A Guide to Playing the Sisters of Twilight (Heralds of Ariel)

This is a guide to playing the Woodelf faction, The Heralds of Ariel, with the Sisters of Twilight legendary lord.

This guide is current for the Woodelf update with the new changes to the Forge of Daith and other changes made to the Woodelf faction.

It includes a guide to the first 10 turns, information on army building, tactics and strategy.

Playing the Sisters of Twilight

The Sisters of Twilight are the new Woodelf legendary lord that head up the Heralds of Ariel faction.

The Sisters of Twilight are a flying legendary lord (two lords in one, really) that provide faction wide and individual army buffs to Hawk Riders and other flying units. Flying units will generally figure prominently in armies for this faction.

Like all Woodelf factions, their campaign objectives center around building up the health of the Oak of Ages in the Woodelf homeland of Athel Loren. They build up the health of the Oak of Ages by upgrading the various magical Woodelf forests which are scattered all over the map.

They are a relatively easy faction to play, primarily because they have very strong early to mid game armies, and early and mid game generally provide the greatest challenges to the player.

This guide is focused on the Mortal Empires campaign. I've not played Vortex much, so I don't have any campaign tips that are specific to the Vortex campaign.

Early Game Objectives

As a Woodelf faction, your overall goal is to secure the provinces that surround your magical forest.

These adjacent provinces are called "heathlands" and control over these provinces is key to upgrading the health of your magical forests (and ultimately the Oak of Ages too.) Note that control can be either personal control, or control by an ally (which includes both defensive alliances and military alliances.)

You start out the campaign at war with the Dark Elf faction, Bleak Holds. Defeating them is your first priority. However, the greatest challenge of the very early game will be dealing with beastmen and savage orc hordes.

Only your main magic forest has defenses of any significance. The heathlands you take are extremely vulnerable to being re-taken, even by relatively low strength opponents. Beastmen and savage orc hordes are going to plague your attempt to keep and hold your heathlands. It's almost certain that the Skaven at Clan Rictus will also harass you.

Of equal importance to securing the heathlands surrounding your magical forest of the Witchwood, there are two other important goals you need to accomplish in the early game:

1: Take control over Clar Karond. This is important because control over Clar Karond is a prerequisite for obtaining the Sisters of Twilight's special dragon mount. You really want to take over Clar Karond BEFORE it gets absorbed into Naggarond. (Otherwise you'll be fighting Malekith the whole game.)

2: Establish an unbroken path of owned provinces between your capital in the Witchwood to a port province. This is important because it will provide the opportunity for trading with other, non-adjacent factions.

Turns 1-10

Turn 1

At the beginning of the game, you are at war with the Dark Elves of Bleak Holds, and the Ripperhorn Beastmen. (Playing Sisters of Twilight will make you hate beastmen if you don't already.)

You spawn with a decent starting army, right next to the Temple of Addaioth. Take the Temple of Addaioth your first turn. This is not a difficult battle. You could auto-resolve it, but it's best to fight it manually to minimize casualties. Use your hawk riders to weaken the enemy, so by the time that they reach your army, they will fall quickly to the arrows of your Glade Guard. Use your Stag Knights to cycle charge into the backs of the enemy troops.

When you win the battle at the Temple of Addaioth, occupy the heathland and (THIS IS IMPORTANT) build a Worldroot Pathway. This will allow you to recruit Glade Guard into your army next turn. Don't use global recruitment right now. You're too short on money.

Before you end turn, start building the tier 2 "Glade" structure in the Witchwood. (Don't build anything else yet.)

Also, check your diplomacy tab. Try to get non-aggression pacts with the Exiles of Nehek (trade agreement is also possible) and with any Woodelf factions you can (generally only Orion of the Talsyn faction will say yes.)

Start your research. You're only have one choice right now, but you're going to be headed down the bottom line of research leading to Cytharai.

Level your Sisters up (get to Lightning Strike asap) and you're done with Turn 1.

Turn 2

Move your beast wizard scout down to Hag Hall to keep an eye on the enemy.

Move the Sisters and their army to the border with Vaul's Anvil. Recruit 3 units of Glade Guard.
VERY IMPORTANT!! You must get your army right up against the border. Get as close to Vaul's Anvil as you can while still staying within the province of Addaioth. If you don't get right up against the border, you will not have enough movement to attack Vaul's Anvil next turn.

