Warhammer Total War 2 - Vampire Patch

[Olinser]

So is anybody else still playing this? The Vampire big patch is going to drop this next week with the new Vampire Coast faction, along with the big Bloodline changes to the normal Vampire Counts.

What's other people's thoughts on the patch, the Bloodlines, and the Vampire Coast roster?

[RazorChain]

I'm looking forward to it. I play Total Warhammer extensively though I haven't looked into the changes. Going to finish my play through of AC Odyssey first though.

[TheFarReach]

I am also looking forward to it. Though, I do wonder if having a Pirate Cove you previously made in a settlement you conquer will have any effects.

[Resileaf]

I watched how they worked in the Everchosen tournament on the Total War Youtube channel. Depth guards, use them.

[Kadesh]

I'm honestly less than enthused by it. I'm kinda just waiting for #3, and will pick up Vampire Coast when it's on a significant sale. Honesty having more fun going back to Rome 2. Much prefer their style of battling.

[Corvus]

My main concern is that they prioritised this over the Skaven vs Lizardmen DLC given that both factions have been ignored since the launch and need an update.

[Olinser]

My main concern is that they prioritised this over the Skaven vs Lizardmen DLC given that both factions have been ignored since the launch and need an update.

Probably because the Skaven in particular are significantly less popular than the other factions (but Lizardmen are moderately popular so they'll almost certainly be next).

Glancing at the achievement density more people have beaten Mortal Empires campaign with a non-Total War 2 race than have beaten ANY campaign with Skaven, and the 'beat a Campaign as Skaven on Very Hard or Legendary' achievement is literally 2nd from the bottom in terms of completion.

So right now it just seems like nobody likes playing Skaven, so I wouldn't really hold my breath for big content for them. I would expect either Lizardmen next, or for them to do a big release of either Chaos or Dwarves.

[Blackhawk748]

I liked messing around as Skaven, but then again i generally just messed around alot in WHTW 2. Its why i have a bunch of hours as Beastmen but have made no real progress towards completeling the campaign.

In any event anything that gives me more Vamps is something im happy about.

[Corvus]

So right now it just seems like nobody likes playing Skaven, so I wouldn't really hold my breath for big content for them. I would expect either Lizardmen next, or for them to do a big release of either Chaos or Dwarves.

Skaven are missing stuff, like regiments of renown, which may explain why people don't play them as much. Lizardmen are stuck with just 2 LLs and have the Sacred Spawnings (their version of RoR) bugged even after all this time.

But they have said they are doing a Skaven vs Lizardmen DLC, much like they did a HE vs DE, Dwarves vs Greenskins etc

As it stands, Lizardmen have received nothing at all and the Skaven just one FLC LL. And rather than do this they pluck an obscure faction with no real information in the lore beyond a few footnotes and do a DLC for it instead?

Not saying that the Vampire Coast won't be fun but it shouldn't have been a priority over established factions that really needed an update.

[Olinser]

Skaven are missing stuff, like regiments of renown, which may explain why people don't play them as much. Lizardmen are stuck with just 2 LLs and have the Sacred Spawnings (their version of RoR) bugged even after all this time.

But they have said they are doing a Skaven vs Lizardmen DLC, much like they did a HE vs DE, Dwarves vs Greenskins etc

As it stands, Lizardmen have received nothing at all and the Skaven just one FLC LL. And rather than do this they pluck an obscure faction with no real information in the lore beyond a few footnotes and do a DLC for it instead?

Not saying that the Vampire Coast won't be fun but it shouldn't have been a priority over established factions that really needed an update.

Remember its not just Vampire Coast.

It's a pretty big rework of the Vampire Count faction in general.

[Corvus]

The Vampires are fun to play but it isn't like they haven't had 2 reworks before already.

[Sinewmire]

Probably because the Skaven in particular are significantly less popular than the other factions (but Lizardmen are moderately popular so they'll almost certainly be next).

Glancing at the achievement density more people have beaten Mortal Empires campaign with a non-Total War 2 race than have beaten ANY campaign with Skaven, and the 'beat a Campaign as Skaven on Very Hard or Legendary' achievement is literally 2nd from the bottom in terms of completion.

