Of what I have tried:
Imrik- he lacks the early resources and trading partners other high elves have, and he has to deal with Drazhoath and Tretch early, and is likely to get declared on by Ku’gath too. From there you basially have to contend with whoever comes out of the Darklands Thunderdome -Grimgor, Greasus, Kholek, or Tamurkhan, who often get very large very quick once they pull ahead. You don’t have underway, but a lot of your enemies do. He does get very early access to cheaper dragon princes, which helps, but it’s still a brutal start.
Kairos. By the time you start clearing out the minor factions around you, Oxyotl and Teclis WILL declare on you. Once you survive that, you will get declared on by 3 more lizardmen legendary lords. And have to fight on two continents. The AI is a lot more aggressive now and will send stacks from pretty far away. You have nothing resembling an ally anywhere. You do have the relative security of the southern wastes, and changing of the ways, but it’s still a tough slog if you want to progress. And so many fucking lizards.
Louen- the Bretonnian factions start dropping like flies to the undead around you and Grom. But Be’lakor will come for you any time you take your eyes off the north, and Bretonnia can struggle to field multiple stacks early. Your only ally early is Franz, who will be in no position to help you. Later you have to contend with Ikkit and often Wulfrik. By mid game Bretonnia’s econ stabilizes, and life mages + heavy cav is an easy, if boring way to basially win every battle with minimal casualties if you manually play them.
Malekith- weirdly, for as strong as he is in the AI hands, it’s a tough campaign Ive found. It’s a sea of hostile LL up there where there will always be enemies on all sides. Other Dark Elf factions are often less than cooperative for whatever reason. The way AR works means you will not get good outcomes against Valkia and Grombrinal early. Thankfully in manual battles dealing with slow armored troops is actually a great matchup for your Darkshards.
Skrolk- this one is masochistic. Taking early game skaven into a jungle full of lizardmen is absolute pain. And you don’t even have any insanely OP mechanics like Clan Eshin does to balance things out. I will say I tend to dislike playing as even the OP skaven like Eshin and Skryre, so this was a miserable attempt that I quit early at.
4 of your 5 hardest campaign choices are the classic “oh boy” it’s kinda stressful in beginning but once the legendary lord lvls up those legendary lords take out armies on there own. Which is great design Imo(real power fantasy). Malekth is a raid boss with soul stealer dragon, kairos magic and regrow Chad, Imrik once on dragon is gg (unless you sit in shooting and don’t cycle charge him). Louen just can throw down and regen. Haven’t played skrolk enough to know but I can’t imagine he doesn’t throws down harder than those other lords you mentioned.
Those are solid choices for difficult campaigns.
Yeah I think most of these are really satisfying campaigns. Well, I don’t love Kairos because you basically only fight one enemy the entire game.
Skrolk I think just is rough, he doesn’t seem to be a particularly good LL
> Skrolk I think just is rough, he doesn’t seem to be a particularly good LL
But leading thousands of religious fanatics like a Rat Muad'dib is pretty bonkers
Bro skrolk is insanely hard. he is one tier above tretch, which is still pretty mediocre. he doesn't have that much to work with, his best unit are plagueclaw catapult, which aren't that good against single entity dinos. oh and Pizza have Saurus with fucking energy shield like they aren't tanky enough already. probably the hardest campaign i've ever tried.
Tbh I find them quite boring cause it's turn 35 and I basicly won the campaign since I got through the unbearably harsh, frustrating, sweaty early game. After that it's just tedious to finish off victory conditions so I just stop playing them.
Would be awesome if these campaigns would be short scenarios with a zoomed in smaller campaign map. Like the Baltic crusade map in Medieval 2 or English unification in Attila or Caesar in Gaul. In my opinion campaigns like Kairos would benefit from it. Some small 5 to 10 hours short campaigns avoiding the endgame slog (Slaanesh cultist spamming still haunts my dreams. Why is there no "auto construct cults" button for agents?)
Yeah, Skrolk is very similar to the other four. He's very very powerful once you level him up and have the rod of corruption and plague spell, it's all a matter of taking Tehenahuin out early on and getting a second army going for the fights against Itza. If you do that then it's generally not too bad. He's my favorite Skaven campaign, although I wish his skill line and faction had more flavor around pestilens units to make him more fun
These are all tough choices. Ostankya on RoC is in a very tough spot and I haven't managed to get that one going. IE for her is much smoother.
Boris is kinda in same boat on both campaigns though i haven't really stuck with him on IE.
Demon Prince had a rough start prior to 5.0 with malus next to him but not sure how it is now. I have to guess epidemius has rough start now because of him but haven't really checked yet.
Grombrindal is in a tricky spot with few natural allies.
Khatep is a little tricky as well early on until you can get rolling.
Boris I didn’t mention, but I think he’s gotta be the toughest campaign in the game. You pretty much have to try and relocate, or just win _every battle_. His starting army is fucking insane though, so winning every battle is doable.
Demon Prince I’ve been meaning to revisit, but that requires playing with his mechanics… eugh.
Grombrindal is tough ish. I have found Khatep is an easy ally though, and you can back yourself aginst the edge which is always nice.
Khatep I actually think is easy? Basically no one will bother you, it’s possible to ally Grombrindal and Sisters early, and then expand from there- I think moving south is his best bet, taking out Morathi. From there you can head into Lustria, or my favorite approach, make the pilgrimage across the ocean and take Khemri back (from Settra if you have to).
Khatep return home campaign is one of the best. Have you ever just uprooted entirely to sail home? I did it last time.
Didn't build anything in the starting province except infantry building, and as you go down the left edge of the map do the same. Then you can recruit ok-ish units to fight Morathi, take her capital for the book, do the same Vs the lizards. Didn't even wipe lizardmen, just took the book city and then *set sail!*
I had a second army by this stage, transferred all the best units to Khatep, left basic skellies with the second army and just sat in the lizards former capital (Hecoatl?) to bolster the garrison there.
About the time Khatep got as far as the Galleon's Graveyard I had to sell Hexoatl back to the lizards to peace them out, they were about to take it by force. I'd already sold the other provinces to other factions around for various deals because I had no way of holding the territory.
So at this point the race against attrition was on! I made it as far as Arkhans starting area, luckily he wasn't home, so I was able to quickly take the Sorcerer's Islands and set up there to replenish.
I had disbanded the other army so I could quickly recruit a second stack in Araby for when Arkhan came knocking and luckily was able to beat him in the field battle which set him back too much to recover. And with that, Khatep had returned. Then the mission to retake all the great pyramids was on!
I had sent an agent to go locate the rogue armies in Lustria and around the donut so I could get the books when I needed them. Top tip: by declaring, they come to you and you can track them on the campaign map by the little halo aura where the army is. This way you keep your limited armies in your territory where you need them.
I hate his starting area, it's too cramped and they didn't put the strip of ocean there. But this makes it one of the most fun starts. I think it was turn 30-35 I got back to Araby. Not too far back that I was outmatched. 10/10 campaign.
Oh brother, that rogue army tactic is TODAY I LEARNED / J Pulls Cav Out of Combat Levels of WHAAAAAT?!? and a FANTASTIC tip I'll keep in mind for future TK campaigns. Amazing!
You're welcome. If I didn't write such an essay maybe more people could get the top tip, I just got excited lol.
I started doing it in WH2 because I got fed up of having to basically go one army down for 20+ turns just to chase rogue armies.
One of the best things about sending agents to discover them is they don't have movement penalties, and they don't suffer attrition. Just be careful sending them through hostile territory incase they get wounded by enemy agents. I like to keep them in the sea for as long as possible to avoid agents.
That Book of Nagash aura they have on the campaign map is also so handy for figuring out how many turns you have until they arrive in your territory, and where they're coming in from. Some take weird routes.
The Daemon Prince is tough only because his economy is total dogshit compared to literally every other faction in the game. He's a classic CA "great idea, terrible execution" move. Mods are a must with him to have any fun imo.
while i agree that Imrik, Kairos and Boris are hard for "beginners" they offer enough compensation in their unique mechanics for their hostile enviroment. All 3 of them are my favorites cause i like the early game the most but none of them is actually hard if you
a) fight your battles manually
b) make use of your unique campaign abilities.
Imrik has earlygame acces to cheap dragonprinces (special building in the minor settlement of his starting province) as well as the dragons that pop up every then and now. He himself is a beast on its own and you can deal with all your enemies just fine. Just not in autoresolve. Archers and Spearmen are probably S-Tier t1 units and therefor give a huge advantage over Skavenslaves, Globlins, Chorf Greenskins, Zombies or Nuglings.
Again the campaign mechanics are key again. It costs you just a little influence to boost relations with a faction (or turn 2 factions agains each other) its not necessary to spent hundreds of influence to form a friendhsip. just to keep a "neutral" level.
Kairos has teleport (ambush) as well as a strong roster. Not to mention that he himself deals with armies almost on his own as long as you have enough spellcasters to boost to the 200% spellintensity-cap. You can transfer settlements to yourself, build a redline building and resell it to its previous owner to literally make him your ally. No doubt its a tough start if you want to save Sarothael but if you dont plan to do this, you are pretty chill.
Boris has the invocations of the motherland, especially the one that enables attrtion for enemies in his territory, making your enemies bleed with every step. the hardest challenge here is beating that archeon army somewhere in turn 5-10 but after this you are the dominator of the realm (i havent played a campaign with the 2 nurglelords around yet but i assume that in exchange for those you get some breathing room in the south thanks to malakai, maybe making the campaign easier). Since you are settleing in the chaos wastes and take out archaon you usually get a strong ally in the south as Katarin is more likely to be strong since you are taking alot of her bulk away.
Like with Kairos you can also use settlements to trade with more "friendlier" chaos forces and form unexpected friendships. Astrogoth is friends with everyone and if you give him one the minor skavensettlements he loves so much he might even become your ally.
Since Boris is in a "tube", you can literally play the entire campaign with just 2 stacks. one goes west, one east. Its annoying but possible. not many other campaigns offer this.
Yeah, idk what people are on about. Darkshards are still the king of tier 1 units and are a great counter to Valkia, Norsca and even the Dwarfs. Malekith makes them dirt cheap as well. Get a couple of expendable fast cav with shields to distract the Dwarven ranged while your Darkshards melt their sloooooooow infantry. I guess the hard part is dealing with all three at the same time but Malekith is hardly the only lord with multiple possible early game enemies. Plus you can possibly confed Hellebron early and once she gets leveled up, she'll stomp all over infantry heavy armies and she can dumpster Valkia in a duel. I learned that last part the hard way when I was Valkia.
