Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Khatep - Tomb Kings campaign overview, guide and second thoughts

Hello everyone. This is what I check out for when I wish to play a campaign, a very brief overview of what I believe will happen during the campaign, as well as my initial thoughts on matters such as diplomacy, expansion paths, army compositions, important skills for lords, etc.

In this specific one, I pick the Legendary Lord Khatep of the Tomb Kings.

Please do leave feedback and comment below, always keen to discuss the game with you guys.

Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Khatep - Tomb Kings campaign overview, guide and second thoughts

Hello everyone. In this guide I will cover:
- Victory conditions, faction and climate;
- Starting location;
- Diplomacy and outposts;
- Mechanics of the race and faction;
- Province edicts and army stances;
- Buildings and research;
- Lords and skills;
- Army compositions;
And give you my final notes on the specific faction. Hope you enjoy it.

If you wish to watch the video, it also helps to support me:

https://youtu.be/yZRqTodumFY

If you prefer to read, here we go:

VICTORY CONDITIONS:

Short victory:

- Awaken all 4 legions of legend via the Mortuary cult
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 30 different settlements

The reward is casualty replenishment +15%, this is great in any circumstance as it allows you to quickly replenish and to even overcome any climate issues you have while expanding.

This is a rather interesting short victory requirements, and you need to figure out how to do it at first. For the most part you need some specific resources, and you have to make sure you scout around for the best path to acquire them. It will take time, though.

Long victory:

- Achieve the short victory;
- Occupy loot, raze or sack 75 different settlements
- Hold 11 settlements... in the main desert area in the Old World...
- Ensure that you have built 7 of a list of buildings... all located in the Old World...

The reward is +35 Winds of Magic power reserve, great to help in the continuation towards domination victory, if you have not yet accomplished it.

This is definitely a weird long victory condition, in that you have to migrate back into the desert area, which kinda defeats the purpose of having Khatep away from it, unfortunately.

Khatep is the Liche Lord of Khemri, and he benefits from:

+2 Hero capacity for Liche Priests
Rite Cost -25%
Mortuary Cult crafting cost -25%

Average to good buffs, depending on how you use those mechanics, so at least you are incentived in using those for a rather different playthrough.

Climate is rather average, although Khatep does have the mountains as suitable, which helps out a lot. Still not the best climate to get a domination or whole map completion going.

STARTING POSITION:


Your starting province is a 4 settlement province, which ensures you can get a nice solid initial base.

However, it is not the easiest to defend and it spreads out against the invisible border, implying you do have to be wary of several counter attack potential. you are also very close to other Legendary Lords and you might get into trouble early on.

Typical expansion is to control the mountain regions and slowly proceed south into Lizardmen territory. There you will find the resources you need for your Short victory conditions, and you may choose to migrate soon to get your Long victory going too.

Of course, nothing stopping you from going further North, but the Chaos Wasteland may prove difficult early on.

DIPLOMACY AND OUTPOSTS:

The Tomb Kings are one of the neat factions to get allies and it is difficult to talk about enemies or allies because... you can nearly get everyone. Just like Settra, you will win favor with some factions just because you are fighting their enemies.

Thus, you may yet obtain some nice Skaven allies, or even Wood Elves. Dark Elves are always a possibility, but it truly depends on whether you start attacking them or not.

Therefore, Outposts are difficult to recommend. Skaven is always a nice possibility, Wood Elves maybe, so try to obtain great missiles and infantry from them if you can. Flying units are also nice, so try them out to bolster your forces.


MECHANICS OF THE RACE AND FACTION:

- First of all, no upkeep for armies. Nothing. Lategame you can support as much as you can muster.
- Instead, you have limits to the number of units by the buildings you have. Research, traits and skills may also provide you with some unit capacity.
- Hero capacity used to be a problem but it has been solved. You can now increase it with the Mortuary Cult mechanic.
- The Mortuary Cult uses your unique currency, the Canopy Jars, to get items for your lords and heroes. These range from very simple ones to even some unique ones. You can also increase your hero and army capacity there.
- Rites are important:

1 - Great Incantation of Tahoth gives you a Casket of Souls, lord recruit rank +3 and recruitment rank +2;
2 - Great Incantation of Ptra gives you a unique Necrotect hero, which can colonize ruins at level 3. Simply raze any settlement and use that hero to colonize it.
3 - Great Incantation of Khsar makes all regions cause attrition to enemies, increases your ambush chance by 50%, and gives you the army ability Sand Veil
4 - Great Incantation of Geheb gives you +1 Canopic jars per turn, +30 growth, construction time -25% for buildings, and the army ability "Tomb Swarm".
These are all very important and useful in their own way. It is good that you always try to incorporate them into your playstyle.

- Books of Nagash are a series of objectives scattered around the world. Upon completion of the condition, you obtain the bonuses which can effectively chance the overall gameplay. Study them to ensure you are aware of their significance.
- Lastly, army capacity is increased by the Mortuary Cult or by research. It may prove difficult to increase at a certain point, but you will always have more than enough armies to cover your lands and expand.