End Turn

Turn 3 The Great Battle of Vaul's Anvil

The Bleak Holds enemy lord, Exarian, will have moved to garrison Vault's Anvil. (At least he has in every playthrough I've done.)

Move to Vaul's Anvil with the Sisters and their army and take the settlement. This will likely be your most difficult battle of the first 10 turns, but it is very winnable, even on Legendary difficulty.

The biggest challenge of this battle is that the enemy has a bunch of mounted crossbow troops, which are a pain in the butt because they will wreck your Hawk Riders if you aren't very careful.

Deploy your Glade Guard on the slopes of the upper right side of the map behind the staunch line of spears of the Eternal Guard.

Hide your Great Stag Knights in the forest next to your main line.

Deploy your flyers out front to harass and weaken the enemy as they approach. Focus on disrupting the enemy's missile troops and keeping them from firing on your ground units. Use the Hawk Riders' Volley of Kournos ability and the Sisters' Talon of Dusk to beat up the enemy, and the Great Eagle to finish them off and follow routers off of the field. The mounted crossbowmen are your main threat. Don't let them destroy your Hawk Riders. Your Glade Guard are better suited to killing mounted missile troops than your Hawk Riders are. Whenever their mounted troops come into range of your Glade Guard, focus your fire on them and melt them with arrows.

The goal of your flying units is to keep the enemy disorganized and weakened. If they all attack at once, they will likely overwhelm you. If you force them to attack piecemeal, then you can destroy them with your Glade Guard.

As I said, this battle is winnable, but you will probably win ugly. Expect to take significant casualties. In most of my playthroughs, at every difficulty level, the Great Stag Knights cycle charging into the rear and flanks of the enemy is what turned the tide. These Stag Knights are also great for running down and destroying isolated enemy Darkshard foot missile troops.

After your Hawk Rider ammunition is depleted, you will probably be using them for rear charging the enemy and hunting down isolated foot missile troops as well.

After you win this battle, the war against Bleak Holds is pretty much won. Occupy the Vaul's Anvil and recruit 3 more Glade Guard. Repair the settlement, but I wouldn't bother building anything else there right now (because it's probably going to get razed by beastmen.)

Start building the Grape Vines building in the Witchwood. You will need the money more than anything else that other buildings provide.

At this point, you should start looking to recruit a second lord. The one you want is an Ancient Treeman with the Blight of Terrors trait. The reason you want an ancient Treeman is that he has the Siege Attacker ability, which means that you can attack walled settlements immediately, rather than having to wait to build siege equipment. I will discuss the Blight of Terrors trait later in the guide in the section on Lords and Heroes. You want to recruit the Ancient Treeman lord before you move north and begin fighting the Dark Elves there. Look every turn to see if a Trreeman with the Blight of Terrors trait is available. If you've got the extra money, it may be worth it to recruit and disband some other Ancient Treemen so that one with the correct trait becomes available earlier.
As soon as you can recruit one with the Blight of Terrors trait, do so, and have him follow your Sisters of Twilight around, participating in battles and gaining experience. Be careful when fighting beastmen and skaven, however, as they can ambush him and take him out very easily. If there are beastment or skaven about, it's safest to keep him garrisoned or in ambush stance.

Turns 4-10

Finish off the Bleak Holds settlement at Hag Hall. This is an easy battle, as you've taken out their main army already at Vaul's Anvil and the siege map is the easiest in the game, allowing you to slaughter their army with your archers while taking no damage yourself. Just deploy in the left side and murder the enemy on the walls with your Glade Guard. They will rout before you even have to step foot inside the city. If you haven't been able to recruit an Ancient Treeman yet, you will have to wait an extra turn to build siege equipment.

In some playthroughs, this is enough to destroy the Bleak Holds faction, as Alith Anar is often attacking them from the south. If they haven't been destroyed by Alith Anar, you may need to head south and root them out of Bleak Holds, which should be their last city.

Send your Beast Wizard to search the ruins at Ice Rock Gorge and Plain of Dogs and get some money and maybe a decent magic item.

A Skaven invasion event will spawn right next to Hag Hall just about the time when you have taken Hag Hall. Kill the Skaven (not too difficult as it's an ambush battle) and collect your loot.