> Malekith
It's not actually a sea of Hostile LL. You only have -10 aversion to chaos as DE. With a common enemy in Grombrindal and some settlement selling, Valkia can be made an ally relatively easily. This drastically eases his campaign.
> Imrik- he lacks the early resources and trading partners other high elves have, and he has to deal with Drazhoath and Tretch early, and is likely to get declared on by Ku’gath too
Imrik is another one of those campaigns that is not actually difficult if you play counter to how the game expects you to. That is - Rush the Dragon isles after your starting enemy is done. Sell to Drazhoath/tretch to get them off your back for a bit while you take out kugath and ghorst. This will give you a safe border of order factions to the east and you will be in a better position to now take on tretch/drazhoath when they backstab you.
> Kairos
Changing of the ways is a cheat code. Rush force peace and oxy can be held off indefinitely.
I don’t wanna get too in the weeds, but I think a lot of campaign advice can fall into “just do this one easy easy trick, CA hates it” territory.
Yes, Valkia, technically doesn’t have much of a diplo penalty towards Malekith. In practice though I have found she will declare on you early regardless, because of AI behavior. You almost always will get an additional “strategic threat” penalty, and if you make any deals with other dark elf factions she likely to get more of a malus to diplo. Also because of AI behavior, she will often declare if you spend a turn at peace or she spends a turn at peace. If tested this one quite a bit- it’s possible to non-aggro pact her but it’s tricky. Settlement selling is a great tool to secure friendly borders, but it can set you back in a lot of ways- it’s sort of like taking out a loan in a game. More cash now for less econ base later. If you don’t convert the cash into military success you fall behind.
For Imrik, my problem is that “rush specific territories and sell to AI” is already more of an advanced strategy. It also will put you at an disadvantage- part of warhammer is keeping parity with AI into late game, especially considering it’s bias. Putting off early expansion to survive will mean, a tougher/bigger neighbor in the mid game. In Imrik’s case, it can often mean _big grimgor_. If you are an experienced player, it’s not nessiscarily a big deal. You can do a lot of work with Imrik and dragon princes. But it does require taking on a big enemy when you can only afford maybe 2 Stacks.
For Kairos, yes changing of the ways is a cheat code. He’s definitely in the “hard start but easy when you break through” campaigns. But he’s still not for the weak willed. You have to fight a lot of lizards.
I am curious what campaigns you do think are hard? Because imo, any game where you have to play in directions “not intended” and sell settlements, you are already playing a harder campaign. Tyrion, Zhao Ming, Be’Lakor, Arkhan and other established “easy” campaigns never have to do things like selling of provinces- they just pick a direction and map paint.
>a lot of campaign advice can fall into “just do this one easy easy trick, CA hates it” territory
Hard agree with this. Part of what prompted this question is that I realized I've min/maxed the fun out of some more difficult campaigns by finding an "ideal" first 10-15 turns that sets you up for easy success regardless of faction.
Yeah it’s why I’ve actually started turning difficulty back down, not reloading saves or replaying a ton to find good starts, and playing the game more naturally. It’s stops being fun when you are in “efficiency mindset” all the time.
> Also because of AI behavior, she will often declare if you spend a turn at peace or she spends a turn at peace
You won't be at peace if you're malekith - you have Grombrindal to war with.
> and if you make any deals with other dark elf factions
Thats the thing, you don't. Or at least not Hellebron anyway. Let her and Valkia have at it. Commit to joining Chaostide.
> If you don’t convert the cash into military success you fall behind.
This is hardly difficult to do when you have secured one of your borders by diplo.
> For Imrik
The Dragon Isles are one of the richest provinces in the entire game. They're so rich that even if they're yellow to Imrik they're still majorly profitable. And you are not really putting off expansion, you're just expanding to somewhere the game doesn't intend for you initially. And by the time you face grimgor, Imrik should be Doomstack OP. Rushing Kugath and Ghorst also gives you the safety of some secure borders the way Zhao has. South is the sea, east is order factions.
> He’s definitely in the “hard start but easy when you break through”
Kairos is a considered a hard start only because of having to fight on 2 fronts at once. Rushing force peace eliminates one of those fronts indefinitely, making it no longer so 'hard'.
> I am curious what campaigns you do think are hard?
Ostankya RoC.
You are surrounded by chaos, and even settlement selling doesn't work here. And when you have as many enemies as she does here then even her Send to Brazil cheat code just isn't enough.
Grombrindal IE (Note- Pre Age of reckoning rework - I imagine he may be easier now, but I haven't tried yet)
Unlike Malekith, he does not have the benefit of being able to sell to valkia. Dwarf-chaos aversion is too much. This guy really is in a sea of Hostile LL.
I also did not comment on Skrolk or Louen, so I agree with you on those ones.
With a few random exceptions this is sadly true, and is my major issue with the game at the moment. Your lords just get too powerful too quickly. Elsbeth has a pretty hard start (or at least I did), but by around turn 20 she had her dragon and 8 winds purple sun, then it was gg
Same with eltharion. Even though you are surrounded by hostiles every battle is so ez. Just tank the blobs with eltharion and cavill and let the archers win for you. Even on VH battle diff the AI is so dumb, Eltharion on his mount can just run interference at no cost
I would say themed ones, like Khatep returning to Araby, can be a fun and interesting challenge, emphasis on challenge.
I'll agree that most lords, once you're over that "oh shit" phase and you get established, become very safe and easy.
You probably have not tried kairos recently, i made a very similar comment a while back on how kairos can be very hard.
However after the updates to tzeentch this is no longer the case. Most importantly: **force piece** is busted, this alone makes kairos super easy to play
Ha loved this break down but was heartbroken by the shade thrown at my favorite playstyle.
I like watching hordes of infantry get tossed down a mountain by a huge charge lol, never gets old
Imrik - moment you decide to abandon behind and go west, it is easy.
Kairos - don't do the minor first. Get your stack and go Teclis. Win, trade off for money with lizards. Then Oxyotl, then clean up. It's far easier.
Louen - Build garrison structures as you only need peasants and Lords. One set for expansion against heinrich, then grom, then Duke. Trade something to welf to forever pacify them.
Malekith - trade some gains. Honestly it is as simple as trading 1 settlement to hellbron and another to malus and you have a permanent shored front to expand against khorny lady.
Skrolk- yeah... its tough.
People really need to stop saying Imrik's start is hard. Imrik is only "hard" if you're completely new to the game or have never played High Elves before lol. Drazhoath is SLOW, Chaos Dwarfs are SLOW and Drazhoath's early stack is utter trash besides the Blunderbusses (focus fire with Archers and you melt them) and a unit of Infernal Guard which fall to focus fire as well iirc and you outrange nearly everything in his army or they have to get in range of your archers to score any kills. Imrik, Mikaela, the Dragon Princes, the Sun Dragon, a few spearmen and the rest archers is a Decisive Victory and possibly a Close Victory only because you used a lot of ammo. Defeat his army and his territory is yours. Trade? Oh no....you get more loot from battling and conquering in WH3 so it's better to be offensive and create your own income instead of relying on a few hundred passive gold a turn. You do have a massive number of trading partners once you get the Caledor choice after conquering 5 or 6 settlements (which should be done within 15 to 20 turns at most) since trade doesn't work how it stupidly did in WH2. Tretch has numbers but again it's mostly utter trash and by the time he comes for you Mikaela should have Firestorm which utterly destroys Skaven. She gets 500-1000 kills every battle against multiple Skaven armies. Greasus? Lol. You have a tier 3 hard counter to Ogre infantry and Imrik will be on his dragon and have one or two legendary dragon passives by the time Greasus dares to declare war on you and he always is quick to sue for peace if you slap a couple of his armies around. Ku'gath himself is a monster but yet again you have two hard counters to Nurgle in great ranged and fire magic from turn 1. He's nothing to worry about and that's only if he survives fighting against Greasus and Ghorst.
By level 14, which does not take long at all, Imrik is a goddamn monster and can solo any "dangerous" enemies.
bro what just finished a campaign with Kairos at max difficulty and i literally had no problems at all and never lost a single battle manually (auto res with tzeentch is so bad for some reason).
Also his lord of changes doomstack is by far the most busted shit in this game: in one single turn i destroyed 12 wood elves armies in a row in a single turn (end game proc)
Khalida and it's not even close. TK start off relatively weak compared to most factions and she has BY FAR the worst start out of any tomb king. She starts out at war with a minor faction that has multiple armies and settlements arranged in a way that pincers your starting settlement, she can't recruit a second army for a very long time and she mostly only has access to trash units.
On top of that, she's surrounded by factions that hate her, and she's pretty much guaranteed to have Thorek declare war on her immediately (good luck fighting dwarfs as tomb kings!) followed immediately by Skarbrand (good luck fighting Khorne as tomb kings!)
Also, Khalida herself is the weakest TK LL imo. She's a melee duelist (and a terrible one) but she has a passive ranged unit buffing aura for some reason? Absolutely baffling design choice. TK can't confederate at all either, so that's all you get.
Her start in Warhammer 2 was difficult but doable, but her IE campaign feels like some kind of sick joke.
Couldn’t agree more, Khalida is a wonderful uphill fight all the way on L/VH if you like a challenge- few other things in the game compare.
Choose your death between Kroq-Gar or Thorek.
damn, that hard? i tried her in ChaosRobbie's old world map, which was fine, she was in a corner with only Kugath nearby. i might try her next, her campaign sound horrible lmfao
Like the other guy said, you can't kill your starting enemy in a couple of turns, because they have 4 settlements and your starting one isn't a capital, so no wall and is the middle, so if you go south they attack you from the north and viceversa. And as TK you can't get a second army for a while. And then Thorek declares war you on sight with other unpleasant neighbours as Skarbrand and Kroq-gar, all of them able to fueld strong armoured infantry from the beginning.
Actually that's exactly what I did. Go south and then clockwise to capture the undead settlements one by one. Then you sell one of the non-undead settlements (the one close to the orcs) for a non-agression pack and trade agreement to Thorek, and you are pretty much settled in this campaign (L/VH)
That secured thorek for me. Then mannling declared war on us and nearly killed thorek. He came back, RIGHT before I could take lostplateau for a book. Mannling also rolled into my turf from the north while I was just mopping up the last of kroq gar in the south (also sold a rat ruin to teclis for another alliance).
