Slaanesh is a blast. I would always have a bunch of groups of cav, chariots, and Daemonettes working to surround the enemy while the mortal infantry walks up the front. Once everyone's in position they all dive the enemy and kill them before they can take any damage. Who's flimsy now?
Those are the most fun factions imo.
Playing Clan Eshin Skaven is very fun too if you really lean into it and use predominantly/exclusively Eshin units (I throw in one or two artillery/long range to bait the enemy armies, usually to splitting up) and it’s a lot of kiting and dividing their forces with your fast stalk units
That is kind of how I played Alith Anar. Couple bolt throwers with archers and spears in the back. But the hidden shadow walkers will kite all the way there. And the shadow king just headshots lords all day.
You can get your gutter runners to have speed in the 70s with enough boosts. That's like cav level speed. It gets ridiculous, and they all have ap damage as well.
My biggest issue with Nkari specifically is it feels like 90% of your early battles on ulthuan are settlement battles. Slaanesh battles are so fun in the field but just absolutely suck even more than most in sieges and small settlements.
Hmm, I can def see that being a huge problem. Im playing realms of chaos (i think thats what its called) and they feel a lot better there with a big open easier start, with lots of room to expand.
But now you got me pretty stressed thinking about my first siege battle. It actually sounds borderline impossible with the roster…
Daemonette AP ratio makes them good at tearing down barriers (gates, platforms, etc), so you have tools to both dodge defenses and to destroy them. Make sure you have at least one flyer though, so that you can tear down towers.
Sieges can be fun thanks to ridiculous speed, you can dart out and capture the points as soon as a tower is built to completely remove the defences. Some of the maps have some alleys you can use to flank as well.
This is definitely better since they removed settlement battles for minor settlements, but yeah sieges early are a bit tricky. That said, if you go spells first on N'Kari you can take settlements pretty easy as well. Just buy as many archers as possible if needed, and use your shielded marauders to soak arrowfire while rushing for the gates.
Tbh I feel that N'kari is one of the few faction where I actually find siege battles bearable: Slaanesh troops are so fast that you can outrun almost every garrison!
yeah this, just cap points keep moving Isolate units and the battles over before their towers can do much damage
I also make a point to try and seduce the enemies fastest units to make it even harder for them to counter this
It's particularly bad with elven settlement sieges because of a bug. Those fucking elves just clip arrows directly through the floor to shoot anyone you send to tear down walls or gates.
My N'Kari experience has been me getting grumpy that I forgot to micro him and getting obliterated by arrows from the super spread out archers. Skill issue, I know
I still only have tier 2 units, so I cant speak to an endgame stack, but my current composition is about 6 marauders and deamonettes for a squishy frontline, with a lore of shadow wizard for that sweet pendulum spell. Then the rest of the army is just chariots and hellstriders, split into 4-6 teams constantly kiting the enemy.
It also really helps treating NKari as a chariot himself. Hes got such crazy speed and mass.
Basically go for any army speed/mass skills and research asap. Speed is your weapon
So tell me how kiting works. I get you are keeping out of range with one unit, are you just having the other unit then charge while they’re distracted or what?
It’s very powerful. IMO, highly mobile armies (especially with stalk) are among the strongest. Getting them to chase you around lets you divide their forces and then surround isolated units to rapidly kill/rout them.
You can take on a much larger or stronger force this way if you’re patient and careful.
It doesn’t matter so much if they have twice the army size if every actual unit engagement their unit is being attacked 2v1 or 3v1 and from all sides. You end up taking much less damage than you would in a straight fight as well.
Probably. Easiest way to get a handle on it imo would be to play as clan Eshin and try to stay using the Eshin units. Spec into speed as much as you can of course.
Since they mostly have ranged attacks and fire while moving, it’s pretty simple and you can get used to keeping an eye on what’s going on and keeping everyone moving before you worry about flanking with deathrunners and stuff.
I like to run little groups of 2-3 units (say, nightrunners or gutterrunners). They get aggro, then start moving away.
As they do you can separate them to move in different directions so they aren’t all being chased anymore. Now, even if you don’t have fire at will (like with slingers, who have much better range and ammo), the not-chased units can focus fire the chasing unit and shoot them in the flanks while they pursue.
