade (Hag Graef). Snikch is a tricky one. Skaven artillery can cause you trouble. Send your agent in advance to scout the ruins then attack. To deal with skaven corruption build Refectories and/or Slayer shrines. Malus Darkblade is not a big deal (if he still alive) he has only one province with three islands.
  
  
  
  
• If you were a good person with Orion and the wood elves then ITS STILL POSSIBLE that he will declare war on you... This happened to me twice times after turn 100. If he just want war then let it be. If you have military allies then you can ask them to help fighting because they are a difficult faction to destroy. If you step for first time to Athel Loren then your armies will suffer from "Athel Loren attrition".
  
  
  To prevent this capture "The Oak of Ages". This will get rid of the attrition and your armies will be able to move without harm. Be careful with forest fights because they are just terrible for your artillery. You don't see anything and elves are able to hide in the forest while shooting your units. Attack with reinforcements and crush them with numerical superiority. Wood elf armies are few in numbers but higher in quality.
  
  
• During the Chaos Invasion be ready for a norscan (Bjornlings - ) horde faction who will attack you. They will come with 5 or 6 army stacks and they will try to invade the coastlines. Not a big deal with lightning strike but be prepared. Here are the directions where they attacked me.
  
  
  
• You will meet the Tomb Kings but don't afraid, they will be peaceful to you. They have positive relation bonus with great powers. Weird but useful. They can be easily destroyed but be careful with monstrous units.
  
  

• If every destruction factions are dead then there is time for victory. This was a long and stressful campaign and you just finished it. Well played! You proved that you have nerves of iron. :)
  
  

I didn't mention Archaon and the Chaos Invasion. Why? Because they are far in the north and they will be nuked by Couronne, Reikland, Lothern and Kislev. They simply SUCKS. At the moment Chaos Invasion is pretty weak and some people expect that a complete Chaos Rework will only come in Total War: Warhammer III. Until that you don't have to fear from Archaon. He don't even have chance to reach you and survive in the region of Kislev.

11. Outro

This is everything what I currently have in my mind about this campaign. I'm going to update the guide continuously because new patches will arrive and there is always something what I can add to it.

And there is one more thing. Sometimes things happen in the campaign not the way how we expect it. Just learn to improvise. AI does not know about my walkthrough guide. :).

I hope you find my guide useful and you can fight through your campaign with success and glory. I wish you good luck and have fun!

For the Karaz Ankor!

Changelog

2020.10.23.

- Finally reuploaded the pictures which disappeared from my guide for some unknown reason...


2020.01.11.

- Few updates in campaign walkthrough section.



2020.01.06.

- Geography, neighbourhood overview and campaign walkthrough sections are updated.

- Minor text updates everywhere.



2020.01.04.

- Minor updates.



2020.01.03.

- Minor updates everywhere.



2020.01.02.

- "Warfare tips" section added.

- Minor updates everywhere.



2020.01.01.

- New branding image.

- Major updates everywhere.



2019.12.31.

- First version of the guide is uploaded to Steam.

[DadNinja]

This was a very helpful and informative guide. great rundown of the map and factions and I learned how to corner camp!

In my game, though, waiting too long to take K8P was pretty detrimental for the rest of my campaign. By turn 50 the other dwarves were all dead and the orcs united the whole of the area except k8p so it was like walking into a shooting gallery.

Replaying, I found that I could unite my area, kill the orc lord Sar.z...something... and take k8p by turn 30 with 2 armies and a corner camp battle at the castle. Still playing but found that the orcs fighting eachother and skaven, the dwares are willing to confederate so it's looking good so far.

Lots of fun playing this faction....I played as a vagabond army for about 50 turns and had a blast just raiding and exploring, occupy a city and then move on.

[S p i r i t]

Thank you very much, I really appreciate it! :)

Well I plan to rework the whole guide since the greenskins were already updated in the first half of 2020 so my guide seems a bit outdated. I uploaded it in 2019.12.31.

I'm not sure, maybe in the near future I start again a very hard or legendary campaign with Belegar to see the differences.

[floppa]

thanks so much, seems like you spent a lot of time on this, gave you the most expensive award i could.

[S p i r i t]

Thank you! :)

[Djobi]

Very nice guide

[S p i r i t]

:D Thanks!

[Space Dust]

Very nice guide. But you were too nice. Back in my day we use to grumble and it was OK. Your too soft I tell you!

[S p i r i t]

:D I'm laughing. You are right!

[NerdExtrodinare]

Needs more quarrelers. Always more quarrelers.

[S p i r i t]

This guide is based on my experiences on very hard and legendary difficulties. I haven't played the game since 2020. january and I already mentioned it that the gameplay itself maybe changed because of the new contents and patches. Corner camp can be very effective against armies with lots of cavalries / light cavalries, they can't flank your army and attack your artillery.