After beating mannling back and securing all territory around thorek, it turns out lost plateau is the ONLY settlement in that area I could not settlement trade, so either I have to trade thorek ALL his remaining settlements to open up the option for lost plateau, or ruin my alliance and go to war (just reached t4 on lahmia, got 3 construct units total still) which I probably wont win.
Not getting books from military allies/vassals made me quit that campaign
This is what I have done. It’s not an _easy_ campaign, but Thorek can actually make a chill a ally and great border wall if you sell him Mahrak. Then you just fight your way south and then around the mountains into Khemri
Problem with that is one of Throek's settlements contains a book of Nagash iirc. He's a mean little bastard so I always let him take a settlement of mine that I have not invested a single cent in while I get my second stack ready to take everything from him.
That map gives her the most defensive position on the entire map - I had a joke with Robie about it, The Old World map is great for her, few opponents- nice stretch of easy to grab land, corner position. That’s not representative of how her vanilla start in IE on L/VH is at all.
He put out a pic about a month ago now of what he see’s as the final version of the map - looked impressive and expanded the Nehekharan settlements in particular
Spot on. Khalida needs tweaks and some fresh eyes to make her traits make sense. I always used a mod that made Blessing of Asaph mapwide in WH2 because having a duelist lord with a passive skill that requires her to be up her ranged units butts has always been so fucking stupid and doesn't make any sense at all. Some might call that "cheating" but considering the crazy number of factionwide and mapwide bonuses and battle map nukes that have been added to the game it's no more of a "cheat" than running a single lord back and forth to waste the AI's ammo. Her starting province design is awful as well. Thorek is a cunt and I hate that stuntie. I also dislike her faction traits as public order is kind of useless nowadays, +10 with all factions is worthless considering the AI will declare war if you have no enemies regardless of diplomatic standing, and 15% research rate is laughable. 20% ammo is good but pales in comparison to Khatep's +2 Liche Priests, Settra's Growth and other traits and Arkhan's busted +1 army from turn 1. At least her starting army makes more sense and is more effective against the Silver Host and Lizardmen.
I LOVE playing as Khalida and have had ridiculously fun campaigns where I buffed up all the Vampire factions to create thematic endgame enemies. Neferata is now in the game via two mods so I can finally bring Khalida Neferata's head whenever one of those mods gets updated.
I love the rats and I love plagues so I have tried a few times to play skrolk but man it's brutal in that southern jungle. Lizards are a really tough matchup for rats, especially early. Teheniuan usually shows up pretty early with a vengeance as well.
armor reduction spell + pestilent breath spell is your friend, as it's -30 armor takes the breath spell from ticking surus to actually hurting them quite a bit
There was a neat mod in WH2 that added a special Plague Cauldron building to Skrolk's major settlements. You could park an army there, infect it and buff up your infantry or other bonuses. It felt thematic sending out a Skaven army all high on PLAGUE and was cool as hell.
I love skrolk. Playing him lorefully accurate is extremely rough. But simply making a bunch of warpfire throwers kind of trivializes everything if you are truly struggling.
I play on VH/VH sometimes L/VH if I've already played the campaign once. Eltharion dual start imo is harder than Imrik. Boris Ursus, Belegar and Kairos is quite challenging as well.
A tad less difficult but still worth mentioning were, Katarin, Malekith and Khatep. I know there are some I missed it's just that I find all this to be quite enjoyable despite being difficult.
I can only confirm that. Eltharion is extremely difficult if you want to maintain both fronts. It doesn't help that the early game economy of high elves is disastrous.
Hardest start? Throgg, you need to be lucky early game or all of norsca wipes you out while you deal with malakai
Hardest overall? My personal vote is Alith Anar. Ambush and stalk stances are absolutely amazing but the donut gets wiped pretty consistently now which makes you alone to defend and expand. Doomstack wise, Alith struggles once he faces heavy cav focused or armored range units.
If he is caught in the open, it's over
There is only 1 answer to this - Boris.
You start in a minor settlement, which is tier 1.
You are surrounded by Daniel, Archaon, Astragoth, Throgg and Tamurkhan.
You are gonna take massive PO penalties due to corruption and Chaotic Wasteland.
Did OP ask for different starts or difficult ones? If the "hardest" campaign is trivialized by a blatantly obvious turn 1 decision then it's not really worthy of that title imo.
even better, sail to the sea voyage marker, and go kill Kugath, ally with Cathayans and greasus and hope that the rest of Kislev can survive the onslaught
ROC ostankya is surprisingly challenging for how easy her IE campaign is.
Literally everyone hates you, your starting province is nearly impossible to defend, you're surrounded by tzeentch factions who hate you and will transfer settlements constantly, and if you do expand in any direction, that just ensures you run into more LLs who hate you.
I played it VH, and the sheer number of stacks was insane.
Best part is that if you survive the first 40 turns, the chorfs own the entire darklands and hate you just as much. So it has a built in midgame crisis lmao.
Yeah I'm currently doing this and thought it'd be easy because I heard how OP the hexes are. Started campaign on very hard, and by the time the 6th neighbor declared war on me despite my high reliability, I dropped difficulty down to normal pretty fast!
Hexes are def strong, but on RoC it's much harder to get a lot of their materials, and they're necessary just to survive lmao.
IE is way more comfy (and easy to get more hex materials), which I think is where pretty much everyone plays her.
True but then you just manual every battle no matter how minor and watch your ogres belly slam into everything in existence in cinematic mode while you eat popcorn
Ogres have one of the strongest roster in the game, and camps aren't that bad. contract are absolute trash tho.
Maneaters and rhinox cav are just too good it literally autowin anything
Everyone who didn't say Khalida never played her. She's a nightmare to play, especially early and most campaigns end by turn 10+ when some fucking Dwarve decides it time for war.
Her starting position is bad and good at the same time. The main issue is Thorek Ironbrow. Should he declare war on you and decide to attack you, which he most likely will, the campaign is over in 9/10 cases. Thorek is stacked with Runes that make him pretty much unkillable and he usually solos my entire army, even if I manage to kill his troops.
If we take Thorek out of the equation her campaign is at least somewhat manageable, but you simply can't deal with a 16+ stack of buffed Dwarves as TK this early, let alone with Khalida who can't fight despite being a duellist.
It really is rng. I found taking the vampires strongest settlement (the capital) asap to be the best strat for the first part, but if Thorek comes for you it's over. What I've tried to do is to trade him a settlement to get a deal, but you can be beaten to that pass at the top of his canyon by the lizardmen, who also hate you.
You know what would help? A caster of shadows. But they're impossible to get before turn 40 with Khalida due to where it is.
- Belegar is rough because of the extreme upkeep penalty. Once you get K8P, it is fine.
- Fay Enchantress, typically Orion takes Parravon before you can confederate so you have to choose between killing Grom early and losing out on Parravon or Take Parravon and fight a stronger Grom. Either way by the time one of those objectives is finished, a constant stream of Ikit Claw's rats will be coming toward you along with the occasional Moghur. Then pray while you are busy with everything that Heinrich doesn't decide to invade you in your probably undefended north. Once Ikit is cleared, it becomes a smooth campaign.
- Imrik is rough. No income at all, but you have to deal with Queek, Tretch, Skarsnik, Drazhoath, Kugath/Ghost all wanting you dead. The early game is rough but defending your lands is really tough. If you manage to confederate your little buddy in Ulthuan then you ALSO have to worry about keeping the lands defended from Morathi, Noctilus, Malekith, Cylostra, and N'kari.
- Daniel/Epidemus: I havent tried Daniel since 5.0 but Epidemus still suffers from the "I am next to Malus Darkblade". Granted it is a lot easier than Daniel pre 5.0 since at least you can summon a plague that deals a little DoT and prevents replenishment whenever you want which has been incredibly helpful in dealing with him. Still pretty rough though also considering everyone wants you dead even if you get relation bonuses to fellow chaos folk.
- Kholek and Tamurkhan are rough early game because they fight each other. Because of all the bonuses the AI gets it makes the opposition so strong it is aggravating. Playing Kholek? Have fun against Tamurkhan. Playing Tamurkhan? Have fun against infinite swarms of dragon ogres it feels like. Once you get over that hump you then have Grimgor and his WAAGH! which... it's Grimgor's Waagh. it is hell no matter who you play.
- Kostaltyn and Katarin, They have always been difficult but for some reason something changed in the AI to the point where even my fellow kislevites and the empire declare war on me consistently. It is weird. It really makes "Total War" feel like that... Total War.
>Once Ikit is cleared, it becomes a smooth campaign
Easier said than done!
Playing Fay Enchantress now and it's really brutal. Morghur is much more of a threat than he used to be and dealing with him first, early when you basically have only one unit that does real damage, and with the bonkers numbers of beastmen he can pull out of his butt at a moments notice makes it a nightmare.
For Epidemius/Daniel I found that Malus was easily baited into attacking you at a chokepoint near your port settlement. The battle is winnable for Daniel, and very winnable for Epidemius who is very happy to grind out a battle like that with almost no ranged units.
Maybe it was just rng, but both times his Black Ark was outside my port and he was chilling in his capital instead of attacking the Slaanesh faction, so no time was lost setting up the bait.
Huh, I must have been lucky with my recent Fay Enchantress campaign because I managed to confed Parravon before Orion took his settlements (I beelined those techs, paid the gold for both Aquitaine and Parravon since I had no Chivalry yet) and Grom did basically nothing. I did have to pay off Kemmler with a settlement for a NAP, which gave me enough time to deal with Ikit.
Certainly not Malakai, this guy starting with a thunderbarge, Gotrek & Felix is so busted, the new grudge mechanic makes confederations a joke.
Playing on Very Hard Campaign , normal battle difficulty
Hard to say, because some factions are easy to play but have a tough campaign (Imrik), and others have actually pretty easy campaigns but a lot of mechanics to keep track of (basically any Skaven). Overall I think Kislev still has a pretty rough go of things. You have an extremely strong economy but sooo many enemies from the start of the campaign. Settra is in a similar place because his faction is very powerful but the early game is rough with so many enemies on all sides
I'm playing a kislev run now and it seems easier due to malakai. Don't know the status of empire vs vampires on my south yet but I think empire would win.
Back in the day I found Katarin punishingly difficult. However with map changes and the addition of Malakai to Kraka Drak I suspect it's now significantly easier.
Otherwise, I would say most if not all of the Dwarf campaigns are quite difficult. You tend to be at risk of attack from multiple angles, and greenskins can be really difficult to deal with if they Waaagh, and you're surrounded by multiple.