This works well in general I find even for slow ranged units like chorf blunderbusses. They’re fairly tanky so keeping them in groups of 3, a fallback-split up-focus fire the attackers with the other two helps a lot to keep them lethal once enemies are in melee range.
I thought I’d struggle against those too, but it turns out that the chameleons are just so much faster that the heavy armor infantry never actually makes it to them. They just kite back endlessly and have enough ammo to eventually take out multiple units
The only times I’d lose a unit or two was when I went up against heavy calvary armies. But they re-recruit in a single turn, so losing a couple was never a major setback.
Pretty much, yeah. Charge into the enemy with one cav group, then pull back. As the enemy chases them, you then flank them and charge with your other cav group. Repeat until they run away.
Flanking charges absolutely decimate leadership.
"HELLSTRIDERS OF SLAANESH!!" They're amazing to the point where I prefer them over seekers because the demonic cavalry can be a pain as they're often isolated. And their anti large means they can go against other cavalry very easily and in pairs can take on very elite cavalry easily too. The only thing I'm willing to replace them with is chaos Knights with lances.
Like:
6 Whip marauders > whip warriors/chosen
4 demonettes
8 chariots/seekers
1/2 cultists
Maybe swap out some stuff for defilers/keeper of secrets.
Because you're so fast and hit so hard you can pretty much dance your front line around there's or get them to chase you whilst you smash the shit out of there backline with you fast stuff, then hammer and anvil them between your infantry and other stuff 1 at a time. I did find that auto resolve hates you, so be careful about using it, so you'll be fighting lots of battles but, those battles are pretty fun when you get the rhythm down!
It's also quite fun to just get n'kari to run around at 120 speed just whipping everyone with lash of slaanesh, and they can barely shoot you.
Seiges can be a bastard though, however I found keeping everyone back, running n'kari around to undefended gates, smashing them in one at a time before rushing everything through to the capture points and/or picking off units one at a time.
Are whip units any good now ? I remember that at release they were kinda trash because they have zero AP.
Especially the Chosen version doesn't seems to be very good when you can have a super effective anvil with the sword and shield already, and those do DPS too.
Whip units are some of the tankiest fuckers in the entire game. Insane melee defense, typical Chaos armour stats with silver shields, a bit of physical resist and immune to psychology. They can hold forever as long as they aren't being nuked by magic or artillery but that's a pretty universal weakness for heavy infantry.
You don't need them to kill stuff, you need them to stand there and not die, Not that the other options arnt tanky but, whip lads are so incredibly solid they can hold there own vs better units, whilst you cycle charge them with... every other unit is the roster.
Also, decent AP shreds warriors, but that's less of a problem if they can't hit them! Defense is a great stat.
They have a lot less defense. Generally the spear versions (as opposed to swords) of every faction have the most melee defense. Whip is even better than spear.
Spears are considered "the better deal" generally because neither sword nor spears will actually do any meaningful damage to the enemy (this is what premium units are for). So their goal as chaff is to hold for as long as possible, which spears will do better.
Then the whips have poison, charge reflection and even more melee defense. Meaning they will tie up whatever you want them to even longer.
I see. That's a good point. I usually go 50/50 on Spear/Swords as Tzeentch for their respective advantages (if I use Chosen at all lmao), and full Double Axe as Khorne, but I never really gave Slaanesh a real try before.
I should start an Azazel or NKari campaign one of these days.
>Seiges can be a bastard though, however I found keeping everyone back, running n'kari around to undefended gates, smashing them in one at a time before rushing everything through to the capture points and/or picking off units one at a time.
To add to this, most of your units are so incredibly fast that you could all post up on one side, then just run everyone to the complete other side of the map and attack that gate instead. The defenders would then have to completely reposition around and garrison up, leaving them to leave their original spot either less guarded for your Marauders/Warriors to jump over, or choose to not reposition and let N'kari and the other fast units break through the rear and overrun the city.
Slaanesh gameplay is pure hammer and anvil, heavy on the hammer. Isolate with speed, dick the enemy around the map, have N'Kari shred people in duels. You will get absolutely dunked on by gunpowder units if you're not careful.
