@Diremerc
It shouldn't hit much harder against large targets than the hellblaster thats a valid comparison. I think I will experiment a little in that regard. Maybe I "outsource" more of its firepower to the Bonus versus Infantry to prevent it from overperforming against large targets.

The thing with the Vorkhul Drung is that basically every single individual shot it fires hits with the same power as a cannon and it should be hitting more like a machine gun. The 1 burst kill on Queek was likely a fluke as Queek was running right at the tank and was fairly close up so when it fired he basically ate the entire volley without a shot missing. But it's inaccuracy isn't as much of a factor when it's shooting at giants, Arachnaroks, Bloodthirsters or large lords were even with it's lack of accuracy it can land every hit. I'd tone it down at least to the level of a hellblaster volley gun (right now it hits 3 times harder than the volley gun does and fires 3 seconds faster).

@Diremerc
Thank you for the valuable feedback!
I agree on the Drakk Maraz, ran a few tests and nerfed it significantly. Its still strong af for the very specialized role it occupies, reflecting its high cost, but its now closer to vanilla high performing artillery units.
I tried to test the performance of the Vorkhul Drung on lords and heroes, as you described, and found not much of an issue there though. Its simply too inaccurate to really snipe small targets. Really problematic behaviour only seems to occur, when I basically park them point blank in front of the tank, which would be just as much of a terrible experience against many vanilla ranged units as well.

Having played my dwarf campaign to a long campaign victory at ~120 turns using these tanks Difficulty (Very hard/ Very hard) I will say that these tanks are exceptionally strong, maybe not "lol I win" strong but I think they a bit a stronger than likely any other units currently in the game. During the entire campaign the only tanks that got destroyed was some that got hit by a Doomrocket from Ikit claw and they always got a tonne of kills in every fight they participated in. Two Drakk Maraz was able to shoot down and kill a Bloodthirster before it could get in range and even Skarbrand was like a helpless child to these things. After some testing I would say that the Vorkhul Drun and the Drakk Maraz are the broken ones the other tanks actually seemed fine. The other stats are all fine but their damage I think is too high. I feel like it should be like half of what it is. Really good mod thought! Love the design and very fun units to play with.

Yeah the Khrum Uzkul is so awesome. It gets the most kills in my army every single battle, pushing over 6 or 7 hundred most of the time.

Thank you for your time reading and responding to my comment, and thanks again for the mod.

@Emperor of Mankind
Auto resolve unfortunately poorly handles melee stats of ranged units. The poor melee defense stats of the tanks is essentially what kills them in Auto Resolve. I am not quite sure what to do against it, apart from just adjusting the stats into something that AR does a better job of handling.
Khrum Uzkul being difficult to build an army around is something I can understand. I use it as a staller unit for the artillery to shine. But I am not sure if thats enough either. I may look into it.
The idea that Haraz Dron is too strong surprises me though. It doesn't really do more damage than a hellfire rocket battery and is actually less accurate, due to the super long travel time of the projectiles. Unless of course you are good at making the enemy blob, then artillery like this overperforms like hell.

@Diremerc
The problem with the Missile Damage stat is that due to how animations work and how its calculated per entity the number alone is poorly predicting how much damage potential a unit actually has. Gyrobombers are a good example for a unit that always had massive missile damage stats that rarely translated into any actual damage potential.
But I will look into the Gatling Tank. Its supposed to shredder infantry. Not one shot lords.

Responding to the balance comment below just to share my experience playing on Legendary with few other mods. I think the tanks are all balanced well, except the Tier V is very weak, and the Tier IV is actually a "Lol I win" unit, but I just build few of them due to that reason. I wish the Fortress tank was a little stronger as I struggle to see its place in an army.

Hi Vrooktar, just wanted to start by saying this is my favorite unit mod I've ever played since 2017. I love how you balanced them. I would love an improvement to how they are calculated in autoresolve, if you have control over that. AR does not respect the tanks whatsoever and you have to manually play every little battle with them.

I mean one of the Gatling tanks pretty much 1-shot killed a level 16 Queek Headtaker and while It's true that most of those 3 stacks were slaves, clanrats and a few Stormvermin I feel like they did excessively well. I will keep using them to see how they do when the enemy gets more late game units. I think I understand now that the Missile Damage stats reflect the combine value of all the guns together which is why they are absurdly high cause you fire multiple projectiles with most of these tanks.

@Diremerc
The missile damage stats are a little iffy, I wouldn't entirely rely on that. But its of course on purpose that regular Steam Tanks do less damage. Steam tanks are effectively chariots with infinite steam ammo and strong melee capabilities. It would be incredibly weird if Dwarf tanks would have much fewer capabilities and still perform worse in the categories they specialize in.

I am sure over time you will realize that they have more counters than you might think right now, but I am curious to hear more detailed descriptions from you regarding scenarios they perform not they way they should. So far, the gatling tank performing well against Skaven Slaves, does sound like the intented result.