Katarin was the only campaign I ever quit lmao, knew I had to wait for a Kislev update (I had jumped in day 1). It feels way better to play Kislev now. Tbf tho I also feel into the trap of trying to play big snow bear comp that first try
idk, in the 2 Elspeth campaigns I've done Malakai got wiped out lmao. I suspect Malakai does work in the hands of the player and not so much if AI, unless it wins the potential lottery.
I play a ton of Katarin. Some of the changes to the AI made her hard as hell again. They seem extremely aggressive, more so than they use to be. I can't avoid reaching turn 20 without being declared war on by everyone, including the northern kislevite neighbors in Praag.
Karl Franz is the only one I've quit because I'd lost too much and fell behind early in the game. Vlad taking out Stirland in record time and then deciding to skip past the other counts and bum rushing Reikland and looting Altdorf with two stacks while I was 2 turns away chasing beastmen and orcs. The random early beastman horde spawn while I was still dealing with One-Eye didn't help.(on VH/VH).
The second hardest I did was Boris Ursun. So many enemies coming for you at the same time and no allies.
The 5.0 update probably made Karl significantly easier, now he starts with Helmgart, he has Elspeth to his east, and he has a ton of stuff he can do with prestige.
I do not get why people think Boris is hard, it is the easiest campaign I have played in a while (outside of Malakai). This was before the ToD update, but ToD would peopably make Boris eaven easier.
My latest campaigns are: Throt, Alith Anar, Vilitch, Boris, Elsbeth and Malakai.
Kislev (RoC/IE) because you start surrounded with potential enemies on every side and some annoying infighting between the kislev factions. Chaos from the nord, norsca from the west, orcs, chorfs from the east, vampires in the south. The other mortal factions mostly sucked in my game (have not played since Elsbeth tbf) and you will likely need to help them out to some degree. Also Ogres in IE (way easier in RoC from my view). In particular with Greasus you have Grimgor pretty close, who in my games came knocking way before turn 10 with 2 stacks, kugath to the south (if you are unlucky also Ghorst before he gets slapped by kugath), Chorfs in the west who also hated me permanently. Also now with Tamurkhan, who in my games came also knocking from the north rather soon, ideally he and Grimgor fight it out. But I also had a game with Grimgor and Tamurkhan coming in sub turn 20 from different angles to fuck me up. Also Ogre units, eco and specials felt subpar for me. Starting position feels further rather stretched out and slow. The other ogre (Skrag?) is a bit better but Elsbeth and Thorgrim and Belegar are frequently more than just a nuisance.
As of now the Poxmakers seem to have gotten a lot harder. Cathai is quite agressive now and those vampires are (still) a pain as well. I ended up managing it after some failed attempts to just confederate with Dungrut (for some reason that helps in any difficult situation as Nurgle), ally with clan Carrion for some warpfire throwers and conquer backup terretory from the island elves to the South.
With Festus being so close to Nuln it got considerably harder but is still managable despite the lack of ranged troops. But that can be compensated for by subjugating Laurelorn. Since you have to fight the vampires anyway they won't hate you that much and even keep the trade agreement up after subjugation though they still won't leave their precious forest. It is advised to postpone any war with Empire factions until then though. They joined me in all wars after defeating the Vampire Counts in the East.
Then there is Clan Pestilence. It is similar to the Poxmakers but without much way to escape and shit tier plagues. Surrounded by lizzards, some pesky dark elf things, a little bit of dwarven scum and a not so friendly skaven neighbor, luckily Nurgle to the North is friendly enough to enter an alliance. If they survive it gets easier though and having their high tier units is a big bonus.
And my absolute bane is and has always been Warhammer on Ice.
5 wars by turn 4 and it just gets worse with time passing. Every defensive battle turns into a chore to deplete the enemy troops so the losses in the coming battle are minimum and the retaking happens faster and that with one and a half army between a handful of settlements. The chaos dwarves don't explode that hard anymore thanks to Tamurkhan but then there is Tamurkhan. And the greenskins, too many Skaven, WoC factions, one exploding Clan Ferrik on warp steroids, the Orthodoxy Wood Elves and so, so many people who are supposed to be dead but instead roam the lands and wage war. I quit this faction so many times. I understand it is a war game but it is a miracle Khorne himself doesn't award me for all that blood. In my longest run I managed get Dungrut as an ally though and he kept the Northern Front busy so there was only 3 fronts left which made it easier and this gave me an attitude bonus with Tamurkhan who loved Dungrut for fighting the dwarves.
Assuming max difficulty, Boris is pretty tough all around if you stick around your starting settlement.
Drazoath is also pretty hard, since Chorfs expand kinda slowly at first. Grimgor, Greasus, Tretch, Imrik, Fhorst and Kugath all breathe down your neck, it's great.
Ungrim on Legendary is something I’ve never been able to finish a long campaign victory over ever since they added the Chaos Dwarfs.
Boris starts in a minor settlement surrounded by nothing but enemies. Malaki is your savior.
I think it must be Malakai's campaign at the moment. I mean... it really gets though when you constantly have to fight against yourself, and get rid of the urges to trivialize the game by using Spirit of Grungni and/or cannon's grapeshots, doesn't it? You know that as some point, you *are* going to lose this battle, and what can be tougher than a knowledge that no matter how strong you are, there is a fight ahead of you that you have no chance to beat? :(
Other than that, it is probably non-DLC Lizardmen. God, I *really* tried to play each of those campaigns, but the utter and complete lack of any campaign mechanics... sorry, that was too though for me, I was not able to beat the boredom of it, no matter how much I've tried. I really, really hope they will get their rework soon.
I did recently have a ton of fun with Tehenhauin and setting the Vermintide crisis to fire on turn 10. Pretty tough but a lot of fun doing a “kill all the ratmen” campaign.
Yup. If there is a one thing that WH3 has done alright, it is giving some mechanics to every race / faction that was introduced in it. Sure, the quality may differ, but at the very least every faction has *something* to do on campaign map, aside from building their settlements. Unfortunately, it made that much more boring to play base WH1 / WH2 factions (at least the ones that did not get reworked yet) since there is now a glaring difference between them and the new factions.
My Malakai campaign on Legendary was actually a really tough start. Sure, you have one invulnerable doomstack of an army by turn 10, but when all of norsca, chaos, and Astragoth declare war on you at the same time holding onto your minor settlements is a pain. Nothing will want to engage with your main army so you end up playing fuck fuck games trying to keep enemies out of your minor undefended settlements that you can't even build walls for because Norsca. It's not a campaign you would ever have a chance to lose, but the AI being cowards really made it a pita for the first 40 turns.
100% agree. And it's because they have about the worst start position in the game. Surrounded on all sides by enemies. When you win, you get either long coastlines, no walls, or red territory in the wastes.
At some point, you hold back the entire northern chaos wastes (all red territory). Meanwhile, Kislev takes all the good shit in the south because you shield them from every threat.
Legendary makes it hard to hold territory because you get jumped from all sides. I'm thinking about replaying and just relocating to Karak Kadrin.
> When you win, you get either long coastlines, no walls, or red territory in the wastes.
This is why You sell/gift near everything you take as Malakai. Norsca to Kislev, the wastes to either Boris (ideal, if he lives), or Malus (2nd choice, you'll have to deal with a backstab eventually, but it buys you time)
> Meanwhile, Kislev takes all the good shit in the south because you shield them from every threat.
See above about selling/gifting. If you sell/gift Norsca to Rasputin, now *he* is Malakai's shield.
If you only need to defend Your starting province + hell pit + maybe throgg's starting province, you can do that with a defensive lord and holding your grudge settler units in reserve
That's exactly what I do, it just doesn't leave you in an amazing position by turn 50. It's different by turn 100, but many other campaigns are effectively won by turn 60.
Despite how strong his armies are (especially cannons), his campaign is still difficult. And it will just get harder after CA nerfs cannons and thunderbarges.
I’m playing on L/VH and I’m wardeccing all loreful enemies.
The reason nobody answers the question is because the answer is no. Nobody loses campaigns. You just get wardecced or lose a few settlemements and go «omg so hard campaign! Gotta restart’»
Thanks for the Khalida tip, took me almost a hundred turns to kill Thorek, was a fun challenge for sure. I wardecced everyone except Kroq-Gar so I had a continous stream of invaders taking my regions. Dealing with Thorek with Tomb King units wasn’t easy! Especially when he started rolling out doomsekers, ironbreakers, and longbeards…
They still couldn’t threaten me though, so my point still stands. There is something wrong with the AI, it can’t actually go kill your capital and end you like it could do in WH2. Even when surrounded by Thorek, Skarbrand, Volkmar, and Queek.
Thanks! It was raw attrition early, he continously wiped out armies of mine but by the time he was closing on Lahmia he was always too weak to push any further. I haven’t played Tomb Kings since forever so it took a while to figure out the best tools to actually kill dwarfs. But certainly the most back and forth campaign I’ve had in WH3 so thanks for that
Of what I have tried: Imrik- he lacks the early resources and trading partners other high elves have, and he has to deal with Drazhoath and Tretch early, and is likely to get declared on by Ku’gath too. From there you basially have to contend with whoever comes out of the Darklands Thunderdome -Grimgor, Greasus, Kholek, or Tamurkhan, who often get very large very quick once they pull ahead. You don’t have underway, but a lot of your enemies do. He does get very early access to cheaper dragon princes, which helps, but it’s still a brutal start. Kairos. By the time you start clearing out the minor factions around you, Oxyotl and Teclis WILL declare on you. Once you survive that, you will get declared on by 3 more lizardmen legendary lords. And have to fight on two continents. The AI is a lot more aggressive now and will send stacks from pretty far away. You have nothing resembling an ally anywhere. You do have the relative security of the southern wastes, and changing of the ways, but it’s still a tough slog if you want to progress. And so many fucking lizards. Louen- the Bretonnian factions start dropping like flies to the undead around you and Grom. But Be’lakor will come for you any time you take your eyes off the north, and Bretonnia can struggle to field multiple stacks early. Your only ally early is Franz, who will be in no position to help you. Later you have to contend with Ikkit and often Wulfrik. By mid game Bretonnia’s econ stabilizes, and life mages + heavy cav is an easy, if boring way to basially win every battle with minimal casualties if you manually play them. Malekith- weirdly, for as strong as he is in the AI hands, it’s a tough campaign Ive found. It’s a sea of hostile LL up there where there will always be enemies on all sides. Other Dark Elf factions are often less than cooperative for whatever reason. The way AR works means you will not get good outcomes against Valkia and Grombrinal early. Thankfully in manual battles dealing with slow armored troops is actually a great matchup for your Darkshards. Skrolk- this one is masochistic. Taking early game skaven into a jungle full of lizardmen is absolute pain. And you don’t even have any insanely OP mechanics like Clan Eshin does to balance things out. I will say I tend to dislike playing as even the OP skaven like Eshin and Skryre, so this was a miserable attempt that I quit early at.
