Ultimate Ancillary Guide

All trigger conditions for ancillaries (followers).

Main Content

Some statements in "Additional Info", "Side Effects" and last section's roll chances may be incorrect, as I just copied that content from WH2 guide and didn't actually re-test it (it takes some time, and I got no energy for testing)

---

---

---

View Super Dank Guide on github[cpecific.github.io]

---

---

---

When in game, hold Shift to open link in the same window (hold Ctrl for new tab)

Updates

(17.04.2025) version 6.1
• Student drop chance: 7% --> 3%
• Some other ancillaries were also reduced in drop chance, but it is mainly Kislev.
• All drop chances multiplied by x0.5; Demons by x0.4.
• Because random chance is integer from 1 to 100, some items now have 0% drop chance.

(15.12.2024) version 6.0
• research rate effect descriptions removed the percent sign.
• Gnoblar Chief: for Gnoblars --> for Gnoblars and Pigback Riders.

(20.08.2024) version 5.2
• Effect description: "Magic item drop chance from battle: +N%"
• (magic items) Tomb kings chances are no longer multiplied by x0.5.
• (magic items) chances are now calculated by calculating sum of modifiers for character & faction & military_force. Base chance is 40%. It is now also possible to increase your rarity chances, it is calculated by calculating sum of modifiers for character & faction.

(04.05.2024)
• "Student" 13% --> 7%

(25.11.2023)
• "Student" and "Archivist" triggers were fixed by CA.
• "Estalian Diestro" removed for Bretonia, Kislev and Southern Realms.
• "Alchemist" removed for Demons of Chaos.
• "Advisor to the King" can be equipped by (Legendary Lords) --> (any lord).
• "Priest of Ursun" can be equipped by (any lord) --> (Patriarch, Frost Maiden)
• Effect description changed from "Winds of Magic power reserve change: +N% when increasing" --> "Winds of Magic power reserve capacity: +N" (in some cases value N was changed).
• "Prize Hunter" added "Troglodon and Dread Saurian".

(22.04.2023)
• "Mannish Thrall" (bst) now can be equipped by all types of heroes.
• "Beard Weaver" (hef) can no longer be equipped by lords; can now also be equipped by "Mage" and "Noble".
• "Engineering Student" (skv) also affect "Poisoned Wind Mortars".

(08.03.2022)
• Added "Can be stolen" section

Formatting and Terminology

• Multiple trigger conditions are separated by dashed line (- - - -).
  Multiple conditions do not share context. For ex.
  

  (Context condition; Forbid condition)
  Some Trigger Description
  - - - -
  Some Other Trigger

  Some Other Trigger DOES NOT consider (Context condition; Forbid condition)
  All this stuff with multiple conditions is because there are a ton of bugs in trigger conditions.
  
• Effect list may contain a list of agents that can actually wear referred follower
  (not sure whether it prevents a drop of ancillary).
  - all types of generals. - only certain subset of generals (look in effect list).
  - all types of heroes. - only certain subset of heroes (look in effect list).

• "Lord" (underlined) means "Main Lord", the one who leads the battle.
  
• chain "Walls/Garrison" refer to walls chain inside Major/Minor settlement

• (N turn own/enemy) – before satisfying the condition, character must spend N turns in own/enemy regions (yes, regions; but not sure when it invalidates: during movement or during end turn?).
  
• every Nth turn === if (TurnNumber mod N = 0) then do stuff.
  
• faction has N% trade === context:faction():trade_value_percent() > N

Additional Info

• "(Lord's army)" scope only works, when ancillary is worn by Lords.
  For heroes, there is a separate "(Hero's army)" scope.
  
• It seems "have an ability to recruit" (not in region) applies to the whole province, even if you are in an enemy region.
  
• Scouting (increase Magic item drop chance) and other similar effects don't influence chance of acquiring a follower. (not completely sure about that one either: if scouting influences drop chance, then it is deeply hidden in the backend).
  
• "Win siege battle" means any battle in a city. Doesn't have to be walled.

Side Effects

Some user actions trigger a bunch of continious events. Here are some of them:

Occupy Settlement = {
	1. CharacterPostBattleSlaughter
}
Occupy Unopposed = {}
Loot Settlement = {
	1. CharacterLootedSettlement
	2. CharacterPostBattleEnslave
}
Loot Unopposed = {
	1. CharacterLootedSettlement
}
Sack Settlement / Expand Under-Empire = {
	1. CharacterLootedSettlement
	2. CharacterSackedSettlement
	3. CharacterPostBattleEnslave
}
Raze Settlement = {
	1. CharacterLootedSettlement
	2. CharacterRazedSettlement
	3. CharacterPostBattleSlaughter
}

Armour, Weapon, Talisman, Enchanted Item, Arcane Item, Banner

Heroes don't get them in post-battle (maybe they can steal it? haven't tested enough).
Such ancillaries are only dropped for lords when you win a battle and cannot be dropped if you stole some ancillary in the battle.
Some explanation of behind-the-scenes: function selects random category, and tries to find ancillary that can be (theoretically) equipped.

WH3 possible bug for Demon Prince characters: as they can't equip ancillaries, script will find random army general (not a Prince) and will check "can_equip_ancillary" against new general. Ancillary will be added into the faction pool. If you only have 1 army, then (I suppose) you won't get any ancillary.

Another bug gives you inconsistent drop chances:

• slightly more drop chance, for main lord when you win as an attacker.
  
• slightly more drop chance, for all lords when you win as a defender.

With maxed out hero's Scouting (magic item drop chance) +25% you can get 69% (+any extra effect modifiers) for main lord on Legendary difficulty for decisive victory. Each army will have it's own drop chance.
Rarity roll: 60% common, 30% uncommon, 10% rare. Rarity chances can be increased by special effects.

[lancedragonfu]

Great guide would be perfect if you included keys for console commands :)

[Cpecific]

@Catholic Alcoholic thanks for heads up. Unfortunately they forgot that random drop chance is integer from 1 to 100, therefore some followers now have 0% drop chance

[Catholic Alcoholic]

Heyya, just a heads-up CA just added a blanket 50% reduction to all follower drop chances in 6.1 (via multiplying drop chance by 0.5 similar to how the daemon prince faction got a drop chance reduction before)
+Student and some kislevite followers were also independently tweaked

[REITERPALLASCH]

Hey man, could you please update your trait manager when you get a chance? Latest patch broke it so the trait button doesn't show anymore. Thanks for all your hard work.

[HazoKun]

Any chance of update for WH3 Chaos Dwars? I admit I play this game with this guide open.
Extremely useful...

[Cpecific]

@Polyergus maybe ruin dwelling gives you any random ancillary that your faction/character CAN (technically) equip?
What this guide provides is info about hard coded triggers. Events in a certain file.
But ancillaries can be given by the game in other places (other lua files). So it isn't exactly surprising.

[Polyergus]

I was playing beastmen on WHII and recently got a Possessed as my magic item for searching a ruin, despite unholy communion not being on the tech tree. Does ruin searching bypass requirements or is the guide off?

[Cpecific]

@The Kingmaker hover over text to see tooltip explanation

[The Kingmaker]

Hi, thanks so much for the guide - I was just wondering if you could clarify what "Prevent Ancillary Duplication" means. Is it that you can only ever get one of those Ancillaries per campaign, or one per turn, or one per action?

So for instance as Tomb Kings I see that currently the Dog-Headed Ushabti isn't working as expected and many of the other followers have duplication prevented.

[Cpecific]

@MercytheMad already solved the issue. Completely forgot about the existence of 3rd party sites selling steam keys and gifts.