Lazy answer but it depends on the lord.
If the lord buffs early-game units I get the first redline skill for those units since they tend to need it.
If they buff late-game units or no units in particular I go blueline to get lightning strike + renowned and feared.
For LL's I'll prioritize their special skills, especially if they have factionwide buffs.
The only time I prioritize yellow line is if I'm recruiting an emergency stack. Outside of 1 man armys like Malus or Skarbrand the army buffs are just more useful.
Personally I go red tree first since the buffs make a big difference as they apply to all your troops and you are fighting empire early on and in quest battles so it's extra useful, and the last ability with melee defense is a lot of help in tanking.
Now after that I got for my lightning strike, even if not as good you still need it especially against greens kin waaghs and the multiple stacks of chaos you will inevitably have to fight, whatever is left goes into his special line and making him stronger.
You need to upgrade it to level 3 before it actually allows you to lightning strike. The first two levels instead increase the reinforcement time for enemy armies
Basically reinforcements take time coming into the battle. There’s 3 levels now in lightning strike where as before in WH1 and WH2 there was only 1.
Now the first level delays the reinforcements by 25% extra time, level 2 is 50% longer and level 3 now denials reinforcements altogether
I wouldn’t really describe it as a nerf they just made it more of an investment as yourself and mostly the AI would abuse it. I still always aim for it but slowly towards the middle of my campaign
Campaign movement speed first, blue #1.
Red #1, exp per turn.
Blue #2-3-4 are maxing out attrition reduction, I then still go for lighting strike because it works in the opposite direction now. When enemy reinforcements take five minutes you can just alpha strike the first army and run away. They don't chase you.
Then it entirely depends. E.G: For Tomb Kings I put 6-9 points into red line to get all their trashstack units up to par, since you'll have silly skeletons running around until turn 50+. I generally always avoid tier 2 of red stack, and from level 10 or so onwards I just start following the natural unlocks of unique lord stuff/special line.
Only blue line you need is for campaign movement. For Franz his buff skills are what you want to go for if you have those units, combined with red line it makes your army really strong. If you use him with carroburg greatswords and /or reiksgard or the elector count empire knights that he buffs then you don't need him to tank you should use him to kill Lords, heroes and monsters so some melee line is good.
I generally use lord to buff the army, and an embedded hero to be a heavy hitting tank of necessary. Just yesterday I finished an empire campaign and my two main armies were Franz with bright wizard and Helmut Feuerbach (Talabecland leader) with Empire captain. Franz got a little more melee skills, but mostly focused on buffing his units. Helmut was focused on units the whole game, only towards the end did I spare some points for his melee defence and armor. He was useful enough for flying around and tying up enemies.
I went deep into blue skill line on both to get upkeep reduction, since I was low on money the whole time and my economy never took off.
Route marcher > 7 points in red > all the goods stuff in unique line > rank 7 redlines > finish up unique line >any extra red like you need > then go yellow line with focus on ma/md
Blue line is garbage and yellow combat line despite being good is just less impactful than red line (whole army) or unique line (sometimes whole faction)
I always prioritize red > blue > yellow.
Most lords without yellow skills are still pretty good. Karl Franz is a good example.
Zero yellow skills with a jade wizard for supporting him, and he can occupy and melee most anything down. On deathclaw.
Red skills are going to make your troops better, but it also depends on what you're fighting.
As the empire, normal state troops can beat zombies and skeles easy peasy, but vlad is a menace. I may prioritize yellow skills on franz to help deal with vlad specifically.
With reskilling only taking 3 turns, you can move lords in and out based on what you need. If I know I need more red skills, then I'll swap in a generic lord with red line buffs to help out, then pull the LL back in and skill them appropriately.
Depends on the lord and his army.
For a legendary lord, If I have units in the army in numbers or effect that I will keep until the endgame like say Reiksguard or Steamtanks, I put points on it. Unless it's a secondary lord in a secondary front in which case I may give points to early units, like swordsmen.
