Warhammer Total War: Warhammer 2

[MadMaxHellfire]

But in SP your AI enemy really doesn't try to snipe your artillery

i must have installed the right mods because this happens all the times to me.

i've been toying with beastmen today (gave up and started mortal empires) and holy screeching goat their base infantry is teh weak. i can't fight anything, a t3 outpost is unbeatable, two full armies are not enough to take on half of the elves' army nearby, so i've been raiding his lawn for a hundred turns trying to rack -upkeeps in. yup, they definitely suck, but as long as i can bleat while hitting "end turn" i'm happy.

 

[Average Manatee]

But in SP your AI enemy really doesn't try to snipe your artillery

i must have installed the right mods because this happens all the times to me.

The AI sort of sends its cavalry to the sides and then dives in. If you have any kind of melee unit in between them and they artillery they'll just attack the melee unit (and you're beastmen, virtually your whole army is melee units). This is different from players where you can have like 4 melee defenders and they'll just charge in between them or literally through them (a player can just keep clicking through the defending unit to get through) to snipe your artillery.

 

[Olinser]

I've been playing Beastmen, and... is it just me or are they the most horrible faction?
For one, they are a horde faction, so your gameplay is: Take 2 armies and walk around doing the odd raze & battle while trying not to go bankrupt. Can't split up, either, because everyone will just come at you with multiple armies from way outside of viewing range.
But, alright, that hordes kinda suck was known.

Maybe their buildings offer something?
Nah, two must-have buildings to actually be able to afford two full armies, that's it. The rest is entirely straightforward.

Their special campaign ability is just the old-style WAAAGH! in even shittier.

The quest-line is just "go there, raid that". Would have done that, anyway, but at least it gives you a direction, I guess.

So maybe the battles are fun with them!
Uhm... every single unit (except chaos spawns, at least with Morghur) is a glass cannon. Except the chaff don't even do any damage, so they die immediately and can't even chaff right, they are worse than zombies.
So you just form one gigantic line and attack-move into the enemy while manually walking your faster units around to the back as a semi-cavalry.
Except if the enemy is heavy on ranged, then you better bring a second army or just watch your entire army melt due to low armor and (at best) shitty shields before they reach the enemy.
Cygors can't hit anything, either. Guess depth perception is a bitch with only one eye. Especially after playing VC with their necrofex (which hits most of the time and does melee much better as well), this is just comically bad.

The one thing I like is how the nomad lifestyle enables you to play kingmaker in some local wars.

Maybe SFO or another mod improves them significantly, but vanilla just isn't fun.

Yes, as I mentioned earlier I was going around getting all the achievements for winning with all the races on Very Hard, and Beastmen was absolutely one of, if not THE, worst win of everything. You have to destroy both Couronne AND Reikland even for the 'short' victory, and because of the idiotic way the AI acts, unless you absolutely bum rush them the first 30 or so turns, because both of them are the 'top' faction in confederations, you end up having to destroy the ENTIRE Empire AND Bretonnia, which is insanely annoying to do as a race that can't occupy territory.

As far as their army goes, yeah, they suck and have basically only 2 meaningful options:

1) 100% full vanguard deployment that lets you charge them 15 seconds into a game. Decent in multiplayer, but absolutely terrible in single player because this basically means you're stuck with low-tier infantry that, as you have cunningly identified, suck against anything they can't massively outnumber.

2) Stack Gorebulls, Minotaurs and a couple Cygor with a few of the top-tier beastigor/gor units to focus on monsters,and just take it on the chin and Minotaur rush them, while using Cygor to target high tier anti large that might do some damage to Minotaurs. Minotaurs and Gorebulls are ludicrously OP against anything smaller than they are, mainly because they have HUGE mass, and their attacks have them do massive gymnastic rolls through the enemies and throw infantry everywhere, so infantry simply does not hit them very much. Not even kidding, my Beastman campaign I had an army that included 2 Gorebull and 2 regular Minotaur units against a multiple army Skaven attack, just stacked those 4 on top of each other and the 2 Minotaur units both came away with over 1500 kills each, and only lost about 5 models each.