Colonize Ice Rock Gorge. If convenient, also colonize Plain of Dogs. If you have your Treeman lord recruited, this is a good task for him, while the Sisters and your main army go back to Vaul's Anvil and prepare to fight beastmen.

Turns 10 and Beyond

Around turn 10, you will have your Witchwood capital growth to tier 2 with the Glade building complete. This allows you to build the unique Sacred Grounds of Anath Raema building, which you should do ASAP. This building allows you to recruit Hawk Riders, which will improve the strength of your army tremendously.

Try to get a non-aggression pact with Nagaryth. Don't get a military access pact. You want to keep him down to the south, and if you give him military access, he will come north and start taking provinces that you want.

About this time, (or often even earlier,) the beastmen will begin to make a nuisance of themselves, perhaps attacking Vaul's Anvil or the Temple of Addaioth. It's likely that the savage orc Skull Taker tribe will also spawn. Do not ever miss the chance to take out a beastman or savage orc army if you can, even if they haven't declared war on you (yet.) They are a serious pain in the butt, and you should eradicate them if possible. The savage orcs in particular are capable of attacking and razing the Witchwood, so take their incursions seriously.

Once the Sacred Grounds of Anath Raema are built, start recruiting Hawk Riders. Your Sisters army should have 6-8 Hawk Riders, with the rest mostly glade guard. (You can keep the Great Stag Knights if you'd like. I personally like having them around, but they are expensive and if money is tight, you can get by with disbanding them.)

With your new, Hawk Rider heavy army recruited, It's time to turn your attention to the north. You want to take Clar Karond so that you can complete the quest to get your dragon mount for the Sisters.

You also want to take over provinces that will link you to a port. This means taking Venom Glade and the Twisted Glade.

You will be fighting Dark Elves. Their missile troops (especially Shades) are the biggest threat. Use your Hawk Riders' volley of Kournos to weaken troops at the beginning and to break them when they are wavering. With your new army of flying death, you shouldn't have too much trouble taking Clar Karond and also establishing a trade corridor to a port city.

Heroes and the Best Traits for them

The Wood Elves have some very good traits available to their lords and heroes, especially the Branch Wraiths and the Ancient Treemen.

Let's look at the Heroes first:

Glade Captain

The Glade Captain is a versatile hero that provides some significant army buffs. Glade Captains have the ability to increase campaign movement by 15%. This is a very useful buff. Some Glade Captains have the Strategist trait, which increases campaign movement by an additional 5%. I will generally take Glade Captains with the Strategist trait, as a combined 20% campaign movement bonus is really really good. I will sometimes take Glade Captains with the Weapon Master trait (+35 armor piercing damage and +8 melee attack) if I'm going to be using them to support an army that's heavy on Great Stag Knight cavalry. The Glade Captain can be mounted on a Great Stag or an Eagle, and can buff fliers, cavalry, or infantry, depending on the choice of mount.

Waystalker

The Waystalker is not a very good hero, and I seldom recruit them. They are mediocre performers in battles, being eclipsed by the more versatile Glade Guard Their only unique feature is that they can perform assassinations (not just wounding) so if you want to prepare a roaming assassin, they are your best bet. To me, they aren't worth the upkeep costs.

Spellsingers

Spellsingers are mages with access to Life, Shadow, and Beast magic. Beast magic isn't very good, but Life and Shadow are good lores of magic. For traits, I usually pick Ariel's Chosen, which provides +15 winds of magic and +8 melee attack army buff during forest battles. Knowledgeable is another good trait, as it provides faction wide buffs to winds of magic.

Branch Wraith

The Branch Wraith is a terrific hero. It has a great combination of Life and Shadow magic, which means it can both heal and do damage. It's not as good at either as a specialist Spellsinger, but it's not bad. Branch Wraiths have some of the best traits in the game. My personal favorite is the Befuddlement of Mischiefs, which gives a +20% ambush buff to the army, and gives access to a bound spell which is like the Net of Amontok. Use of this trait allows the Branch Wraith to snare and hold enemy units, leaving them vulnerable to magic or flanking attacks. It's one of the more powerful abilities in the game, and they get three casts with no winds of magic costs.

I try to have one Branch Wraith with the Befuddlement of Mischiefs trait in every army. There are a number of other good Branch Wraith traits, but I personally think that the others are not as good as Befuddlement.of Mischiefs.