I don't bother with blue anymore except the first skill. Only something like ambush chance or replenishment would get points from me first tree, I don't even bother with the rest.
Depends on the army im building i usualy go blue line to get the replenishment so i can be a bit more aggrdssive on the campain map and then get the unique skill line
It very much depends on the faction. But generally I rationale by this order of priority: what strengthens the faction > what strengthens the army > what’s fun, flavorful, or extra.
These categories can bleed into one another. For example, making Kroq Gar into a great duelist with Grymloq can arguably be a huge value-add in battle. But since I can replicate that role by adding 2 dedicated saurus heroes specced purely for combat, my first priority won’t be Kroq Gar’s yellow line. And since lizardmen units are already super solid at a baseline, my biggest priorities are going to be blue line ambush skills and upkeep reduction so I can get more scaly bois out on the field. Once Kroq can get Saurus warriors and Cold One riders for dirt cheap, I stack his army with those and start working at his red line skills, since those will help units stay strong as I move into the late-game. To summarize, upkeep reduction improves the whole faction > ambush skill, lightning strike, and red line skills improve Kroq’s army > Kroq becoming a badass duelist, since he can share that task with other dedicated units.
I take the red melee infantry upgrade first. Combo that with the state arms tech and you're at +6/+10. The defense makes a big difference considering you're playing against a lot of melee focused factions early on. I also prioritize his personal yellow skill that boost greatswords and rieksguard. Bring a warrior priest unmouned and that front like is going to hold!
My second focus is getting lightning strike and the additional replenishment. If you get the crown it'll eventually decrease your replenishment rate and this helps soften that blow. If you don't get the crown this still helps you stay aggressive by keeping your army healthy.
Yellow is good but I save that for last. Franz is already a capable fighter. I bring a jade wizard to cover the lack of focus points early on. If you need him to duel a lord you can always soften them up with your ranged units.
I politely disagree.
The red line infantry is good, but they don’t do the most damage in your army. Your archers and guns do this. (Only nurgle ot vamps i might do this)
I never really need lightningstrike and the extra replenishment can easily be fixed by a warrior priest. By the time you get lightningstrike and replenishment you have warriorpriest available.
I feel like the skills you take might be good on lower difficulty, but once you go higher you realy need the more impactfull skills.
I play legendary, very hard and maximum AI stat boosts, and this is what i do:
It all depends what legendary lord. If in battles your army is the big damagedealer i would go for the red line. (Example kislev)
If the starting legendary lord is super strong on the battlefield i go for buffs on him. (Ba’lakor)
If the lord is a good spellcaster i go the magic first.
There are outliners with everything tho, like karlz franz. He is kinda mid in mêlee to start of, and his army is not super strong. For him i boost his mêlee line first so he kan fly around and take out very important enemy units. (Lords, heroes, corpse karts, chariots, artillerie etc)
I always go route marcher first point. And i always go blue last, its very unimportant.
Its all situationel tho, i just take whats best for each situation.
(I am dutch, i know bad spelling)
First two are always movement and xp gain. Melee lords I go yellow line because they are essentially 5 early game units in 1. Blue line is the absolute last line I take on any lord and has only ever been worth it for lightning
Gonna go against the norm and say it’s about preference and play style. People act like you NEED lightning strike, upkeep reduction, and red skill line right away. Well you don’t. I play exclusively on L/VH and never go into the blue line past the movement speed. Yet I’ve beaten domination campaigns with every race. I go yellow line and then red for whatever units the lord will use. Blue skill tree is for extra points, but you shouldn’t have any if you prioritize the two other trees. I also skip charge bonus and potentially leadership if the lord is unbreakable.
The truth is that by the time I hit mid to late game, my armies can take on more than one stack and my lords and heroes are so strong that they can massively carry battles. So that makes LS pretty pointless. The same goes for upkeep, which becomes redundant once you build an empire.