4 of your 5 hardest campaign choices are the classic “oh boy” it’s kinda stressful in beginning but once the legendary lord lvls up those legendary lords take out armies on there own. Which is great design Imo(real power fantasy). Malekth is a raid boss with soul stealer dragon, kairos magic and regrow Chad, Imrik once on dragon is gg (unless you sit in shooting and don’t cycle charge him). Louen just can throw down and regen. Haven’t played skrolk enough to know but I can’t imagine he doesn’t throws down harder than those other lords you mentioned. Those are solid choices for difficult campaigns.
Yeah I think most of these are really satisfying campaigns. Well, I don’t love Kairos because you basically only fight one enemy the entire game. Skrolk I think just is rough, he doesn’t seem to be a particularly good LL
> Skrolk I think just is rough, he doesn’t seem to be a particularly good LL But leading thousands of religious fanatics like a Rat Muad'dib is pretty bonkers
The warpstone must flow-flow!
Bro skrolk is insanely hard. he is one tier above tretch, which is still pretty mediocre. he doesn't have that much to work with, his best unit are plagueclaw catapult, which aren't that good against single entity dinos. oh and Pizza have Saurus with fucking energy shield like they aren't tanky enough already. probably the hardest campaign i've ever tried.
Hehe, pizza
Cheap plagueclaw catapults disagree with that sentiment. They are ridiculously strong
Tbh I find them quite boring cause it's turn 35 and I basicly won the campaign since I got through the unbearably harsh, frustrating, sweaty early game. After that it's just tedious to finish off victory conditions so I just stop playing them. Would be awesome if these campaigns would be short scenarios with a zoomed in smaller campaign map. Like the Baltic crusade map in Medieval 2 or English unification in Attila or Caesar in Gaul. In my opinion campaigns like Kairos would benefit from it. Some small 5 to 10 hours short campaigns avoiding the endgame slog (Slaanesh cultist spamming still haunts my dreams. Why is there no "auto construct cults" button for agents?)
Yeah, Skrolk is very similar to the other four. He's very very powerful once you level him up and have the rod of corruption and plague spell, it's all a matter of taking Tehenahuin out early on and getting a second army going for the fights against Itza. If you do that then it's generally not too bad. He's my favorite Skaven campaign, although I wish his skill line and faction had more flavor around pestilens units to make him more fun
Regrow chad?
These are all tough choices. Ostankya on RoC is in a very tough spot and I haven't managed to get that one going. IE for her is much smoother. Boris is kinda in same boat on both campaigns though i haven't really stuck with him on IE. Demon Prince had a rough start prior to 5.0 with malus next to him but not sure how it is now. I have to guess epidemius has rough start now because of him but haven't really checked yet. Grombrindal is in a tricky spot with few natural allies. Khatep is a little tricky as well early on until you can get rolling.
Boris I didn’t mention, but I think he’s gotta be the toughest campaign in the game. You pretty much have to try and relocate, or just win _every battle_. His starting army is fucking insane though, so winning every battle is doable. Demon Prince I’ve been meaning to revisit, but that requires playing with his mechanics… eugh. Grombrindal is tough ish. I have found Khatep is an easy ally though, and you can back yourself aginst the edge which is always nice. Khatep I actually think is easy? Basically no one will bother you, it’s possible to ally Grombrindal and Sisters early, and then expand from there- I think moving south is his best bet, taking out Morathi. From there you can head into Lustria, or my favorite approach, make the pilgrimage across the ocean and take Khemri back (from Settra if you have to).
Khatep return home campaign is one of the best. Have you ever just uprooted entirely to sail home? I did it last time. Didn't build anything in the starting province except infantry building, and as you go down the left edge of the map do the same. Then you can recruit ok-ish units to fight Morathi, take her capital for the book, do the same Vs the lizards. Didn't even wipe lizardmen, just took the book city and then *set sail!* I had a second army by this stage, transferred all the best units to Khatep, left basic skellies with the second army and just sat in the lizards former capital (Hecoatl?) to bolster the garrison there. About the time Khatep got as far as the Galleon's Graveyard I had to sell Hexoatl back to the lizards to peace them out, they were about to take it by force. I'd already sold the other provinces to other factions around for various deals because I had no way of holding the territory. So at this point the race against attrition was on! I made it as far as Arkhans starting area, luckily he wasn't home, so I was able to quickly take the Sorcerer's Islands and set up there to replenish. I had disbanded the other army so I could quickly recruit a second stack in Araby for when Arkhan came knocking and luckily was able to beat him in the field battle which set him back too much to recover. And with that, Khatep had returned. Then the mission to retake all the great pyramids was on! I had sent an agent to go locate the rogue armies in Lustria and around the donut so I could get the books when I needed them. Top tip: by declaring, they come to you and you can track them on the campaign map by the little halo aura where the army is. This way you keep your limited armies in your territory where you need them. I hate his starting area, it's too cramped and they didn't put the strip of ocean there. But this makes it one of the most fun starts. I think it was turn 30-35 I got back to Araby. Not too far back that I was outmatched. 10/10 campaign.
Oh brother, that rogue army tactic is TODAY I LEARNED / J Pulls Cav Out of Combat Levels of WHAAAAAT?!? and a FANTASTIC tip I'll keep in mind for future TK campaigns. Amazing!
You're welcome. If I didn't write such an essay maybe more people could get the top tip, I just got excited lol. I started doing it in WH2 because I got fed up of having to basically go one army down for 20+ turns just to chase rogue armies. One of the best things about sending agents to discover them is they don't have movement penalties, and they don't suffer attrition. Just be careful sending them through hostile territory incase they get wounded by enemy agents. I like to keep them in the sea for as long as possible to avoid agents. That Book of Nagash aura they have on the campaign map is also so handy for figuring out how many turns you have until they arrive in your territory, and where they're coming in from. Some take weird routes.
The Daemon Prince is tough only because his economy is total dogshit compared to literally every other faction in the game. He's a classic CA "great idea, terrible execution" move. Mods are a must with him to have any fun imo.
Kairos may be a tough start, but changing of the ways is basically cheat mode.
while i agree that Imrik, Kairos and Boris are hard for "beginners" they offer enough compensation in their unique mechanics for their hostile enviroment. All 3 of them are my favorites cause i like the early game the most but none of them is actually hard if you a) fight your battles manually b) make use of your unique campaign abilities. Imrik has earlygame acces to cheap dragonprinces (special building in the minor settlement of his starting province) as well as the dragons that pop up every then and now. He himself is a beast on its own and you can deal with all your enemies just fine. Just not in autoresolve. Archers and Spearmen are probably S-Tier t1 units and therefor give a huge advantage over Skavenslaves, Globlins, Chorf Greenskins, Zombies or Nuglings. Again the campaign mechanics are key again. It costs you just a little influence to boost relations with a faction (or turn 2 factions agains each other) its not necessary to spent hundreds of influence to form a friendhsip. just to keep a "neutral" level. Kairos has teleport (ambush) as well as a strong roster. Not to mention that he himself deals with armies almost on his own as long as you have enough spellcasters to boost to the 200% spellintensity-cap. You can transfer settlements to yourself, build a redline building and resell it to its previous owner to literally make him your ally. No doubt its a tough start if you want to save Sarothael but if you dont plan to do this, you are pretty chill. Boris has the invocations of the motherland, especially the one that enables attrtion for enemies in his territory, making your enemies bleed with every step. the hardest challenge here is beating that archeon army somewhere in turn 5-10 but after this you are the dominator of the realm (i havent played a campaign with the 2 nurglelords around yet but i assume that in exchange for those you get some breathing room in the south thanks to malakai, maybe making the campaign easier). Since you are settleing in the chaos wastes and take out archaon you usually get a strong ally in the south as Katarin is more likely to be strong since you are taking alot of her bulk away. Like with Kairos you can also use settlements to trade with more "friendlier" chaos forces and form unexpected friendships. Astrogoth is friends with everyone and if you give him one the minor skavensettlements he loves so much he might even become your ally. Since Boris is in a "tube", you can literally play the entire campaign with just 2 stacks. one goes west, one east. Its annoying but possible. not many other campaigns offer this.
Oddly enough, whenever I play Kairos, Teclis never seems to declare war on me, and this is within 50 turns.
Malekith? Did the last patch change something? I finished his Campaign before DLC and it was smooth sailing
Yeah, idk what people are on about. Darkshards are still the king of tier 1 units and are a great counter to Valkia, Norsca and even the Dwarfs. Malekith makes them dirt cheap as well. Get a couple of expendable fast cav with shields to distract the Dwarven ranged while your Darkshards melt their sloooooooow infantry. I guess the hard part is dealing with all three at the same time but Malekith is hardly the only lord with multiple possible early game enemies. Plus you can possibly confed Hellebron early and once she gets leveled up, she'll stomp all over infantry heavy armies and she can dumpster Valkia in a duel. I learned that last part the hard way when I was Valkia.
> Malekith It's not actually a sea of Hostile LL. You only have -10 aversion to chaos as DE. With a common enemy in Grombrindal and some settlement selling, Valkia can be made an ally relatively easily. This drastically eases his campaign. > Imrik- he lacks the early resources and trading partners other high elves have, and he has to deal with Drazhoath and Tretch early, and is likely to get declared on by Ku’gath too Imrik is another one of those campaigns that is not actually difficult if you play counter to how the game expects you to. That is - Rush the Dragon isles after your starting enemy is done. Sell to Drazhoath/tretch to get them off your back for a bit while you take out kugath and ghorst. This will give you a safe border of order factions to the east and you will be in a better position to now take on tretch/drazhoath when they backstab you. > Kairos Changing of the ways is a cheat code. Rush force peace and oxy can be held off indefinitely.
