Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Mother Ostankya - Kislev 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 Mother Ostankya, of Kislev.

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

Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Mother Ostankya - Kislev 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 prefer to watch the video, it also helps to support me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfwoo1Rx85Y

If you prefer to read, here we go:

VICTORY CONDITIONS:

Short victory:

- Obtain 3 of the Forbidden Hexes;

The reward is +3 hero capacity for all heroes, which now has increased value since you have a new hero, the Hag Witch. Specially useful considering also the mechanics of the Ice Court.

A very short campaign indeed, this should be acquired fairly soon giving you a bit more control over the long and domination campaigns.

Long victory:

- Achieve the short victory:
- Obtain all of the Forbidden Hexes
- Unleash the Malediction of Ruin

The reward is +10 hero recruit rank, excellent to ensure your heroes are much more effective, and very powerful when in combination with the Ice Court mechanic.

Mother Ostankya leads the Spirits of the Forest, and benefits from:

- Winds of Magic +1 for each resource production building;
- Global recruitment -1 for Incarnate Elemental of Beasts;
- Melee attack +8 when fighting armies that spread corruption;
- Melee defense +10 for Spider Hatchlings and Giant Spiders.

Overall, this creates a rather unique playstyle, adding to the mechanics and the location.

Climate is much better than other Kislev factions, making her a far more suitable lord to try and dominate the whole map with. It is certainly a very nice campaign to try and do so.

STARTING LOCATION:


Your starting location is a minor settlement on a 4 settlement province. However, should be noted right away that you do not have access to most buildings until you have an alliance or control over Kislev, Praag, or Erengrad.

You are surrounded by enemies, specially all of the Dark Elves. There will also be some allies possible, namely High Elves, and you are also close to the sea so you can benefit from some of the sea goodies which may prove detrimental for your early campaign success.

Typical expansion is to proceed south towards Morathi, but nothing stopping you from going North, for example; it is recommended given your faction abilities that you attack enemies that spread corruption, though.

DIPLOMACY AND OUTPOSTS:

Diplomatically you are part of the order tide. High Elves, Empire, Dwarfs, Bretonnia, all may be your allies if you can find them fast enough.

Enemies will be anything that is Chaos, Dark Elves, Skaven, but you may find it important to clear out Lizardmen as well, depending how your campaign goals go.

Outposts with the High Elves and the Empire or Bretonnia should be helfpul in giving you infantry, cavalry, or artillery depending on your ideas.


MECHANICS OF THE RACE AND FACTION:

A lot of changes for Mother Ostankya, including not having Devotion and not having the Motherland mechanic.

First, she cannot build everything until she owns or has an alliance with a Kislevite faction owning Kislev, Praag, or Erengrad. This alone implies a completely different playstyle.

The Ice Court mechanic works well, ensuring that you get both caster heroes and lords that suit your needs better. You are able to choose their starting traits, which is excellent for a varied and focused playstyle as well.

Spirit Essence is your unique currency. You gain this via battles mostly, and also by having lower corruption and magical forests.


You have 5 main hexes that you will be unlocking throughout the campaign. These are:

Purification Chant, removing all corruption from the target province;
Coven's Cursemark, targeting an enemy army, reducing movement range by 50%, winds of magic cost for spells +40%, and disabling March, underway, and teleportation stances;
Jinxed Land, which teleports a target army to a magical forest (Great to go back to Kislev if you wish);
Bewitching Lure, gaining 50% of the target settlements' income;
Recreant Spirit, targeting a settlement owner, and giving you an army of Things in the Woods, Incarnate Elemental and Elemental Bears every other turn in that territory.

They work kind of like rites, with a Spirit Essence cost.


The Witch's Hut allows you to create blessings and curses depending on the trinkets you have been locating. You obtain those trinkets with specific "quests", as an example, when you fight a Bretonnian lord or form an alliance with one, you gain a new trinket that either gives you immune to psychology to a unit, or removes fear and terror from an enemy unit. These combine and you can then have a pool of those blessings or hexes to use before any battle, to either buff your own troops or greatly hamper the enemy's.

Mother Ostankya also has a unique research tree, with a specific part of it costing Spirit Essence granting very awesome rewards. In addition, the part of the tech tree granted by owning a specific settlement now costs Spirit Essence as well, allowing her to proceed into the second part of that tree without having to go back to Kislev.

PROVINCE EDICTS AND ARMY STANCES:

Edicts:

Control +4, campaign movement range -20% for enemies;
Income from all buildings +5%
Chance of a plague spreading -40%, hero recruit rank +2, corruption -5, hero recruit cost -25%;
recruitment cost -10%, recruitment capacity +2;

Lacking a growth or research edict, but still very important. Special note to the +2 recruitment slots, which helps the early game tremendously.