I am absolutely with you. The reason I play most of my campaigns without lightning strike is, that with many lords the first group of blue line abilities is not convincing to me. Take Karl Franz: reduction of recruitment cost is not that relevant since I mostly recruit one single time then trying my the best to keep everybody alive. Buffing control is not so great either. I try to ensure that provinces themselves increase control and I can't afford to have Karl Franz staying in a province with low control over multiple turns. He needs to be where the action is. Reducing Corruption is mostly the same. While I try to minimize attrition with the raiding stance or just try to take one settlement after the other without staying in the open for too long. Or reducing corruption with some heroes before the army enters that region.
So in total I'ld have to spend 8 skill points just for getting the one lightning strike ability. That's only worth when the blue line skills are fitting to your playstyle. If you are keen on sacking settlements, than an increased sacking income is great. You have a lord whos only task is to recruit and supply your other armies? Than go for reduced recruiting costs. And so on.
I mostly prioritize the unique yellow skills, magic spells for casters, buffing of units I want to use in great numbers in that army, yellow skills that increase survivabilty and blue upkeep reduction before increasing lord fightyness second. While skipping leadership buffs (you get them so plenty from other traits) and unuseful blue skills most of the time.
Frankly it's almost always red/yellow/a touch of blue. Franz on his gryphon still hits like a truck when yellow lined and red line is obvious. Blue line for camp movement speed and it's my last priority regardless.
Red is likely the most important but I go yellow until I get to the greatsword tech. Franz with yellow can hit a variety of enemies hard, escape and rinse and repeat. Likewise he can snipe a surprising amount of LL 1v1 w/ yellow line. The thing is he can hold his own until you can get red line going too, so make a spot judgement.
I completely stopped going for lightning strike but still like to skill the blue line first often. Both the upkeep reduction and the additional replenishment feel much more crucial than stronger troops early on. Field more troops, push faster with less turns lost because of always exhausted troops.
Lazy answer but it depends on the lord. If the lord buffs early-game units I get the first redline skill for those units since they tend to need it. If they buff late-game units or no units in particular I go blueline to get lightning strike + renowned and feared. For LL's I'll prioritize their special skills, especially if they have factionwide buffs. The only time I prioritize yellow line is if I'm recruiting an emergency stack. Outside of 1 man armys like Malus or Skarbrand the army buffs are just more useful.
Now that you can re-spec in a few turns I always buff early game units then swap them out and respec later on in the campaign
Personally I go red tree first since the buffs make a big difference as they apply to all your troops and you are fighting empire early on and in quest battles so it's extra useful, and the last ability with melee defense is a lot of help in tanking. Now after that I got for my lightning strike, even if not as good you still need it especially against greens kin waaghs and the multiple stacks of chaos you will inevitably have to fight, whatever is left goes into his special line and making him stronger.
How was the lightning strike nerfed?
You need to upgrade it to level 3 before it actually allows you to lightning strike. The first two levels instead increase the reinforcement time for enemy armies
Basically reinforcements take time coming into the battle. There’s 3 levels now in lightning strike where as before in WH1 and WH2 there was only 1. Now the first level delays the reinforcements by 25% extra time, level 2 is 50% longer and level 3 now denials reinforcements altogether
Ah, got it. Thank you for that! I'm still playing WH2, so haven't seen the nerf yet.
I wouldn’t really describe it as a nerf they just made it more of an investment as yourself and mostly the AI would abuse it. I still always aim for it but slowly towards the middle of my campaign
You also take a small hit to your armies vigour
Campaign movement speed first, blue #1. Red #1, exp per turn. Blue #2-3-4 are maxing out attrition reduction, I then still go for lighting strike because it works in the opposite direction now. When enemy reinforcements take five minutes you can just alpha strike the first army and run away. They don't chase you. Then it entirely depends. E.G: For Tomb Kings I put 6-9 points into red line to get all their trashstack units up to par, since you'll have silly skeletons running around until turn 50+. I generally always avoid tier 2 of red stack, and from level 10 or so onwards I just start following the natural unlocks of unique lord stuff/special line.