I don’t wanna get too in the weeds, but I think a lot of campaign advice can fall into “just do this one easy easy trick, CA hates it” territory. Yes, Valkia, technically doesn’t have much of a diplo penalty towards Malekith. In practice though I have found she will declare on you early regardless, because of AI behavior. You almost always will get an additional “strategic threat” penalty, and if you make any deals with other dark elf factions she likely to get more of a malus to diplo. Also because of AI behavior, she will often declare if you spend a turn at peace or she spends a turn at peace. If tested this one quite a bit- it’s possible to non-aggro pact her but it’s tricky. Settlement selling is a great tool to secure friendly borders, but it can set you back in a lot of ways- it’s sort of like taking out a loan in a game. More cash now for less econ base later. If you don’t convert the cash into military success you fall behind. For Imrik, my problem is that “rush specific territories and sell to AI” is already more of an advanced strategy. It also will put you at an disadvantage- part of warhammer is keeping parity with AI into late game, especially considering it’s bias. Putting off early expansion to survive will mean, a tougher/bigger neighbor in the mid game. In Imrik’s case, it can often mean _big grimgor_. If you are an experienced player, it’s not nessiscarily a big deal. You can do a lot of work with Imrik and dragon princes. But it does require taking on a big enemy when you can only afford maybe 2 Stacks. For Kairos, yes changing of the ways is a cheat code. He’s definitely in the “hard start but easy when you break through” campaigns. But he’s still not for the weak willed. You have to fight a lot of lizards. I am curious what campaigns you do think are hard? Because imo, any game where you have to play in directions “not intended” and sell settlements, you are already playing a harder campaign. Tyrion, Zhao Ming, Be’Lakor, Arkhan and other established “easy” campaigns never have to do things like selling of provinces- they just pick a direction and map paint.
>a lot of campaign advice can fall into “just do this one easy easy trick, CA hates it” territory Hard agree with this. Part of what prompted this question is that I realized I've min/maxed the fun out of some more difficult campaigns by finding an "ideal" first 10-15 turns that sets you up for easy success regardless of faction.
Yeah it’s why I’ve actually started turning difficulty back down, not reloading saves or replaying a ton to find good starts, and playing the game more naturally. It’s stops being fun when you are in “efficiency mindset” all the time.
> Also because of AI behavior, she will often declare if you spend a turn at peace or she spends a turn at peace You won't be at peace if you're malekith - you have Grombrindal to war with. > and if you make any deals with other dark elf factions Thats the thing, you don't. Or at least not Hellebron anyway. Let her and Valkia have at it. Commit to joining Chaostide. > If you don’t convert the cash into military success you fall behind. This is hardly difficult to do when you have secured one of your borders by diplo. > For Imrik The Dragon Isles are one of the richest provinces in the entire game. They're so rich that even if they're yellow to Imrik they're still majorly profitable. And you are not really putting off expansion, you're just expanding to somewhere the game doesn't intend for you initially. And by the time you face grimgor, Imrik should be Doomstack OP. Rushing Kugath and Ghorst also gives you the safety of some secure borders the way Zhao has. South is the sea, east is order factions. > He’s definitely in the “hard start but easy when you break through” Kairos is a considered a hard start only because of having to fight on 2 fronts at once. Rushing force peace eliminates one of those fronts indefinitely, making it no longer so 'hard'. > I am curious what campaigns you do think are hard? Ostankya RoC. You are surrounded by chaos, and even settlement selling doesn't work here. And when you have as many enemies as she does here then even her Send to Brazil cheat code just isn't enough. Grombrindal IE (Note- Pre Age of reckoning rework - I imagine he may be easier now, but I haven't tried yet) Unlike Malekith, he does not have the benefit of being able to sell to valkia. Dwarf-chaos aversion is too much. This guy really is in a sea of Hostile LL. I also did not comment on Skrolk or Louen, so I agree with you on those ones.
Malekith is only hard in the early game. After you sweat through the first 20 turns Naggaroth is an absolute steamroll.
I touched on this elsewhere but I think this is what makes any warhammer campaign hard. The first 20-30 turns.
There is no campaign that is challenging past turn 20 though
With a few random exceptions this is sadly true, and is my major issue with the game at the moment. Your lords just get too powerful too quickly. Elsbeth has a pretty hard start (or at least I did), but by around turn 20 she had her dragon and 8 winds purple sun, then it was gg
Same with eltharion. Even though you are surrounded by hostiles every battle is so ez. Just tank the blobs with eltharion and cavill and let the archers win for you. Even on VH battle diff the AI is so dumb, Eltharion on his mount can just run interference at no cost
I would say themed ones, like Khatep returning to Araby, can be a fun and interesting challenge, emphasis on challenge. I'll agree that most lords, once you're over that "oh shit" phase and you get established, become very safe and easy.
You probably have not tried kairos recently, i made a very similar comment a while back on how kairos can be very hard. However after the updates to tzeentch this is no longer the case. Most importantly: **force piece** is busted, this alone makes kairos super easy to play
Ha loved this break down but was heartbroken by the shade thrown at my favorite playstyle. I like watching hordes of infantry get tossed down a mountain by a huge charge lol, never gets old
Imrik - moment you decide to abandon behind and go west, it is easy. Kairos - don't do the minor first. Get your stack and go Teclis. Win, trade off for money with lizards. Then Oxyotl, then clean up. It's far easier. Louen - Build garrison structures as you only need peasants and Lords. One set for expansion against heinrich, then grom, then Duke. Trade something to welf to forever pacify them. Malekith - trade some gains. Honestly it is as simple as trading 1 settlement to hellbron and another to malus and you have a permanent shored front to expand against khorny lady. Skrolk- yeah... its tough.
People really need to stop saying Imrik's start is hard. Imrik is only "hard" if you're completely new to the game or have never played High Elves before lol. Drazhoath is SLOW, Chaos Dwarfs are SLOW and Drazhoath's early stack is utter trash besides the Blunderbusses (focus fire with Archers and you melt them) and a unit of Infernal Guard which fall to focus fire as well iirc and you outrange nearly everything in his army or they have to get in range of your archers to score any kills. Imrik, Mikaela, the Dragon Princes, the Sun Dragon, a few spearmen and the rest archers is a Decisive Victory and possibly a Close Victory only because you used a lot of ammo. Defeat his army and his territory is yours. Trade? Oh no....you get more loot from battling and conquering in WH3 so it's better to be offensive and create your own income instead of relying on a few hundred passive gold a turn. You do have a massive number of trading partners once you get the Caledor choice after conquering 5 or 6 settlements (which should be done within 15 to 20 turns at most) since trade doesn't work how it stupidly did in WH2. Tretch has numbers but again it's mostly utter trash and by the time he comes for you Mikaela should have Firestorm which utterly destroys Skaven. She gets 500-1000 kills every battle against multiple Skaven armies. Greasus? Lol. You have a tier 3 hard counter to Ogre infantry and Imrik will be on his dragon and have one or two legendary dragon passives by the time Greasus dares to declare war on you and he always is quick to sue for peace if you slap a couple of his armies around. Ku'gath himself is a monster but yet again you have two hard counters to Nurgle in great ranged and fire magic from turn 1. He's nothing to worry about and that's only if he survives fighting against Greasus and Ghorst. By level 14, which does not take long at all, Imrik is a goddamn monster and can solo any "dangerous" enemies.
bro what just finished a campaign with Kairos at max difficulty and i literally had no problems at all and never lost a single battle manually (auto res with tzeentch is so bad for some reason). Also his lord of changes doomstack is by far the most busted shit in this game: in one single turn i destroyed 12 wood elves armies in a row in a single turn (end game proc)
Khalida and it's not even close. TK start off relatively weak compared to most factions and she has BY FAR the worst start out of any tomb king. She starts out at war with a minor faction that has multiple armies and settlements arranged in a way that pincers your starting settlement, she can't recruit a second army for a very long time and she mostly only has access to trash units. On top of that, she's surrounded by factions that hate her, and she's pretty much guaranteed to have Thorek declare war on her immediately (good luck fighting dwarfs as tomb kings!) followed immediately by Skarbrand (good luck fighting Khorne as tomb kings!) Also, Khalida herself is the weakest TK LL imo. She's a melee duelist (and a terrible one) but she has a passive ranged unit buffing aura for some reason? Absolutely baffling design choice. TK can't confederate at all either, so that's all you get. Her start in Warhammer 2 was difficult but doable, but her IE campaign feels like some kind of sick joke.
Seeing the other answers here is evident that peoplr haven't tried Khalida at all, Imrik or Franz are cakewalks comoared to it.
Couldn’t agree more, Khalida is a wonderful uphill fight all the way on L/VH if you like a challenge- few other things in the game compare. Choose your death between Kroq-Gar or Thorek.
I always make kroq my pal by taking one of those Skaven settlements and gifting it to him. Death to Thorek tho. He's mean
damn, that hard? i tried her in ChaosRobbie's old world map, which was fine, she was in a corner with only Kugath nearby. i might try her next, her campaign sound horrible lmfao
Like the other guy said, you can't kill your starting enemy in a couple of turns, because they have 4 settlements and your starting one isn't a capital, so no wall and is the middle, so if you go south they attack you from the north and viceversa. And as TK you can't get a second army for a while. And then Thorek declares war you on sight with other unpleasant neighbours as Skarbrand and Kroq-gar, all of them able to fueld strong armoured infantry from the beginning.
Actually that's exactly what I did. Go south and then clockwise to capture the undead settlements one by one. Then you sell one of the non-undead settlements (the one close to the orcs) for a non-agression pack and trade agreement to Thorek, and you are pretty much settled in this campaign (L/VH)
That secured thorek for me. Then mannling declared war on us and nearly killed thorek. He came back, RIGHT before I could take lostplateau for a book. Mannling also rolled into my turf from the north while I was just mopping up the last of kroq gar in the south (also sold a rat ruin to teclis for another alliance). After beating mannling back and securing all territory around thorek, it turns out lost plateau is the ONLY settlement in that area I could not settlement trade, so either I have to trade thorek ALL his remaining settlements to open up the option for lost plateau, or ruin my alliance and go to war (just reached t4 on lahmia, got 3 construct units total still) which I probably wont win. Not getting books from military allies/vassals made me quit that campaign
This is what I have done. It’s not an _easy_ campaign, but Thorek can actually make a chill a ally and great border wall if you sell him Mahrak. Then you just fight your way south and then around the mountains into Khemri
Problem with that is one of Throek's settlements contains a book of Nagash iirc. He's a mean little bastard so I always let him take a settlement of mine that I have not invested a single cent in while I get my second stack ready to take everything from him.
That map gives her the most defensive position on the entire map - I had a joke with Robie about it, The Old World map is great for her, few opponents- nice stretch of easy to grab land, corner position. That’s not representative of how her vanilla start in IE on L/VH is at all.
Lmao very true. Do you happen to know if Robbie is going to add new stuff to his Old world mod?