So right now it just seems like nobody likes playing Skaven, so I wouldn't really hold my breath for big content for them. I would expect either Lizardmen next, or for them to do a big release of either Chaos or Dwarves.

Are skaven not getting reworked because nobody likes them or does nobody like them because they desperately need a rework? :smallbiggrin:

I wouldn't bet on Chaos, I really *want* them to but I'd expect that in TWIII or at least in the run up to it, as I'd imagine it's going to centre around ogres and daemons. Dwarves are certainly a maybe but again, I'd expect that alongside maybe Chaos Dwaves in TWIII.

The Empire will be next, I hope, as they *really* need it.

I'm definately still playing this!

I don't buy a lot of new games, and I rarely have a huge amount of time to play, so I dip into TW:WHII a couple of times a week.

Alongside Warriors of Chaos, Vampire Counts are my favourite faction.

I feel the Horde armies suffer from the bigger world as non-horde economies grow to match their territories, Hordes don't. I'd gotten to about 6 armies as Warriors of Chaos and I'm basically having to sack a major city couple of turns.

The AI's main response is to make lots of small armies and recolonise the ashes I leave in my path. Eihter I turn to chase a small, weak army and burn some fresh towns, neither of which nets me much favour with the Dark Gods, or I push on and ignore that my assault on the Empire is basically making it bigger, as I also exterminate their rivals and allow them to colonise the land left behind.

I'm slogging through the Old World, not really getting challenged (except by the occasional Vampire doomstack coming up from Tilea) but not making much progress either, as my expenditures increase and my income doesn't. Archaon is basically having to keep turning around after each epic battle and spend months setting fire to brand new peasant villages that Karl Franz's men are desperately putting up in his wake. It's a bit like the fake town in Blazing Saddles.

As such, VC are much more satisfying for mid-late game, I feel, so I'm holding off starting a new campaign with them until the patch - I'm looking forward to their rework. I'm mildly interested in the Vampire Coast faction, but my girlfriend is practically giddy, as they combine two of her favourite things.

I've started a new Dark Elf campaign as Malekith and it is *not* a forgiving start location. Blasted Skaven corruption!

[Resileaf]

The first Warhammer 2 campaign I tried was with Skaven.
It was not a good idea, I got wrecked really early. I'm not really good at managing weak but numerous armies. I had no idea how to fight the lizardmen.

[Olinser]

So the official patch notes are out.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/the-aye-aye-patch-notes

Some minor balance changes and a lot, I mean a LOT of bug fixes.

Most of it is pretty small niche cases, but there are 2 BIG fixes:

*Blessed Spawnings for Lizardmen now trigger as intended.

Obviously pretty big fix for Lizardmen who basically got no special spawns and most of the ones they did get weren't useful.

*Reinforcements should now enter the battlefield from the expected direction

FINALLY FINALLY this is fixed. Reinforcements were almost totally useless when they came from unusual angles. Having them randomly come directly behind an opponent meant some matchups would absolutely SLAUGHTER reinforcements before the main army could even get there - if you had a ranged heavy reinforcement and it came directly behind an opponent that was melee focused? Literally engage in melee as you walk on the field.


Most of the balance changes at a glance don't really seem to be that big, A few instances of heroes and troops being accessed a level lower than they were before, but most low level heroes aren't really big game changers.

Most of the stat changes don't seem to be that impactful, mostly small buffs/nerfs to HP and melee attack/defense, seems like most cavalry in general got a nerf to charge bonus and an increase to melee attack/damage to compensate so they don't get slaughtered if pinned in combat. Most big monsters also seem to have gotten a significant +AP damage with an offsetting -melee damage so they're going to be a lot more dangerous to higher-tier units. A lot of the underwhelming Legendary Lords got big buffs (Malagor got a huge buff), but most of the unit changes aren't that big, although a couple stand out:

Lizardmen Cold Blooded: Now stops rampage and gives +16 leadership. No longer has max uses, removed stat penalties and healing.

That's pretty big. Cold Blooded before was basically only useful right before or right after a fight to heal heroes or monsters up when they weren't fighting, it was almost useless in combat. This actually makes it a useful tactical tool to control rampage or to prevent routs.