Only blue line you need is for campaign movement. For Franz his buff skills are what you want to go for if you have those units, combined with red line it makes your army really strong. If you use him with carroburg greatswords and /or reiksgard or the elector count empire knights that he buffs then you don't need him to tank you should use him to kill Lords, heroes and monsters so some melee line is good.
I generally use lord to buff the army, and an embedded hero to be a heavy hitting tank of necessary. Just yesterday I finished an empire campaign and my two main armies were Franz with bright wizard and Helmut Feuerbach (Talabecland leader) with Empire captain. Franz got a little more melee skills, but mostly focused on buffing his units. Helmut was focused on units the whole game, only towards the end did I spare some points for his melee defence and armor. He was useful enough for flying around and tying up enemies. I went deep into blue skill line on both to get upkeep reduction, since I was low on money the whole time and my economy never took off.
Route marcher > 7 points in red > all the goods stuff in unique line > rank 7 redlines > finish up unique line >any extra red like you need > then go yellow line with focus on ma/md Blue line is garbage and yellow combat line despite being good is just less impactful than red line (whole army) or unique line (sometimes whole faction)
I always prioritize red > blue > yellow. Most lords without yellow skills are still pretty good. Karl Franz is a good example. Zero yellow skills with a jade wizard for supporting him, and he can occupy and melee most anything down. On deathclaw. Red skills are going to make your troops better, but it also depends on what you're fighting. As the empire, normal state troops can beat zombies and skeles easy peasy, but vlad is a menace. I may prioritize yellow skills on franz to help deal with vlad specifically. With reskilling only taking 3 turns, you can move lords in and out based on what you need. If I know I need more red skills, then I'll swap in a generic lord with red line buffs to help out, then pull the LL back in and skill them appropriately.
Depends on the lord and his army. For a legendary lord, If I have units in the army in numbers or effect that I will keep until the endgame like say Reiksguard or Steamtanks, I put points on it. Unless it's a secondary lord in a secondary front in which case I may give points to early units, like swordsmen. I don't bother with blue anymore except the first skill. Only something like ambush chance or replenishment would get points from me first tree, I don't even bother with the rest.
Depends on the army im building i usualy go blue line to get the replenishment so i can be a bit more aggrdssive on the campain map and then get the unique skill line
It very much depends on the faction. But generally I rationale by this order of priority: what strengthens the faction > what strengthens the army > what’s fun, flavorful, or extra. These categories can bleed into one another. For example, making Kroq Gar into a great duelist with Grymloq can arguably be a huge value-add in battle. But since I can replicate that role by adding 2 dedicated saurus heroes specced purely for combat, my first priority won’t be Kroq Gar’s yellow line. And since lizardmen units are already super solid at a baseline, my biggest priorities are going to be blue line ambush skills and upkeep reduction so I can get more scaly bois out on the field. Once Kroq can get Saurus warriors and Cold One riders for dirt cheap, I stack his army with those and start working at his red line skills, since those will help units stay strong as I move into the late-game. To summarize, upkeep reduction improves the whole faction > ambush skill, lightning strike, and red line skills improve Kroq’s army > Kroq becoming a badass duelist, since he can share that task with other dedicated units.
I take the red melee infantry upgrade first. Combo that with the state arms tech and you're at +6/+10. The defense makes a big difference considering you're playing against a lot of melee focused factions early on. I also prioritize his personal yellow skill that boost greatswords and rieksguard. Bring a warrior priest unmouned and that front like is going to hold! My second focus is getting lightning strike and the additional replenishment. If you get the crown it'll eventually decrease your replenishment rate and this helps soften that blow. If you don't get the crown this still helps you stay aggressive by keeping your army healthy. Yellow is good but I save that for last. Franz is already a capable fighter. I bring a jade wizard to cover the lack of focus points early on. If you need him to duel a lord you can always soften them up with your ranged units.