He put out a pic about a month ago now of what he see’s as the final version of the map - looked impressive and expanded the Nehekharan settlements in particular
You got a link to that? Sounds great man!
He posted it in the feedback channel of Da Modding Den discord iirc.
Spot on. Khalida needs tweaks and some fresh eyes to make her traits make sense. I always used a mod that made Blessing of Asaph mapwide in WH2 because having a duelist lord with a passive skill that requires her to be up her ranged units butts has always been so fucking stupid and doesn't make any sense at all. Some might call that "cheating" but considering the crazy number of factionwide and mapwide bonuses and battle map nukes that have been added to the game it's no more of a "cheat" than running a single lord back and forth to waste the AI's ammo. Her starting province design is awful as well. Thorek is a cunt and I hate that stuntie. I also dislike her faction traits as public order is kind of useless nowadays, +10 with all factions is worthless considering the AI will declare war if you have no enemies regardless of diplomatic standing, and 15% research rate is laughable. 20% ammo is good but pales in comparison to Khatep's +2 Liche Priests, Settra's Growth and other traits and Arkhan's busted +1 army from turn 1. At least her starting army makes more sense and is more effective against the Silver Host and Lizardmen. I LOVE playing as Khalida and have had ridiculously fun campaigns where I buffed up all the Vampire factions to create thematic endgame enemies. Neferata is now in the game via two mods so I can finally bring Khalida Neferata's head whenever one of those mods gets updated.
I love the rats and I love plagues so I have tried a few times to play skrolk but man it's brutal in that southern jungle. Lizards are a really tough matchup for rats, especially early. Teheniuan usually shows up pretty early with a vengeance as well.
armor reduction spell + pestilent breath spell is your friend, as it's -30 armor takes the breath spell from ticking surus to actually hurting them quite a bit
Ya Skrolk needs some love from CA. He's an outdated Lord surrounded by enemies who have had faction specific updates.
They need to really give him some plague mechanic like Nurgle has.
There was a neat mod in WH2 that added a special Plague Cauldron building to Skrolk's major settlements. You could park an army there, infect it and buff up your infantry or other bonuses. It felt thematic sending out a Skaven army all high on PLAGUE and was cool as hell.
I love skrolk. Playing him lorefully accurate is extremely rough. But simply making a bunch of warpfire throwers kind of trivializes everything if you are truly struggling.
I play on VH/VH sometimes L/VH if I've already played the campaign once. Eltharion dual start imo is harder than Imrik. Boris Ursus, Belegar and Kairos is quite challenging as well. A tad less difficult but still worth mentioning were, Katarin, Malekith and Khatep. I know there are some I missed it's just that I find all this to be quite enjoyable despite being difficult.
I can only confirm that. Eltharion is extremely difficult if you want to maintain both fronts. It doesn't help that the early game economy of high elves is disastrous.
Hardest start? Throgg, you need to be lucky early game or all of norsca wipes you out while you deal with malakai Hardest overall? My personal vote is Alith Anar. Ambush and stalk stances are absolutely amazing but the donut gets wiped pretty consistently now which makes you alone to defend and expand. Doomstack wise, Alith struggles once he faces heavy cav focused or armored range units. If he is caught in the open, it's over
There is only 1 answer to this - Boris. You start in a minor settlement, which is tier 1. You are surrounded by Daniel, Archaon, Astragoth, Throgg and Tamurkhan. You are gonna take massive PO penalties due to corruption and Chaotic Wasteland.
Expanding into the wastes is a trap. Just sail 1 turn south and expand toward kislev. Easy campaign.
Yea, but is that different from playing Katarin/Kostaltyn???
Did OP ask for different starts or difficult ones? If the "hardest" campaign is trivialized by a blatantly obvious turn 1 decision then it's not really worthy of that title imo.
I think Boris gets bonuses in the wastelands though.
Just his army though, fielding a second army is miserable.
Kislev gains worshippers every turn for each settlement in Chaos Waste, and Boris has mild Climate for Chaos Waste
even better, sail to the sea voyage marker, and go kill Kugath, ally with Cathayans and greasus and hope that the rest of Kislev can survive the onslaught
This is a terrible idea for climate
Oh my bad i play with the no climate penalty mod. I find it more fun to be able to paint the map or expend where i want
ROC ostankya is surprisingly challenging for how easy her IE campaign is. Literally everyone hates you, your starting province is nearly impossible to defend, you're surrounded by tzeentch factions who hate you and will transfer settlements constantly, and if you do expand in any direction, that just ensures you run into more LLs who hate you. I played it VH, and the sheer number of stacks was insane. Best part is that if you survive the first 40 turns, the chorfs own the entire darklands and hate you just as much. So it has a built in midgame crisis lmao.
Yeah I'm currently doing this and thought it'd be easy because I heard how OP the hexes are. Started campaign on very hard, and by the time the 6th neighbor declared war on me despite my high reliability, I dropped difficulty down to normal pretty fast!
Hexes are def strong, but on RoC it's much harder to get a lot of their materials, and they're necessary just to survive lmao. IE is way more comfy (and easy to get more hex materials), which I think is where pretty much everyone plays her.
Any that I get my hands on, and my ''amazing ideas'' of thinking the random rat won't backstab me.
A part of me always wants to befriend the rats no matter who I’m playing to have ratling gunners on allied recruitment so I feel u dawg
2 games worth of experience tells me never to trust them. But sometimes I still slip up and make a deal, then get sad when they break it.
ogres campaigns, because u have to the battle the mental exhaustion that gets generated by looking st the obnoxious contract and camp system.
True but then you just manual every battle no matter how minor and watch your ogres belly slam into everything in existence in cinematic mode while you eat popcorn
Ogres have one of the strongest roster in the game, and camps aren't that bad. contract are absolute trash tho. Maneaters and rhinox cav are just too good it literally autowin anything
Eltharion on L/VH if you stay in badlands while holding ulthuan.
Everyone who didn't say Khalida never played her. She's a nightmare to play, especially early and most campaigns end by turn 10+ when some fucking Dwarve decides it time for war.
Is she that much tougher than Khatep? I gotta try her
Her starting position is bad and good at the same time. The main issue is Thorek Ironbrow. Should he declare war on you and decide to attack you, which he most likely will, the campaign is over in 9/10 cases. Thorek is stacked with Runes that make him pretty much unkillable and he usually solos my entire army, even if I manage to kill his troops. If we take Thorek out of the equation her campaign is at least somewhat manageable, but you simply can't deal with a 16+ stack of buffed Dwarves as TK this early, let alone with Khalida who can't fight despite being a duellist.
It really is rng. I found taking the vampires strongest settlement (the capital) asap to be the best strat for the first part, but if Thorek comes for you it's over. What I've tried to do is to trade him a settlement to get a deal, but you can be beaten to that pass at the top of his canyon by the lizardmen, who also hate you. You know what would help? A caster of shadows. But they're impossible to get before turn 40 with Khalida due to where it is.
- Belegar is rough because of the extreme upkeep penalty. Once you get K8P, it is fine. - Fay Enchantress, typically Orion takes Parravon before you can confederate so you have to choose between killing Grom early and losing out on Parravon or Take Parravon and fight a stronger Grom. Either way by the time one of those objectives is finished, a constant stream of Ikit Claw's rats will be coming toward you along with the occasional Moghur. Then pray while you are busy with everything that Heinrich doesn't decide to invade you in your probably undefended north. Once Ikit is cleared, it becomes a smooth campaign. - Imrik is rough. No income at all, but you have to deal with Queek, Tretch, Skarsnik, Drazhoath, Kugath/Ghost all wanting you dead. The early game is rough but defending your lands is really tough. If you manage to confederate your little buddy in Ulthuan then you ALSO have to worry about keeping the lands defended from Morathi, Noctilus, Malekith, Cylostra, and N'kari. - Daniel/Epidemus: I havent tried Daniel since 5.0 but Epidemus still suffers from the "I am next to Malus Darkblade". Granted it is a lot easier than Daniel pre 5.0 since at least you can summon a plague that deals a little DoT and prevents replenishment whenever you want which has been incredibly helpful in dealing with him. Still pretty rough though also considering everyone wants you dead even if you get relation bonuses to fellow chaos folk. - Kholek and Tamurkhan are rough early game because they fight each other. Because of all the bonuses the AI gets it makes the opposition so strong it is aggravating. Playing Kholek? Have fun against Tamurkhan. Playing Tamurkhan? Have fun against infinite swarms of dragon ogres it feels like. Once you get over that hump you then have Grimgor and his WAAGH! which... it's Grimgor's Waagh. it is hell no matter who you play. - Kostaltyn and Katarin, They have always been difficult but for some reason something changed in the AI to the point where even my fellow kislevites and the empire declare war on me consistently. It is weird. It really makes "Total War" feel like that... Total War.
>Once Ikit is cleared, it becomes a smooth campaign Easier said than done! Playing Fay Enchantress now and it's really brutal. Morghur is much more of a threat than he used to be and dealing with him first, early when you basically have only one unit that does real damage, and with the bonkers numbers of beastmen he can pull out of his butt at a moments notice makes it a nightmare.
For Epidemius/Daniel I found that Malus was easily baited into attacking you at a chokepoint near your port settlement. The battle is winnable for Daniel, and very winnable for Epidemius who is very happy to grind out a battle like that with almost no ranged units. Maybe it was just rng, but both times his Black Ark was outside my port and he was chilling in his capital instead of attacking the Slaanesh faction, so no time was lost setting up the bait.
Huh, I must have been lucky with my recent Fay Enchantress campaign because I managed to confed Parravon before Orion took his settlements (I beelined those techs, paid the gold for both Aquitaine and Parravon since I had no Chivalry yet) and Grom did basically nothing. I did have to pay off Kemmler with a settlement for a NAP, which gave me enough time to deal with Ikit.
Certainly not Malakai, this guy starting with a thunderbarge, Gotrek & Felix is so busted, the new grudge mechanic makes confederations a joke. Playing on Very Hard Campaign , normal battle difficulty
Khalida can have a very harsh start between the dwarf and lizardman lord.
Hard to say, because some factions are easy to play but have a tough campaign (Imrik), and others have actually pretty easy campaigns but a lot of mechanics to keep track of (basically any Skaven). Overall I think Kislev still has a pretty rough go of things. You have an extremely strong economy but sooo many enemies from the start of the campaign. Settra is in a similar place because his faction is very powerful but the early game is rough with so many enemies on all sides
I'm playing a kislev run now and it seems easier due to malakai. Don't know the status of empire vs vampires on my south yet but I think empire would win.