Wood Elves
Waystalker: +17 melee attack, +3 melee defence, +15 ap melee damage.

Thats.... a pretty sizeable buff. +17 attack and +15 ap damage?

[LCP]

Lizardmen Cold Blooded: Now stops rampage and gives +16 leadership. No longer has max uses, removed stat penalties and healing.

That's pretty big. Cold Blooded before was basically only useful right before or right after a fight to heal heroes or monsters up when they weren't fighting, it was almost useless in combat. This actually makes it a useful tactical tool to control rampage or to prevent routs.

Speaking as a multiplayer player: the heals were very useful. Losing them is a big nerf and the rampage change is only partial compensation for the fact that they also added rampage to all the low-level cav, that didn't rampage before. Lizards have no cav that don't rampage now, => no practical way to shut down missile infantry or artillery in the hands of a competent player.

Rampage is just horrible and it bums me out that my favourite faction is riddled with it. Like who thought that it would be a good idea to make an RTS faction's distinguishing feature that the player can't control them? This new implementation of Cold-Blooded (which still makes no sense... why do leaders need to tell lizard troops to be 'cold-blooded'? Isn't it just an inherent state of being?) only means you can control as many of your units at any one time as you have heroes in your army. That's not a lot.


Waystalker: +17 melee attack, +3 melee defence, +15 ap melee damage.

Thats.... a pretty sizeable buff. +17 attack and +15 ap damage?

Damage values on heroes are in the 100s to begin with so +15 AP damage isn't actually very much.

[Olinser]

Speaking as a multiplayer player: the heals were very useful. Losing them is a big nerf and the rampage change is only partial compensation for the fact that they also added rampage to all the low-level cav, that didn't rampage before. Lizards have no cav that don't rampage now, => no practical way to shut down missile infantry or artillery in the hands of a competent player.

Rampage is just horrible and it bums me out that my favourite faction is riddled with it. Like who thought that it would be a good idea to make an RTS faction's distinguishing feature that the player can't control them? This new implementation of Cold-Blooded (which still makes no sense... why do leaders need to tell lizard troops to be 'cold-blooded'? Isn't it just an inherent state of being?) only means you can control as many of your units at any one time as you have heroes in your army. That's not a lot.



Damage values on heroes are in the 100s to begin with so +15 AP damage isn't actually very much.

Yes but 17 attack is HUGE. Heroes/lords that have both personal buffs take 5 skill points and mid-teens level to get that much of an increase.

[VexingFool]

Didn't see anything in the patch notes about any auto-resolve tweaks. :smallfrown: I'll try the new patch without the 'Better Auto-Resolve' mod but I'm guessing eventually I'll have to re-enable it.

The new Vampire mechanics have sparked my interest to try them out. Previously I didn't really care about the faction. I've only played High Elves(all factions), Dwarves(all factions), Wood Elves (Durthu), Empire (Franz and Gelt), Lizardmen(Kroq-Gar) and Greenskins (Grimgor).

I was thinking of trying Heinrich Kemmler as his new faction/starting position seems interesting. I know he is generally considered weak but I think the Bloodline lords will make up for his weaknesses. Kind of feel bad for the Dwarfs(Karak Ziflin?) that are next to him, I always tried to help those guys survive.

Any tips for someone used to having support artillery/ranged units? I know you can unlock some Sylvania ranged units with the Bloodlines but I can't count on them in the beginning.

[Resileaf]

Didn't see anything in the patch notes about any auto-resolve tweaks. :smallfrown: I'll try the new patch without the 'Better Auto-Resolve' mod but I'm guessing eventually I'll have to re-enable it.


Auto-resolve is a strange beast. I don't mind not using it on most battles, but I'm unable to win anything against Norsca without it. Maybe it's just because the Wanderer is OP or something, but his armies are constantly unbeatable to me.

[Olinser]

Auto-resolve is a strange beast. I don't mind not using it on most battles, but I'm unable to win anything against Norsca without it. Maybe it's just because the Wanderer is OP or something, but his armies are constantly unbeatable to me.

What nation and army composition are you using?

Norsca has extremely strong melee (especially early game) their units tend to have high HP with low armor (until higher tier units), they have good monsters but their ranged units a very short ranged and artillery non-existent.