Army stances:

Channeling gives +15 power reserves per turn for 10% movement;
Encamp costs 50% movement and gives global recruitment, replenishment, immunity to attrition
Raiding costs 50% movement and gives immunity to attrition;
Ambush costs 25% movement;
forced march.

Very basic ones, of course important for you to be able to conquer in those uninhabitable or high corruption areas.

Total War: Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires Mother Ostankya - Kislev campaign overview, guide and second thoughts(continuation)

BUILDINGS, RESEARCH:


There is a special building, the Ostankya's hut, which is in the Bleak Hold Fortress. This gives Spirit Essence per turn, reduces costs for Hexes, gives income and gives diplomatic relations +30 with Kislev.

Your military is severely diminished. You only have 2 buildings available, heavily reducing your army composition choices until you have control over Kislev/Praag/Erengrad;

Military buildings are therefore only 2 of the 7 available. All require a province capital to build up to the fullest. Should you acquire access later, you then have 7 military buildings with only 2 able to be built in minor settlements.

Infrastructure in settlements:

Income, growth and recruitment cost;
Replenishment rate, ambush chance, corruption, income from farms;
Control and growth;
Control, hero capacity, corruption;
Income building

There are good options for any specific situation, and because Mother Ostankya has reduced military building necessities, your provinces may grow very fast and grant you good income quite easily.

Research is quite good now. Mother Ostankya has a special part of the Tech tree devoted entirely to her Spirit Essence and Hexes mechanics, empowering your troops selection or Hexes overall. This is added to the previous tech tree, so you do not lose out on anything for the most part.

LORDS, SKILLS, ARMY COMPOSITION:

Blue line has upkeep reduction and replenishment in the second part of the line. You still have reduced attrition and corruption in the first part, but remember that Mother Ostankya already excels at those overall.

Redline is one of the best, and improved with the new units. Creatures of the land now allows more variety and you can field very good armies overall, even with the restrictions for Ostankya.

A good note concerning redline skills is that they have a lot of combinations of armor piercing, missiles, and anti-large even in just a few skillpoints.


Mother Ostankya changes a lot; she has advantages for all creatures of the forest, magical attacks for everyone, and a focus on her magic and Hexes. The first army is very quick to obtain in the campaign, with the second being a more advanced version of it. Third army is an example of what you can adapt it to, should you obtain the buildings via alliance or conquering the required provinces.


I still provide you with the basic recommendations from the previous army ideas.


The final panel is where I mix in some units here and there from the new DLC for even further variety. For the most part, armies of frontline infantry with Akshina, with any sort of backup including Bears and single entities, should do a great job. You can also include a patriarch here if you wish. A full army of Things in the Woods, Akshina, Bears and Incarnate Elementals is also amazing, specially in ambushes.


Patriarchs are difficult to obtain until you get a hold of Kislev territory or alliances there. For the most part, you will have to resort to the Hag witches, these can still provide quite some good benefits for your armies, and they cast spells, though.

FINAL NOTES:

Mother Ostankya chances so much of what you consider a typical Kislev playthrough. No devotion, no motherland mechanics, and instead her own unique idea and location for a lot of possible variety.

However, the fact that she has no access to others Kislev units early on is also a problem, specially for Immortal Empires. It makes her very inflexible until you can obtain that alliance or go back to have a foothold in Kislev, Praag, or Erengrad. She pays her uniqueness with less options in terms of units.

Hexes are quite interesting to use and fun. You can find a lot of possibilities for those and your enemies will surely suffer while your forces suddenly feel superior to anything they can muster.

Your army consists of:

1 - Good hybrid infantry
2 - Great cavalry
3 - Great single entities and monstrous infantry
4 - Good chariots
5 - Lacks early access to most of the unit roster
6 - Difficult early army composition

Replenishment is great, as she has much better climate overall. This is a much easier campaign to do full map completion than any other Kislev lords for certain.

Time to Hex the entire enemy army away, with Mother Ostankya of Kislev.

[MrMuse]

It's not a bug. I just missed the fact that it doesnt generate more quests and you just need to keep spamming use of the hexes and making charms and curses to drop the counter.

[SusaVile]

Good question, MrMuse. Unlikely many people are reaching that point so it can be difficult to spot.
Can you raise this as a bug and provide the savefile to CA? Savefile is very important, if you do not know how to find it let me know.

The CA report site is: https://community.creative-assembly.com/

[MrMuse]

I control about 3/4 of the map and im just wasting time around about 160 turns in but hints as to where to find new hexes have completely dried up. I can easilly get a dom win but i want all the hexes. I have the first 3 and no active quests. Is this bugged?

[Peskyfletch]

Good overview.