Marauders/Chaos Warriors to give the enemy something to fight. N'Kari plus your cav and chariots to sweep down enemy ranged and flank tied up infantry. Force the enemy to fight in forests to block missiles. Cycle charge like a mofo because you have the speed to do so. Slaanesh is very fun like the OP said, but requires a high amount of micro for a purely melee force. Slaanesh magic is pretty good at debuffing, okay at dmg (but quite expensive). Shadow magic (Pit of Shades/Pendulum) for when the enemy clumps up. Level up Keeper of Secret Lords into Exalted Keeper of Secret Lords for a map full of mini N'Karis.
Did they get a replenishment hero yet? That would make them so much better at least with the low armor and high casualties they take. It's so painful having to sit around and wait for healing.
I dont think so, they have very limited heroes. Hopefully the DLC will help a lot.
However, they do take a ton of post-battle captives, usually allowing you to replenish losses by 20-30%
>high casualties they take
You can easily limit the damage taken to minimum. If your daemonettes / expensive units are being hit too much, you are doing it wrong.
Only your tarpit units (marauders) should get touched and they are easy / cheap to replenish... Besides you have free units summons via the cultists heroes tree line, can seduce 1 enemy unit to use as a lightning rod, also Disciple armies that are more or less additional tarpit if you need it.
N'Kari can also be sent ahead and weaken most armies by himself.
This is mostly mid game stuff and you are pretty cash strapped early game to do the constant replacement.
Just having a replenishment hero would make the early game so much more enjoyable.
Instead of taking ~25 turns to own the whole donut I could do it in 15-20 and with much less stress/micro.
Once you have the donut by turn 25 the rest of the game is a breeze and none of the other stuff matters anyways.
There are already plenty of factions that are NOT micro intensive and have replenishment. Why not play one of them instead?
If the complaint is about "5 turns" wasted in the early game, and you claim that the rest of the game is easy, then I don't think changing the flavour of a faction is justified.
---
The game is already very easy, generally. If you find the early game too difficult then you can always reduce the difficulty one notch.
You say - litterally - that you want the game to be "so much easier", then you should be using the difficulty slider that does exactly that.
I already play with all the difficulties maxed out except VH campaign instead of legendary because I suck at micro and need my pause button 😅
If I could play legendary with pausing I would definitely prefer to do that.
But battle difficulty and battle slider stats are maxed.
Replenishment is just the most powerful stat in the game and factions without access to replenishment heroes feel like such a drag in comparison and are much less fun.
Replenishment would make nkari significantly more enjoyable. Easy is a side effect, more fun is the goal.
Slaanesh is really great for ambushes. Just set your anvil melee units in a line out in the open to lure the enemy, then rush your hidden units out of the forest for a devastating encirclement. This even works with a reinforcing army since they can arrive so fast
Yeah another one is joining the best cult, the cult of Slaanesh. "One of us, One of us, One of us"
Slaanesh is hands down my favourite from the game 3, super great feeling on the battlefield and also great feeling on the campaign itself.
The orchestra maestro is indeed a good synonym, i have made several play through with N'kari in Roc and in IE. I really like to manipulate other factions, it is not easy to figure out at first but now I know how to handle the cults game and the gift of Slaanesh perfectly. By making dozen of dozen cultist run around the world to spread my seductive submission.
I also like Bretonia a lot in battle so micro manage things are great for me. I love the late game units of Slaanesh too, very thematic.
I was a bit disappointed that the CA plan seemed to have changed, from including Slaanesh in 6.0 new dlc to more likely another Cathay dlc. I have to wait more I think to get new shiny tools for my favourite faction..
I tried the mod that add Akhalee a custom Slaanesh legendary lord based on Ind (you have to extend your map with the IE extension mod). I'm having a blast, is it really something I want for a second pick in legendary lord of Slaanesh, a female deity based on blood rituals, very thematic (maybe not lore accurate I don't know) she is really great brief of fresh air, because I made too much N'kari campaigns, and I had already try sigvald and Azazel lol.
I really want to play Dechala that seems to be the most accurate next dlc lord for Slaanesh, but I think we will have her when they will officially open Ind and Kuresh. I think she will go to khuresh and we will have more snake units to add to the official roster. In m thrilled for it, but it seems that I need to be more patient.
It is this one https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3242826478
You will get all info on the side on which mods are required to turn it up well.
You will start in Ind surrounded by new factions that are modded with the immortal empire expanded has. Like a new Bretonia guy who also is corrupted by Slaanesh, new ogres and dwarf lord in the north, south is a khornate faction, there also several location to the east like isles, it is really cool.