Ariel

Ariel is a Legendary Hero. She is the Woodelf version of Lord Kroak. You unlock her by performing the Ritual of Rebirth at the Witchwood. When the ritual is completed, she will appear next to the Sisters of Twilight. She's a terrific spell casting hero, with a mix of shadow, dark, and life magic. She comes fully equipped with some great unique items to and enhance her power. She is a good damage dealer and a good healer. Getting Ariel is the best reason to try and get the Ritual of Rebirth as quickly as you can.

Lords and the Best Traits for Them

Ancient Treeman

The Ancient Treeman is a great lord option and is typically the first lord I will recruit to augment the Sisters of Twilight. One of the most important advantages of the Ancient Treeman is that he is a siege attacker, which means that you don't have to wait to build siege equipment before you are able to assault a walled settlement.

Ancient Treemen have the lore of Life magic, so they are great at healing and can dish out some damage as well. They are very durable and can stand in the line of battle for a long time.

One of your Treemen needs the Blight of Terrors trait. This trait can be built into a very effective, battle winning lord. Blight of Terrors itself gives a -5 leadership de-buff to all enemies in the province. In addition, it provides an ability that inflicts an additional -16 leadership penalty on all enemies in a 40 meter radius. Also, the Ancient Treeman causes Fear, which debuffs enemy leadership by an additional -5. This cumulative -26 leadership penalty is enough to significantly harm enemy leadership.

In addition, this leadership debuff can be further augmented by items. During every Woodelf playthrough so far, I have received a dilemma where I can obtain a special weapon called the Witstealer sword. The Witstealer sword causes fear and terror, and it also applies a "discouraged" penalty of - 16 leadership to anyone hit by the wielder in melee. (the downside is that this sword increases Chaos corruption, but that isn't an issue if you're fighting outside your home province.)

The Perfected Twilight Horn is a unique item available through the Forge of Daith that applies a -10 leadership penalty to all enemies in a region.


Add all of these leadership debuffs together and a Treeman has the capability to inflict a - 52 leadership penalty to enemies. If a shadow magic Spellsinger or Branchwraith casts The Withering on an enemy, it inflicts an additional -8 leadership penalty. This means that you can pretty easily stack a -60 leadership penalty on any enemy fighting with this Ancient Treeman. Even elite units will have a difficult time when afflicted with -60 leadership, and many lower tier enemies will insta-rout. If you can get hold of the arcane item, the Scroll of Aramar, it gives access to the bound spell, Fear of Aramar, that reduces an enemy's leadership by an additional 24 points, which allows your Blight of Terrors treeman to rout even elite enemies.

The Forest Spirit follower is a follower that has a chance to drop when you choose the "kill captives" option after a battle. The Forest Spirit provides a -5 leadership debuff on enemies. Put all of your Forest Spirit followers in this Ancient Treeman "terror stack" to further increase its effectiveness.

Besides this one Blight of Terrors treeman, I also like the Murder of Spites an Befuddlement of Mischiefs traits. These are some of the best in the game.

Spellweaver

The Spellweaver is a generic casting lord. You can get them with the lores of Life, Beasts, Shadow, High, or Dark magic. At level 10 they get a bound spell ability that gives them 2 free casts of Dwellers Below, a decent AOE damage spell. They can ride eagle mounts.

The only Spellweavers I generally recruit are a Dark Magic version and a High Magic version. I have access to the other lores of magic through heroes, so if I want Life or Shadow, I can just add a hero to an army.

As for Spellweaver traits, you should recruit and immediately disband every Spellweaver with the "Knowledgeable" trait that is available. The knowledgeable trait gives a factionwide buff to winds of magic, and the buff is active even when the Spellweaver is disbanded and not on the campaign map. For the occasional spellweaver lord that I have actually leading an army, I typically will pick the Chosen of Isha trait that gives +15 to winds of magic and +8 to melee attack during forest battles.

Glade Lord

The least interesting of the Wood Elf lords, the Glade Lord is a generic melee/ranged hybrid lord with no stand-out qualities. The most interesting aspect of these lords is that they can get a Forest Dragon mount.

For the very few Glade Lords I collect, I look for either the Talon of Kournos which gives +15% range to missile attacks, or Weapon Master, which provides +35 armor piercing damage and +8 melee.