They're pretty vulnerable against higher-tier monsters, though, because they get stuck against them and then infantry can actually attack them.

But yes. Their army roster is total crap, just about all of their non-Minotaur tier 3 and below is worthless if you can get higher tier stuff, their mages suck, Cygor are one of the worst artillery fire in the game against an opponent capable of not moving in a straight line because the projectiles are painfully slow, and their cavalry is trash (but Minotaurs are nearly as fast anyway).

 

[Average Manatee]

But yes. Their army roster is total crap, just about all of their non-Minotaur tier 3 and below is worthless if you can get higher tier stuff, their mages suck, Cygor are one of the worst artillery fire in the game against an opponent capable of not moving in a straight line because the projectiles are painfully slow, and their cavalry is trash (but Minotaurs are nearly as fast anyway).

They have shadow magic which is pretty good with 2 decent AP AoE spells and the debuff that can help your shittier units deal with monsters so long as they aren't fighting armored with non-AP damage. The Centigors with throwing axes are pretty good (surprisingly good melee stats so they can run behind to take out enemy archers and then turn around and spam AP axes into the backs of the enemy front line). Of course the annoyance of Horde mechanics makes it hard to experiment with multiple unit types and cavalry sucks balls in sieges.

 

[thesheeep]

Uhm... every single unit (except chaos spawns, at least with Morghur) is a glass cannon. Except the chaff don't even do any damage, so they die immediately and can't even chaff right

Look at it from the positive side, when enemy is routing he can't outrun them.

Probably true, but for some reason I've mostly been fighting high-leadership factions in this run.

You have to destroy both Couronne AND Reikland even for the 'short' victory, and because of the idiotic way the AI acts, unless you absolutely bum rush them the first 30 or so turns, because both of them are the 'top' faction in confederations, you end up having to destroy the ENTIRE Empire AND Bretonnia, which is insanely annoying to do as a race that can't occupy territory.

Yeah, I just went about and did some stuff and ignored the victory conditions. To get a feeling for the Beastmen.
Then when I looked at the victory conditions I just thought "fuck this shit" - at that point, Reikland had already swallowed the entire Empire.
I had hoped for some epic battles, but playing reverse map painter while the enemy can just go behind my back and colonize again... nope, I'm outta here, you can have your dirty Empire!

Cygor are one of the worst artillery fire in the game against an opponent capable of not moving in a straight line because the projectiles are painfully slow,

It would really help if their single projectile would break apart in mid air and have at least some larger area of attack...
Or not just vanish like a rocket when hitting the ground, but keep on tumbling in a semi-random direction. You know, like a huge boulder actually would.

A late-game army with gorebulls, loads of minotaurs, chaos spawn and bestigors can be pretty fun. But getting there sure ain't.
Which is the opposite experience that I have had with most other factions - I didn't really like the late game battles with your uber armies that much, but the early-mid game battles with limited armies and only a few high tier units, that's pretty awesome.
That's also one of the reasons I like Lucky's Overhaul so much (it makes these uber-armies basically impossible) - too bad the author is working in the health service and therefore not exactly with tons of time on his hand to work on mods right now.

I might give them another go some time with SFO, though.
Can't be worse than vanilla.

 

[_V_]

Overall I would rate them the second strongest faction (after dwarves) on an army scale. The other issues with horde factions apply of course.

What lol. Aside from the -leadership cheese (which is literally just cheesing the game, has nothing to do with their army quality and I think there's at least 2 other factions with the exact same ability) they have very little. And Dwarves are one of the weaker factions due to no magic.

Well:
Dwarves: For me Belegar was had the strongest army so far. Combination of ranged units + heroes that buff them, pretty much melted all opposition. Bugman's rangers have regeneration while idle. All heroes can be equipped with craftable regeneration. They're all super tough an armored with high ranged damage. I didn't really notice "lack of magic". (But I suck at using offensive magic anyway. By the time I've put the enemies into a position where they'll not evade, I'm usually already winning anyway. So...) Only disadvantage was that their slow and fleeing enemies can't be mopped up satisfactorily.