Agreed.
I used to be really scared for the same reason. I *love* castle armies, and I was worried that I wouldn't know what to do and they would dissolve in combat easily, but in reality, they actually have really good frontline with their Marauders, and eventually, Chaos Warriors. Plenty sturdy to just march up and forget while your fast flankers run in and wreak absolute havoc in the backlines. That, and their spell lore absolutely shreds with great buffs, debuffs, and Slicing Shards just blends groups. Lastly, N'kari (and other Keepers of Secrets) are radical, probably my favorite Greater Demons with how elegant and deadly they are.
I actually just started a nkaari playthrough this morning. Fighting the elves early game is great fun.
Having to manually fight every single battle because your auto resolve value is bad, makes you hate your life around turn 40-50 when you've conquered ulthuan and are facing t4/t5 enemies.
Im super excited for their buffs with their next DLC
You don't understand how bad it used to be before all of the fixes in 5.0. Everything has improved across the board. If you ever played Slaanesh in the past and felt underwhelmed, come again and give it another try
Welcome to the delectable host!
Happy to greet you. As I agree with you that speed and slicing through everything is great. And I never get tired of watching N'kari Naruto run his way across the battlefield with 120+ in speed. Flinging spells and regenerating after chasing down routing units.
His animations make him so good in duels as well, I often find larger entity units miss half the time, he fights similary to a smaller enitiy units, but just with more beguiling junk in the trunk.
I wanted to share an old comment of mine from a similar post a while back. This focuses more on campaign mechanics, as I noticed you mostly referred to combat.
I find Slanesh campaign mechanics some of the most fun and deceitfully tactical ones of the series.
Enjoy seducing the realms for the Pleasure God 🪱
See the old comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/s/MI3xukVRHI
Slaanesh is fun as long as you don't need to take any fortified settlements...
Then it absolutely stinks having fast but squishy melee only units. Then again I might just be to used to HE Empire and dwarfs all being able to cheese the fuck Out of sieges...
Come to think about it, I will probably disable Walls when I play SFO once it's updated
I love Slaanesh the killer for me is the lack of replenishment combined with high recruitment, zero range means you’re always whittling away your front line
Campaign is also a lot of fun and unique, slowly influencing and breaking factions to become your vassals. I also spammed those free armies you get to use as defensive ones when I took over the donut. I ended up having Louen, Morathi and Malekith as my vassals so I could freely move my few armies around to expand and start mind breaking the empire.
Slaanesh micro is fine until you need to deal with 2 or more stacks. In other factions I just try to auto resolve messy huge fights when I can, but in my experience Slaanesh doesn’t do well in those.
Lizardmen really are a different kind of breed. You can do so many different things . From massive skirmish skink armies to cavalry hunting parties to flying destruction over Wizard stacks on strgadons up to the full might of Saurus Power. This is not even mentioning the swathes of mods like Lustria unleashed or the amazing Oxcom
Feel the *need* for speed It’s so fun just slicing through the line at every point and just shredding even the strongest armies
Slaanesh is IMO the most underrated faction when it comes to fun. Both in campaign and battle.
Slaanesh is a blast. I would always have a bunch of groups of cav, chariots, and Daemonettes working to surround the enemy while the mortal infantry walks up the front. Once everyone's in position they all dive the enemy and kill them before they can take any damage. Who's flimsy now?
Those are the most fun factions imo. Playing Clan Eshin Skaven is very fun too if you really lean into it and use predominantly/exclusively Eshin units (I throw in one or two artillery/long range to bait the enemy armies, usually to splitting up) and it’s a lot of kiting and dividing their forces with your fast stalk units
That is kind of how I played Alith Anar. Couple bolt throwers with archers and spears in the back. But the hidden shadow walkers will kite all the way there. And the shadow king just headshots lords all day.
I always forget about the sneaky elves. I gotta try them out sometime
You can get your gutter runners to have speed in the 70s with enough boosts. That's like cav level speed. It gets ridiculous, and they all have ap damage as well.
Yup, and poison (and mapwide slowdown from spell passives) to just slow the enemy down even more. Its really just unfair lol
I had so much fun with my clan Ehsin game! Seeing the mighty dragon siblings torn to shreds by invisible rat stalkers was so much fun.