Really, though, I don't find it useful to raise a Glade Lord from new up to a high enough level to be useful. The occasional Glade Lord I use is generally one that I have gained through confederation that has a decent trait, a high level, and where the AI hasn't screwed up the skill tree with useless skills.


Legendary Lords

It's relatively easy to confederate Durthu and Orion. Once you get the Oak of Ages to level 3, you get quests to confederate them. Durthu is gained by winning three battles against dwarves. Orion is gained by sacking or razing 10 different settlements.

Both Durthu and Orion are worth using and can be fun to play. Durthu especially is a strong lord (Orion less so.) I generally create "theme" armies for these lords, with Durthu leading tree type units, and Orion leading a bunch of Great Stag Knights and archers.

It's possible to confederate with Drycha, although I have never seen a quest related to this. In order to confederate with Drycha, I've had to resort to paying large sums of money to her. If you manage to confederate with her, she can bring a bunch of unique units with her, like malevolent treemen and malevolent branchwraiths, feral manticores, and giant wolves

Leveling Up

While working my lords towards Lightning Strike, I tend to choose the Obscuring Canopy skill that gives bonuses to ambush success, and Wonders of the Forest that increases loot from battles and sacking and razing settlements.

Building Effective Armies

The Sisters of Twilight give you access to one of the earliest doom stacks possible. By turn 15 or so, you can field a Hawk Rider heavy army that will overpower pretty much anything thrown against it. Pretty much any army you field should have at least 3 or 4 Hawk Riders. An army of mostly Hawk Riders is also very powerful and viable in both sieges and field battles against pretty much any army you are likely to face through turn 80 or so.


One very capable army mix that will take you all the way to the end game is a mix of Waywatchers (good armor piercing damage and rainge) and Hawk riders (mobile with the Volley of Kournos.) Add in a unit of Zoats for their anti-large crowd control and siege attacker ability and you're done.

Tips for the Mortal Empires Campaign

Naggarond:

If Naggarond declares war on you, your campaign will be a long ugly fight against Malekith and the Dark Elves. That's not necessarily a bad thing. About half my campaigns as Heralds of Ariel have involved war with Naggarond and when I first started playing this faction, I concluded that war with Naggardond is inevitable.

However, as I played the Heralds of Ariel more, I found ways to avoid a long, protracted war with Naggarond. One way is to build positive diplomatic relations with Naggarond through the technology tree. The bottom line of the tree has two techs that increase relations with Dark Elves, one by 10, the other by 15. Concentrate all of your tech on that bottom line and get to these diplomacy enhancing traits as quickly as possible. (The other, non-diplomatic benefits of these techs are also good, so it's not a real disadvantage following this line.)

The Sisters of Twilight have a skill, Emissaries of Ariel, that gives + 15 diplomatic relations with all elves. Take this skill as soon as you can. (You need to be level 13 to get this.)

Look at who Naggarond is fighting. If he's fighting any faction other than High Elves, offer to join wars against these non-High Elf factions in exchange for a non-aggression pact. In one of my playthroughs, Naggarond was at war with the Broken Chainz goblins. I went to war with them and sacked their final city over and over, gaining significant diplomatic relations with Malekith
each time I sacked the Broken Chainz city.

Finally, you can just resort to bribery. Small gifts every now and then will be effective in raising relations with Malekith.

My conclusion about Naggarond is this. If you don't pay attention to them, they will declare war on you and once at war, will be an implacable foe until they are destroyed. (This may be what you want, as it provides for a very challenging campaign.) However, if you pay attention to your relations with Naggarond and follow the steps I've outlined, war with Naggarond can generally be avoided.

Confederations are the Quickest Way to Increasing your power

This may seem obvious, but for the Wood Elves, confederations are even more important than with other races, because Wood Elves benefit so little from conquered territory. The only real significant territories are the Wood Elf magic forests, and the best way to get these is by confederation. Confederations with many Wood Elf factions are relatively easy, with all of the home factions in Athel Loren confederating due to straight-forward quests. The Bowmen of Oreon are easily confederated as soon as you get the Sisters of Twilight the Lightning Strike ability, which allows you to defeat a single army outside their settlement without breaking a sweat.