Cheese: And to me Malagor + ~2 heroes with -leadership != cheese, IMO. With minotaurs charging that usually was enough to break many ememies right after contact. (Malagor + ~7 heroes with -leadership would be cheesing, IMO. A matter of opinion, I'd say.)

I find it interesting, that your experiences with cygors differ so much from mine. In my battles they usually rack up quite a kill count...

I guess it just shows that factions can be played several different ways

 

[Raghar]

Beastmen are supposed to skim around attack weak settlements. And only when they become stronger and have units that can siege they can obliterate empire capital.

They are weak dying victim of empire industrialism. Victims of civilization that can go out with a whimper, or when helped by Chaos, they can go out with a bang. Or perhaps they'd somehow manage to win. It would be so hard even with Chaos interfering, it would be immensely entertaining for Chaos.

 

[thesheeep]

I find it interesting, that your experiences with cygors differ so much from mine. In my battles they usually rack up quite a kill count...

Does difficulty make a difference for them?
I play on VH (the AI cheating on Legendary isn't something I want to deal with).
Maybe you played on a lower difficulty on units just don't really dodge? Not that I'm convinced that units dodge even on VH, mind you, not sure what influences their movement during different times.

 

[Raghar]

I find it interesting, that your experiences with cygors differ so much from mine. In my battles they usually rack up quite a kill count...

Does difficulty make a difference for them?
I play on VH (the AI cheating on Legendary isn't something I want to deal with).
Maybe you played on a lower difficulty on units just don't really dodge? Not that I'm convinced that units dodge even on VH, mind you, not sure what influences their movement during different times.

How many cygors do you have and for what purpose?

 

[Average Manatee]

Well:
Dwarves: For me Belegar was had the strongest army so far. Combination of ranged units + heroes that buff them, pretty much melted all opposition. Bugman's rangers have regeneration while idle. All heroes can be equipped with craftable regeneration. They're all super tough an armored with high ranged damage. I didn't really notice "lack of magic". (But I suck at using offensive magic anyway. By the time I've put the enemies into a position where they'll not evade, I'm usually already winning anyway. So...) Only disadvantage was that their slow and fleeing enemies can't be mopped up satisfactorily.

Just comparing Dwarves to the other gun factions:

Skaven has like 3x more powerful ranged, with skaven engineers giving more stackable map-wide buffs (range buffs!) and plague priests summoning chaff so that you don't even need a front line. Its absolutely insane, especially when you consider Skaven have overall much better income and growth rates.

Empire has better artillery IMO along with net of Amyntok which will freeze entire waves of enemy units at point blank range for 20s

Vampire Coast I'll admit I'm not really a fan of either, but Wind of Death is really sick.

Cheese: And to me Malagor + ~2 heroes with -leadership != cheese, IMO. With minotaurs charging that usually was enough to break many ememies right after contact. (Malagor + ~7 heroes with -leadership would be cheesing, IMO. A matter of opinion, I'd say.)

Are you playing on a lower difficulty? -20 leadership or so shouldn't be doing much on higher difficulties. On normal you tend to be able to overpower anything in melee pretty easily if you stack melee buffs.

I find it interesting, that your experiences with cygors differ so much from mine. In my battles they usually rack up quite a kill count...

Nah, anything artillery is pretty good since you can trick the AI into blobbing up and target the center of the mob to get 50 kills per shot. Cygors are actually quite good at this since they are tall and can throw right over the heads of your shorter troops. Still they aren't nearly the best artillery you can get.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

some time ago i watched a video about "single best unit you must field for every race" and for beastmen it mentioned cygors. and it was from a multiplayer point of view too.

here, the biggest obstacle stopping me from enjoying beastmen: names. what the fuck is a cygor? a defective cyborg? "hooved stuff". well, minotaurs have hooves too, why aren't they hooved stuff too? pretty much all the beastmen have hooves as far as i know. lizards have weird names too but you can just glance at skink, Saurus and KROXIGOR to understand what they are.