So generally you want a more ranged-heavy composition to take advantage of their low

Playing as Dark Elves with a Darkshards and Reaper heavy composition, for instance, I tended to slaughter Norsca armies with few casualties.

If you're trying to fight them in melee yeah you're going to lose their army is one of the best at melee.

[Resileaf]

What nation and army composition are you using?

Norsca has extremely strong melee (especially early game) their units tend to have high HP with low armor (until higher tier units), they have good monsters but their ranged units a very short ranged and artillery non-existent.

So generally you want a more ranged-heavy composition to take advantage of their low

Playing as Dark Elves with a Darkshards and Reaper heavy composition, for instance, I tended to slaughter Norsca armies with few casualties.

If you're trying to fight them in melee yeah you're going to lose their army is one of the best at melee.

Playing as Empire, with Gelt as my legendary lord. And yeah, from what you're saying, lack of ranged must be the problem. I try to win by casting AoE spells as they approach and bombarding them with mortars, but the mammoths (which I try to counter with halberds, but marauders are quick to get in the way of that) pretty much ruin all my battle plans.

[MCerberus]

Playing as Empire, with Gelt as my legendary lord. And yeah, from what you're saying, lack of ranged must be the problem. I try to win by casting AoE spells as they approach and bombarding them with mortars, but the mammoths (which I try to counter with halberds, but marauders are quick to get in the way of that) pretty much ruin all my battle plans.

If you're seeing mammoths you should have much better artillery and/or cavalry on hand. Raiders have some pretty low leadership values so you can cause a chain route with a couple of appropriately-applied Reiksguards. I also never have an empire army with less than 4 artillery units. Cannons for high-target sniping. Barrages for glorious, GLORIOUS kill counts. Also doubles for flyer deletion if the vampires get uppity.

You may also have some issues with line-of-site with your ranged units. Are you using gunners or crossbows?

edit - also some people have success with halberd griffons pegasus, but I always prefer the extra meat on the board from grounded cavalry
edit 2- what's your tech tree look like anyway? No matter the faction, I always rush towards the 15% fire rate for artillery buff and the empire has one

[Resileaf]

If you're seeing mammoths you should have much better artillery and/or cavalry on hand. Raiders have some pretty low leadership values so you can cause a chain route with a couple of appropriately-applied Reiksguards. I also never have an empire army with less than 4 artillery units. Cannons for high-target sniping. Barrages for glorious, GLORIOUS kill counts. Also doubles for flyer deletion if the vampires get uppity.

You may also have some issues with line-of-site with your ranged units. Are you using gunners or crossbows?

edit - also some people have success with halberd griffons pegasus, but I always prefer the extra meat on the board from grounded cavalry
edit 2- what's your tech tree look like anyway? No matter the faction, I always rush towards the 15% fire rate for artillery buff and the empire has one

Disclaimer: It's actually my first Empire game. XD I play my Total War games randomly, so I don't really focus on one game and one civ and whatnot. I tend to play the series randomly. As such, I don't know all the techniques and tactics and very much play by ear.

With that said, the Norscan army I faced had multiple things keeping me from sending in my reiksguard, namely their numerous skin wolves, on of them regiments of reknown.

I'm also trying to use armies with different specialties. With Boris Toddbringer's army, I have a heavy focus on anti-armor, with most of the units in it having AP, the rest anti-large. With Balthasar, most of the infantry probably needs to be replaced, I've been using swordsmen and shielded spearmen the whole campaign as my front line.

As far as tech tree goes, I've been getting some techs here and there, depending on how useful it was at the time.

I think I'm also somewhat lacking in good economy building. I don't often get more than 1K gold a turn at any point in the game.

[Blackhawk748]

Disclaimer: It's actually my first Empire game. XD I play my Total War games randomly, so I don't really focus on one game and one civ and whatnot. I tend to play the series randomly. As such, I don't know all the techniques and tactics and very much play by ear.

With that said, the Norscan army I faced had multiple things keeping me from sending in my reiksguard, namely their numerous skin wolves, on of them regiments of reknown.

I'm also trying to use armies with different specialties. With Boris Toddbringer's army, I have a heavy focus on anti-armor, with most of the units in it having AP, the rest anti-large. With Balthasar, most of the infantry probably needs to be replaced, I've been using swordsmen and shielded spearmen the whole campaign as my front line.