Ambushing is very powerful

Wood Elves get the stance, Masterful Ambush, which they can use with as little as 10% of their normal movement remaining. There are a number of skills, traits, items, and technologies that increase your ambush success chance, to the point that you can get that success chance to 100%, even in barren terrain. Ambush battles provide a huge tactical advantage that can turn a "valiant defeat" into a "decisive victory." When two armies are travelling together, use the weaker one to bait the enemy into ambush battles. When you are in territory that might be hostile, you should be constantly using ambush stance. This is especially important when fighting skaven or beastmen, as they will offensively ambush you and destroy your weaker armies if they are not ambushed themselves.


When you start a Ritual of Rebirth at a magic forest and are facing a bunch of invaders, just put a lord with half a dozen Glade Guard in ambush stance right next to your forest. You will get to fight the invaders individually, and you will outnumber them and have the tactical advantage. It's easy to defend your magic forest this way with a lord and a handful of troops.

Take Advantage of "Forest Battles."

There are many Wood Elf buffs that apply to "forest battles." What is a forest battle you may ask?
A battle is considered a forest battle if the terrain on the campaign map is designated as "forest." It doesn't matter how much forest is on the battle map. If it's designated as "forest" on the campaign map, then it's forest. If it's not, its' not. Hover your mouse over the campaign map and it will tell you the type of terrain. (mountains, hills, forest, etc.)

The Forge of Daith

The recent update to the Forge of Daith mechanic is a big boost to the Heralds of Ariel faction. The random element was removed and you can now have control over what items you receive as rewards from Daith. Currently, the Forge of Daith works great. My only complaint is that I sometimes forget to check my favor status, and go several turns with maxed out 3 favor points, essentially wasting my opportunity for an item. I wish there was a prompt when you reach 3 favor points with Daith.

The "Challenge to Daith" skill is available to the Sisters at level 10, and is well worth getting. It will increase your favor with Daith and make you more likely to get a favor point when winning battles.

Here are the four items that I have found to be most useful:

Dreaming Boots. These boots give up to +20% campaign movement range. When stacked with Glade Captain bonuses of up to 20%, this means that your army can move really quickly. When running down elusive beastmen or escaping stronger enemies, greater campaign movement range is great. The other buffs that this item conveys aren't bad either


Dreaming Ring The big benefit of this item is that it allows for replenishment in foreign territory without having to be in Encamp stance. If you're in foreign territory, you should be in Masterful Ambush stance, so this is very helpful. In addition, the Dreaming Ring provides a bound spell that heals up to 1632 hit points (which you can use on yourself or an ally) and also adds 20 winds of magic. Overall, a very powerful and useful item.

Dreaming Cloak This item reduces unit upkeep by 15%, which can be useful in the early game when your'e struggling to build your economy. It also summons a unit of archers (Waywatchers at the top tier.) Unlike many summons, this summoned unit does not decay over time, and will fight for you for the duration of the battle. Equipping the Dreaming Cloak on a flying unit allows you to fly to the enemy's rear and summon archers to shoot them in the back. It also adds stalk and snipe, which conceal the wearer, even when firing. These abilities are not terrific, but they aren't bad.

Twilight Horn This item gives a -10 leadership buff to all enemies in a battle. It should be equipped on an Ancient Treeman with the Blight of Terrors trait (or a hero in his army, as the de-buff effects all enemies in the province.)

Other Good Items:

The Eagle Vambraces give up to +30% ambush defense, which can be useful when fighting skaven.

The Eagle Mask increases your own ambush success chance by up to 30%

The Eagle Bow buffs missile strength, and allows you to hide and speed up a friendly unit, facilitating flanking and surprise charges from the rear.

Sisters of Twilight compared with TikTaq'to

I have played a lot of TikTaq'to campaigns and a lot of Sisters of Twilight campaigns. I have written a TikTaq'to guide similar to this one and that guide can be found HERE


Gameplay has many similarities due to the faction lords' buffs on flying units. TikTaq'to uses fireleach bola terradons, while the Sisters use Hawk Riders. Both are al lot of fun to play.