Had the chance to try this out and the Tanks look very nice and work well but they are incredibly unbalanced. These things are basically just cheats that say "lol I win" they have 5 times more firepower than steam tanks, I watched six of these tanks wipe out 3 full stacks of vermin without taking any damage. Looking at the stats the armour and health seem fine but the 2.5k+ Missile damage seems absurdly high. Especially on the Gatling tank. The missile damage on that should only be like 50.

@Guts The Black Swordsman
I didn't test it, but it should.
Weither they are balanced is a different story though.

@Vrooktar will your mods work with radious without any submod?

@Sketch
@Jumper2105

Allied recruitment has been added. Disclaimer though, I introduced it for almost all my mods and had no time to actually test every single unit. Just tell me if there appear to be problems.

All good friend! I was just about to comment this exact thing on your other dwarf tank mod aswell, I'm an empirre boy but tthese would be so cool to recruit from my alliies

thanks for the work you're talented as shit!

@Sketch
Not yet. I was busy and forgot about it.
But thanks for the reminder!

Has alliance recruitment been added yet? mod looks fantastic

Will the AI recruit these?

@Jumper2105
Should actually be pretty easy, I simply forgot about it and when I thought about it later I didn't have the time to test it properly. Might be something I tackle in the next days.
I will throroughly check weither my mods still work after the update the way they are supposed to anyway.

Would it be possible to make the tank recruitable with Alliance Recruitment?

chorf tanks next?

keep it up man, i love how you digest these massive mods into more manageable parts so i can use it with sfo, also its so amazing how you make your own sfo submods for your mods its helpful

@Dent
Ah, now I understand where the misconception comes from. The Vengryn Thrund animation obviously shoots three times in a row, because thats how its three barrels work. The Drakk Maraz also has an animation with three shots, but those shoot all at the same time, because its simply supposed to shoot 3 shells at once. The idea is that spreading out its damage over three projectiles that are less accurate results in less of a "coinflip" behaviour where it does either full damage or none at all. So your core issue seems to be that the three shots don't perfectly line up, which is true.

Its fire animation file has three shooting emitters, just like the Vengryn Thrund. I was experimenting with switching the projectiles from explosive shells to regular cannonballs, and it was definitely shooting three at a time. You can even see that the emitters don't quite line up with the barrel since there's only one instead of three side-by-side.

@Dent
It actually uses a modified Thunderbarge shooting animation. Is this the only tank that has such a weird animation for you? I kinda struggle to come up with ideas what could result in such a strange behaviour.

The Drakk Maraz uses the modified 3-shot organ gun firing animation of the Vengryn Thrund even though it has a single barrel, which looks kind of odd.

@KBB
I am unable to replicate the issue.
It is especially weird that whatever causes the issue for you only causes it for 2 of the 5 tanks since all of them use the exact same framework.
Is there a specific setup to make this problem reliably appear?
Its of course also possible that its just a mod conflict.
In that case I would also be interested in knowing with which mod said conflict occurs.

The cannons of Drakk Maraz (Dragon Cleaver) and Vengryn Thrund (Gun of Vengeance) don't aim at enemy at all unless the enemy is very close !
Its ridiculous that no matter how you move your tank the cannons just point at the opposite side so the tanks won't fire at all everytime making the tanks completely useless!

It's been a while, so yeah - I'm probably talking about runes. If they're too complicated to deal with, then fair enough. Your mod is plenty good enough as it is. I'm mostly just speculating :)

@Malidictus
What banners exactly do you mean?
The Dwarves primarily have the artillery runes. Are those the ones you talk about?
Because those are a more complicated issue, which might also be the reason why you can't put them on Grudge Settler artillery.

That's fair enough. It's just that several of the tanks serve the role of artillery, yet won't take artillery banners, is all.

@B r 0 k
I am not really able to reproduce the issue.
Are there any more hints what causes it?
Does it also crash for you in custom battles?
Against all enemies?
That you describe it crashing after it already successfully fires a few times is very weird and sounds like something else might be the issue. Maybe there are reinforcements with other broken units that arrive on the battlefield after a minute which then makes you think the Drakk Maraz crashed after doing 6 shots? Maybe another unit has a broken ability that causes the crash, but it takes them a minute to get in range and use said broken ability?

I love the mod, but sadly I ran into an issue in a Coop Campaign. I have a problem with the Drakk Maraz; the game crashes after the round starts and the tank shoots a few times. The rest works perfectly fine.

@Malidictus
Thank you very much!
I basically put them into the aircraft category, because thats the default category for Dwarf warmachines, since all their artillery pieces are classic artillery designs.
I also think that this makes them fit better into categories like "innovation" and technologies that hint towards engineering. But it wasn't a super deep thought either.
When it comes to custom categories or missions I am always rather cautious. I try to design all my mods in a way that makes them as compatible as possible with other mods and also regarding future updates.
At some times with larger success than at other times. But fiddling with Malakais mechanics or the tech tree too much would be a lot of effort just to risk breaking the mod for anyone who uses a mod that also touches these things.