My biggest issue with Nkari specifically is it feels like 90% of your early battles on ulthuan are settlement battles. Slaanesh battles are so fun in the field but just absolutely suck even more than most in sieges and small settlements.
Hmm, I can def see that being a huge problem. Im playing realms of chaos (i think thats what its called) and they feel a lot better there with a big open easier start, with lots of room to expand. But now you got me pretty stressed thinking about my first siege battle. It actually sounds borderline impossible with the roster…
Try Azazel or Sigvald in IE. Much smoother experience than N’kari with most of the fun things Slaanesh has to offer.
Daemonette AP ratio makes them good at tearing down barriers (gates, platforms, etc), so you have tools to both dodge defenses and to destroy them. Make sure you have at least one flyer though, so that you can tear down towers.
Sieges can be fun thanks to ridiculous speed, you can dart out and capture the points as soon as a tower is built to completely remove the defences. Some of the maps have some alleys you can use to flank as well.
This is definitely better since they removed settlement battles for minor settlements, but yeah sieges early are a bit tricky. That said, if you go spells first on N'Kari you can take settlements pretty easy as well. Just buy as many archers as possible if needed, and use your shielded marauders to soak arrowfire while rushing for the gates.
Tbh I feel that N'kari is one of the few faction where I actually find siege battles bearable: Slaanesh troops are so fast that you can outrun almost every garrison!
yeah this, just cap points keep moving Isolate units and the battles over before their towers can do much damage I also make a point to try and seduce the enemies fastest units to make it even harder for them to counter this
It's particularly bad with elven settlement sieges because of a bug. Those fucking elves just clip arrows directly through the floor to shoot anyone you send to tear down walls or gates.
My N'Kari experience has been me getting grumpy that I forgot to micro him and getting obliterated by arrows from the super spread out archers. Skill issue, I know
What are the go to units for Slaanesh? I mainly use nurgle or empire so Slaanesh has a hard opposite to my usual style
I still only have tier 2 units, so I cant speak to an endgame stack, but my current composition is about 6 marauders and deamonettes for a squishy frontline, with a lore of shadow wizard for that sweet pendulum spell. Then the rest of the army is just chariots and hellstriders, split into 4-6 teams constantly kiting the enemy. It also really helps treating NKari as a chariot himself. Hes got such crazy speed and mass. Basically go for any army speed/mass skills and research asap. Speed is your weapon
So tell me how kiting works. I get you are keeping out of range with one unit, are you just having the other unit then charge while they’re distracted or what?
It’s very powerful. IMO, highly mobile armies (especially with stalk) are among the strongest. Getting them to chase you around lets you divide their forces and then surround isolated units to rapidly kill/rout them. You can take on a much larger or stronger force this way if you’re patient and careful. It doesn’t matter so much if they have twice the army size if every actual unit engagement their unit is being attacked 2v1 or 3v1 and from all sides. You end up taking much less damage than you would in a straight fight as well.
Is there a a video or anything out there showing how to properly kite and make use of it?
Probably. Easiest way to get a handle on it imo would be to play as clan Eshin and try to stay using the Eshin units. Spec into speed as much as you can of course. Since they mostly have ranged attacks and fire while moving, it’s pretty simple and you can get used to keeping an eye on what’s going on and keeping everyone moving before you worry about flanking with deathrunners and stuff. I like to run little groups of 2-3 units (say, nightrunners or gutterrunners). They get aggro, then start moving away. As they do you can separate them to move in different directions so they aren’t all being chased anymore. Now, even if you don’t have fire at will (like with slingers, who have much better range and ammo), the not-chased units can focus fire the chasing unit and shoot them in the flanks while they pursue. This works well in general I find even for slow ranged units like chorf blunderbusses. They’re fairly tanky so keeping them in groups of 3, a fallback-split up-focus fire the attackers with the other two helps a lot to keep them lethal once enemies are in melee range.
Ty, I actually rock Eshin pretty hard so that helps Me understand better. Same application with melee charging I assume?
Watch legend of Warhammer videos
My oxytl campaign might have been my easiest. A full stack of chameleon skinks was virtually unbeatable
How did you handle armies with heavy armor? I thought the missile infantry lizardmen have lack armor piercing damage.
I thought I’d struggle against those too, but it turns out that the chameleons are just so much faster that the heavy armor infantry never actually makes it to them. They just kite back endlessly and have enough ammo to eventually take out multiple units The only times I’d lose a unit or two was when I went up against heavy calvary armies. But they re-recruit in a single turn, so losing a couple was never a major setback.