The three main differences I see between a TikTaq'to playthrough and a Sisters of Twilight playthrough are these:

Army Composition: Hawkriders are key units for all of the Heralds of Ariel faction armies, while Fireleach Bola Terradons are useful primarily for TikTaq'to and not the other lords in TikTaq's faction. The Sisters provide significant buffs to the Hawk Riders that apply faction wide. This primarily applies to increasing their Volley of Kournous ability from 2 to 3 uses. The other buffs that the Sisters give only to their own army relate to flying troops in melee, which isn't that important for Hawk Riders, which are primarily missile troops. Hawk Riders have 32 ammunition, which is enough to stay in the battle for a significant amount of time. Fireleach Bola Terradons have only 22 ammunition, so they tend to run out of ammo relatively quickly. TikTaq'to can increase that ammunition level to 37, but this ammo buff mostly applies solely to those terradons in TikTaq'to's army, not faction wide.

What this means is that while the Fireleach Bola Terradons are seriously strong in TikTaq's army, they are not that great for other lords in the faction.

So, in a Sisters of Twilight playthrough, you will most likely have a significant contingent of Hawk Riders in every army. In a TikTaq'to playthrough, you will likely have a Fireleach Bola Terradon doomstack with TikTaq'to, while the rest of your lords will have traditional ground-based lizardman armies.

How fast you can recruit a doomstack Tik'Taq'to's Fireleach Bola Doomstack is available at around turn 9 if you prioritize it. The Sisters of Twilight can recruit a Hawk Rider doom stack somewhere between turn 15 and 20.

TikTaq'to Requires a Lot more Micro Fireleach Bola Terradons need to be over their targets to drop their bombs accurately. This means constant maneuvering to get your terradons directly over the enemy. The Hawk Riders' alpha strike weapon, the Volley of Kournos, is a swarm of guided missiles that can be launched from a great distance and find their way unerringly to the target (unless there is intervening terrain.) This means that the Hawkriders need a lot less micro management to use their primary weapon efficiently. The fireleach bolas also have very limited effectiveness at longer ranges, so engaging the enemy with these flaming missiles also necessitates getting close to (ideally over top of) the enemy. The arrows of the Hawk Riders work well at longer ranges.

So, if you're playing on Legendary difficulty or otherwise can't pause the game, maneuvering TikTaq'to's army is significantly more challenging than playing the Sisters of Twilight.


Both of these factions are a lot of fun to play. I recommend them to anyone looking for a great Warhammer experience.

[GeneralBurnside627]

Quick correction for ya at the top: (Playing ANY FACTION OTHER THAN BEASTMEN will make you hate beastmen if you don't already.)

I swear when CA came around to putting the beastmen into the campaign, they said in the board room: "How many infuriating and annoying mechanics can we cram into a single faction?"

[kamatech]

Did not help my early play. Spell singer essential in early assaults. After addaioth, a lesser and a taurox army nearby. Moving to border of vaul's anvil suicide. Defend and taurox moves to easier targets. Then take vaul's anvil. Meanwhile skaven and other assaults to defend slow progress. North is taurox with a full stack, who wins, unless equip from daith forge before battle and spell singer to support. Lightning attack not required this early, ranged firepower priority. Heathlands build advice missing. Not easy for normal players. Early army powerful but garrisons weak so can't hold settlements. Afford only one army. Settlements more than move away easy prey. Heathlands weak buildings and only affect local. Other factions with one army have decent garrisons. Doesn't mention no advantage from holding whole province or what to do outside heathlands.

[Homuya]

I dont understand all this nonsense, so much text

Just say that we can RP as Apache attack helicopters :)

[Binka]

Great guide for one of my favourite campaigns :D

Few things I'd add, Waystalkers do have a net ability with increases all ranged damage against that target that's SUPER useful for taking out rush Lords who'd cause trouble, like Tyrion, or any cav going for a frontal charge. They also boost archers in range of them!

Glade Lords are a basic lord, but can work their way to a forest dragon mount and not using a spellweaver Lord lets you grab a wizard for your army. With a Talon of Kurnos trait and Knowledgeable trait both working for you.

Lastly, here's also usually a mission after you complete the first ritual where the Gaean Vale will be attacked by Chaos. This allows you to teleport there via world roots and snag it without full blown elf wars.

[Malenthas]

Yes. They are pretty easy. Primarily because you can get Hawk Riders very early on in the game, and they outclass any army you will face until very late in the game (by which time, you've probably already won.)

[Dweng0]

If i 'm honest, I found the sisters of twighlight the easiest to run through