As far as tech tree goes, I've been getting some techs here and there, depending on how useful it was at the time.

I think I'm also somewhat lacking in good economy building. I don't often get more than 1K gold a turn at any point in the game.

Ya you need to focus. I may have never played Empire but the Vamps require a whole hell of a lot of specilization from your cities and i cant imagine the Empire is terribly different on that front. As for tech, focus on something. Pick something to be good at and get to it before starting another one.

[Resileaf]

Ya you need to focus. I may have never played Empire but the Vamps require a whole hell of a lot of specilization from your cities and i cant imagine the Empire is terribly different on that front. As for tech, focus on something. Pick something to be good at and get to it before starting another one.

I think I've also been too peaceful. Tried to have everyone go into confederations with me instead of just conquering the Empire myself.

[Olinser]

I think I've also been too peaceful. Tried to have everyone go into confederations with me instead of just conquering the Empire myself.

Confederations are insanely unreliable because it doesn't give you any indication for what the actual requirements are or what will actually affect the chances and its more a question to see how good you are at manipulating the AI than anything else. Especially when you see nonsense like having 300+ relations with an AI faction and offer them 200,000 gold to confederate and its still 'low' chance.

I have literally gone in 1 turn from red chance Confederation to having the AI offer me confederation the same turn. Declare war on somebody significantly stronger than your ally, 'coordinate' for them to attack the enemy and most of their forces die, and most of the time they'll suddenly want to confederate.

The confederation rules are so non-obvious and annoying that probably 90%+ of the time its far more efficient to just kill them and take their stuff. The sole exception is if they have a LL you want - and even then you'd better get it quick because the AI screws up their skill trees so badly.

[Corvus]

I just don't get the reasoning behind the rampage/cold-blooded changes. It makes no sense, and it isn't like the lizards were OP in anyway.

At least not compared to some, and I think we may have to add the Vampire Coast to that now. I guess it is the inevitable power creep but the DLC comes across a little as someones fanfic that got published. When Big Bess can all but 1 shot an entire unit of Lothern Sea Guards then you know it may need to be dialled back a little bit.

[MCerberus]

I think I've also been too peaceful. Tried to have everyone go into confederations with me instead of just conquering the Empire myself.

It sounds like you're fielding too many armies for the amount of territory you have. You can't cheat upkeep costs like the AI does

[Resileaf]

It sounds like you're fielding too many armies for the amount of territory you have. You can't cheat upkeep costs like the AI does

Well I don't know if I'm fielding *that* many. I've got five of them, each defending a different front.
I've decided to play a bit the Greenskin game. As in, raiding and sacking cities. Some of their cities are pretty much undefended because the rest of their forces are fighting the Dwarfs or something. I've also taken to raid the vampire counts. And hillariously, Norsca. How's it feel being on that side of pillaging, you chariot-riding jerks?!

It's been fairly successful until now. I hope it'll keep the norscans from being a threat when the full blown Chaos invasion starts.

[Olinser]

So what's everybody's thoughts on Vampire Coast?

They are really strong with a couple units being borderline OP - Mornghoul Haunter in particular has a ridiculous pool of base HP (6.5k base HP?) and has both a speed-reducing aura, The Hunger, AND Terror, AND can pick up Frostbite at level 2, and with skills can get 10 physical resist, a 5 ward save, and 10k hp. Any other hero that can even approach that kind of combat tankiness is mounted on HUGE mounts like Carnosaurs or Dragons, which makes them extremely vulnerable to missile fire. Haunter is only large-sized with an extremely low profile, so he is only slightly more vulnerable to arrows than a hero on foot.

It's pretty telling that most of the Vampire Coast armies in their tournament right before the patch were taking multiple Haunters.

Mortars aren't some game-breakingly powerful unit but since they're only a level 2 building you can basically get them from turn 4-5, and they slaughter AI infantry armies early on with few losses so they let you snowball extremely quickly. Most other factions AOE artillery is level 3 or even level 4 recruitment.

Gunnery Mobs do incredible damage with just a few of the research and Lord buffs, they're rather extraordinarily strong for how cheap and quick they are.