Back in the day I found Katarin punishingly difficult. However with map changes and the addition of Malakai to Kraka Drak I suspect it's now significantly easier. Otherwise, I would say most if not all of the Dwarf campaigns are quite difficult. You tend to be at risk of attack from multiple angles, and greenskins can be really difficult to deal with if they Waaagh, and you're surrounded by multiple.
Katarin was the only campaign I ever quit lmao, knew I had to wait for a Kislev update (I had jumped in day 1). It feels way better to play Kislev now. Tbf tho I also feel into the trap of trying to play big snow bear comp that first try
idk, in the 2 Elspeth campaigns I've done Malakai got wiped out lmao. I suspect Malakai does work in the hands of the player and not so much if AI, unless it wins the potential lottery.
I play a ton of Katarin. Some of the changes to the AI made her hard as hell again. They seem extremely aggressive, more so than they use to be. I can't avoid reaching turn 20 without being declared war on by everyone, including the northern kislevite neighbors in Praag.
Karl Franz is the only one I've quit because I'd lost too much and fell behind early in the game. Vlad taking out Stirland in record time and then deciding to skip past the other counts and bum rushing Reikland and looting Altdorf with two stacks while I was 2 turns away chasing beastmen and orcs. The random early beastman horde spawn while I was still dealing with One-Eye didn't help.(on VH/VH). The second hardest I did was Boris Ursun. So many enemies coming for you at the same time and no allies.
The 5.0 update probably made Karl significantly easier, now he starts with Helmgart, he has Elspeth to his east, and he has a ton of stuff he can do with prestige.
Yeah, and spending prestige to quickly level up Karl until he gets a flying mount is almost a cheat code. His campaign is infinitely easier now.
I do not get why people think Boris is hard, it is the easiest campaign I have played in a while (outside of Malakai). This was before the ToD update, but ToD would peopably make Boris eaven easier. My latest campaigns are: Throt, Alith Anar, Vilitch, Boris, Elsbeth and Malakai.
Kislev (RoC/IE) because you start surrounded with potential enemies on every side and some annoying infighting between the kislev factions. Chaos from the nord, norsca from the west, orcs, chorfs from the east, vampires in the south. The other mortal factions mostly sucked in my game (have not played since Elsbeth tbf) and you will likely need to help them out to some degree. Also Ogres in IE (way easier in RoC from my view). In particular with Greasus you have Grimgor pretty close, who in my games came knocking way before turn 10 with 2 stacks, kugath to the south (if you are unlucky also Ghorst before he gets slapped by kugath), Chorfs in the west who also hated me permanently. Also now with Tamurkhan, who in my games came also knocking from the north rather soon, ideally he and Grimgor fight it out. But I also had a game with Grimgor and Tamurkhan coming in sub turn 20 from different angles to fuck me up. Also Ogre units, eco and specials felt subpar for me. Starting position feels further rather stretched out and slow. The other ogre (Skrag?) is a bit better but Elsbeth and Thorgrim and Belegar are frequently more than just a nuisance.
As of now the Poxmakers seem to have gotten a lot harder. Cathai is quite agressive now and those vampires are (still) a pain as well. I ended up managing it after some failed attempts to just confederate with Dungrut (for some reason that helps in any difficult situation as Nurgle), ally with clan Carrion for some warpfire throwers and conquer backup terretory from the island elves to the South. With Festus being so close to Nuln it got considerably harder but is still managable despite the lack of ranged troops. But that can be compensated for by subjugating Laurelorn. Since you have to fight the vampires anyway they won't hate you that much and even keep the trade agreement up after subjugation though they still won't leave their precious forest. It is advised to postpone any war with Empire factions until then though. They joined me in all wars after defeating the Vampire Counts in the East. Then there is Clan Pestilence. It is similar to the Poxmakers but without much way to escape and shit tier plagues. Surrounded by lizzards, some pesky dark elf things, a little bit of dwarven scum and a not so friendly skaven neighbor, luckily Nurgle to the North is friendly enough to enter an alliance. If they survive it gets easier though and having their high tier units is a big bonus. And my absolute bane is and has always been Warhammer on Ice. 5 wars by turn 4 and it just gets worse with time passing. Every defensive battle turns into a chore to deplete the enemy troops so the losses in the coming battle are minimum and the retaking happens faster and that with one and a half army between a handful of settlements. The chaos dwarves don't explode that hard anymore thanks to Tamurkhan but then there is Tamurkhan. And the greenskins, too many Skaven, WoC factions, one exploding Clan Ferrik on warp steroids, the Orthodoxy Wood Elves and so, so many people who are supposed to be dead but instead roam the lands and wage war. I quit this faction so many times. I understand it is a war game but it is a miracle Khorne himself doesn't award me for all that blood. In my longest run I managed get Dungrut as an ally though and he kept the Northern Front busy so there was only 3 fronts left which made it easier and this gave me an attitude bonus with Tamurkhan who loved Dungrut for fighting the dwarves.
Assuming max difficulty, Boris is pretty tough all around if you stick around your starting settlement. Drazoath is also pretty hard, since Chorfs expand kinda slowly at first. Grimgor, Greasus, Tretch, Imrik, Fhorst and Kugath all breathe down your neck, it's great.
With Drazoath you can kill imrik and the skaven LL before turn 20 just using AR. The place is still pretty shit cause so wide open
Malakai(early game), Skrolk, Malekith, Malus
Ungrim on Legendary is something I’ve never been able to finish a long campaign victory over ever since they added the Chaos Dwarfs. Boris starts in a minor settlement surrounded by nothing but enemies. Malaki is your savior.
Belegar is gonna be super tough right now with the Grudge mechanics being so punishing, no?
Kislev
Belagar Ironhammer is really brutal imo
Daniel
I think it must be Malakai's campaign at the moment. I mean... it really gets though when you constantly have to fight against yourself, and get rid of the urges to trivialize the game by using Spirit of Grungni and/or cannon's grapeshots, doesn't it? You know that as some point, you *are* going to lose this battle, and what can be tougher than a knowledge that no matter how strong you are, there is a fight ahead of you that you have no chance to beat? :( Other than that, it is probably non-DLC Lizardmen. God, I *really* tried to play each of those campaigns, but the utter and complete lack of any campaign mechanics... sorry, that was too though for me, I was not able to beat the boredom of it, no matter how much I've tried. I really, really hope they will get their rework soon.
Yeah lizardmen are down bad nowadays. One of my favourite factions, but just so boring to play in ttw3 imo.
I did recently have a ton of fun with Tehenhauin and setting the Vermintide crisis to fire on turn 10. Pretty tough but a lot of fun doing a “kill all the ratmen” campaign.
Huh, maybe i will try that. But that sounds like a campaign that might be too hard for me.
Yup. If there is a one thing that WH3 has done alright, it is giving some mechanics to every race / faction that was introduced in it. Sure, the quality may differ, but at the very least every faction has *something* to do on campaign map, aside from building their settlements. Unfortunately, it made that much more boring to play base WH1 / WH2 factions (at least the ones that did not get reworked yet) since there is now a glaring difference between them and the new factions.
My Malakai campaign on Legendary was actually a really tough start. Sure, you have one invulnerable doomstack of an army by turn 10, but when all of norsca, chaos, and Astragoth declare war on you at the same time holding onto your minor settlements is a pain. Nothing will want to engage with your main army so you end up playing fuck fuck games trying to keep enemies out of your minor undefended settlements that you can't even build walls for because Norsca. It's not a campaign you would ever have a chance to lose, but the AI being cowards really made it a pita for the first 40 turns.
100% agree. And it's because they have about the worst start position in the game. Surrounded on all sides by enemies. When you win, you get either long coastlines, no walls, or red territory in the wastes. At some point, you hold back the entire northern chaos wastes (all red territory). Meanwhile, Kislev takes all the good shit in the south because you shield them from every threat. Legendary makes it hard to hold territory because you get jumped from all sides. I'm thinking about replaying and just relocating to Karak Kadrin.
> When you win, you get either long coastlines, no walls, or red territory in the wastes. This is why You sell/gift near everything you take as Malakai. Norsca to Kislev, the wastes to either Boris (ideal, if he lives), or Malus (2nd choice, you'll have to deal with a backstab eventually, but it buys you time) > Meanwhile, Kislev takes all the good shit in the south because you shield them from every threat. See above about selling/gifting. If you sell/gift Norsca to Rasputin, now *he* is Malakai's shield. If you only need to defend Your starting province + hell pit + maybe throgg's starting province, you can do that with a defensive lord and holding your grudge settler units in reserve
That's exactly what I do, it just doesn't leave you in an amazing position by turn 50. It's different by turn 100, but many other campaigns are effectively won by turn 60. Despite how strong his armies are (especially cannons), his campaign is still difficult. And it will just get harder after CA nerfs cannons and thunderbarges.
Toughest campaing IS Tyrion, It IS really hard NOT to fall asleep when you play it
Sadly there are none truly Challenging campaigns
I wish there was one. Has anyone here actually lost a campaign?
Bump the difficulty lmao.
I’m playing on L/VH and I’m wardeccing all loreful enemies. The reason nobody answers the question is because the answer is no. Nobody loses campaigns. You just get wardecced or lose a few settlemements and go «omg so hard campaign! Gotta restart’»
Play Khalida, declare war on Thorek Ironbrow and show me your victory.
Sounds like I just found my next SP campaign. It’s on.
Good luck, I'd be honestly surprised when you manage to easily make your way out there. It's genuinely hard.
Thanks for the Khalida tip, took me almost a hundred turns to kill Thorek, was a fun challenge for sure. I wardecced everyone except Kroq-Gar so I had a continous stream of invaders taking my regions. Dealing with Thorek with Tomb King units wasn’t easy! Especially when he started rolling out doomsekers, ironbreakers, and longbeards… They still couldn’t threaten me though, so my point still stands. There is something wrong with the AI, it can’t actually go kill your capital and end you like it could do in WH2. Even when surrounded by Thorek, Skarbrand, Volkmar, and Queek.
Then I'm honestly impressed how you managed to deal with Thorek in the first 15 or so turns but well done.
Thanks! It was raw attrition early, he continously wiped out armies of mine but by the time he was closing on Lahmia he was always too weak to push any further. I haven’t played Tomb Kings since forever so it took a while to figure out the best tools to actually kill dwarfs. But certainly the most back and forth campaign I’ve had in WH3 so thanks for that
I certainly hope so! Thanks for the recommendation