 

[thesheeep]

I find it interesting, that your experiences with cygors differ so much from mine. In my battles they usually rack up quite a kill count...

Does difficulty make a difference for them?
I play on VH (the AI cheating on Legendary isn't something I want to deal with).
Maybe you played on a lower difficulty on units just don't really dodge? Not that I'm convinced that units dodge even on VH, mind you, not sure what influences their movement during different times.

How many cygors do you have and for what purpose?

Two.
For the purpose of throwing rocks at my enemies, dummy!

Usually I aim artillery at the biggest threats, but since cygors can't hit shit, I only aim them at very slow or standing infantry (which might still be a high threat ranged unit, mind you).

 

[Raghar]

It's kinda funny, because my Cygors have typically 80-200 kills. And I typically manage to get (if I don't start with one) them very late, because I can't afford upkeep, and I need other building too.

I found these hard challenges with beastmen.

1. If enemy hits you and kills both of your hordes, you start new campaign.
2. Upkeep kills them.
3. When you win but your armies are half dead, another enemy faction would see EASY target, and jump at half dead beastmen armies.
4. Replenishment takes ages.
5. Wood Elves.
6. You need to kill unified empire, because Chaos spawned only with 3 armies, and one is dead already. So you need to hurry while they still provide a distraction.

Listed by order of severity, most severe listed first.

I typically don't have problem with Cygors can't hit a shit, because I can't afford Cygors. And when I do, I typically see target rich environment and Cygor hitting these ironbreakers, and mauling them, which was better out come than hitting its intended target, dwarf lord.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I find it interesting, that your experiences with cygors differ so much from mine. In my battles they usually rack up quite a kill count...

Does difficulty make a difference for them?
I play on VH (the AI cheating on Legendary isn't something I want to deal with).
Maybe you played on a lower difficulty on units just don't really dodge? Not that I'm convinced that units dodge even on VH, mind you, not sure what influences their movement during different times.

How many cygors do you have and for what purpose?

Two.
For the purpose of throwing rocks at my enemies, dummy!

Usually I aim artillery at the biggest threats, but since cygors can't hit shit, I only aim them at very slow or standing infantry (which might still be a high threat ranged unit, mind you).

life hack: select an artillery unit and keep alt pressed.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Holy shit Chaos needs a buff.
Second time playing Mortal Empires, this time as Bloody Hand.
I didn't go after the Empire right away (big mistake) and they confederated into a blob.

Chaos came, and they did...nothing. Like, at all. In Warhammer 1 they start razing cities left and right but here they somehow get killed off before they can do anything.
I don't know where Archaon is, but I guess he's jerking off in the north with his only stack, because the objectives panel says he's still active.

 

[_V_]

Normal difficulty, since I don't have any fun from enemies getting arbitrary buffs instead of better AI. And I don't think they dodge any better on higher difficulties...
Dwarf engineer also provides army buffs to ranged including improved range, dmg, reload time and ammo.
I haven't played skaven much, since all their good units are behind a paywall. They might very well be deadlier in their offensive capabilities (especially with ambush), but dwarves will still hold their own if enemies do get through while skaven just run and/or die.

On chaos:
Yeah, they are currently weirdy weak. But there will be several invasions. On my current playthrough with von Carstein, Archeron came in a second invasion around turn 170. (And was rofl-stomped by Manfred and I). Also weirdly, the chaos LL didn't give traits after beating them.
There are mods that buff the invasions again, but I haven't tried them.

On "winning" with beastmen:
Armies should always work in tandems. One strong army in secret raiding camp. One weak army in the open as bait.
Use the lord with the highest income buffs (sacking, post battle loot, etc) for high value targets. Use the secondary armies for low value target for training.
Focus on armies and non-walled settlements in the beginning.
Mostly ignore non-Empire/Bretonnia factions. If possible, even ally with them. Since Grimgor snowballs really bad with the current update, he'd make a good candidate.
Then it's just a matter of kicking Empire/Bretonnia often enough so that others take over their settlements. (I had a weird campaign, where I was fleeing HE while razing Empire. In the end, HE took over all Empire settlements.)