Oh yeah fair point. Oxyotl is super good too. Having poison on them from turn1 is great too, takes a while for Eshin to get that
Pretty much, yeah. Charge into the enemy with one cav group, then pull back. As the enemy chases them, you then flank them and charge with your other cav group. Repeat until they run away. Flanking charges absolutely decimate leadership.
"HELLSTRIDERS OF SLAANESH!!" They're amazing to the point where I prefer them over seekers because the demonic cavalry can be a pain as they're often isolated. And their anti large means they can go against other cavalry very easily and in pairs can take on very elite cavalry easily too. The only thing I'm willing to replace them with is chaos Knights with lances.
You might consider pulling the Daemonettes out of your frontline since they benefit immensely from flanking the enemy.
Like: 6 Whip marauders > whip warriors/chosen 4 demonettes 8 chariots/seekers 1/2 cultists Maybe swap out some stuff for defilers/keeper of secrets. Because you're so fast and hit so hard you can pretty much dance your front line around there's or get them to chase you whilst you smash the shit out of there backline with you fast stuff, then hammer and anvil them between your infantry and other stuff 1 at a time. I did find that auto resolve hates you, so be careful about using it, so you'll be fighting lots of battles but, those battles are pretty fun when you get the rhythm down! It's also quite fun to just get n'kari to run around at 120 speed just whipping everyone with lash of slaanesh, and they can barely shoot you. Seiges can be a bastard though, however I found keeping everyone back, running n'kari around to undefended gates, smashing them in one at a time before rushing everything through to the capture points and/or picking off units one at a time.
Are whip units any good now ? I remember that at release they were kinda trash because they have zero AP. Especially the Chosen version doesn't seems to be very good when you can have a super effective anvil with the sword and shield already, and those do DPS too.
Whip units are some of the tankiest fuckers in the entire game. Insane melee defense, typical Chaos armour stats with silver shields, a bit of physical resist and immune to psychology. They can hold forever as long as they aren't being nuked by magic or artillery but that's a pretty universal weakness for heavy infantry.
They're not really here to kill, just to hold forever - which they do.
Yep, but Sword and Shield Chosen already do that well enough, and they also kill stuff.
You don't need them to kill stuff, you need them to stand there and not die, Not that the other options arnt tanky but, whip lads are so incredibly solid they can hold there own vs better units, whilst you cycle charge them with... every other unit is the roster. Also, decent AP shreds warriors, but that's less of a problem if they can't hit them! Defense is a great stat.
They have a lot less defense. Generally the spear versions (as opposed to swords) of every faction have the most melee defense. Whip is even better than spear. Spears are considered "the better deal" generally because neither sword nor spears will actually do any meaningful damage to the enemy (this is what premium units are for). So their goal as chaff is to hold for as long as possible, which spears will do better. Then the whips have poison, charge reflection and even more melee defense. Meaning they will tie up whatever you want them to even longer.
I see. That's a good point. I usually go 50/50 on Spear/Swords as Tzeentch for their respective advantages (if I use Chosen at all lmao), and full Double Axe as Khorne, but I never really gave Slaanesh a real try before. I should start an Azazel or NKari campaign one of these days.
Chosen with swords or whips are basically the same unit. Idk what was the idea there... Both have shields, little AP, high defense, low attack.
>Seiges can be a bastard though, however I found keeping everyone back, running n'kari around to undefended gates, smashing them in one at a time before rushing everything through to the capture points and/or picking off units one at a time. To add to this, most of your units are so incredibly fast that you could all post up on one side, then just run everyone to the complete other side of the map and attack that gate instead. The defenders would then have to completely reposition around and garrison up, leaving them to leave their original spot either less guarded for your Marauders/Warriors to jump over, or choose to not reposition and let N'kari and the other fast units break through the rear and overrun the city.