I'm not sure if its a bug.... but SACRIFICING Clyostra Direfin is a legitimate tactic, because the 'buff' for killing her apparently gives large Winds of magic bonuses... AND a +50% miscast chance. Sacrifice her against an enemy wizard Legendary Lord and hilarity ensues.



And on a final note, they're not 'OP' as humans will evade them extremely easily... but Bloated Corpses are utterly HILARIOUS against the AI, they seem incapable of dealing with them. it's incredibly easy to get the AI to tarpit on a unit and Bloated Corpse bomb them.

What's somebody's record with a Bloated Corpse? I had one hit for 296 kills.

[Blackhawk748]

I've only peeked at it, but dear lord do i love the Mornghouls. I love me a good Blender Lord and this is that on magic roids.

[LCP]

So what's everybody's thoughts on Vampire Coast?

They are really strong with a couple units being borderline OP - Mornghoul Haunter in particular has a ridiculous pool of base HP (6.5k base HP?) and has both a speed-reducing aura, The Hunger, AND Terror, AND can pick up Frostbite at level 2, and with skills can get 10 physical resist, a 5 ward save, and 10k hp. Any other hero that can even approach that kind of combat tankiness is mounted on HUGE mounts like Carnosaurs or Dragons, which makes them extremely vulnerable to missile fire. Haunter is only large-sized with an extremely low profile, so he is only slightly more vulnerable to arrows than a hero on foot.

It's pretty telling that most of the Vampire Coast armies in their tournament right before the patch were taking multiple Haunters.

I was actually one of the players in that tournament, & I can at least confirm that Haunters got a reasonable price increase compared to the tournament build. They still seem very strong vs. factions that are limited to largely using infantry like Dwarfs and Skaven, but the fact that so much of their MA is locked up in their bonus vs. infantry makes them not too strong vs other large creatures.

I'd say the most OP thing in Vampire Coast at the moment is Deck Droppers with Handguns. Flying, unbreakable, healable Outriders for the exact same price as Outriders. There are a fair few factions (e.g. Chaos, Norsca) that don't really have any way to shoot them down, so unless you can contest the air they just get free rein to kill anything they want - and contesting the air is pretty difficult against a faction with Terrorgheists.

[Olinser]

So, the new Vampire Coast patch is easy. Like, really, REALLY easy compared to the Eye of the Vortex campaigns.

Without massively expanding or early beelining for multiple big +10 ritual item towns (which is then extremely tough to hold on higher difficulties), its tough to beat the campaign before about turn 150. Taking and holding 12-14 full provinces with 3 +10's gives you an income of about 50 ritual items towards the endgame and will let you win about turn 130-150 if you expanded early.

Without even really trying and with a relatively small area of control (7 provinces), I had the Infamy to beat the Harkon campaign on turn 70, and that was WITH spending 4000 infamy on all 4 Legendary pirate lords. The only reason it went past turn 100 only because I went out to kill all the pirates for the achievement and a couple were WAY off on opposite sides of the world.

Which, incidentally, is a big negative. They took the already bad Loyalty system and succeeded in making it EVEN WORSE. You get no actual bonuses for high Loyalty, and every single normal Lord loses loyalty FAST, like they'll rebel in just a few turns if you don't constantly farm loyalty for them. But then it doesn't even matter because the Legendary pirate lords (purchasable for only 1k loyalty each which is incredibly easy to get with just a couple Coves), HAVE no loyalty and can't rebel.

Pirate Coves give way, WAY too much infamy relative to how much you need to beat the campaign, are almost completely safe to establish because a Captain can do it on their own for a couple thousand gold, and are 100% safe and secure because nobody can get rid of them. Just 5 pirate coves with the +60 gives you 300 infamy a turn when you only need 12k for the max win.

And the attacks at each level are significantly weaker than their Eye of the Vortex counterparts. On normal it's a single 20 stack pirate for all 3 levels, when also on Normal the final Ritual attack is 2 different groups of 5 20 stack armies.

Not sure if the other Vampire Coast campaigns are different (I'm playing Cylostra right now - DAMN that ghost paladin is ludicrously OP), but the Harkon campaign was insanely easy.