With alt-click artillery might actually be useful...

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah Chaos is kind of a joke...

Spoiler

2v4

Should at least have max XP like every other AI gets by now.

Pretty sure if I had a unit in the area where they spawned I'd be able to lightning strike every army in a single turn with a single army. Granted this isn't the true Archaon stack setup.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

It really is disappointing. I remember Chaos Invasions being scary in Warhammer 1, where you need a tooled up lord and army in order to beat them.
Here they get curbstomped by the bloody AI.
Chaos should have been buffed before Greenskins, imo.

Don't get me wrong, the Greenskin buff is great, but Chaos was in more need of an overhaul.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

for once i managed to get a good start with the plague rats, it was actually an excellent game, i conquered more than half the south america, almost no more lizards, both fags and midgets didn't dare to declare war, i even had 4-5 undercities scattered around.
systematic freeze.

 

[zapotec]

Yeah Chaos is kind of a joke...

Spoiler

2v4

Should at least have max XP like every other AI gets by now.

Pretty sure if I had a unit in the area where they spawned I'd be able to lightning strike every army in a single turn with a single army. Granted this isn't the true Archaon stack setup.

Oh well, you have a pretty cheesy army

 

[Average Manatee]

I fail to see how that's so cheesy. If instead of 6 Hydras I had 2 dragons, 2 hydras, and 2 Kharibdyss, would that suddenly be non-cheesy? It's not like that would necessarily be weaker, just more annoying to manage. Or, instead of 10 of the best Melee and Ranged units should I have had a random scattering of units that were worse in both (Executioners/Sisters of Slaughter/Darkshards/Corsairs)? The whole way the red line skills work basically tells you to not spread out across multiple categories like this. Or is it the fact that I don't have the usual 1/2 siege units and 2-4 cavalry units? Just running straight in works for sieges and there's no real to kill enemies running away, most enemy armies die instantly due to being in a siege/ambush and if not its easy to run down since I stack strategic movement bonuses anyway.

 

[Delterius]

tabletop caps mod is nice

 

[Kabas]

Seems like that orc confederation is a bit bugged, nothing happened after i defeated the enemy tribe boss.
I failed to notice at first the exact difference between rewards you get depending on the rank of your Waargh target. My dissapointment was immesurable when i realised that i couldn't recruit the lava arachnarok spider. I also couldn't recruit the exploding squigs for whom my Waargh trophy should have been suficient, another bug i guess.

So, i decided to try what i believe is the most vanilla option - Karl Franz(Mortal Empires)
-Humies are fun to play as
-I realised that i love Reiksguard
-I realised the value of trading
-And i also realised just how not intelligent the Ai in this game is
-Is it just the normal difficulty or some legendary lords are just super passive as an AI? I don't believe this Skarsnik guy was doing anything during the first few turns(took him out early) and Heinrich Kemmler is still sitting at his castle after more than 30 turns has passed.
-Decision to retake the wasteland under the Empire control proved to be a worthwhile one. My profits doubled the moment i took Marienburg and their regional unit is pretty amazing.
-I remember hearing some vague things about Mannfred growing out of control and now i am witnessing this. He took down the Averland and i got a hit to my authority, tsk.
-Decision to confederate with Stirland early proved to be a mistake and i also wasted too much turns removing some minor threats near the marienburg with my main army. Should have left the defence of this province to a freshly appointed elector count and rushed back to my home province.
-The Balthazar Gelt position seems to be a better suited one for controling the vampire threat, doesn't seem like he is doing anything useful here in his own south corner as an Ai

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

What is the reward for the big waaagh? I have exploding squigs for bigga and rachnarok for biggest, but I don't seem to have a bigga option.
I think there's a hidden confederation cooldown timer when you are playing as greenskins. I noticed after subjugating a tribe the confederate option is missing from the diplomacy screen.
I suspect that if you subjugate a tribe, and then kill another tribe's warboss soon after, you won't get the confederate option because of that hidden cooldown.

 

[Kabas]

I didn't confederate any tribe before that so i am not sure about this.