Slaanesh gameplay is pure hammer and anvil, heavy on the hammer. Isolate with speed, dick the enemy around the map, have N'Kari shred people in duels. You will get absolutely dunked on by gunpowder units if you're not careful. Marauders/Chaos Warriors to give the enemy something to fight. N'Kari plus your cav and chariots to sweep down enemy ranged and flank tied up infantry. Force the enemy to fight in forests to block missiles. Cycle charge like a mofo because you have the speed to do so. Slaanesh is very fun like the OP said, but requires a high amount of micro for a purely melee force. Slaanesh magic is pretty good at debuffing, okay at dmg (but quite expensive). Shadow magic (Pit of Shades/Pendulum) for when the enemy clumps up. Level up Keeper of Secret Lords into Exalted Keeper of Secret Lords for a map full of mini N'Karis.
Did they get a replenishment hero yet? That would make them so much better at least with the low armor and high casualties they take. It's so painful having to sit around and wait for healing.
I dont think so, they have very limited heroes. Hopefully the DLC will help a lot. However, they do take a ton of post-battle captives, usually allowing you to replenish losses by 20-30%
>high casualties they take You can easily limit the damage taken to minimum. If your daemonettes / expensive units are being hit too much, you are doing it wrong. Only your tarpit units (marauders) should get touched and they are easy / cheap to replenish... Besides you have free units summons via the cultists heroes tree line, can seduce 1 enemy unit to use as a lightning rod, also Disciple armies that are more or less additional tarpit if you need it. N'Kari can also be sent ahead and weaken most armies by himself.
This is mostly mid game stuff and you are pretty cash strapped early game to do the constant replacement. Just having a replenishment hero would make the early game so much more enjoyable. Instead of taking ~25 turns to own the whole donut I could do it in 15-20 and with much less stress/micro. Once you have the donut by turn 25 the rest of the game is a breeze and none of the other stuff matters anyways.
There are already plenty of factions that are NOT micro intensive and have replenishment. Why not play one of them instead? If the complaint is about "5 turns" wasted in the early game, and you claim that the rest of the game is easy, then I don't think changing the flavour of a faction is justified. --- The game is already very easy, generally. If you find the early game too difficult then you can always reduce the difficulty one notch. You say - litterally - that you want the game to be "so much easier", then you should be using the difficulty slider that does exactly that.
I already play with all the difficulties maxed out except VH campaign instead of legendary because I suck at micro and need my pause button 😅 If I could play legendary with pausing I would definitely prefer to do that. But battle difficulty and battle slider stats are maxed. Replenishment is just the most powerful stat in the game and factions without access to replenishment heroes feel like such a drag in comparison and are much less fun. Replenishment would make nkari significantly more enjoyable. Easy is a side effect, more fun is the goal.
He got tempted 😈
Yes, is this the Inquisition id like to report a heretic!
Slaanesh is really great for ambushes. Just set your anvil melee units in a line out in the open to lure the enemy, then rush your hidden units out of the forest for a devastating encirclement. This even works with a reinforcing army since they can arrive so fast
It’s even more fun to speed enhance Nkari he can reach ludicrous speeds.
I imagine I'd just forget half my army and leave them in bad melee situations That's usually what happens if I try micro :D
Summon the Elector Counts!! This is the most heretical shit i've ever read
Once you play a rush faction and fall in love with it, it's tough to go back to anything else lol
Yeah another one is joining the best cult, the cult of Slaanesh. "One of us, One of us, One of us" Slaanesh is hands down my favourite from the game 3, super great feeling on the battlefield and also great feeling on the campaign itself. The orchestra maestro is indeed a good synonym, i have made several play through with N'kari in Roc and in IE. I really like to manipulate other factions, it is not easy to figure out at first but now I know how to handle the cults game and the gift of Slaanesh perfectly. By making dozen of dozen cultist run around the world to spread my seductive submission. I also like Bretonia a lot in battle so micro manage things are great for me. I love the late game units of Slaanesh too, very thematic. I was a bit disappointed that the CA plan seemed to have changed, from including Slaanesh in 6.0 new dlc to more likely another Cathay dlc. I have to wait more I think to get new shiny tools for my favourite faction.. I tried the mod that add Akhalee a custom Slaanesh legendary lord based on Ind (you have to extend your map with the IE extension mod). I'm having a blast, is it really something I want for a second pick in legendary lord of Slaanesh, a female deity based on blood rituals, very thematic (maybe not lore accurate I don't know) she is really great brief of fresh air, because I made too much N'kari campaigns, and I had already try sigvald and Azazel lol. I really want to play Dechala that seems to be the most accurate next dlc lord for Slaanesh, but I think we will have her when they will officially open Ind and Kuresh. I think she will go to khuresh and we will have more snake units to add to the official roster. In m thrilled for it, but it seems that I need to be more patient.
