Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Morghur Shadowgave - Beastmen 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 Morghur Shadowgave of the Beastmen.

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

Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Morghur Shadowgave - Beastmen 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 prefer to watch the video, it also helps to support me:

https://youtu.be/t0Z70AaROfc

If you prefer to read, here we go:

VICTORY CONDITIONS:

Short victory:

- Accumulate 220 Marks of Ruination;
- Destroy Estalia, Carcassonne, and Talsyn;
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 35 different settlements.

The reward is +30 winds of magic to all armies, good to ensure your casters can continue to assist in battle.

This is a fairly difficult campaign, as you have to defeat quite a lot of different legendary lords and different factions, although it is quite simple in terms of what to accomplish.

Long victory:

- Achieve the short victory
- Occupy, loot, raze or sack 80 different settlements
- Destroy nearly every Empire faction and Couronne;
- Raze or conquer the Oak of Ages;

The reward is +10 lord recruit rank, which helps to ensure your lords are ready to adapt to the situation into the domination victory.

This is a monumental task, and basically your path is already set.

Morghur is the Shadowgave, and benefits from:

+4 unit capacity for Chaos Spawn
Casualy replenishment rate +8% (all armies;
Chaos Undivided corruption +3
Horde building construction costs -15%


Overall these are good campaign bonuses that certainly help in the long run, specially in terms of economy and recovering after a battle.

Climate is excellent, you can go anywhere you wish, a bit sad that you are set to go towards the Empire at least until the long victory is completed.

STARTING LOCATION:


Your starting position, should you decide to colonize Montenas as your first herdstone, is relatively peaceful. You have a few settlements to raze nearby to get the necessary Marks of Ruination, but your most likely ally (Ikit) is nearby too.

Typical expansion is to control the nearby area around the Herdstone and then move north towards Carcassonne and Athel Loren.

You do have the sea nearby, so you may get some advantages by collecting some goodies there, but do be careful since there are many threats coming from the sea.

DIPLOMACY AND OUTPOSTS:

Diplomacy is rather negligeable for the Beastmen, but you can actually get something going with the Skaven nearby, from Ikit. Thus, he will be your main ally if he survives and if you help him out a bit.


In terms of enemies, just due to the Victory objectives you will need to fight Bretonnia, Empire, Wood Elves. Soon the High Elves and the Dwarfs will become your enemies, as the whole order tide will most likely declare war on you.

MECHANICS OF THE RACE AND FACTION:

Herdstones: raze a location and put a herdstone in it. The neighboring settlements become blood grounds, which you can raze to generate Marks of Ruination.

The Marks of Ruination allow you to unlock units and more army capacity, as well as more herdstones. These are obtained via the ritual conducted at the Herdstone.

Dread is a currency, basically, useful for increasing unit capacity, recruit lords or hero capacity, herdstone upgrades, and items. All of them are useful, implying a lot of variety, so take your time to study your best solution to the issues at hand.

A note on unit capacity, because some are paired, it is a good idea to have some armies planned out to enjoy any surplus units you may have while you choose the other. (Giants because you wanted Spawn, Manticores because you wanted Harpies, etc)

The fourth mechanic is the moon, as from time to time you will have an event to choose the Moon effects, granting nice factionwide bonuses.

Bestial rage allows you to have increased growth and replenishment bonuses for your hordes, as long as you keep fighting.

Finally, your units cost no upkeep at all. Great to ensure that you can continue to have your best troops available at all times.

PROVINCE EDICTS AND ARMY STANCES:

Edicts - The Beastmen have no edicts. However, their Herdstone buildings convey a variety of similar bonuses to the nearby bloodgrounds:

Casualty replenishment and horde recruit capacity, plus corruption;
Winds of Magic reserve, line of sight, and Factionwide Dread;
Campaign movement reduced for enemies, small chance of a plague, and vigor in battle winded for enemies;
Ammunition, reload time increase (debuff) and missile damage debuff for the enemy.

Basically, use whichever is preferable and adapt to the circumstances.

Army stances:

Ambush while attacking is your "normal" stance. Perfect to always have a nice surprise to unsuspecting enemies.
Raiding allows you immunity to attrition, Bestial Rage and some Winds of Magic power. It costs no movement. Under Morghur, it also gives attrition to nearby enemies and tons of chaos corruption.
Beast paths are your "underway" style stance. It allows great tactical advantages, but be wary of enemy interception.
Hidden encampment is mostly used to recruit and build, as well as becoming immune to attrition. You do have a chance to spring an ambush if anyone gets too close, and it only requires 10% movement points.

These are great stances, allowing for a variety of surprises and tactics you can use on the campaign map that will reflect on the battlefield.

Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Morghur Shadowgave - Beastmen overview, guide and second thoughts(continuation)

BUILDINGS, RESEARCH:


You are a horde faction and thus your armies are your settlements. You have 5 military buildings, and 4 infrastructure or support ones. Each of them provide an army ability:

- Winds of Magic;
- Dread per turn;
- Magic item and income from post battle loot;
- Corruption;

You can build nearly every building in your horde, which implies all you need to do is choose the order. At tier 3 you already have great choices for armies, and tier 4 and 5 provide you the true single entities and beasts.

Research works via "Challenges". You complete certain conditions, missions if you wish to call them that, to unlock. Take some time learning these conditions so that you can obtain those as soon as possible.

LORDS, SKILLS, ARMY COMPOSITIONS:

Blue line has attrition and replenishment together, which is a no-brainer for me. However, you may choose a path based in razing or raiding income, since you will be doing a lot of it. Because you also have the typical stance to ambush when you attack, I tend to skip Lightning Strike entirely.

Redline is rather expensive considering the units you have. There are many units you may wish for your compositions that are split up.


Morghur has a nice area damaage effect, and he buffs some interesting units as well as giving you some advantages in the campaign map. He also gets great blessins anciliaries that modify units.
Morghur is all about the Spawn, but also the Jabberslythe, and Centigors. Compositions around those units shall always work reasonably well.


Wargors provide replenishment, and other heroes have some bonuses for your army that you may wish to use.
In terms of other armies, nothing wrong with some basic infantry and minotaur approaches, and I also added an idea focusing on double caster (choose the lores), and a melee brute force to have some different options. It will also help you figure out combinations with the surplus units you unlocked via the dread mechanic.


FINAL NOTES:

Overall, a nice change of location, even if in the end it all goes back to defeating the Empire.

Morghur focuses on units that are often overlooked in other Beastmen campaigns, making him a nice change for anyone that has already experienced a Beastmen campaign.

Your army consists mostly of:

1 - Reliable infantry
2 - Average missiles (what you have is somewhat decent)
3 - Great monsters and single entities
4 - Good flyers
5 - Lack heavy cavalry
6 - Lack elite anti-large infantry

Replenishment is great, and since you have no income, all you need is to keep fighting to get better units for your armies.

Due to all this, I believe it is time to play Morghur Shadowgave.