I have to echo this. Between the tanks and the gunships, Dwarves so much more fun to play - especially Malakai :) The only thing that bothers me is these tanks seem to benefit from Gunship upgrades, when they're closer to artillery. Banners designed for artillery also don't go on the tanks.

If you're feeling REALLY adventurous, you can make them their own class and give Malakai a brand new adventure for them :)

I understand. And the quality and style is overall really good with the direction we have between you and Derpy. I just always thought it was a shame we never got to see a similar mod come out after we got the leaked sketch for it, because it genuinely seems like it would be just a flawless fit with the vanilla stuff.

Still, I really enjoy all of your stuff, and thank you very much for everything.

@Tucanonerd
That might actually be the art direction I would go for, if I did the mod again today.
I don't feel like the Dwarves need even more tanks though or that I can offer that many more interesting tank ideas.
And fundamentally changing the tanks now after many people enjoy them the way they are is something I wouldn't like to do either.
So I am not sure weither I am really going to do anything about it.

Vrooktar, absolutely love the mod, it is awesome.

You should consider doing a mod for the "lore accurate" Dawi Tank prototype that got leaked a few years ago, that Games Workshop never launched.

@DinosMinos
I ran a test and was unable to reproduce the issue.
Everything seems to be working fine.
Can you provide more details about the circumstances in which the issue exactly occurred to you?

doesnt work. crashes after production.

@Malidictus
Thats quite some praise, thank you very much!
Warhammer is a game that has many units one might consider overpowered after the first encounter in the enemy army. Then when we use them ourselves we realize their weaknesses. Moving multiple tanks in circles, trying to dodge eagle claws, while I simultaneously try to eliminate said threat with Gyrocopters that need heavy micro to not die to archers themselves might be the most stressful battle situation playing the Dwarves has ever brought upon me xD

I actually do have another Dwarf unit mod in the oven right now.
At this point I lack further inspiration for fitting and meaningful warmachines though.
I have no idea weither I am ever going to do more of those.

Double-post because 1000 character limit:

Balance-wise, that's really good to hear. I've used other overpowered tanks which were effectively impregnable. They're very powerful when used right, but have effectively no defence from being swarmed. I fielded an army of mostly tanks, and they didn't really have much recourse to being swarmed. Turns out I still do need smaller infantry to clear out flankers and chaff :)

So yeah - I love the mod and intend to keep using it moving forward. Honestly, kind of hoping you make more stuff, because I love your designs. Probably use your Chaos Dwarf aircraft if/when I play one of their factions. You've done a marvellous job balancing overpowered capability with decent balance and absolutely gorgeous visuals.

Fair enough on your preference for naming conventions. I was mostly suggesting it because that's how the Vanilla game already handles unit variants, and indeed how you handled unit variants for your Gyro Gunships. It's a bit clumsy, to be sure, but clumsy in the way that feels "natural" for the game.

The unit card graphics do help, but not completely. The tank with the single large cannon (Drakk Maraz, I think) is fairly unique, as is the one with the rotary cannon (Vorkhul Drung?) However, I've recruited the lighter tank with the anti-large cannon a few times thinking it was the larger one, and the very first thing I recruited was the fire mortar... again thinking it's the large cannon one :) I can learn eventually, much in the same way I learned all the gobbledygood in Warframe, but it would help to have the names be a bit more meaningful in English.

@Malidictus
Great that you are having fun!
The easiest counterplay is to not feed them their favourite enemy types. While they are very strong when used correctly, if not their performance is kinda meh.
Unfortunately I don't know how to teach the AI how to use them properly.
Overall they are comparatively weak to artillery fire.

The names do mean something.
I knew that nobody would get them right, but I thought my unit cards where unique enough to compensate for that. If thats not the case I might indeed think about helping out with their names somehow, although I am not a fan of giving super long names that include an entire unit description.
We will have to see.

Just want to say: the tanks have been a ton of fun so far. Bit overpowered, in that I'm worried about the AI using them on me, but they look amazing and work very well :)

With that said, their names are really confusing. I don't know if they mean anything in Khazalid, but it would be nice if you could attach their armaments to the name as a paranthetical. Say, Vorkhul Drung (Rtoary Cannon) or Haraz Dron (Flame Mortar). Since the tanks appear to mostly share chassis, you could even give them shared names. The two T3 tanks are the same chassis, the two T4 ones are kind of the same chassis, and the T5 is obviously unique.

Not a huge problem, but it makes recruitment kind of confusing, leading me to recruiting the wrong tanks a few times.

@Vrooktar
I've released it. Thanks again for your permission and your amazing mods!

@Vrooktar
Nice, thanks! :D

@Doomwatcher
Absolutely! Great that you like it enough to make such an effort!

@Vrooktar
Hey mate! Love your work! Would you be okay with me releasing a submod that adds Tabletop Caps compatibility to your mods? I initially made it for myself, but I figured it might be useful to others as well. I’m only covering my favorite dawi/chorf mods, like yours and those from _D3erpyN3ewb_!