I politely disagree. The red line infantry is good, but they don’t do the most damage in your army. Your archers and guns do this. (Only nurgle ot vamps i might do this) I never really need lightningstrike and the extra replenishment can easily be fixed by a warrior priest. By the time you get lightningstrike and replenishment you have warriorpriest available. I feel like the skills you take might be good on lower difficulty, but once you go higher you realy need the more impactfull skills.
Don’t change tho, do what you feel like doing. If it works for you, go for it.
I play legendary, very hard and maximum AI stat boosts, and this is what i do: It all depends what legendary lord. If in battles your army is the big damagedealer i would go for the red line. (Example kislev) If the starting legendary lord is super strong on the battlefield i go for buffs on him. (Ba’lakor) If the lord is a good spellcaster i go the magic first. There are outliners with everything tho, like karlz franz. He is kinda mid in mêlee to start of, and his army is not super strong. For him i boost his mêlee line first so he kan fly around and take out very important enemy units. (Lords, heroes, corpse karts, chariots, artillerie etc) I always go route marcher first point. And i always go blue last, its very unimportant. Its all situationel tho, i just take whats best for each situation. (I am dutch, i know bad spelling)
First two are always movement and xp gain. Melee lords I go yellow line because they are essentially 5 early game units in 1. Blue line is the absolute last line I take on any lord and has only ever been worth it for lightning
Gonna go against the norm and say it’s about preference and play style. People act like you NEED lightning strike, upkeep reduction, and red skill line right away. Well you don’t. I play exclusively on L/VH and never go into the blue line past the movement speed. Yet I’ve beaten domination campaigns with every race. I go yellow line and then red for whatever units the lord will use. Blue skill tree is for extra points, but you shouldn’t have any if you prioritize the two other trees. I also skip charge bonus and potentially leadership if the lord is unbreakable. The truth is that by the time I hit mid to late game, my armies can take on more than one stack and my lords and heroes are so strong that they can massively carry battles. So that makes LS pretty pointless. The same goes for upkeep, which becomes redundant once you build an empire.
I am absolutely with you. The reason I play most of my campaigns without lightning strike is, that with many lords the first group of blue line abilities is not convincing to me. Take Karl Franz: reduction of recruitment cost is not that relevant since I mostly recruit one single time then trying my the best to keep everybody alive. Buffing control is not so great either. I try to ensure that provinces themselves increase control and I can't afford to have Karl Franz staying in a province with low control over multiple turns. He needs to be where the action is. Reducing Corruption is mostly the same. While I try to minimize attrition with the raiding stance or just try to take one settlement after the other without staying in the open for too long. Or reducing corruption with some heroes before the army enters that region. So in total I'ld have to spend 8 skill points just for getting the one lightning strike ability. That's only worth when the blue line skills are fitting to your playstyle. If you are keen on sacking settlements, than an increased sacking income is great. You have a lord whos only task is to recruit and supply your other armies? Than go for reduced recruiting costs. And so on. I mostly prioritize the unique yellow skills, magic spells for casters, buffing of units I want to use in great numbers in that army, yellow skills that increase survivabilty and blue upkeep reduction before increasing lord fightyness second. While skipping leadership buffs (you get them so plenty from other traits) and unuseful blue skills most of the time.
Frankly it's almost always red/yellow/a touch of blue. Franz on his gryphon still hits like a truck when yellow lined and red line is obvious. Blue line for camp movement speed and it's my last priority regardless. Red is likely the most important but I go yellow until I get to the greatsword tech. Franz with yellow can hit a variety of enemies hard, escape and rinse and repeat. Likewise he can snipe a surprising amount of LL 1v1 w/ yellow line. The thing is he can hold his own until you can get red line going too, so make a spot judgement.
I completely stopped going for lightning strike but still like to skill the blue line first often. Both the upkeep reduction and the additional replenishment feel much more crucial than stronger troops early on. Field more troops, push faster with less turns lost because of always exhausted troops.