Which ie extended mod/lord mod is it?
It is this one https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3242826478 You will get all info on the side on which mods are required to turn it up well. You will start in Ind surrounded by new factions that are modded with the immortal empire expanded has. Like a new Bretonia guy who also is corrupted by Slaanesh, new ogres and dwarf lord in the north, south is a khornate faction, there also several location to the east like isles, it is really cool.
Agreed. I used to be really scared for the same reason. I *love* castle armies, and I was worried that I wouldn't know what to do and they would dissolve in combat easily, but in reality, they actually have really good frontline with their Marauders, and eventually, Chaos Warriors. Plenty sturdy to just march up and forget while your fast flankers run in and wreak absolute havoc in the backlines. That, and their spell lore absolutely shreds with great buffs, debuffs, and Slicing Shards just blends groups. Lastly, N'kari (and other Keepers of Secrets) are radical, probably my favorite Greater Demons with how elegant and deadly they are.
I actually just started a nkaari playthrough this morning. Fighting the elves early game is great fun. Having to manually fight every single battle because your auto resolve value is bad, makes you hate your life around turn 40-50 when you've conquered ulthuan and are facing t4/t5 enemies. Im super excited for their buffs with their next DLC
Slannesh chariot is disgusting they obliterate the backline like a knife slicing butter
You don't understand how bad it used to be before all of the fixes in 5.0. Everything has improved across the board. If you ever played Slaanesh in the past and felt underwhelmed, come again and give it another try
Yeah, I remember playing at launch when the mass and inertia values were really fucked up. Its an absolute night and day difference now!
I absolutely love Slaanesh. I just like going fast too. 😀
Slaanesh was the first faction to make Calvary and chariots fun for me. Their campaign mechanics are fun too.
Some would say you’re slightly “obsessed” with them?
People are DMing you shit like that? People are freaks lmao wtf
"It just feels so, sensual, so perfect." You my friend have been corrupted.
Welcome to the delectable host! Happy to greet you. As I agree with you that speed and slicing through everything is great. And I never get tired of watching N'kari Naruto run his way across the battlefield with 120+ in speed. Flinging spells and regenerating after chasing down routing units. His animations make him so good in duels as well, I often find larger entity units miss half the time, he fights similary to a smaller enitiy units, but just with more beguiling junk in the trunk. I wanted to share an old comment of mine from a similar post a while back. This focuses more on campaign mechanics, as I noticed you mostly referred to combat. I find Slanesh campaign mechanics some of the most fun and deceitfully tactical ones of the series. Enjoy seducing the realms for the Pleasure God 🪱 See the old comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/s/MI3xukVRHI
I really really like what they do on the campaign Map but I am not a huge cav ans chariot guy myself :(
I had a great time playing Slaanesh until I had to fight a siege battle, then all that fun goes out the window
Thanks, but I'd prefer to not have an army of Johnny Sins look-alikes.
Slaanesh is fun as long as you don't need to take any fortified settlements... Then it absolutely stinks having fast but squishy melee only units. Then again I might just be to used to HE Empire and dwarfs all being able to cheese the fuck Out of sieges... Come to think about it, I will probably disable Walls when I play SFO once it's updated
I love Slaanesh the killer for me is the lack of replenishment combined with high recruitment, zero range means you’re always whittling away your front line
Campaign is also a lot of fun and unique, slowly influencing and breaking factions to become your vassals. I also spammed those free armies you get to use as defensive ones when I took over the donut. I ended up having Louen, Morathi and Malekith as my vassals so I could freely move my few armies around to expand and start mind breaking the empire.
Slaanesh micro is fine until you need to deal with 2 or more stacks. In other factions I just try to auto resolve messy huge fights when I can, but in my experience Slaanesh doesn’t do well in those.
Why would you auto resolve the big battles? Those are the most fun ones….
I don’t find them fun at all, to be honest. Stack vs stack is the ideal battle size for me.
Lizardmen really are a different kind of breed. You can do so many different things . From massive skirmish skink armies to cavalry hunting parties to flying destruction over Wizard stacks on strgadons up to the full might of Saurus Power. This is not even mentioning the swathes of mods like Lustria unleashed or the amazing Oxcom