PROVINCE EDICTS AND ARMY STANCES:

Edicts:

Campaign movement +10% for your armies; Growth +25;
Control +5, corruption -2;
Ambush success chance +15%; Melee defense +5;
Casualty replenishment +20%; Recruit rank +1;
Construction costs -10% for all buildings; income +5% from all buildings;

Overall very good ones, fairly defensive ones too giving you some options to counter an offensive AI.

Army stances:

Channeling gives +15 winds of magic per turn, costs 10% movement;
Entombed beneath the sands is your sort of "encamp" stance. Gives you replenishment, immunity to attrition, an army ability, and vanguard deployment. Costs 50% movement;
Raiding costs 50% movement, typical effects
Ambush costs 25% movement;
Forced march.

Typical choices really, with a slightly better encamp stance, all good to ensure you keep going even in harsh climate.

Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Khatep - Tomb Kings campaign overview, guide and second thoughts(continuation)

BUILDINGS, RESEARCH:


There are no buildings for Khatep in the starting province.

As for military, you have 10 specific buildings. These are all intended to force you to build more to support extra forces. At tier 3, however, you already have Catapults, chariots, infantry, necropolis knights, tomb scorpions, Ushabti and Ushabti Great Bows. Most of these can easily be used for a lot of armies, which gives you great flexibility. The top tier units are mostly single entities, your best constructs.

Infrastructure:

- Control and corruption, as well as the carrion unit building;
- Growth, replenishment and corruption;
- Income and campaign movement range (remember that it adds with the edict, so your armies can move crazy fast to defend your provinces)
- Mixed building that gives good corruption control, lord and hero buffs, and better yet, canopic jars.

Research works slightly different than others, as it is a mechanic by itself:

- Each dinasty will give you an unique lord and unlock some specific research. It also unlocks your army capacity, but decreases your research.
- A common tactic is to research all until the very last turn, and only unlock them when you actually need it.
- All the lords are quite unique, so you will benefit from having specific buffs for specific units, giving you options to have them lead quite different army compositions.
Finally, you have plenty of heralds that can be used to chance and enhance units in your armies. Plan these out as they massively alter them.

LORDS, SKILLS, ARMY COMPOSITIONS:

- Blue line has replenishment on the first line, and I rarely even go into the second part. Perhaps a case can be done for the reduced attrition in the second part, but as always, up to you.
- Redline skills are decent and relatively inexpensive, which helps as Khatep has a lot to spend upon. However, remember that due to Heralds, specifict traits and abilities, you have a tremendous variety of units that suddenly become great and you can generate good and varied armies with them.
- It is a rather small roster, but they have quite some great units, and you can have some cheap combinations within these skills. Note how both low and high tier units receive their bonuses from the same skill, so you can choose those in the early game and benefit from them throughout the campaign.


- As for heroes, Liche priests provide replenishment, and Necrotects heal the constructs, which is excellent.
- Khatep has a series of small buffs for Ushabti, Nehekhara warriors, skeletons and Tomb Guards. He also has some buffs for horsemen and chariots. Therefore, he can benefit from differen compositions and it is your choice.


I also provide you some different army compositions and army types, either based on monstrous infantry, or others based around two different approaches of a basic frontline + missile army with constructs for your flanks.


Finally you can have a few with Bone Giants and an only monstrous infantry army for your pleasure, with double Necrotect for those heals.


Remember that for the most part I only recommend a base template of a caster hero and a melee hero at least, but you can use your own combinations as you wish there.

FINAL NOTES:

- Khatep may have the most interesting but rather difficult starting position of all of the Tomb Kings. He will definitely face off completely different enemies, including some powerful ones such as Malekith, Taurox, Grombrindal, to name a few.
- It is one of the factions that benefits greatly from how unique the research tree is, because you can then compose different armies in accordance to the benefits every one of those specific lords grant you.
- Their army consists mainly of:

1 - Good infantry
2 - Average missiles
3 - Good artillery (note that I consider Ushabti great bow here, really)
4 - Good monstrous infantry and cavalry
5 - Great single entities
6 - Lacks some flyers
7 - Weak early game units

Replenishment is good, but climate is such an issue for the Tomb Kings overall. Khatep is no exception, poor faction to try to hit a full map completion with.

Still, I believe it is now time for you to try out Khatep of the Tomb Kings.

[SusaVile]

I like the casket for him specially because it allows to do damage from afar, but if you prefer to be on the move with him, sure!

[Nahx]

I wonder wich mount is the best for Khatep. Of course, the Casket of Souls is a good one, but Khatep is a mage, he wants to stay close to his troops to support them, so maybe a skeleton horse is enough.

[SusaVile]

That is a good call, Cathay does have a unique feel in terms of alliance and diplomacy;) If possible, indeed a great ally

[Toddasaurus Rex]

As someone who plays TK almost exclusively in tww3, I cannot stress enough how GOAT it is to ally with cathay.

More constructs your necrotects can roll with in a stack and they compliment your roster well. if you take one of those liche priests and run him down to where the jade dragon starts you might be able to start building a good relationship extremely early on.